CO2 uptake performance and life cycle assessment of CaO-based sorbents prepared from waste oyster shells blended with PMMA nanosphere scaffolds.

In this paper, we demonstrate a means of simultaneously solving two serious environmental issues by reutilization of calcinated mixture of pulverized waste oyster shells blending with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanospheres to prepare CaO-based sorbents for CO2 capture. After 10 cycles of isothermal carbonation/calcination at 750°C, the greatest CO2 uptake (0.19 g CO2/g sorbent) was that for the sorbent featuring 70 wt% of PMMA, which was almost three times higher than that (0.07 g CO2/g sorbent) of untreated waste oyster shell. The greater CO2 uptake was likely a result of particle size reduction and afterwards surface basicity enhancement and an increase in the volume of mesopores and macropores. Following simplified life cycle assessment, whose all input values were collected from our experimental results, suggested that a significant CO2 emission reduction along with lesser human health and ecosystems impacts would be achieved immediately once waste is reutilized. Most importantly, the CO2 uptake efficiency must be greater than 20% or sorbents prepared from limestone mining would eventually produce a net positive CO2 emission.

[Change in the level of inflammatory cytokines and their relationship to the indicator in evaluating renal tubules injury of urinary in neonates with asphyxia].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between amount of inflammatory cytokines in urine and neonatal postasphyxia renal tubules injury. METHODS: The level of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL-8, IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and the indicators of evaluating renal tubules injury [N-acetyl-glucosaminidase(NAG), gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (gamma-GT), beta(2)-microglobulin (beta(2)-MG)] in urine were detected in neonates with asphyxia. RESULTS: Compared with control, the levels of IL-8, IL-6, TNF-alpha and NAG, gamma-GT, beta2-MG were obviously increased in mild asphyxia group. In severe asphyxia group, the parameters above were all significantly increased compared with mild asphyxia group and the control group. Within the asphyxia group, there were positive relationship between inflammatory cytokines and the indicator of evaluating renal tubules injury. CONCLUSION: The asphyxia may induce systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), which result in postasphyxia renal injury in neonates. The level of inflammatory cytokines in urine may be used as the indicators of evaluating the severity of asphyxia and postasphyxia renal injury in neonates.