A novel stationary phase for affinity separations is presented. This material is based on sintered borosilicate glass readily available as semi-finished filter plates with defined porosity and surface area. The material shows fast binding kinetics and excellent long-term stability under real application conditions due to lacking macropores and high mechanical rigidity. The glass surface can be easily modified with standard organosilane chemistry to immobilize selective binders or other molecules used for biointeraction. In this paper, the manufacturing of the columns and their respective column holders by 3D printing is shown in detail. The model system protein A/IgG was chosen as an example to examine the properties of such monolithic columns under realistic application conditions. Several specifications, such as (dynamic) IgG capacity, pressure stability, long-term performance, productivity, non-specific binding, and peak shape, are presented. It could be shown that due to the very high separation speed, 250 mg antibody per hour and column can be collected, which surpasses the productivity of most standard columns of the same size. The total IgG capacity of the shown columns is around 4 mg (5.5 mg/mL), which is sufficient for most tasks in research laboratories. The cycle time of an IgG separation can be less than 1 min. Due to the glass material’s excellent pressure resistance, these columns are compatible with standard HPLC systems. This is usually not the case with standard affinity columns, limited to manual use or application in low-pressure systems. The use of a standard HPLC system also improves the ability for automation, which enables the purification of hundreds of cell supernatants in one day. The sharp peak shape of the elution leads to an enrichment effect, which might increase the concentration of IgG by a factor of 3. The final concentration of IgG can be around 7.5 mg/mL without the need for an additional nano-filtration step. The purity of the IgG was > 95% in one step and nearly 99% with a second polishing run.
In many regions of the world the urbanisation process is accelerating dramatically. This puts pressure on urban planners but also politics to develop strategies for sustainable city growth. With the rapidly increasing demand for living space in urban areas, cities typically grow vertically. This is largely driven by real estate markets and sometimes also by the desire for status symbols.
Certainly, vertical urban growth makes sense, when horizontal growth destroys important flora and Fauna (e.g. in rain forest regions), but in many cases vertical growth is result of real-estate business and Expansion limitation due to state or country borders. However, economics and borders are made by humans. They follow human-made rules. Gravity does not. Therefore, from a point of view of sustainable materials and resourceuse, the trending vertical growth of cities may come under scrutiny.
The following aspects should be considered, when a decision is taken between a new quarter with limited number of storeys or a new skyscraper.
Welcome to the 2nd International Conference on Advances in Cement and Concrete Technology in Africa (ACCTA 2016), January 27– 29, 2016, held at White Sands Hotel, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The first ACCTA conference that took place in January 2013 in Johannesburg was a result of an African-European collaborative research project. Due to the success of this conference, it was announced that a triennial international conference is necessary, with the next conference scheduled to take place once again in Johannesburg. Within the organisation of the conference, unfortunately some unforeseeable events arose, which would lead to either a delay of the conference in Johannesburg until 2018 or a change of venue. The great response from the international scientific community supported the option to maintain the originally scheduled date. With the support of the local organisation committee from the University of Dar es Salaam and the contributions from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Zagreb the conference was shifted to Dar es Salaam.
Despite the new boundary framework, we are extremely happy that it was possible to arrange an outstanding and excellent scientific programme. Therefore we would like to thank in particular the keynote speakers and all members of the international scientific community, as well as other delegates that supported the conference by their contributions and attendance. This shows us how significantly important the African cement and concrete market is for the entire global community.
Africa can become a spearhead for the future of construction with cement and concrete. The continent exhibits an enormous construction potential and due to the relatively short history of building with these materials, innovations can be adopted and adapted unbiased and without influence of stakeholders, traditions, and complicated networks of regulations. This is a fertile ground for the existing promising generation of engineers and decision makers for re-inventing cement and concrete in the best possible way.
There is no global optimum solution for concrete. The best solution in Africa is not the best solution in Europe or another part of the world, and the best solution in one particular African country is diverging from the best solution in another African country depending upon resources, supply chains, infrastructure, construction needs, traditions, available manpower, skills and technologies. Nevertheless, we can globally support our objectives to build future oriented and sustainable construction solutions by mutually learning from each other. In order to tackle the future challenges and build more sustainably and innovatively with concrete, we need to enhance interdisciplinary and cross-national skills and create networks between experts and decision makers globally.
ACCTA offers this kind of platform, and we are happy to announce that the conference reaches a high impact in the world. Delegates and speakers come from more than 40 countries in the world originating from all continents. Besides the technical content there will be plenary discussions on the most relevant topics of future binder technologies and standards and product safety with outstanding expert panellists.
We want to wish all delegates a successful conference and hope that this book can be a significant contribution for a future oriented and better concrete technology; in Africa and the entire world. Welcome to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Due to the great quantities of construction and demolition waste in Europe, the reuse of building material waste as secondary raw materials is of particular importance. A recycling of building materials can meet the requirements of sustainability in several aspects: the extended time availability of primary raw materials and the related protection of natural resources as well as the saving of landfill sites. In recent years sulphates originating from gypsum in secondary building materials, made of construction and demolition waste, received growing attention. Sulphates are unwanted in secondary building materials for concrete production as well as for other use e.g. in unbounded layers. The content of gypsum resp. sulphates in secondary aggregates can be reduced by different methods. Depending on the type of material different steps for selective dismantling can be used to separate gypsum containing residues from concrete rubble. Furthermore some steps for the processing of building rubble are suitable for the reduction of sulphates in the produced aggregates. An environmental evaluation of different ways for the production of recycled concrete aggregates was performed with regard to a reduction of sulphates in the secondary building material. The use of techniques for selective dismantling was environmentally advantegous for the deconstruction of three investigated model houses.
Die ständige Überwachung von Bauwerken gewinnt zunehmend an Bedeutung. Mit Blick auf die Nachhaltigkeit ist die Verlängerung der Nutzungsdauer bestehender baulicher Konstruktionen von unschätzbarem Wert, sowohl aus finanziellen Gründen als auch unter Denkmalaspekten. Eine neue Methode zur Detektion von Strukturschädigungen basiert auf einer integrierten Auswertung von Messwerten verschiedener Sensoren nach der Methode der kleinsten Quadrate sowie der Interpretation der dabei auftretenden Langrange-Multiplikatoren. Diese Methode der Schädigungsanalyse wird anhand eines numerischen Beispiels aus einem Vier-Punkt-Biegeversuch mit einem Verbundträger näher erläutert. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Structural health monitoring of structures is gaining increasingly importance. With regard to sustainability it is of great value for both financial reasons (to extend the useful life of existing architectural structures) and the aspects of listed buildings. A new method for the detection of structural damage is based on an integrated analysis of measurements of different sensors according to the method of least squares and the interpretation of the occurring Lagrange Multipliers. This method of damage analysis is illustrated by a numerical example of a four-point bending test with a composite beam.