Microalgae biomass is among one of the most promising sustainable raw materials for many industrial sectors especially biodiesel production. Although a great diversity of microalgae species has been described and isolated, few have been used for large-scale cultivation. This review presents a multidisciplinary overview of studies on Tetradesmus obliquusa freshwater microalga suitable for largescale production and emerging environmental applications. It reviews the taxonomic history of T. obliquus and its potential commercial applications, including cultivations techniques and environmental parameters, production systems, harvesting and drying of biomass, and its biochemical composition. In addition, a model refinery for T. obliquus is proposed that combines the main productive bioprocesses. Finally, a bibliometric analysis is presented and opportunities for future research with T. obliquus are identified.
Relative humidity (RH) is a critical environmental variable for transportation and storage of products and for the quality guarantee of several other production processes and services. Heterogeneous structures prepared from the selective semiconductor oxides may improve the sensitivity to humidity due to the better electronic and surface properties, when compared to pristine oxides. This work shows an alternative fabrication route for producing titanium dioxide/tungsten trioxide (TiO 2 /WO 3 ) heterogeneous structures (by electrospinning and sintering) for potential application on the RH detection. The microstructural properties of the materials were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS), X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. The electrical characterization of the structures was performed by electrical impedance spectroscopy in RH range of 10%-100%. Results indicated a p-to n-type conduction transition at around 30%-40% RH for all tested settings. The analysis of the impedance signature to humidity showed that the amount of fiber layers on the electrode and working temperature are important parameters to improve the humidity sensing of the TiO 2 /WO 3 systems.
The development of new fibrilar materials based on electrospinning (ES) technique has a notable history of nearly four centuries of discoveries and results. The eletrospinning manufacturing is one of the most widely reported methods for nanofiber (NF) manufacturing, providing security, high quality and productivity. In spite of the first patent about electrospinning has been applied in April 5(th), 1900 by John Francis Cooley, a historical perspective (since 1600s) about this amazing discovery represents an important step for future applications. Nanofibers have been considered one of the top interesting fundamental study objects for academicians, and greatest intriguing business materials for modern industry. As a consequence, lucrative organizations and companies have explored the relevance of nanofibers. In this paper, the quantity of published manuscripts and patent inventions is presented and the correlation of research activities to the production of new electrospinning materials is shown. China and the United States have been leading in electrospinning and nanofibers development. The company triumph is mostly dependent on applications improvement relevant for broader business society. A dramatic rise of interest in nanofibers produced by electrospinning technique has been confirmed due to the publication data, author's affiliation, keywords, and essential characterization procedures. Is has been shown that the number of publications on electrospinning and nanofibers researches from academic institutions is higher than industrial laboratories. More than 1,891 patents using the term "electrospinning" and 2,960 with the term "nanofibers" according to the European Patent Office at title or abstract have been filed around the world up to 2013. These numbers just continue to increase along with worldwide ES-related sales. Curiously, for the same period 11,973 electrospinning documents and 18,679 nanofibers-related (mainly manuscripts) were published considering the Scopus database with the same terms in the title, abstract or using keywords. Thus, statistically, there are more published manuscripts worldwide than patents for both keywords.
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