Novel ethylene oxide production with improved sustainability: Loss prevention via supersonic separator and carbon capture.

Sustainability must be always assured in process design. Not rarely, multiple sustainability criteria point oppositely, entailing a need for more systematic and coherent assessments. The Sustainable Process Systems Engineering method is introduced as a two-level hierarchical evaluation of process designs. The first level selects the best design via four-dimensional indicators (environment, efficiency, health-&-safety, and economic), while in the second level, sustainability hotspots of the best design are pinpointed to unveil possible improvements. The method is applied for sustainability assessment of two ethylene oxide processes: the conventional and a novel route employing supersonic separator to prevent ethylene oxide losses using liquid-water injection. Supersonic separator route reduces oxide losses by 83.33 kg/h, representing +0.9% greater ethylene oxide production, 95% less ethylene oxide losses, entailing 2.5% higher net value for 20 operation years despite 0.11% higher investment, and consequently exhibiting the best environmental, technical, health-&-safety and economic performances. Photochemical-oxidation and aquatic-ecotoxicity are environmental indicators with highest improvement due to supersonic separator inclusion. Ethylene oxidation reactor, carbon dioxide stripping-column and cooling-water tower are the main unit-operations with sustainability hotspots.

Histopathological outcome of Leishmania major-infected BALB/c mice is improved by oral treatment with N-acetyl-l-cysteine.

Leishmania major infected BALB/c mice were treated with N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC), a glutathione precursor, to evaluate the role of in vivo glutathione on lesion pathology and cytokine profiles following infection. Mice were maintained on NAC-containing water 2 days before infection for a total of 14 weeks. The BALB/c response to L. major infection was improved by oral administration of NAC, at the level of histopathological outcome, lesion progression and cytokine profile. A significantly improved histopathological outcome of the footpad lesion, characterized by a mixed inflammatory infiltrate organized in a focal pattern with little tissue destruction and a reduced parasite load, was observed in NAC-treated BALB/c mice. Histopathological modulation was accompanied by a modified cytokine pattern from popliteal lymph node cells, demonstrated by a sustained higher frequency of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha)-producing cells. This work points to an important role for glutathione in the modulation of effector responses in BALB/c mice.