International audienceThe use of plant biomass for developing energy efficient and low cost construction materials is an emerging field in building construction and civil engineering. Although the biomass-based cement and concrete composites have several advantages, such as low densities, low amount of CO2 gas emission, good thermal and acoustic insulation, there are also disadvantages or open questions like the durability of biomass in alkaline cement matrix, the high absorption of water and the cement-biomass compatibility, all deteriorating concrete mechanical properties, which are already intrinsically low due to the low mechanical properties of biomass-based fillers. This review gives the necessary basis in plant structure and composition for understanding how and why many treatments tested on biomass for overcoming the above-mentioned difficulties are acting. This paper reviews research papers and patents on the treatments tested to improve the mechanical properties, durability and compatibility of biomass for its use as concrete fillers for building materials

This paper describes a new method to dye cotton with selected reactive dyes by long‐liquor – or so‐called ‘exhaustion’– processes under neutral conditions. Particularly promising results were obtained with reactive dyes containing free vinyl sulphone residues. Although there are dyes on the market that contain free vinyl sulphone groups, for example, the Novacron C (Huntsman) range of dyes, many of this class contain ‘blocked’ vinyl sulphone residues; examples include sulphatoethylsulphone or chloroethylsulphone precursor groups, and these may be preactivated to the highly reactive vinyl sulphone form simply by a mild alkali treatment. After this activation, neutral, long‐liquor dyeings can be carried out at the boil in the presence of electrolyte. This new dyeing method gave very good results in terms of overall fixation efficiency values, without the need for alkali additions.

Advanced Ion Management (AIM) is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process where waterflood injection water is modified by the addition, removal, or dilution of ions. AIM can yield an increase in oil recovery compared to waterflooding using formation brines. To better understand the oil recovery mechanism of AIM in carbonates, ion chromatography studies and salt solubility measurements were conducted on AIM brines used in floods of Middle Eastern core. The ion composition of the brines – upon mixing after extended time, at reservoir temperature and pressure, and after core flooding - were compared to elucidate the ion composition changes during an AIM waterflood and how those changes could lead to additional oil recovery. That knowledge could potentially be used to screen reservoir rock types and available water sources to determine which would be best suited for EOR from AIM waterflooding. AIM technology encompasses a wide range of injection brines, and thus this ion chromatography analysis covers a range of modified brines, including brines for which analyses have not been previously published. Analysis of the results has implications for how ion composition may be correlated with oil recovery and what facilities are required to obtain the desired composition. The study finds that neither rock dissolution nor ion exchange alone is sufficient to explain oil recovery with modified brine injection, and neither mechanism is a guarantee of additional oil recovery. It also finds that sodium phosphate, borax, and sodium sulfate all precipitate divalent cations from seawater at field operating conditions.

International audienceThe production of ligno-cellulosic biomass-based composites requires the development of new methodologies to evaluate the reinforcement potential of a given biomass, such as miscanthus studied in the work. Miscanthus stems from thirteen genotypes were broken into elongated fragments and mixed with polypropylene composites in an internal mixer. The aim is to find the best protocol able to discriminate miscanthus genotypes for their reinforcement capability. The following process parameters were optimized in order to maximize the reinforcement effect of the stem fragment filler: mixing parameters (mixing time, rotor speed and chamber temperature), temperature, fragment content, size and length distributions and coupling agent. The relationship between the process parameters and the mechanical properties of composites were analyzed to evaluate the influence of genotype on reinforcement performance, showing the robustness of the protocol in effectively discriminating genotypes according to their reinforcing capacity