Background: Hepatitis E (HEV) is a small, non-enveloped virus that belongs to the viral genus Hepevirus. HEV is a positive sense single-stranded RNA virus and there is insufficient information regarding its replication. This is mainly because the virus has low capacity to grow in normally used cell cultures. Many specific strand assay detection studies have been done in order to understand more about HEV replication. Unfortunately, these assays have the disadvantage of giving false positive results. Aim: The aim of this project was to improve the positive strand assay to increase specificity and eliminate false positivity which is due to high sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). False positivity occurs as remains of transfected material in the cell are amplified. Method: The samples used in this project were swine samples from Sweden and a human sample (plasmid clone of genotype 1) from India. Negative samples, extracted positive samples and transcribed RNA positive sense samples were used. The methods applied were cDNA synthesis, exonuclease I and RNase treatments, DNA purification kits followed by first and nested PCR. Result: The results of this study indicated great improvement of the detection assay especially for the transcribed RNA samples. Best results were obtained at a final concentration of 1.5mM MgCl2 in the mastermix.  Conclusion: Changing the concentration of MgCl2 appeared to have a great effect on PCR specificity. Improving detection assays is very essential as they can be applied in the research field and in public health centers either for diagnosis or tracking disease outbreaks.

NOx (NO, NO2) is one of the most harmful air-pollutants from exhaust, resulting in series of environmental problems as well as severe healthy issues for human beings. Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system is a common approach to eliminate NOx onboard by using ammonia as a reductant. However, ammonia storage unit has been one of the restriction factors for the NOx conversion efficiency because of insufficient ammonia dosing rate and the corrosive and hazardous nature of ammonia. Thus, a reliable ammonia storage and delivery system is of high scientific and commercial desire. In this thesis, novel composites were fabricated and studied based on MgCl2 and SrCl2, two commercial alkaline earth metal halides (AEMH) for ammonia storage. In order to reduce the melting issue and enhance the kinetics of the ammonia sorption, carbon materials, graphite (Gt) and graphene nanoplatelets aggregates (GNA) were added to MgCl2 at 1 wt.%, 10 wt.% and 20 wt.%. With ball milling and hydraulic pressing, the aforementioned carbon-MgCl2 composites were structured into pellets for various characterization. With real-time recording in the tube furnace at 1073 K, we observed that with 20% carbon additives, the pelletized composites maintained their structure with 95% mass retention, while the pure MgCl2 completely melted and disintegrated. According to the SEM images, carbon materials separated MgCl2 so that the molten MgCl2 cannot form large droplet to spread out. Furthermore, the 20 wt.% GNA-80 wt.% MgCl2 (GNA20) composites demonstrated enhanced kinetics in both absorption and desorption of ammonia, which is 83% faster in ammonia absorption and 73% faster in desorption in the first two minutes compared to the pure MgCl2. The BET surface area and mercury intrusion porosimetry results explains the kinetic elevation by the GNA by introducing extra reaction surface and nanopores as the diffusion path for ammonia. The enhancement of both structural stabilityand kinetics make the GNA20 composite a robust ammonia carrier. During the chemical absorption process, SrCl2 uptakes 8 ammonia molecules resulting in 4 times volume expansion. This dramatic expansion and shrinkage during the absorption and desorption will destroy the structure and disintegrate the SrCl2 into powder, which could bring the dust explosion risk for many applications. Based on the carbon-salts composites, a novel porous SrCl2 structure is designed and fabricated with graphene oxide as skeleton by freeze casting process. Porous SrCl2 structure is feasible for various geometries with different molds at a wide SrCl2 load from 0 wt.% to 96 wt.%. The ammonia capacity of the porous SrCl2 is linear proportional to the SrCl2 load. During the ammonia absorption and desorption cycles, the graphene oxide skeleton could self-adjust along with the volume swing to within its flexibility. This porous SrCl2 demonstrates excellent tolerance of volume swing and enhanced kinetics as a promising ammonia storage material. Our approach and results may cast light on the obstacles of structuring self-expansion and shrinkage materials as well as on enhancing the gas sorption properties.

The purpose of the research was to design, build, test, and recommend a process to economically separate CO from a gas mixture of CO, CO2, and O2. The general method considered in this research to accomplish the separation was liquid absorption in a packed column. Several experiments were performed to identify the best process solution to use in a prototype. The experiments, based on the COSORB process, consisted of CuCl mixed with a complexing agent (metal tri-chloride) and a solvent (metal tetra-chloride, toluene, ethanol, etc.). The best method consisted of an aqueous solution of CuCl and MgCl2, which has previously been used for CO absorption experiments reported in the literature. The absorption takes place at elevated pressure (30 psig) and ambient temperature, and the stripping occurs at approximately 75 ºC. Using the apparatus at approximate design conditions, the highest removal of CO was 88% with a product composition of 48%. The highest product composition achieved was 84%; in this case CO removal was 66%. Product composition was low because a significant amount of CO2 physically absorbed into solution (which also decreased the pH of the solution to about 4, according to calculation). The removal of CO should increase with a taller column and higher liquid flow through the column; however, this might decrease the product composition. Advantages of this process are that the raw materials used are relatively cheap, heating and cooling requirements are lower than similar processes, and operation is relatively simple.

Diabetes has, in the past three decades, surged immensely. Because of this, new insulin analogues are constantly in the making.  In clinical studies, the presence of antidrug antibodies can prove a challenge when measuring insulin. In order to overcome the interference from antidrug antibody complexes on the total insulin measurement in human serum, several pre-treatment methods on insulin and polyclonal antibodies spiked samples were tried using ELISA analysis. Several different methods were tried, acid dissociation using a glycine buffer with and without ethanol in different concentrations, high ionic strength dissociation using MgCl2, Polyethylene glycol (PEG) and filtration. The best results were found when using the acid dissociation technique. Using glycine promising results were achieved, especially when 20 % ethanol was added to the acid mixture. Pre-treatment using PEG, MgCl2 and filtration was unsuccessful with the methods used. The main goal was reached through the use of glycine with the addition of 20% ethanol for acid dissociation. The proposed method still leaves significant room for optimisation and needs further verification on real patient samples. However, it is a good step in the direction of a global methodology using ELISA to overcome antidrug antibody interference for total insulin measurement in human serum.

Les micelles de caséines, composées de caséines, minéraux et eau, sont en équilibres dynamiques, elles échangent en permanence de leur matière avec leur environnement. Les micelles de caséines possèdent d’intéressantes fonctionnalités pour la fabrication de produits laitiers, telles que leur capacité à stabiliser des émulsions et à former des gels sous l’action de la présure. Des changements environnementaux, variations de pH, additions de sels ou d’agents chélatants, affectent les équilibres des micelles et induisent des modifications de leurs compositions et propriétés colloïdales. Ces changements modifient également leurs propriétés fonctionnelles, bien que cet aspect soit peu décri. Le but de ce projet était de comprendre les relations liant l’environnement, l’équilibre minéral, les propriétés colloïdales et fonctionnelles des micelles de caséines. L’impact de cinq facteurs (pH, Na3Cit, NaCl, CaCl2, MgCl2) modifiant les micelles fut étudié en focalisant sur leurs propriétés émulsifL’acidification et l’addition de Na3Cit ont causé les modifications minérales les plus importantes en solubilisant le phosphate de calcium micellaire. Le premier conduisit au « gonflement » des micelles alors que l’agent chélatant causa leur dissociation en petits agrégats. L’ajout de NaCl n’eut aucun impact sur le contenu minéral des micelles mais provoqua aussi la libération d’agrégats, révélée par cryo microscopie électronique et diffusion de rayons-X aux petits angles. Le rôle du phosphate de calcium sur les fonctionnalités fut confirmé et l’étude révéla l’importance de contrôler la libé / Caseins micelles, composed of caseins, minerals and water, are under dynamic equilibria, they constantly exchange materials with their surrounding environments. In addition, casein micelles possess valuable functionalities in regards to the formation of dairy products, such as the ability to stabilize emulsions or to form rennet gels. Environmental changes, such as variations in pH, additions of salts or chelating agents, affect the casein micelles equilibria and lead to modifications in their compositional and colloidal properties. Such changes also modify their functional properties, although this aspect is poorly described in the literature. This project aimed to understand the relationships that link the environmental modifications, the mineral balance, the colloidal and functional properties of the casein micelles. The impact of five modifying factors (pH, Na3Cit, NaCl, CaCl2, MgCl2) of the casein micelles were studied and the focus was placed on emulsion and rennet coagulation fuThe former only induce the swelling of casein micelles while the latter led to their disruption into smaller aggregates. NaCl had no impact on the micellar mineral content but also caused the release of small aggregates, as revealed by electronic microscopy and small angle X-ray scattering analyses. The decisive role of micellar calcium phosphate on the functionalities was confirmed and this study highlighted the importance of monitoring the release of small aggregates, as they strongly affected emulsions stability and gels firmness. CaCl2 and MgCl2 additions slightly increased the mineral c