This thesis describes efforts made towards the synthesis of a biologically stable, luminescent molecular probe, which could be used to investigate in vivo the processing of sugars by β-galactosidases. To this end, a lactose-based probe was designed, featuring a Lanthanide held within a chelate and appended to the glucosyl unit, and a proximal naphthyl moiety, attached to the galactose unit, which would function as a sensitiser for luminescence. A β-galactosidase enzyme from B. circulans was chosen to carry out the investigation. A number of novel methyl glucosides, functionalised with a naphthyl moiety at C6 of the sugar, were prepared. These were then used as glycosyl acceptors to make disaccharides (lactose analogues), with the enzyme (functioning in reverse) catalysing the glycosylation. The enzymatic reaction was optimised by varying the amount of enzyme, the reaction pH, the ratio of glycosyl acceptor to donor, the reaction temperature, concentration and solvent mixture. The optimal conditions were found to be a 0.4 M reaction solution at pH 7.0 with 20% acetonitrile, a 7:1 ratio of glycosyl acceptor to donor, 19.6 U of enzyme per mmol of acceptor, and a reaction temperature of 30°C. The resulting disaccharide products exhibited unusual regioselectivity for the β-galactosidase from B. circulans, with unexpected β(1→3) and β(1→2) glycosidic linkages being formed. In an effort to increase the efficiency of the process of identifying suitable substrates for the enzyme, a dynamic combinatorial chemistry approach was also explored. This used disulfide bonds to attach the naphthyl moiety to the methyl glucoside using linkers of different lengths. From this library, the enzyme successfully processed the novel disulfide GlcOMe-S-S-CH\(_2\)Np as a glycosyl acceptor with p-nitrophenyl galactose as the glycosyl donor. This resulted in a novel disaccharide featuring a naphthyl group attached via a disulfide bond to the glucosidic residue.

In this thesis, a fully Lagrangian approach called the Discrete Multi-Physics is adopted and applied to biomechanics. The Discrete Multi-Physics combines the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics, the Mass and Spring Model and the Discrete Element Method in a common particle-based framework. In the Discrete Multi-Physics, high deformations and contact of solid structures (e.g. valve’s leaflets during closing phase or colloid contact) can be easily modelled. In biological valve simulations, for instance, we were able to account for repeated opening-closing cycles and to introduce an agglomeration algorithm to model clotting. Besides cardiovascular and venous flows, we also applied the Discrete Multi-Physics to respiratory tracts for modelling (i) cilia motion and drug diffusion in the periciliary layer (ciliated epithelium) and (ii) the release of active ingredients in powder inhalers for drug delivery in the lungs.

This work contributes to the development of a micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cell (mSOFC) stack for use in a small unmanned aerial vehicle. Fuel cells offer cleaner, near-silent operation. Solid oxide fuel cells were chosen due to their higher efficiency and hydrocarbon fuel tolerance. Micro-tubular cells were chosen due to their simpler sealing requirements and stronger cycling properties. 250 W power is required, necessitating the use of many cells. Cathode manufacture was considered and various changes to current techniques suggested. Dip-coating was tested as an alternative to brush-painting. The acetone-based ink was unsuitable for dip-coating so a novel, cheaper, water-based ink was developed and a patent application registered. Cell power, transient and cycling performances were investigated. This transient work is a significant addition to the literature, improving understanding of mSOFC dynamic behaviour. Brush-painted cells take under half a second to adjust to current changes, without voltage overshooting. Dip-coated cells showed weaker performance, potentially due to lower porosity inhibiting mass transport. A six-cell module was built, using modelling to optimise manifold design, and its power and transient performance assessed. Interconnections present significant issues for mSOFCs. Despite power density decreasing with increasing diameter, fewer, larger tubes were used to reduce this problem. A new interconnection approach was developed, combining current techniques.

Sub-critical water (SCW) hydrolysis has previously been used in the extraction of antioxidant compounds from a variety of food wastes, in-particular those which are rich in protein. The brewing industry generates high volumes of waste. The most abundant component, brewers' spent grain (BSG), is high in protein content. The work presented in this thesis aimed to investigate the SCW extraction of antioxidant compounds from BSG. Whilst SCW hydrolysis has proved effective in the extraction of antioxidants from a range of compounds its mechanism of action has not been thoroughly investigated. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) was used to analyse peptide production from the SCW hydrolysis of proteins. Sites of cleavage were identified and a mechanism of action of SCW on proteins was postulated. The results from this analysis raised the possibility of using SCW as a proteolytic reagent during proteomics experiments. Approaches for SCW-based proteomics were further explored by investigating SCW induced amino acid side chain modifications to aid peptide identification. To assess the antioxidant capacity of mixtures generated via SCW hydrolysis oxygen radical absorbance capacity, reducing power and comet assays were used. The decomposition products responsible for antioxidant capacity were characterised using MS/MS.

Many foods contain large amounts of saturated fatty acids (SaFa), which are considered unhealthy, and their presence in the diet is one of the contributing factors of cardio-vascular disease, obesity and the inherent risk of diabetes. It has become the driver of food producers to manufacture products with as little of these oils as they can. Reformulation work based on Elmlea whipping creams sought to address this issue, by which the ingredients of the principal formulation were taken and ever increasing levels of liquid oil were added, but keeping the total oil concentration at 34%. Many of its’ properties were tested and the optimum formulation was found to be that containing 20% hydrogenated and 14% liquid oil. Further formulation work was associated with another product: ice-cream. Ice-cream distribution, particularly with its transport over the Rocky Mountains in the US, poses a large problem. Taking ice cream across the Mountains involves travelling at altitudes in excess of 2000 metres and this leads to its expansion due to the reduced air pressures. The product can spoil in transit. Further instabilities arise when extruded from a freezer. This instability was studied extensively in this work. It was seen that larger drops in pressure and at a slower rate were more detrimental to the model foam structure than small pressure differences and a fast rate. The fast pressure release seemed to have less of a detrimental effect on the resultant bubble foam microstructure.

The hydrodynamics and mass transfer characteristics of a concurrent downflow contactor (CDC) are studied in this work in order to investigate the viability of this bubble column as a catalytic reactor for the hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated aldehydes. Oxygen/water was used as the system throughout. In order to obtain reproducible results, a very effective gas-liquid separation method was conceived and developed after much trial and error work. Shutdown and deadleg gas holdup measuring methods were compared and it was found that the shutdown method is more reliable than the deadleg method. The hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde using both in-house-prepared and commercial palladium, platinum and ruthenium catalysts was carried out in stirred tank reactors and cocurrent downflow reactors in order to study the kinetics and mass transfer characteristics and the selectivity towards the corresponding desired product, hydrocinnamaldehyde or cinnamyl alcohol. When palladium catalysts were used the desired product was hydrocinnamaldehyde. The effects of homogenous reactions, type of solvent, catalyst loading, temperature, pressure, reactant concentration and the effects of promoter or poison on the selectivity towards hydrocinnamaldehyde were investigated systematically. Aldehyde acetals were produced in polar solvents, but not in non-polar solvents. Two methods can be used to obtain hydrocinnamaldehyde selectivity without reduction of the carbonyl double bond: (1) by using non-polar solvents such as toluene; (2) by incorporating poisons or promoters into the reactant solution or onto the surface of the catalysts. 97% selectivity to hydrocinnamaldehyde was achieved. The effects of the solvent, temperature, pressure, catalyst loading, promoters, and reactants concentration on the kinetics were studied and the following reaction kinetics are proposed for the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde over non-modified palladium/charcoal catalysts in propan-2-ol and in toluene: Ra = kC\(_{Cat}\)C\(_{H2}\)C\(^0_{CAL}\) The apparent activation energy varies with themperature range in propan-2-ol and is 65\(\pm\)5 kJ.mol\(^{-1}\) in toluene.

The effect of processing and formulation parameters on the resulting oil-in-water, emulsion microstructure has been studied for a recently developed process; rotating membrane emulsification. A broad range of surfactant and particle dispersions were explored to reveal the key drivers that determine the final droplet size produced. The aim of the study was to understand initial droplet generation and therefore emulsion stability, whilst a significant element in emulsification studies, is not considered here. By furthering the understanding of the processing mechanisms involved, this enabled development of theoretical models to estimate droplet size and extent of coalescence from first principles. In addition, the implications of process scale-up were studied. From this work, the very first design procedure for rotating membrane emulsification was derived and proposed. The final emulsion microstructure is heavily dependent on the coupled interaction between the fluid flow behaviour of the two phases and interfacial phenomena. Careful selection of process parameters based on sufficient characterisation of properties such as interfacial tension and viscosity, can avoid the occurrence of droplet coalescence or dispersed phase jetting. These can have a detrimental effect on producing a carefully controlled microstructure on a repeatable basis. Of particular importance is the rate of surfactant adsorption at the oil/water interface. A unique approach of dispersing non-ionic, high HLB surfactants such as Tween 20 and Brij 97 within the oil phase has been found to significantly reduce droplet size. This discovery allows the process to be highly competitive with a rotor-stator high shear mixer and an ultrasonic probe at a fraction of the energy consumption. Pilot-scale operation of rotating membrane emulsification provided important insight into how one might design and therefore implement the process for an industrial purpose. It is proposed here that a suitable scale-up parameter would be the membrane surface velocity.

Molten salts have been widely used as thermal energy storage (TES) materials as they offer favourable specifications which enable them to be employed in TES applications. Finding a cost-effective method to enhance the energy storage capability of molten salts has caught the attention of many researchers. It was reported that by adding a small amount of nanoparticles, a major enhancement of the specific heat capacity was observed in molten salts. Though different studies argued that the enhancement was not found in other thermal storage materials, the observation of the enhancement was continuously reported. This work studied the thermal properties of molten salt based nanosuspensions synthesized with a novel method modified based on other studies. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were employed to study the thermodynamic properties of the nanosuspension systems. By the analysis of the effect on the internal energy of the nanosuspensions I draft general conclusions and explain why molten salt have this specific heat enhancement while other materials (e.g. water) does not. I use MD simulation to support, for the first time, a theory that can explain the apparently contradictory behaviour of the experimental data. Moreover, the main impact factor affecting the enhancement was investigated and discussed.

Many biopharmaceutical projects require the production of recombinant protein in a bacterial host. Conventional procedures used for recombinant protein production (RPP) involve the rapid synthesis of the target protein. This results in the accumulation of unfolded protein, the induction of the heat shock stress response and bacterial growth arrest. More importantly, the target protein accumulates in inclusion bodies and hence is useless to determine its structure. The immediate impact of this is that both the yield and quality of the target protein are compromised. This thesis reports two generically successful approaches that were developed to overcome this series of stress-induced events in Escherichia coli. Both strategies were developed during the production of a cytoplasmic protein and outer membrane lipoproteins using the pET expression system in the bacterial host, E. coli strain BL21(DE3)*. First, the induction protocol was modified to minimise the stress on the host bacterium. This method relies on the induction of very low levels of the T7 RNA polymerase in BL21* and thus the correspondingly slow synthesis of the target protein. Using this approach, growth and productivity of different types of correctly folded target proteins were sustained for at least 70 h. Secondly, mutant hosts that significantly improve recombinant protein production during conventional protocols were isolated. These improved hosts are resistant to IPTG-induced stress and continue to accumulate high levels of the correctly folded target protein. Key to the stress resistance is the presence of mutations that downregulate the synthesis of T7 RNA polymerase. However, different improved hosts were able to enhance the production of different types of target protein, such as those requiring extensive post-translational modification. The potential for isolating a plethora of improved bacterial hosts that are tailored for the production of different types of recombinant protein is discussed in light of the challenges faced by bioindustry. Procedures enabling the isolation of mutant hosts during the production of GFP-tagged and untagged proteins are reported.

Within the past decades, extensive research has been focusing on developing electroluminescent technologies (OLED and LEC). Especially, a lot of effort has been dedicated to the search a efficient phosphorescent materials with highly tuneable emission maxima bearing l a te transition metal atoms. Emitters such as cyclometalated idirium complexes have been proven to be very successful in this regards exhibiting colours from blue to red and being successfully applied in electroluminescent technologies. However, in order to decrease the manufacturing cost of these technologies, a single-centre white emitting material is highly desirable. In this context, this work investigates a new family of complexes bearing three different bidentate ligands known as tris-heteroleptic complexes to develop an emitter with a broad emission profile that would result in a white colour. Eighteen new tris-heteroleptic complexes with unprecedented ligand configurations have been synthesised by mixing different kind of ligand such as phenylpyridines (ppy), phenylpyrazo les (ppz) and phenylimidazoles (pim). This resulted in significant emission broadening with FWHM values up to nearly 6000 em- 1.