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Fourteen yeast strains were screened for production of 2-phenylethanol from L-phenylalanine with molasses as carbon source. Up to 1 g 2-phenylethanol l-1 was obtained. Using oleyl alcohol as a second phase for in situ product removal to enhance the production of 2-phenylethanol increased the yield to about 3 g 2-phenylethanol l-1 at 35 degrees C. The most productive strains were Kluyveromyces marxianus CBS 600 and CBS 397.

The project between tthe Deutsche Biomasseforschungszentrum (DBFZ) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) focuses on the pr rovision of alternative fuels by thermochemical conversion. Biogenic residues and wastes which are not used yet or which could be utilised more efficiently are studied. The selection of possible feedstock was supported by a techhnical potential analysis including the competition to th he food industry. The technical suitability of raw materials for the fast pyrolysis (FP) process was of special in nterest. As a possible feedstock following types of biomass were studied: corn stover, corn cobs, biogenic floating re efuse (river Rhine and Baltic Sea), scrap wood, bark, rape s straw, sunflower straw, draff, diverse residues of flour production and hay. A process development unit (PDU) with a biomass feeding rate of 10 kg/h and a twin screw m mixer reactor was used for all experiments. It was found that different types of biomass form different char, condensate e and gas yields due to varying ash levels and lignocellulosic composition. Elemental formulas for feedstock, char, organic condensate and gas were estimated independent on t the feedstock due to similar elemental compositions. Pyrolysis gas analysis during the experiments gave information on the mass yields. A CO/CO2-ratio of 1 (i.e. wood) corresponds to organic condensate yields of about 50 wt.-%%, whereas a ratio of 0.3-0.7 (straw) corresponds to 18-32 wt. .-% respectively. Proceedings of the 20th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 18-22 June 2012, Milan, Italy, pp. 973-977

With the increase in energy of the Large Hadron Collider to a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV for Run 2, events with dense environments, such as in the cores of high-energy jets, became a focus for new physics searches as well as measurements of the Standard Model. These environments are characterized by charged-particle separations of the order of the tracking detectors sensor granularity. Basic track quantities are compared between 3.2 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the ATLAS experiment and simulation of proton-proton collisions producing high-transverse-momentum jets at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The impact of charged-particle separations and multiplicities on the track reconstruction performance is discussed. The efficiency in the cores of jets with transverse momenta between 200 GeV and 1600 GeV is quantified using a novel, data-driven, method. The method uses the energy loss, dE/dx, to identify pixel clusters originating from two charged particles. Of the charged particles creating these clusters, the measured fraction that fail to be reconstructed is $0.061 \pm 0.006 \textrm{(stat.)} \pm 0.014 \textrm{(syst.)}$ and $0.093 \pm 0.017 \textrm{(stat.)}\pm 0.021 \textrm{(syst.)}$ for jet transverse momenta of 200-400 GeV and 1400-1600 GeV, respectively. The European physical journal / C 77(10), 673 (2017). doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5225-7 Published by Springer, Berlin

Bio-oil composition can differ depending on the biomass feedstock. Such information is essential if upgrading to a liquid fuel or to platform chemicals is intended. Furthermore, water and inorganic elements have to be taken into account for the catalyst selection. In this work, two bio-oils from wheat straw and beech wood were characterized by different techniques. Both were composed by a light and a heavy phase separately analyzed. The water content of the fractions differed over a wide range between 14.4 and 56.7 wt.% and therefore also the HHV (between 28.5 and 9.2 MJ/Kg). Both phases showed very low content of sulfur (<0.4 wt.%), which can have influence the lifetime of the catalyst. The 1H-NMR integration showed higher values in the regions of alkanes, carboxylic acid or keto-groups, and hetero-(aromatics) for both heavy phases, while light phases showed higher values in the water, O-H exchanging and carbohydrates region. So the heavy phases seem to be a good basis if phenols and its derivatives are expected and the light phases if alcohols are of interest. These results show that the bio-oils composition is essential for upgrading reactions, impacting on the products as well as on the choice of the catalyst. Proceedings of the 25th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 12-15 June 2017, Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 1143-1147