Pretreatments such as dilute acid at elevated temperature are effective for the hydrolysis of pentose polymers in hemicellulose and also increase the access of enzymes to cellulose fibers. However, the fermentation of resulting syrups is hindered by minor reaction products such as furfural from pentose dehydration. To mitigate this problem, four genetic traits have been identified that increase furfural tolerance in ethanol-producing Escherichia coli LY180 (strain W derivative): increased expression of fucO, ucpA, or pntAB and deletion of yqhD. Plasmids and integrated strains were used to characterize epistatic interactions among traits and to identify the most effective combinations. Furfural resistance traits were subsequently integrated into the chromosome of LY180 to construct strain XW129 (LY180 ΔyqhD ackA::P yadC′ fucO-ucpA) for ethanol. This same combination of traits was also constructed in succinate biocatalysts (Escherichia coli strain C derivatives) and found to increase furfural tolerance. Strains engineered for resistance to furfural were also more resistant to the mixture of inhibitors in hemicellulose hydrolysates, confirming the importance of furfural as an inhibitory component. With resistant biocatalysts, product yields (ethanol and succinate) from hemicellulose syrups were equal to control fermentations in laboratory media without inhibitors. The combination of genetic traits identified for the production of ethanol (strain W derivative) and succinate (strain C derivative) may prove useful for other renewable chemicals from lignocellulosic sugars.lignocellulose | metabolic engineering

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The composition and atomic depth distributions of ultrathin zirconia films (ϳ30 Å ) deposited on Si͑100͒ have been investigated using medium-energy ion scattering ͑MEIS͒. Reoxidation in 18 O 2 permits the oxygen incorporation, exchange, and mobility to be followed due to the isotope sensitivity of the MEIS technique. These quantitative studies showed that significant interfacial SiO 2 growth results when reoxidizing samples at temperatures as low as 500°C, and that this growth saturates in time and pressure but increases with temperature. Substantial isotope exchange was also observed under various experimental conditions. The results are discussed taking into account published data on the bulk and grain boundary diffusion of O in monoclinic and tetragonal zirconia, the diffusivity of O in SiO 2 , and the nanocrystallinity of the films.

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Nonlinear metasurfaces based on coupling a locally enhanced plasmonic response to intersubband transitions of n-doped multi-quantum-wells (MQWs) can provide second-order susceptibilities orders of magnitude larger than any other nonlinear flat structure measured so far. Here we present a comprehensive theory to characterize the electromagnetic response of nonlinear processes occurring in ultrathin MQW-based plasmonic metasurfaces, providing a homogeneous model that takes phase matching at the unit-cell level and the influence of saturation and losses into account. In addition, the limits imposed by saturation of the MQW transitions on the nonlinear response of these metasurfaces are analytically derived, revealing useful guidelines to design devices with enhanced performance. Our approach is first validated using experimental data and then applied to theoretically investigate novel designs able to achieve significant second-harmonic generation efficiency in the infrared frequency band.