Sepsis as the primary admitting diagnosis of transferred patients who died within 48 hours of arrival at a Central Texas hospital.

Interhospital transfers are independently associated with inpatient mortality, and transferred patients have worse outcomes. The aim of this study was to retrospectively assess the 48-hour mortality rate in interhospital transfer cohorts of all transfers to a Central Texas teaching hospital and to identify a primary admitting diagnosis for potential intervention. A total of 15,435 patients with 19,161 transfers over the course of the study were retrospectively reviewed and placed in 18 different categories based upon the primary admitting diagnosis.

Updates on softwood-to-ethanol process development.

Softwoods are generally considered to be one of the most difficult lignocellulosic feedstocks to hydrolyze to sugars for fermentation, primarily owing to the nature and amount of lignin. If the inhibitory effect of lignin can be significantly reduced, softwoods may become a more useful feedstock for the bioconversion processes. Moreover, strategies developed to reduce problems with softwood lignin may also provide a means to enhance the processing of other lignocellulosic substrates.

Bioconversion of hybrid poplar to ethanol and co-products using an organosolv fractionation process: optimization of process yields.

An organosolv process involving extraction with hot aqueous ethanol has been evaluated for bioconversion of hybrid poplar to ethanol. The process resulted in fractionation of poplar chips into a cellulose-rich solids fraction, an ethanol organosolv lignin (EOL) fraction, and a water-soluble fraction containing hemicellulosic sugars, sugar breakdown products, degraded lignin, and other components. The influence of four independent process variables (temperature, time, catalyst dose, and ethanol concentration) on product yields was analyzed over a broad range using a small composite design and response surface methodology.

The lignol approach to biorefining of woody biomass to produce ethanol and chemicals.

Processes that produce only ethanol from lignocellulosics display poor economics. This is generally overcome by constructing large facilities having satisfactory economies of scale, thus making financing onerous and hindering the development of suitable technologies. Lignol Innovations has developed a biorefining technology that employs an ethanol-based organosolv step to separate lignin, hemicellulose components, and extractives from the cellulosic fraction of woody biomass.

Biorefining of softwoods using ethanol organosolv pulping: preliminary evaluation of process streams for manufacture of fuel-grade ethanol and co-products.

Pulps with residual lignin ranging from 6.4-27.4% (w/w) were prepared from mixed softwoods using a proprietary biorefining technology (the Lignol process) based on aqueous ethanol organosolv extraction.