Browsing by Subject "polystyrene"

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    Development of a microfluidic gas generator from QQQAN efficient film-based microfabrication method
    (MicroTAS, 2014-10) Cao, Yuanzhi; Bontrager-Singer, Jacob; Zamani Farahani, Mahmoud R.; Meng, Dennis D.; Yu, Whitney H.; Zhu, Likun; Department of Engineering Technology, School of Engineering and Technology
    We report the development of a microfluidic gas generator using polymer film-based microfabrication method. The method is time and cost efficient and capable of fabricating microfluidic devices with feature resolution lower than 100 μm. Complicated 3-dimentional devices can be fabricated by aligning and stacking multiple layers of patterned polymer (polystyrene, polycarbonate) films and double-sided tapes which are obtained from a digital craft-cutter. Integrated with functional features like Pt catalyst, the device can generate a variety of gas (O2, H2, etc) through controllable catalytic reaction.
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    Ubiquity of polystyrene digestion and biodegradation within yellow mealworms, larvae of Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)
    (Elsevier, 2018) Yang, Shan-Shan; Wu, Wei-Min; Brandon, Anja M.; Fan, Han-Qing; Receveur, Joseph P.; Li, Yiran; Wang, Zhi-Yue; Fan, Rui; McClellan, Rebecca L.; Gao, Shu-Hong; Ning, Daliang; Phillips, Debra H.; Peng, Bo-Yu; Wang, Hongtao; Cai, Shen-Yang; Li, Ping; Cai, Wei-Wei; Ding, Ling-Yun; Yang, Jun; Zheng, Min; Ren, Jie; Zhang, Ya-Lei; Gao, Jie; Xing, Defeng; Ren, Nan-Qi; Waymouth, Robert M.; Zhou, Jizhong; Tao, Hu-Chun; Picard, Christine J.; Benbow, Mark Eric; Criddle, Craig S.; Biology, School of Science
    Academics researchers and “citizen scientists” from 22 countries confirmed that yellow mealworms, the larvae of Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus, can survive by eating polystyrene (PS) foam. More detailed assessments of this capability for mealworms were carried out by12 sources: five from the USA, six from China, and one from Northern Ireland. All of these mealworms digested PS foam. PS mass decreased and depolymerization was observed, with appearance of lower molecular weight residuals and functional groups indicative of oxidative transformations in extracts from the frass (insect excrement). An addition of gentamycin (30 mg g−1), a bactericidal antibiotic, inhibited depolymerization, implicating the gut microbiome in the biodegradation process. Microbial community analyses demonstrated significant taxonomic shifts for mealworms fed diets of PS plus bran and PS alone. The results indicate that mealworms from diverse locations eat and metabolize PS and support the hypothesis that this capacity is independent of the geographic origin of the mealworms, and is likely ubiquitous to members of this species.