The dissolution of quantum sized CdS and MnO2 particles in water was conducted using 20 kHz ultrasound. CdS particles were found to dissolve chemically via an oxidation process while MnO2 particles dissolved via a reductive process. It was found that the dissolution of the colloids could be controlled via the addition of surface active chemicals to solution and by varying the saturation gas type. In the presence of Na2S or propan-2-ol and argon gas, the dissolution of CdS was inhibited, whereas the addition of alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propan-2-ol, butan-1-ol and pentan-1-ol) to the MnO2 system led to an increase in the amount of dissolution for a given time of sonication. This increase in dissolution was found to be dependent on the ability of the surface active radical scavenger to accumulate around the bubble interface during the cavitation process. Eventually, at higher alcohol concentration there was a plateau or a limiting value reached for the efficiency of colloid dissolution which was common for each alcohol. (For complete abstract open document)

Epoxy resin is an important engineering material in many industries such as electronics, automotive, aerospace, etc not only because it is an excellent adhesive but also because the materials based on it provide outstanding mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. Epoxy resin has been proved to be an excellent matrix material for the nanocomposites when including another phase such as inorganic nanofillers. The properties of a nanocomposite material, in general, are a hybrid between the properties of matrix material and the nanofillers. In this sense, the thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties of a nanocomposite may be affected by the corresponding properties of matrix material. When the sonication is used to disperse the nanofillers in the polymer matrix, with the dispersal of the nanofillers, there comes some modification in the matrix as well and it finally affects the properties of nanocomposites. In this regard, we attempted to study the thermal, mechanical, and dynamic properties of EPON 862 epoxy resin where ultrasonic processing was taken as the effect causing variable. Uncured epoxy was subjected to thermal behavior studies before and after ultrasonic treatment and the cured epoxies with amine hardener EPICURE 3223 (diethylenetriamine) after sonications were tested for mechanical and dynamic properties. We monitored the ultrasonic processing effect in fictive temperature, enthalpy, and specific heat capacity using differential scanning calorimetry. Fictive temperature decreased whereas enthalpy and specific heat capacity were found to increase with the increased ultrasonic processing time. Cured epoxy rectangular solid strips were used to study the mechanical and dynamic properties. Flexural strength at 3% strain value measured with Dillon universal testing machine under 3-point bending method was found to degrade with the ultrasonic processing. The storage modulus and damping properties were studied for the two samples sonicated for 60 minutes and 120 minutes. Our study showed that the 60 minutes sonicated sample has higher damping or loss modulus than 120 minutes sonicated sample.

nÃo hà / As frutas desidratadas ou frutas secas, como tambÃm sÃo conhecidas, sÃo utilizadas em diversas situaÃÃes e Ãpocas do ano. Na verdade, esses alimentos tÃo saborosos, sÃo tambÃm muito ricos nutricionalmente. Os mamÃes da variedade formosa sÃo especialmente apreciados pela qualidade de sua polpa e indicado para quem possui o estÃmago sensÃvel, por ser uma grande fonte de fibras ajuda no funcionamento do intestino. Desta forma o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica assistida por ultrassom na qualidade do mamÃo formosa. As duas primeiras etapas da pesquisa consistiram em analisar parÃmetros de cor do mamÃo apÃs o processo de sonicaÃÃo e desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica utilizando agentes osmÃticos tais como: glicose, frutose e sacarose em diferentes temperaturas (60ÂC, 70ÂC e 80ÂC). Os resultados obtidos mostraram que as ondas ultrassÃnicas aliadas a agentes osmÃticos favoreceram a remoÃÃo de Ãgua da fruta e a perda de sÃlidos quando o aumento da concentraÃÃo osmÃtica e tempo de ultrassom foram elevados. As etapas seguintes tiveram como objetivo analisar a textura e a atividade das enzimas do fruto processado. Os resultados obtidos nestas etapas mostraram que o ultrassom promoveu a reduÃÃo da dureza e resistÃncia à compressibilidade do mamÃo tornando-o mais macio e mais fÃcil de mastigar e promoveu a inativaÃÃo das enzimas do mamÃo formosa. / The dried fruit or dried fruit, as they are also known, are used in different situations and seasons. In fact, these foods so tasty, are also very rich nutritionally. Papayas the beautiful variety is particularly appreciated for the quality of its pulp and indicated for those with sensitive stomach, because it is a great source of help fibers in bowel function. So the objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration on the quality of Formosa papaya. The first two stages of the study consisted of evaluating color parameters after the sonication and osmotic dehydration using glucose, fructose and sucrose as osmotic agents at different temperatures (60ÂC, 70ÂC and 80ÂC). The results showed that ultrasonic waves coupled with osmotic agents like sucrose, fructose and glucose have favored removal of water and gain of solids when the osmotic concentration and time of ultrasound are high. The following steps aimed to analyze the texture and activity of enzymes of the processed fruit. The results obtained in these steps showed that ultrasound caused a reduction of hardness and compressibility of papaya making it softer and easier to chew and promoted the inactivation of papaya enzymes.

A cenoura (Daucus carota L.) està entre os vegetais mais consumidos e cultivados do mundo. Isso se deve principalmente ao seu elevado teor de β-caroteno, precursor da vitamina A, que faz a cenoura ser considerada a melhor fonte vegetal dessa vitamina. A cenoura in natura tem por volta de 90% de umidade e este alto teor a torna um produto com vida de prateleira reduzida. Uma alternativa para reduzir as perdas dos vegetais à a secagem, um mÃtodo de preservaÃÃo que possibilita uma extensÃo da vida de prateleira pela reduÃÃo do conteÃdo de Ãgua do produto, alÃm de diminuir os custos com o armazenamento e transporte. Aliados a secagem, a desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica e o ultrassom utilizados como prÃ-tratamentos minimiza as perdas na qualidade, pois remove Ãgua do produto, e o tempo de exposiÃÃo e temperatura de secagem sÃo reduzidos. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar os efeitos do ultrassom e da desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica como prÃ-tratamentos seguida de secagem de cenoura em estufa de circulaÃÃo de ar. As soluÃÃes osmÃticas utilizadas foram: sacarose 25ÂBrix, sacarose 50ÂBrix, cloreto de sÃdio 1%, cloreto de sÃdio 5% e Ãgua destilada. Os tempos de imersÃo foram 10, 20 e 30 min e a temperatura de secagem foi 60ÂC em estufa com circulaÃÃo de ar. Foi realizado tambÃm um ensaio de secagem sem desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica e sem ultrassom. Os resultados analisados foram perda de Ãgua, ganho de sÃlidos, reduÃÃo de peso, taxa de secagem, umidade em base seca, atividade de Ãgua e difusividade efetiva da Ãgua. Os resultados mais elevados com relaÃÃo à perda de Ãgua foram obtidos quando a sacarose 50ÂBrix foi utilizada durante 20 e 30 minutos (11,79%  0,23 e 14,09%  0,29, respectivamente) e o cloreto de sÃdio 5% durante 30 minutos (8,34%Â0,28) em ultrassom. Os maiores valores de difusividade efetiva da Ãgua foram encontrados quando a sacarose 25ÂBrix foi usada como agente osmÃtico durante 30 e 20 min em banho ultrassÃnico (4,80 x 10-10 m2/s e 4,50 x 10-10 m2/s, respectivamente). Menor tempo necessÃrio para reduzir a atividade de Ãgua da cenoura para 0,6 foi encontrado quando a sacarose 50ÂBrix foi usada como agente osmÃtico durante 20 min em ultrassom (5 h) e o segundo menor tempo foi observado quando o cloreto de sÃdio 5% foi usado como meio de imersÃo durante 20 minutos em banho ultrassÃnico (6 h) e sacarose 25ÂBrix durante 30 min de imersÃo em ultrassom. O ultrassom combinado com desidrataÃÃo osmÃtica utilizados como prÃ-tratamentos apresentaram-se como alternativas interessantes para reduÃÃo do tempo de secagem e dos custos de processo. / Carrot ( Daucuscarota L.) is among the most cultivated and consumed vegetables in the world. This is mainly due to its high content of β - carotene, precursor of vitamin A, which makes t he carrots to be considered the best plant source of this vitamin. Carrots are highly perishable crops which naturally deteriorate few days after harvest due to its high moisture content. An alternative to reduce post - harvest losses is drying, a method of preservation that enables an extension of shelf life by reducing the water content of the product, reducing the costs of storage and transportation. However, drying also causes unpleasant effects such as reduced nutritional value and changes in color, tast e and texture of food. Therefore, the osmotic dehydration and ultrasound has been used as pre - treatments to minimize losses in quality, as processing time and drying temperature are reduced. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of ultrasound and osmoti c dehydration pretreatments followed by air - drying of carrots. The osmotic solutions used were: sucrose (25 - 50  Brix), sodium chloride (1 - 5%) and distilled water. The immersion times were: 10, 20 and 30 minutes. The forced circulating air - drying oven was set at 60ÂC with air moisture content at 18%. Control assays, without pre - treatment. W ater loss, solid gain, weight reduction, drying rate, water activity and effective diffusivity of water were evaluated. The higher water loss was obtained for 50ÂBrix su crose sonicated for 20 and 30 minutes (11.79%  0.23 and 14.09  0.29%, respectively) and sodium chloride 5% sonicated during 30 minutes (8.34%  0.28). The highest values of effective diffusivity of water were found when 25  Brix sucrose was used as os motic agent and the samples were sonicated for 30 and 20 minutes (4.80 x 10 - 10 m 2 /s, 4.50 x 10 - 10 m 2 /s respectively). The shortest time necessary to reduce water activity of carrot to 0.6 was found when 50 Brix sucrose was used as an osmotic agent for a sonication time of 20 minutes (5 hours of drying). Reductions in water activity were also observed for treatments with sodium chloride 5% and 20 minutes of sonication (6 hours of drying) and 25  Brix sucrose for 30 minutes of sonication. The osmotic dehyd ration combined with ultrasound used as pre - treatment was a viable alternative to reduce drying time and process costs

Several causes are pointed as responsible for the numbness in seeds of rice. The fenolic compounds have influence in the swinging between promoters and inhibitors of the germination of seeds, could represent an obstacle to the diffusion of gases. Several treatments are used with the purpose of overcoming the dormence in seeds and alternative methods appear to try to solve this problem, as the ultrasound radiations. That technique, for being little used in seeds, however, it presents optimization difficulty, as well as the lack of specific knowledge about the action of the radiation promoted by the ultrasonic waves in living tissues. The objective of the work was to evaluate the chemical effects produced by the ultrasound about the overcoming of the dormence and physiologic quality of seeds of rice. Seeds of irrigated rice cv. IRGA 417 and of drier cv. Spring, submitted to the exhibition of the ultrasonic waves by periods of 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes and temperatures of 20, 30 and 40 oC. The variables analyzed after each treatment were: germination, first counting and index of germination speed. The results indicated that there was variation in the answers of the culture to the treatments, and the best results were found in the highest temperatures. It was concluded that the ultrasound radiations affect the quality of the seeds of rice, being a promising method for the overcoming of the dormence, still needing her standardization. / Inúmeras causas são apontadas como responsáveis pela dormência em sementes de arroz. Os compostos fenólicos destacam-se por interferirem no balanço entre promotores e inibidores da germinação de sementes, podendo representar um obstáculo à difusão de gases. Vários tratamentos são utilizados com a finalidade de superar a dormência em sementes e, portanto, surgem métodos alternativos para sua superação, como as radiações de ultra-som. Essa técnica, por ser pouco utilizada em sementes, no entanto, apresenta dificuldade de otimização, bem como a falta de conhecimento específico sobre o efeito da radiação promovida pelas ondas ultra-sônicas em tecidos vivos. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar os efeitos sonoquímicos produzidos pelo ultra-som sobre a superação da dormência e qualidade fisiológica de sementes de arroz. Utilizaram-se sementes de arroz irrigado cv. IRGA 417 e de sequeiro cv. Primavera, submetidas à exposição das ondas ultra-sônicas por períodos de 5, 10, 15 e 20 minutos e temperaturas de 20, 30 e 40 oC. As variáveis analisadas após cada tratamento foram: germinação, primeira contagem e índice de velocidade de germinação. Os resultados indicaram que houve variação nas respostas das cultivares aos tratamentos, sendo que os melhores resultados foram encontrados nas temperaturas mais elevadas. Concluiu-se que as radiações de ultra-som afetam a qualidade das sementes de arroz, sendo um método promissor para a superação da dormência, necessitando ainda sua padronização.

The application of Ultrasound (US) irradiation to remove ammonia nitrogen from aqueous solutions, including synthetic solution and landfill leachate, at 20 kHz was investigated in this thesis. Batch experiments were carried out using two synthetic solutions with initial ammonia concentrations of 3000 and 5000 mg TAN/L in addition to two leachates from new and old landfills. The results of testing showed that US irradiation is an effective treatment technology for the removal of aqueous ammonia. More specifically, it was found that increasing sonication time and pH increased ammonia removal. The maximum observed removal of ammonia was 87.4% at a pH of 11 and sonication time of 25 minutes. Also, it was found that volatilization of ammonia to the atmosphere accounted for 0-7% of removal, the thermal effect of US accounted for 21.1-52.7%, and the non-thermal effect of US accounted for 44.5-78.8% (depending on pH and sonication time). Results of factorial design and response surface methodology showed that pH, energy output (kJ), and the interaction between the two were significant parameters. The predicted two factor interaction (2FI) model was in close agreement to the observed data (R2 = 0.94) and produced an optimum ammonia removal of 87% at a pH of 10.9 and energy output of 94.8 kJ. Analysis of variance tests showed that there were no significant differences in the percent removal of ammonia due to the non-thermal effects of US across all four solutions (synthetic and leachate) indicating that US irradiation is a non-selective treatment method for ammonia removal.

No description available.

Anaerobic digestion has been the preferred method for reducing and stabilizing waste sludge from biological wastewater treatment for over a century; however, as sludge volumes and disposal costs increase, there has been a desire to develop various methods for reducing the volume of sludge to be treated, improving the performance of the digesters, and increasing the energy value of the sludge. To this end, there have been numerous pretreatment and side-stream systems studied and developed over the past several decades with the overall goal of reducing the volume of biosolids to be disposed of in landfills or by land application. These technologies can be broken into four large groups: mechanical, thermal, chemical and biological, although there is often overlap between groups. This research approached the evaluations of these technologies through several methods in the hopes of developing effective tools for predicting the performance of each technology. Batch digestion studies mimicking several of these treatment methods and extensive analytical work on samples from full-scale installations were conducted to determine the effectiveness of each technology. From these studies a simple batch digestion methodology was developed to analyze the effectiveness of the Cannibal solids reduction process on wastewater streams that have never been exposed to it. Batch digestion of sludges pretreated with ozone, mechanical shear and sonication provided insight into the effectiveness of each technology. Extensive analytical work on samples collected from full-scale installations of thermal hydrolysis, mechanical shear and the Cannibal process provided some insight into the workings of each process and potential leads as to how to further characterize and evaluate each process. / Master of Science

The main focus of this research was the development of microfluidic technology for ultrasensitive and fast molecular analysis of cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay followed by next generation sequencing serves as the primary technique to characterize the genomic locations associated with histone modifications. However, conventional ChIP-seq assay requires large numbers of cells. We demonstrate a novel microfluidics-based ChIP-seq assay which dramatically reduced the required cell number. Coupled with next generation sequencing, the assay permitted the analysis of histone modifications at the whole genome from as few as ~100 cells. Using the same device, we demonstrated that MeDIP-seq with tiny amount of DNA (<5ng) generated high quality genome-wide profiles of DNA methylation. Off-chip sonication often leads to sample loss due to multiple tube transferring. In addition, conventional sonicators are not able to manipulate samples with small volume. We developed a novel microfluidic sonicator, which is able to achieve on-chip DNA/chromatin shearing into ideal fragment size (100~600bp) for both chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP). The integrated on-chip sonication followed by immunoprecipitation (IP) reaction can significantly reduce sample loss and contamination. Simple and accessible detection methods that can rapidly screen a large cell population with single cell resolution have been seriously lacking. We demonstrate a simple protocol for detecting translocation of native proteins using a common flow cytometer which detects fluorescence intensity without imaging. Using our approach, we successfully detected the translocation of native NF-kappa B (an important transcription factor) at its native expression level and examine the temporal dynamics in the process. Droplets with encapsulated beads and cells have been increasingly used for studying molecular and cellular biology. However, a mixed population of droplets with an uneven number or type of encapsulated particles is resulted and used for screening. We developed a fluorescence-activated microfluidic droplet sorter that integrated a simple deflection mechanism. By passing droplets through a narrow interrogation channel, the encapsulated particles were detected individually. The microcontroller conducted the computation to determine the number and type of encapsulated particles in each droplet and made the sorting decision. Our results showed high efficiency and accuracy for sorting and enrichment. / Ph. D.

Für nanoskalige Füllpartikel, die stark zum Agglomerieren tendieren, ist das Ultraschalldispergieren mittels Sonotrode eine geeignete Methode, um Agglomerate hinreichend gut zu entbündeln. Um dabei die optimalen Ultraschallparameter ermitteln zu können, ist es nötig, das effektive Dispergiervolumen, in welchem die Agglomerate durch Kavitation aufgebrochen werden, zu kennen. Die hier vorgestellte CAD-basierte Methode zur Berechnung des effektiven Dispergiervolumens ist dabei deutlich weniger zeitintensiv als die bisher üblicherweise verwendete analytische Methode.