There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

抗原变异可使得多种致病微生物易于逃避宿主免疫应答。表达在感染红细胞表面的恶性疟原虫红细胞表面蛋白1（PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、内皮细胞、树突状细胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作用。每个单倍体基因组var基因家族编码约60种成员，通过启动转录不同的var基因变异体为抗原变异提供了分子基础。

疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

[신간의 별자리x] 우리/미술, 그리고 ‘슬픔의 박물관’

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) research is a rapidly evolving field that lacks established terminology and methods for the analysis of system performance. This makes it difficult for researchers to compare devices on an equivalent basis. The construction and analysis of MFCs requires knowledge of different scientific and engineering fields, ranging from microbiology and electrochemistry to materials and environmental engineering. Describing MFC systems therefore involves an understanding of these different scientific and engineering principles. In this paper, we provide a review of the different materials and methods used to construct MFCs, techniques used to analyze system performance, and recommendations on what information to include in MFC studies and the most useful ways to present results.

Microbial Fuel Cells: Methodology and Technology†

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) is an independent organization devoted to the development of standards.

American Society for Testing and Materials

Oxalate degradation in a bioelectrochemical system

Integration of wetland wastewater treatment with disinfection via bioelectrochemical H2O2 production.

India faces a significant water quality challenge as 80% of its wastewater is being discharged into receiving water bodies without prior treatment. This is not only detrimental to the environment, but also leads to major health concerns related to water-borne diseases and associated deaths. Sadly, young children and poor households bear the maximum brunt of inadequate sanitation. India is only one of many developing countries facing these problems as 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to basic sanitation services. With global populations projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, and natural disasters such as droughts or floods expected to increase due to climate change, water scarcity is inevitable. There is an increasing need for wastewater treatment technologies that address the problem at the source and integrate resource recovery and reuse, in order to achieve the sustainable development goals on water. Here, we present a decentralized wastewater treatment technology that combines high-rate vertical constructed wetlands for solids removal with electrochemical disinfection of the solid free water. This technology has been designated Empowered Septic Tanks and was developed as part of The Gates Foundation ‘Reinvent the toilet’ challenge. This zero-chemical-input technology can be directly integrated with the toilet and septic tank, requires only electricity and can be operated with low technical expertise. Lab-scale experiments and field trials in India have shown promising results with respect to COD/N/P removal (30-90%), pathogen removal (5-log unit reduction) and inactivation of Helminth eggs (morphological changes). Further lab-scale testing using sand filtration and electrochemical disinfection at Ghent University has allowed us to select optimal configuration, liquid flow path and electrode materials for maximal chlorine production. A robust second generation system is currently being developed to alleviate issues related to solids accumulation and membrane degeneration, and to minimize power input while still achieving sufficient disinfection. This system will be deployed in the field under different settings, i.e. at a community toilet, railway station, apartment building and school (100 people equivalent), in order to determine its long-term stability. The objective is to obtain treated wastewater at low cost that can be safely discharged or ideally reused for household (toilet flushing) or agricultural (irrigation) purposes. Decentralized wastewater treatment systems such as Empowered Septic Tanks have the power to increase clean water supply while simultaneously decreasing freshwater demand, hereby contributing to a sustainable water economy in developing countries.

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8568920/file/8568927.pdf

Empowered septic tanks : vertical flow constructed wetlands combined with electrochemical disinfection to treat septic tank effluent and provide safe water for reuse

Short-chain carboxylic acids are appealing targets for resource recovery because they are platform chemicals that can be produced from biomass, bio-waste or CO2 through anaerobic microbial conversion. Side streams that contain these feedstocks can be valorised as renewable carbon sources to added value products instead of being disposed. The microbial conversion and primary recovery through membrane electrolysis results in a clean acid stream with carboxylic acid concentrations below 100 g/L in the current state of the art. A further concentration and separation from this aqueous stream is required to use the acids as building blocks. This is however challenging due to the hydrophilicity, low titres and relatively low value of these compounds, which render conventional separation methods unattractive. The aim of this work is to address this separation bottleneck through biphasic esterification, i.e. a combined extraction and conversion to the higher value esters in a hydrophobic layer. Ionic liquids are appropriate compounds as hydrophobic layer because of their good solvating properties, high stability and their non-volatility, which facilitates separation of the higher volatile esters. The non-volatility results in a substantially reduced energy input compared to distillation, by avoiding energy loss as latent heat of the extractant. Ionic liquids furthermore have the ability to be tuned towards a specific application by combination of the anion and the cation; a compelling feature for extraction of relatively polar compounds into a hydrophobic layer. A proof of concept was successfully delivered in this exploratory study for the model compound acetic acid with a phosphonium ionic liquid, demonstrating it is possible to produce ethyl acetate from 100% renewable resources (biomass/CO2 and bio-ethanol) at reasonable rates and mild reaction conditions (atmospheric pressure, T ≤ 75°C). The development of a low-cost separation method for an integrated pipeline for the transformation of organic side streams to valuable bioproducts can provide competitive edge to the biosector.

Ionic liquid driven esterification of aqueous fermentation products

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8611186/file/8611194.pdf

Korneel Rabaey

Papers

Oxalate degradation in a bioelectrochemical system

Integration of wetland wastewater treatment with disinfection via bioelectrochemical H2O2 production.

Empowered septic tanks : vertical flow constructed wetlands combined with electrochemical disinfection to treat septic tank effluent and provide safe water for reuse

Ionic liquid driven esterification of aqueous fermentation products

An integrated sensor board for real-time optimization of the electrical settings of a microbial electrolysis cell