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Many animals have the ability to search for odor sources by tracking their plumes. Some of the key features of this search behavior have been successfully transferred to robot platforms, although the capabilities of animals are still beyond the current level of sensor technologies. The examples described in this paper are (1) incorporating into a wheeled robot the upwind surges and casting used by moths in tracking pheromone plumes, (2) extracting useful information from the response patterns of a chemical sensor array patterned after the spatially distributed chemoreceptors of some animals, and (3) mimicking the fanning behavior of silkworm moths to enhance the reception of chemical signals by drawing molecules from one direction. The achievements so far and current efforts are reviewed to illustrate the steps to be taken toward future development of this technology.

There has been significant recent interest in the development of low-temperature fuel cells for portable power generation because of their potentially very high efficiency and ultrahigh density of power generation. In many cases, hydrogen is a preferred fuel for use in fuel cells because of its very high energy density. In this paper, we report the first experimental evidence that autothermal reverse-flow operation of a microreactor results in up to a 5% increase in reaction selectivity toward hydrogen, a 200 °C decrease in the oxidation ignition temperature, and a reactor "skin" temperature below 60 °C for many hours of stable autothermal operation. Finally, the critical issues in the design of portable catalytic microreactors for small-scale power generation are discussed, leading to the proposed novel, highly integrated planar reactor design aimed at optimal functionality, manufacturability, and low cost.

Lignin is a natural polymer, one that has an abundant and renewable resource in biomass. Due to a tendency towards the use of biochemicals, the efficient utilization of lignin has gained wide attention. The delignification of lignocellulosic biomass makes its fractions (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) susceptible to easier transformation to many different commodities like energy, chemicals, and materials that could be produced using the biorefinery concept. This review gives an overview of the field of lignin separation from lignocellulosic biomass and changes that occur in the biomass during this process, as well as taking a detailed look at the influence of parameters that lead the process of dissolution. According to recent studies, a number of ionic liquids (ILs) have shown a level of potential for industrial scale production in terms of the pretreatment of biomass. ILs are perspective green solvents for pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass. These properties in ILs enable one to disrupt the complex structure of lignocellulose. In addition, the physicochemical properties of aprotic and protic ionic liquids (PILs) are summarized, with those properties making them suitable solvents for lignocellulose pretreatment which, especially, target lignin. The aim of the paper is to focus on the separation of lignin from lignocellulosic biomass, by keeping all components susceptible for biorefinery processes. The discussion includes interaction mechanisms between lignocellulosic biomass subcomponents and ILs to increase the lignin yield. According to our research, certain PILs have potential for the cost reduction of LC biomass pretreatment on the feasible separation of lignin.

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It is shown experimentally that chemical information can be encoded and preserved in flowing liquid streams. It can be retrieved by chemical sensing arrays using correlation analysis. This finding is important for understanding of the mechanism of chemotaxis as practiced by some aquatic animals and also is a necessary prerequisite for construction of chemical plume tracking robots.

Dynamic characteristics of the amperometric sensing system for tracking of turbulent chemical plumes have been studied. The correlation analysis requires that such sensors respond rapidly and have long-term stability and minimal or low-flow sensitivity. Moreover, for practical purposes, such sensors must respond to an electrochemical marker that would be found in or at least be compatible with the diet of marine animals. Ascorbic acid is such a compound and can be electrochemically oxidized. Its long-term dynamic behavior on several types of electrodes has been studied. It has been found that a Pt electrode coated with polyaniline satisfies all the above requirements. However, this system has a peculiar dynamic behavior that affects the results of the correlation analysis, namely, at the higher frequencies. The behavior of such system in the virtual plume setup has been characterized and its usability for detection of fluctuating concentration of ascorbic acid in saline solution has been confirmed.