Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) is the most widely used yeast in biotechnology in the world because its well-known metabolism and physiology as well as its recognized ability to ferment sugars such as hexoses. However, it does not metabolize pentoses such as arabinose and xylose, which are present in lignocellulosic biomass. Lignocellulose is a widely available raw material, with xylose content of approximately 35% of total sugars. This xylose fraction could be used to obtain high added-value chemical products such as xylitol. One of these yeasts isolated from a Colombian locality, designated as 202-3, showed interesting properties. 202-3 was identified through different approaches as a strain of S. cerevisiae, with an interesting consumption of xylose metabolizing into xylitol, in addition with excellent ability as a hexose fermenter with high ethanol yields and shows resistance to inhibitors present in lignocellulosic hydrolysates. The xylose metabolization by the 202-3 strain and their kinetics parameters had not been previously reported for any other natural strain of S. cerevisiae. These results suggest the great potential of natural strains for obtaining high value-added chemical products using sugars available in lignocellulosic biomass.

In this paper, the thermal degradation of electro-conductive fabrics exposed to high current impulses is studied by using an equivalent resistive circuit and a technique commonly applied to the analysis of exploding wires. A method to estimate the threshold burst current of conductive fabrics is derived based on the so-called specific action, which is defined as the integral of the squared current density over the time applied at critical locations of the fabric such as the contact areas between yarns. The model has been experimentally validated on woven and non-woven fabrics using lightning impulse currents applied to the conductive fabrics coated with Cu-Ni alloy. A general rule for determining the dimensions of conductive fabrics as a function of the input-current specific-energy levels has also been derived.