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Background and purpose — Since the introduction of intramedullary bone transport nails only very few cases have been reported in the literature. Thus we evaluated the results and complications in a single institution retrospective cohort. Patients and methods — 15 (median age 40 years (18-70), 8 males) consecutive patients, were included and the electronic patient records and radiographs were reviewed. Complications were severity graded and categorized as device or non-device related. Results — The segmental bone loss was due to non-union site in 8 femurs and 4 tibias, or traumatic bone loss in 2 femurs and 1 tibia. The segmental bone defect was a median of 3 cm (0.5–10). 9 of 10 femoral cases and 4 of 5 tibial cases healed with the bone transport nail. All 15 patients had a healed docking site and regenerate at the end of treatment after a median of 13 months (6–38). 24 complications (15 device related and 9 non-device related) occurred in 11/15 patients with a minimum follow-up of 6 months after nail removal. The number of unplanned surgeries due to device related complications was: 0 in 9 patients, 1 in 3 patients, 2 in 1 patient, 3 in 2 patients. Interpretation — Segmental bone defects can heal with a bone transport nail. However, the number of complications was high and 15 out of 24 complications were devicerelated. Optimizing nail design is therefore needed to reduce complications in intramedullary bone transport.

The production of sour cherry wine results in large amounts of biowaste known as press cake or pomace. This pomace contains among others the fruit skin and flesh that have been previously reported to be a rich source of anthocyanins and phenolic acids. These components can be extracted and formulated to be used as natural pigments, nutraceuticals or cosmeceuticals. In the present work, sour cherry wine pomace has been extracted in aqueous buffers and ultrafiltered using ceramic membranes. Two enzyme formulations based on pectinases and cellulases have been added to the extraction media, and their influence on the extraction yield in batch mode, ultrafiltration performance and product degradation has been assessed. Sour cherry wine pomace has been found to contain relatively low amounts of anthocyanins (48.6 ± 0.9 mg kg-1) and phenolic acids (82.1 ± 2.9 mg kg-1) as compared to biowaste from other sour cherry food products. The use of enzyme formulations based on cellulase and pectinase was not shown to improve the total amount of anthocyanin and phenolic acids extracted. However, an increase in ultrafiltration permeate flux was observed when the enzymes were used.

The reuse of the liquid enzymes Eversa Transform and Resinase HT for castor oil transesterification was investigated. For each enzyme, the reactions were carried out at 35 °C with 6:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio, 5 wt% enzyme and 5 wt% water by weight of oil, for 8 hours. After completion, the reaction mixture was centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 30 min and the enzyme phase was collected. The reuse of the enzyme solutions were tested using three different separation techniques. In the first, enzymes were reused after the centrifugation step without further separation. In the second, enzymes were reused after centrifugation followed by water diafiltration using an ultrafiltration membrane in order to remove glycerol and methanol from the recycle solution. In the third, the enzyme solution obtained after diafiltration was concentrated in the membrane set-up prior to its reuse. Tubular ceramic ultrafiltration membranes with MWCO of 15 and 25 kDa were used. The experiments showed that ultrafiltration removed glycerol and methanol from the enzyme solution, increasing the enzyme activity during the transesterification. Furthermore, concentration of the enzyme solutions after the diafiltration had a positive effect on the FAME production when recycled enzyme solutions are used. For Eversa Transform, the biodiesel content increased from 67 % with reuse after centrifugation to 83 % when a concentrated and diafiltrated enzyme solution was used as catalyst. For Resinase HT, the biodiesel concentration improved from 69 to up to 79 %.

Kalanchoe leaves and stems contain flavonoids known to have anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-allergenic properties of interest for use in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The present study investigates the aqueous extraction of flavonoids from the leaves and stems of kalanchoe hybrids. The extraction process consisted of screw pressing followed by aqueous batch extraction, microfiltration using tubular 0.2 µm polypropylene membranes, 20 kDa polyethersulfone flat sheet membranes and 1 kDa composite fluoropolymer membranes. The experiments showed that the screw press efficiently separated the kalanchoe leaves and stems into a solid fraction with a dry matter content of 14 % and a liquid fraction with a dry matter content of 2.4 %. Approximately two thirds of the flavonoids were in the liquid phase after the initial pressing. The batch extraction time was found to be 3 hours to achieve maximum flavonoid concentration. The combination of microfiltration and ultrafiltration could produce a liquid fraction rich in flavonoids. However, the proposed combination of membranes and cleaning procedures are not optimal and needs further development.

The bioactive sulfated polysaccharide from brown algae, fucoidan, can be used for a wide array of applications. As with other natural products, there are seasonal variabilities as well as variability within the investigated species, across regions, and from using different extraction procedures. In this study, the use of hot demineralized water and two variations of hot acidified water (10 mM sulfuric acid and 100 mM hydrochloric acid) as extraction solvents for microwave extraction of fucoidan from three different brown algae of the Fucus genus (F. vesiculosus, F. serratus, and F. evanescens) were investigated. The effect on yield of fucoidan from the different solvents at temperatures 80 °C, 100 °C, 120 °C was tested. The Fucus used in this study were harvested in the Baltic Sea in the Kiel Fjord, Germany, during Summer and Autumn of 2017. Air dried F. vesiculosus from Brittany in France was also analyzed and used for optimization of the extraction method and as a reference sample. The extraction procedure was adapted and modified from the method provided by Fletcher et al. (2017). The extracts were purified by performing dialysis. The results showed that fucoidan yield is maximized by extracting with 10 mM sulfuric acid for all species investigated. A large seasonal variance between species was observed, and large differences in yield were also dependent on species. These results suggest that to maximize fucoidan yield, one should tailor the extraction method to the specific algae species used, however, microwave assisted extraction (MAE) with 10 mM sulfuric acid proves a good general extraction method.