Search results for: concentration technique

Authors: Masoumeh Tabatabaee, Zahra Shahryarzadeh, Masoud R. Shishebor

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Advanced oxidation process (AOPs) is alternative method for the complete degradation many organic pollutants. When a photocatalyst absorbs radiation whose energy hν > Eg an ē from its filled valance band (VB) is promoted to its conduction band (CB) and valance band holes h+ are formed. Electron would reduce any available species, including O2, water and hydroxide ion to form hydroxyl radicals. ZnO and TiO2 are important photocatalysts with high catalytic activity that have attracted much research attention. TiO2 can only absorb a small portion of solar spectrum in the UV region and many methods such as dye sensitization, doping of other metals and using TiO2 with another semiconductor have been used to improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 under solar irradiation. Studies have shown that the use of metal oxides or sulfide such as WO3, MoO3, SiO2, MgO, ZnO, and CdS with TiO2 can significantly enhance the photocatalytic activity of TiO2. Due to similarity of photodegradation mechanism of ZnO with TiO2, it is a suitable semiconductor using with TiO2 and recently nanosized bicomponent TiO2-ZnO photocatalysts were prepared and used for degradation of some pollutants. In this study, Nano-sized ZnO/TiO2 composite was synthesized. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to characterize the structure and morphology of it. The effect of photocatalytic activity of prepared ZnO/TiO2 on the degradation of cyanide ion under UV was investigated. The effect of various parameters such as ZnO/TiO2 concentration, amount of photocatalyst, amount of H2O2, initial dye or cyanide ion concentration, pH and irradiation time on were investigated. Results show that more than 95% of 4 mgL-1 cyanide ion degraded after 60-min reaction time and under UV irradiation.

Keywords: photodegradation, ZnO/TiO2, nanoparticle, cyanide ion

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Authors: Abdurrahim Bolukbasi, Hassan Athari, Dogan Ciloglu

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The modeling lung respiratory system which has complex anatomy and biophysics presents several challenges including tissue-driven flow patterns and wall motion. Also, the lung pulmonary system because of that they stretch and recoil with each breath, has not static walls and structures. The direct relationship between air flow and tissue motion in the lung structures naturally prefers an FSI simulation technique. Therefore, in order to toward the realistic simulation of pulmonary breathing mechanics the development of a coupled FSI computational model is an important step. A simple but physiologically-relevant three dimensional deep long geometry is designed and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) coupling technique is utilized for simulating the deformation of the lung parenchyma tissue which produces airflow fields. The real understanding of respiratory tissue system as a complex phenomenon have been investigated with respect to respiratory patterns, fluid dynamics and tissue visco-elasticity and tidal breathing period.

Keywords: lung deformation and mechanics; Tissue mechanics; Viscoelasticity; Fluid-structure interactions; ANSYS

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Authors: Nazish Saleem Abbas, Muhammad Haris Jamil, Hamid Sharif

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Digital watermarking is a technique that allows an individual to add and hide secret information, copyright notice, or other verification message inside a digital audio, video, or image. Today, with the advancement of technology, modern healthcare systems manage patients’ diagnostic information in a digital way in many countries. When transmitted between hospitals through the internet, the medical data becomes vulnerable to attacks and requires security and confidentiality. Digital watermarking techniques are used in order to ensure the authenticity, security and management of medical images and related information. This paper proposes a watermarking technique that embeds a watermark in medical images imperceptibly and securely. In this work, digital watermarking on medical images is carried out using the Least Significant Bit (LSB) with the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). The proposed methods of embedding and extraction of a watermark in a watermarked image are performed in the frequency domain using LSB by XOR operation. The quality of the watermarked medical image is measured by the Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). It was observed that the watermarked medical image obtained performing XOR operation between DCT and LSB survived compression attack having a PSNR up to 38.98.

Keywords: watermarking, image processing, DCT, LSB, PSNR

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Authors: Lalnuntluanga Hmar, Hardik Vyas

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Hydraulic fracturing has become an essential procedure to break apart the rock and release the oil or gas which are trapped tightly in the rock by pumping fracturing fluids at high pressure down into the well. To open the fracture and to transport propping agent along the fracture, proper selection of fracturing fluids is the most crucial components in fracturing operations. Rheology properties of the fluids are usually considered the most important. Among various fracturing fluids, Borate crosslinked fluids have proved to be highly effective. Borate in the form of Boric Acid, borate ion is the most commonly use to crosslink the hydrated polymers and to produce very viscous gels that can stable at high temperature. Guar and HPG (Hydroxypropyl Guar) polymers are the most often used in these fluids. Borate gel rheology is known to be a function of polymer concentration, borate ion concentration, pH, and temperature. The crosslinking using Borate is a function of pH which means it can be formed or reversed simply by altering the pH of the fluid system. The fluid system was prepared by mixing base polymer with water at pH ranging between 8 to 11 and the optimum borate crosslinker efficiency was found to be pH of about 10. The rheology of laboratory prepared Borate crosslinked fracturing fluid was determined using Anton Paar Rheometer and Fann Viscometer. The viscosity was measured at high temperature ranging from 200ᵒF to 250ᵒF and pressures in order to partially stimulate the downhole condition. Rheological measurements reported that the crosslinking increases the viscosity, elasticity and thus fluid capability to transport propping agent.

Keywords: borate, crosslinker, Guar, Hydroxypropyl Guar (HPG), rheology

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Authors: Samantha Borja, Vladimir Valle, Pamela Molina

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The development of adhesives from renewable raw materials attracts the attention of the scientific community, due to it promises the reduction of the dependence with materials derived from oil. This work proposes the use of modified 'oca (Oxalis tuberosa)' starch and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in the elaboration of adhesives for lignocellulosic substrates. The investigation focused on the formulation of adhesives with 3 different PVA:starch (modified and native) ratios (of 1,0:0,33; 1,0:1,0; 1,0:1,67). The first step to perform it was the chemical modification of starch through acid hydrolysis and a subsequent urea treatment to get carbamate starch. Then, the adhesive obtained was characterized in terms of instantaneous viscosity, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and shear strength. The results showed that viscosity and mechanical tests exhibit data with the same tendency in relation to the native and modified starch concentration. It was observed that the data started to reduce its values to a certain concentration, where the values began to grow. On the other hand, two relevant bands were found in the FTIR spectrogram. The first in 3300 cm⁻¹ of OH group with the same intensity for all the essays and the other one in 2900 cm⁻¹, belonging to the group of alkanes with a different intensity for each adhesive. On the whole, the ratio PVA:starch (1:1) will not favor crosslinking in the adhesive structure and causes the viscosity reduction, whereas, in the others ones, the viscosity is higher. It was also observed that adhesives made with modified starch had better characteristics, but the adhesives with high concentrations of native starch could equal the properties of the adhesives made with low concentrations of modified starch.

Keywords: polyvinyl alcohol, PVA, chemical modification, starch, FTIR, viscosity, shear strength

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Authors: Ratna Dewi Kusumaningtyas, Riris Pristiyani, Heny Dewajani

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Biodiesel is commonly produced via the two main routes, i.e. the transesterification of triglycerides and the esterification of free fatty acid (FFA) using short-chain alcohols. Both the two routes have drawback in term of the side product yielded during the reaction. Transesterification reaction of triglyceride results in glycerol as side product. On the other hand, FFA esterification brings in water as side product. Both glycerol and water in the biodiesel production are managed as waste. Hence, a separation process is necessary to obtain a high purity biodiesel. Meanwhile, separation processes is generally the most capital and energy intensive part in industrial process. Therefore, to reduce the separation process, it is essential to produce biodiesel via an alternative route eliminating glycerol or water side-products. In this work, biodiesel synthesis was performed using a glycerol-free process through chemical interesterification of jatropha oil with ethyl acetate in the presence on sodium acetate catalyst. By using this method, triacetine, which is known as fuel bio-additive, is yielded instead of glycerol. This research studied the effects of catalyst concentration on the jatropha oil interesterification process in the range of 0.5 – 1.25% w/w oil. The reaction temperature and molar ratio of oil to ethyl acetate were varied at 50, 60, and 70°C, and 1:6, 1:9, 1:15, 1:30, and 1:60, respectively. The reaction time was evaluated from 0 to 8 hours. It was revealed that the best yield was obtained with the catalyst concentration of 0.5%, reaction temperature of 70 °C, molar ratio of oil to ethyl acetate at 1:60, at 6 hours reaction time.

Keywords: biodiesel, interesterification, glycerol-free, triacetine, jatropha oil

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Authors: Shayli Varasteh Moradi, Wayne A. Johnston, Dejan Gagoski, Kirill Alexandrov

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The demand for a rapid and more efficient technique to identify protein-protein interaction particularly in the areas of therapeutics and diagnostics development is growing. The method described here is a rapid in vitro protein-protein interaction analysis approach based on AlphaLISA technology combined with Leishmania tarentolae cell-free protein production (LTE) system. Cell-free protein synthesis allows the rapid production of recombinant proteins in a multiplexed format. Among available in vitro expression systems, LTE offers several advantages over other eukaryotic cell-free systems. It is based on a fast growing fermentable organism that is inexpensive in cultivation and lysate production. High integrity of proteins produced in this system and the ability to co-express multiple proteins makes it a desirable method for screening protein interactions. Following the translation of protein pairs in LTE system, the physical interaction between proteins of interests is analysed by AlphaLISA assay. The assay is performed using unpurified in vitro translation reaction and therefore can be readily multiplexed. This approach can be used in various research applications such as epitope mapping, antigen-antibody analysis and protein interaction network mapping. The intra-viral protein interaction network of Zika virus was studied using the developed technique. The viral proteins were co-expressed pair-wise in LTE and all possible interactions among viral proteins were tested using AlphaLISA. The assay resulted to the identification of 54 intra-viral protein-protein interactions from which 19 binary interactions were found to be novel. The presented technique provides a powerful tool for rapid analysis of protein-protein interaction with high sensitivity and throughput.

Keywords: AlphaLISA technology, cell-free protein expression, epitope mapping, Leishmania tarentolae, protein-protein interaction

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Authors: Chang Liu, Nuria Fiol, Isabel Villaescusa, Jordi Poch

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Over the last decades, biosorption has been an alternative to costly wastewaters treatment for metal removal. Most of the literature on metal biosorption was devoted to studying of single metal ions but nowadays studies on multi-components biosorption are booming. Hexavalent chromium is usually found in mixtures with divalent metal ions in industries wastewaters. However, studies on the simultaneous removal of Cr(VI) and divalent metals are hardly found and the cooperative or competitive mechanism governing each metal ions sorption is still unclear. In this work, simultaneous sorption of Cr(VI) and Cu(II) from their binary mixtures by using sweet potato vine (SPV) was investigated. Sweet potato is one of the four major grain crops in China. Each year about 2000 tons of SPV are generated as by-products. SPV could be a low-cost biosorbent for metal ions due to its rich in cellulose and lignin. In this work, the sorption of Cr(VI) and Cu(II) from their binary mixtures solutions was studied by using SPV sorbent. Equilibrium studies were carried out in binary mixtures in which Cr(VI) and Cu(II) concentration was both varied between 0.1 mM and 0.3 mM, Cr(VI) and Cu(II) single solutions were also prepared as comparison. All the experiments were performed at pH 3±0.05 under 30±2°C for 7 days to make sure sorption achieved equilibrium. Results showed that (i) chromium was partially (10.93%-42.04%) eliminated under studied conditions through reduction and sorption of hexavalent and trivalent forms. The presence of Cu(II) exerts a synergistic effect on the overall sorption process in all the cases of the 0.1-0.3 mM binary mixtures concentration range. (ii) Cr(VI) removal by SPV is favoured by the presence of Cu(II) in solution, because more protons needed for Cr(VI) reduction are available due to Cu(II)-proton competition; however sorption of the formed Cr(III) is unfavoured as a result of the competition between Cr(III) and Cu(II) for protons and sorbent active sites. (iii) Copper was partially (9.26%-13.91%) sorbed onto SPV under studied conditions. The presence of Cr(VI) in binary mixtures also exerts a synergistic effect on the Cu(II) removal in all the cases of the 0.1-0.3 mM binary mixtures concentration range. The results of the present work indicate that sweet potato vine can be successfully employed for the simultaneously removal of Cr(VI) and Cu(II) in binary mixtures, taking advantage of the synergistic effect provoked by one of the metal ion to each other, even though the acquisition of higher removal yields has to be further investigated. Acknowledgements—This work has been financially supported by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of PRC (Anhui15), Education Department of Anhui Province (KJ2016A270) and Anhui Normal University (2015rcpy33, 2014bsqdjj53).

Keywords: sweet potato vine, chromium reduction, divalent metal, synergistic sorption

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Authors: Anocha Kimkong

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This research paper, based on demographic variables, is aimed to study the behaviour of bookkeeping for household accounts of residents living in urban communities in Dusit District, Bangkok and to investigate factors that affected the behavior of bookkeeping. By use of non proportional stratified sampling technique of probability sampling, the research had a total of 247 samples. The systematic sampling technique was also utilized by selecting one household out of every 3 households. The demographic findings reported female respondents as the majority with an average age between 26-35 years old, having married status and having children. The respondents earn a living by selling, with an average income per month of between 5,001-15,000 Baht. Most of the families rent a house and each family have approximately 3-4 members. Furthermore, most of the household respondents used to be trained to do bookkeeping for household accounts. In addition, the factors in affecting the residents’ behaviour of doing household account bookkeeping included a dislike of numbers, inaccuracy of recording, availability of accounting counselors in the communities, people’s participation in trainings arranged by outside organizations.

Keywords: household account, bookkeeping, urban community, demographic variables

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Authors: Z. Mortezaie, H. Hassanpour, S. Asadi Amiri

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Captured images may suffer from Gaussian blur due to poor lens focus or camera motion. Unsharp masking is a simple and effective technique to boost the image contrast and to improve digital images suffering from Gaussian blur. The technique is based on sharpening object edges by appending the scaled high-frequency components of the image to the original. The quality of the enhanced image is highly dependent on the characteristics of both the high-frequency components and the scaling/gain factor. Since the quality of an image may not be the same throughout, we propose an adaptive unsharp masking method in this paper. In this method, the gain factor is computed, considering the gradient variations, for individual pixels of the image. Subjective and objective image quality assessments are used to compare the performance of the proposed method both with the classic and the recently developed unsharp masking methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a better performance in comparison to the other existing methods.

Keywords: unsharp masking, blur image, sub-region gradient, image enhancement

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Authors: Viviana Manzulli, Luigina Serrecchia, Adelia Donatiello, Valeria Rondinone, Sabine Zange, Alina Tscherne, Antonio Parisi, Antonio Fasanella

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Anthrax is a zoonotic disease that affects a wide range of animal species (primarily ruminant herbivores), and can be transmitted to humans through consumption or handling of contaminated animal products. The etiological agent B.anthracis is able to survive in unfavorable environmental conditions by forming endospore which remain viable in the soil for many decades. Furthermore, B.anthracis is considered as one of the most feared agents to be potentially misused as a biological weapon and the importance of the disease and its treatment in humans has been underscored before the bioterrorism events in the United States in 2001. Due to the often fatal outcome of human cases, antimicrobial susceptibility testing plays especially in the management of anthrax infections an important role. In Italy, animal anthrax is endemic (predominantly found in the southern regions and on islands) and is characterized by sporadic outbreaks occurring mainly during summer. Between 2012 and 2017 single human cases of cutaneous anthrax occurred. In this study, 90 diverse strains of B.anthracis, isolated in Italy from 2001 to 2017, were screened to their susceptibility to sixteen clinically relevant antimicrobial agents by using the broth microdilution method. B.anthracis strains selected for this study belong to the strain collection stored at the Anthrax Reference Institute of Italy located inside the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale of Puglia and Basilicata. The strains were isolated at different time points and places from various matrices (human, animal and environmental). All strains are a representative of over fifty distinct MLVA 31 genotypes. The following antibiotics were used for testing: gentamicin, ceftriaxone, streptomycin, penicillin G, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, vancomycin, linezolid, cefotaxime, tetracycline, erythromycin, rifampin, amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline and trimethoprim. A standard concentration of each antibiotic was prepared in a specific diluent, which were then twofold serial diluted. Therefore, each wells contained: bacterial suspension of 1–5x104 CFU/mL in Mueller-Hinton Broth (MHB), the antibiotic to be tested at known concentration and resazurin, an indicator of cell growth. After incubation overnight at 37°C, the wells were screened for color changes caused by the resazurin: a change from purple to pink/colorless indicated cell growth. The lowest concentration of antibiotic that prevented growth represented the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC). This study suggests that B.anthracis remains susceptible in vitro to many antibiotics, in addition to doxycycline (MICs ≤ 0,03 µg/ml), ciprofloxacin (MICs ≤ 0,03 µg/ml) and penicillin G (MICs ≤ 0,06 µg/ml), recommend by CDC for the treatment of human cases and for prophylactic use after exposure to the spores. In fact, the good activity of gentamicin (MICs ≤ 0,25 µg/ml), streptomycin (MICs ≤ 1 µg/ml), clindamycin (MICs ≤ 0,125 µg/ml), chloramphenicol(MICs ≤ 4 µg/ml), vancomycin (MICs ≤ 2 µg/ml), linezolid (MICs ≤ 2 µg/ml), tetracycline (MICs ≤ 0,125 µg/ml), erythromycin (MICs ≤ 0,25 µg/ml), rifampin (MICs ≤ 0,25 µg/ml), amoxicillin (MICs ≤ 0,06 µg/ml), towards all tested B.anthracis strains demonstrates an appropriate alternative choice for prophylaxis and/or treatment. All tested B.anthracis strains showed intermediate susceptibility to the cephalosporins (MICs ≥ 16 µg/ml) and resistance to trimethoprim (MICs ≥ 128 µg/ml).

Keywords: Bacillus anthracis, antibiotic susceptibility, treatment, minimum inhibitory concentration

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Authors: Jin Li, Jing Sun, Xiangkun Cai, Lijuanwang, Yanbin Tang, Junsheng Huo

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In order to improve the malnutrition of infants and young children in poor rural areas of China, Chinese government implement a project on improvement of children's nutrition in poor rural areas. Each infant or young child aged 6 to 23 months in selected poor rural areas of China was provided a package of Yingyangbao (YYB) per day, which is a full fat soy powder mixed with multiple micronutrient powders. A technical direction to implement this project comprehensively in poor rural areas of China will be provided by assessing the nutritional status of infants and feeding practices of caregiver. The nutritional intervention was conducted using Yingyangbao for infants aged 6 to 23 months in six poor counties of Shanxi, Yunnan and Hubei Provinces. The caregiver or parents of infants were educated on feeding knowledge and practice. A total of 1840 infants were assessed before the intervention and 1789 infants one year later. The length, weight, hemoglobin concentration of infants were measured to evaluate nutritional status before and after the intervention respectively. The questionnaires were designed to collect data for the basic demographic information and feeding practices. The average weight of infants aged 6 to 23 months increased from 9.59 ± 1.54kg to 9.73 ± 1.61kg one years later (p<0.01), and the average length from 76.0±6.0 to 77.0±6.1(p<0.01). The weight and length of infants aged 12 to 17 months had most obviously improving effect among the three age groups. Before the intervention, the hemoglobin concentration value of infants was 11.7±1.2g/L, and the anemia prevalence was 32.9%. One year later, the hemoglobin concentration value of the infants was increased to 12.0±1.1g/dL, and the anemia prevalence was decreased to 26.0%. There were both statistically significant (p <0.01). The anemia prevalence of infants aged 18 to 23 months had most obviously improving effect，which decreased from 25.0% to 17.2%(p<0.01). The proportion of infants aged 6 to 8 months who received solid, semi-solid or soft foods in time was increased from 89.4% to 91.6%, while there was no statistically significant. The proportion of 6-23 month-old infants who received minimum dietary diversity increased from 55.6% to 60.3%(p <0.01). The differences of the proportion of infants who received minimum meal frequency was no statistically significant between before and after the intervention. The nutritional intervention using Yingyangbao showed the significant effect for improving infants aged 6 to 23 months anemia status, weight and length. The feeding practices were improved through education in the process of nutritional intervention, while the effect is not significant. It is need for Chinese government to explore new publicity pattern.

Keywords: nutritional intervention, infants, nutritional status, feeding practice

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Authors: Antoine Villa, Moustapha Mohamedou, Florence Pilliere, Catherine Verdun-Esquer, Mathieu Molimard, Mohamed Sidatt Cheikh El Moustaph, Mireille Canal-Raffin

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Context: In Mauritania, the activity of the National Center of Oncology (NCO) has steadily risen leading to an increase in the handling of antineoplastic drugs (AD) by healthcare professionals. In this context, the AD contamination of those professionals is a major concern for occupational physicians. It has been evaluated using biological monitoring of occupational exposure (BMOE). Methods: The intervention took place in 2015, in 2 care units, and evaluated nurses preparing and/or infusing AD and agents in charge of hygiene. Participants provided a single urine sample, at the end of the week, at the end of their shift. Five molecules were sought using specific high sensitivity methods (UHPLC-MS/MS) with very low limits of quantification (LOQ) (cyclophosphamide (CP), Ifosfamide (IF), methotrexate (MTX): 2.5ng/L; doxorubicin (Doxo): 10ng/L; α-fluoro-β-alanine (FBAL, 5-FU metabolite): 20ng/L). A healthcare worker was considered as 'contaminated' when an AD was detected at a urine concentration equal to or greater than the LOQ of the analytical method or at trace concentration. Results: Twelve persons participated (6 nurses, 6 agents in charge of hygiene). Twelve urine samples were collected and analyzed. The percentage of contamination was 66.6% for all participants (n=8/12), 100% for nurses (6/6) and 33% for agents in charge of hygiene (2/6). In 62.5% (n=5/8) of the contaminated workers, two to four of the AD were detected in the urine. CP was found in the urine of all contaminated workers. FBAL was found in four, MTX in three and Doxo in one. Only IF was not detected. Urinary concentrations (all drugs combined) ranged from 3 to 844 ng/L for nurses and from 3 to 44 ng/L for agents in charge of hygiene. The median urinary concentrations were 87 ng/L, 15.1 ng/L and 4.4 ng/L for FBAL, CP and MTX, respectively. The Doxo urinary concentration was found 218ng/L. Discussion: There is no current biological exposure index for the interpretation of AD contamination. The contamination of these healthcare professionals is therefore established by the detection of one or more AD in urine. These urinary contaminations are higher than the LOQ of the analytical methods, which must be as low as possible. Given the danger of AD, the implementation of corrective measures is essential for the staff. Biological monitoring of occupational exposure is the most reliable process to identify groups at risk, tracing insufficiently controlled exposures and as an alarm signal. These results show the necessity to educate professionals about the risks of handling AD and/or to care for treated patients.

Keywords: antineoplastic drugs, Mauritania, biological monitoring of occupational exposure, contamination

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Authors: Muhammad Tufail, Jawad Hussain, Hammad Hussain, Imran Hafeez, Naveed Ahmad

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Road safety performance index is a composite index which combines various indicators of road safety into single number. Development of a road safety performance index using appropriate safety performance indicators is essential to enhance road safety. However, a road safety performance index in developing countries has not been given as much priority as needed. The primary objective of this research is to develop a general Road Safety Performance Index (RSPI) for developing countries based on the facility as well as behavior of road user. The secondary objectives include finding the critical inputs in the RSPI and finding the better method of making the index. In this study, the RSPI is developed by selecting four main safety performance indicators i.e., protective system (seat belt, helmet etc.), road (road width, signalized intersections, number of lanes, speed limit), number of pedestrians, and number of vehicles. Data on these four safety performance indicators were collected using observation survey on a 20 km road section of the National Highway N-125 road Taxila, Pakistan. For the development of this composite index, two methods are used: a) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and b) Equal Weighting (EW) method. PCA is used for extraction, weighting, and linear aggregation of indicators to obtain a single value. An individual index score was calculated for each road section by multiplication of weights and standardized values of each safety performance indicator. However, Simple Average technique was used for weighting and linear aggregation of indicators to develop a RSPI. The road sections are ranked according to RSPI scores using both methods. The two weighting methods are compared, and the PCA method is found to be much more reliable than the Simple Average Technique.

Keywords: indicators, aggregation, principle component analysis, weighting, index score

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Authors: Yan-Wen Wang, Chu-Yang Chou, Jen-Cheng Wang, Min-Sheng Liao, Hsuan-Hsiang Hsu, Cheng-Ying Chou, Chen-Kang Huang, Kun-Chang Kuo, Joe-Air Jiang

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Performance-related parameters of high concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) modules (e.g. current and voltage) are required when estimating the maximum power point using numerical and approximation methods. The maximum power point on the characteristic curve for a photovoltaic module varies when temperature or solar radiation is different. It is also difficult to estimate the output performance and maximum power point (MPP) due to the special characteristics of HCPV modules. Based on the p-n junction semiconductor theory, a brand new and simple method is presented in this study to directly evaluate the MPP of HCPV modules. The MPP of HCPV modules can be determined from an irradiated I-V characteristic curve, because there is a non-linear relationship between the temperature of a solar cell and solar radiation. Numerical simulations and field tests are conducted to examine the characteristics of HCPV modules during maximum output power tracking. The performance of the presented method is evaluated by examining the dependence of temperature and irradiation intensity on the MPP characteristics of HCPV modules. These results show that the presented method allows HCPV modules to achieve their maximum power and perform power tracking under various operation conditions. A 0.1% error is found between the estimated and the real maximum power point.

Keywords: energy performance, high concentrated photovoltaic, maximum power point, p-n junction semiconductor

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Authors: Natalia A. Salazar, Erika K. Méndez, Catalina Álvarez, Carlos E. Orrego

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Lyophilization, also called freeze-drying, is an important dehydration technique mainly used for pharmaceuticals. Food industry also uses lyophilization when it is important to retain most of the nutritional quality, taste, shape and size of dried products and to extend their shelf life. Vacuum-Induced during freezing cycle (VI) has been used in order to control ice nucleation and, consequently, to reduce the time of primary drying cycle of pharmaceuticals preserving quality properties of the final product. This procedure has not been applied in freeze drying of foods. The present work aims to investigate the effect of VI on the lyophilization drying time, final moisture content, density and reconstitutional properties of mango (Mangifera indica L.) slices (MS) and mango pulp-maltodextrin dispersions (MPM) (30% concentration of total solids). Control samples were run at each freezing rate without using induced vacuum. The lyophilization endpoint was the same for all treatments (constant difference between capacitance and Pirani vacuum gauges). From the experimental results it can be concluded that at the high freezing rate (0.4°C/min) reduced the overall process time up to 30% comparing process time required for the control and VI of the lower freeze rate (0.1°C/min) without affecting the quality characteristics of the dried product, which yields a reduction in costs and energy consumption for MS and MPM freeze drying. Controls and samples treated with VI at freezing rate of 0.4°C/min in MS showed similar results in moisture and density parameters. Furthermore, results from MPM dispersion showed favorable values when VI was applied because dried product with low moisture content and low density was obtained at shorter process time compared with the control. There were not found significant differences between reconstitutional properties (rehydration for MS and solubility for MPM) of freeze dried mango resulting from controls, and VI treatments.

Keywords: drying time, lyophilization, mango, vacuum induced freezing

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Authors: M. A. Kassim, R. Potumarthi, A. Tanksale, S. C. Srivatsa, S. Bhattacharya

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Enzymatic saccharification of biomass for reducing sugar production is one of the crucial processes in biofuel production through biochemical conversion. In this study, enzymatic saccharification of dilute potassium hydroxide (KOH) pre-treated Tetraselmis suecica biomass was carried out by using cellulase enzyme obtained from Trichoderma longibrachiatum. Initially, the pre-treatment conditions were optimised by changing alkali reagent concentration, retention time for reaction, and temperature. The T. suecica biomass after pre-treatment was also characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectra and Scanning Electron Microscope. These analyses revealed that the functional group such as acetyl and hydroxyl groups, structure and surface of T. suecica biomass were changed through pre-treatment, which is favourable for enzymatic saccharification process. Comparison of enzymatic saccharification of untreated and pre-treated microalgal biomass indicated that higher level of reducing sugar can be obtained from pre-treated T. suecica. Enzymatic saccharification of pre-treated T. suecica biomass was optimised by changing temperature, pH, and enzyme concentration to solid ratio ([E]/[S]). Highest conversion of carbohydrate into reducing sugar of 95% amounted to reducing sugar yield of 20 (wt%) from pre-treated T. suecica was obtained from saccharification, at temperature: 40°C, pH: 4.5 and [E]/[S] of 0.1 after 72 h of incubation. Hydrolysate obtained from enzymatic saccharification of pretreated T. suecica biomass was further fermented into biobutanol using Clostridium saccharoperbutyliticum as biocatalyst. The results from this study demonstrate a positive prospect of application of dilute alkaline pre-treatment to enhance enzymatic saccharification and biobutanol production from microalgal biomass.

Keywords: microalgal biomass, enzymatic saccharification, biobutanol, fermentation

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Authors: Muhammad Mohsin, Mir Md Abdus Salam, Pertti Pulkkinen, Ari Pappinen

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Soil polluted with elevated level of nickel (Ni) concentration may cause severe hazards to humans and forest ecosystems, for example, by polluting underground water reserves, affecting food quality and by reducing agricultural productivity. The present study investigated the phytoextraction ability of Salix schwerinii, enhanced with an application of the N100 (11-amino-1-hydroxyundecylidene) chelate. N100 has proved to be a non-toxic, low risk of leaching, environmentally friendly and easily biodegradable chelate that has a potential for metal chelation. The Salix were grown in garden soil that was also amended with nickel (Ni; 150 mg kg⁻¹). Multiple doses of N100 were applied to the treatments as follows: Ni + N100 1.2 g and Ni+ N100 2.4 g. Furthermore, N100 doses were also repeated with the control soil. The effect of N100 on height growth, biomass, and the accumulation of Ni in Salix in polluted soils was studied. In this study, N100 application was found to be effective in enhancing height and biomass growth under polluted treatments. Total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectrometry was used to determine the concentration of Ni in the Salix tissues. The total Ni concentrations in the soils amended with N100 increased substantially by up to 324% as compared to the control. The Ni translocation factor (TF) and bioconcentration factor (BF) values for S. schwerinii increased with the application of N100 as varied from 0.45–1.25 and 0.80‒1.50, respectively. This study revealed that S. schwerinii is suitable for the phytoextraction of Ni-contaminated soils.

Keywords: bisphosphonic acid, nickel, phytoextraction, Salix

Procedia PDF Downloads 154

Authors: Kumaresh Selvakumar, Man Young Kim

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A wet scrubber is an air pollution control device that removes particulate matter and acid gases from waste gas streams found in marine engine exhaust. If the flue gases in the exhaust is employed for CFD simulation, it makes the problem complicate due to the involvement of emissions. Owing to the fact, the scrubber system in this paper is handled with appropriate approach by designing with the flow properties of hot air and water droplet injections to evaluate the flow behavior inside the system. Since the wet scrubber has the capability of operating over wide range of mixture compositions, the current scrubber model with the designing approach doesn’t deviate from the actual behavior of the system. The scrubber design is constructed with engine exhaust pipe with the purpose of measuring the flow properties inside the scrubber by the influence of exhaust pipe characteristics. The flow properties are computed by the thermodynamic variables such as temperature and pressure with the flow velocity. In this work, numerical analyses have been conducted for the flow of fluid in the scrubber system through CFD technique.

Keywords: wet scrubber, water droplet injections, thermodynamic variables, CFD technique

Procedia PDF Downloads 345

Authors: Angel Fabian Mijangos, Jaime Alvarez Quintana

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Waste heat occurs in many areas of daily life because world’s energy consumption is inefficient. In general, generating 1 watt of power requires about 3 watt of energy input and involves dumping into the environment the equivalent of about 2 watts of power in the form of heat. Therefore, an attractive and sustainable solution to the energy problem would be the development of highly efficient thermoelectric devices which could help to recover this waste heat. This work presents the influence on the thermoelectric properties of metallic, semiconducting, and dielectric nanoparticles added into the grain boundaries of polycrystalline antimony (Sb) and bismuth (Bi) matrixes in order to obtain p- and n-type thermoelectric materials, respectively, by hot pressing methods. Results show that thermoelectric properties are significantly affected by the electrical and thermal nature as well as concentration of nanoparticles. Nevertheless, by optimizing the amount of the nanoparticles on the grain boundaries, an oscillatory behavior in ZT as function of the concentration of the nanoscale constituents is present. This effect is due to energy filtering mechanism which module the quantity of charge transport in the system and affects thermoelectric properties. Accordingly, a ZTmax can be accomplished through the addition of the appropriate amount of nanoparticles into the grain boundaries region. In this case, till three orders of amelioration on ZT is reached in both systems compared with the reference sample of each one. This approach paves the way to pursuit high performance thermoelectric materials in a simple way and opens a new route towards the enhancement of the thermoelectric figure of merit.

Keywords: energy filtering, grain boundaries, thermoelectric, nanostructured materials

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Worawanna Panyakotkaew, Falan Srisuriyachai

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Cyclic steam injection (CSI) is a thermal recovery technique performed by injecting periodically heated steam into heavy oil reservoir. Oil viscosity is substantially reduced by means of heat transferred from steam. Together with gas pressurization, oil recovery is greatly improved. Nevertheless, prediction of effectiveness of the process is difficult when reservoir contains degree of heterogeneity. Therefore, study of heterogeneity together with interest reservoir properties must be evaluated prior to field implementation. In this study, thermal reservoir simulation program is utilized. Reservoir model is firstly constructed as multi-layered with coarsening upward sequence. The highest permeability is located on top layer with descending of permeability values in lower layers. Steam is injected from two wells located diagonally in quarter five-spot pattern. Heavy oil is produced by adjusting operating parameters including soaking period and steam quality. After selecting the best conditions for both parameters yielding the highest oil recovery, effects of degree of heterogeneity (represented by Lorenz coefficient), vertical permeability and permeability sequence are evaluated. Surprisingly, simulation results show that reservoir heterogeneity yields benefits on CSI technique. Increasing of reservoir heterogeneity impoverishes permeability distribution. High permeability contrast results in steam intruding in upper layers. Once temperature is cool down during back flow period, condense water percolates downward, resulting in high oil saturation on top layers. Gas saturation appears on top after while, causing better propagation of steam in the following cycle due to high compressibility of gas. Large steam chamber therefore covers most of the area in upper zone. Oil recovery reaches approximately 60% which is of about 20% higher than case of heterogeneous reservoir. Vertical permeability exhibits benefits on CSI. Expansion of steam chamber occurs within shorter time from upper to lower zone. For fining upward permeability sequence where permeability values are reversed from the previous case, steam does not override to top layers due to low permeability. Propagation of steam chamber occurs in middle of reservoir where permeability is high enough. Rate of oil recovery is slower compared to coarsening upward case due to lower permeability at the location where propagation of steam chamber occurs. Even CSI technique produces oil quite slowly in early cycles, once steam chamber is formed deep in the reservoir, heat is delivered to formation quickly in latter cycles. Since reservoir heterogeneity is unavoidable, a thorough understanding of its effect must be considered. This study shows that CSI technique might be one of the compatible solutions for highly heterogeneous reservoir. This competitive technique also shows benefit in terms of heat consumption as steam is injected periodically.

Keywords: cyclic steam injection, heterogeneity, reservoir simulation, thermal recovery

Procedia PDF Downloads 459

Authors: Sontana Mimapan, Phattarawadee Wattanasuntorn, Phanom Saijit

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Aflatoxin contamination in maize, one of several agriculture crops grown for livestock feeding, is still a problem throughout the world mainly under hot and humid weather conditions like Thailand. In this study Aspergillus flavus (A. Flavus), the key fungus for aflatoxin production especially aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), isolated from naturally infected maize were identified and characterized according to colony morphology and PCR using ITS, Beta-tubulin and calmodulin genes. The strains were analysed for the presence of four aflatoxigenic biosynthesis genes in relation to their capability to produce AFB1, Ver1, Omt1, Nor1, and aflR. Aflatoxin production was then confirmed using immunoaffinity column technique. A loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) was applied as an innovative technique for rapid detection of target nucleic acid. The reaction condition was optimized at 65C for 60 min. and calcein flurescent reagent was added before amplification. The LAMP results showed clear differences between positive and negative reactions in end point analysis under daylight and UV light by the naked eye. In daylight, the samples with AFB1 producing A. Flavus genes developed a yellow to green color, but those without the genes retained the orange color. When excited with UV light, the positive samples become visible by bright green fluorescence. LAMP reactions were positive after addition of purified target DNA until dilutions of 10⁻⁶. The reaction products were then confirmed and visualized with 1% agarose gel electrophoresis. In this regards, 50 maize samples were collected from dairy farms and tested for the presence of four aflatoxigenic biosynthesis genes using LAMP technique. The results were positive in 18 samples (36%) but negative in 32 samples (64%). All of the samples were rechecked by PCR and the results were the same as LAMP, indicating 100% specificity. Additionally, when compared with the immunoaffinity column-based aflatoxin analysis, there was a significant correlation between LAMP results and aflatoxin analysis (r= 0.83, P < 0.05) which suggested that positive maize samples were likely to be a high- risk feed. In conclusion, the LAMP developed in this study can provide a simple and rapid approach for detecting AFB1 producing A. Flavus genes from maize and appeared to be a promising tool for the prediction of potential aflatoxigenic risk in livestock feedings.

Keywords: Aflatoxin B1, Aspergillus flavus genes, maize, loop-mediated isothermal amplification

Procedia PDF Downloads 240

Authors: Aliaa M. Issa, Mahmoud N. ElRouby, Sahar A. S. Ahmad, Mahmoud M. El-Merzabani

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Sider honey is a type of honey produced by bees feeding on the nectar of Sider tree, Ziziphus spina-christi (L) Desf . Honey is an effective agent for preventing, inhibiting and treating the growth of human and animal cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of different dilutions from crude Sider honey and different duration times of exposure on the growth of six tumor cell lines (human cervical cancer cell line, HeLa; human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, HepG-2; human larynx carcinoma cell line, Hep-2; brain tumor cell line, U251) as well as one animal cancerous cell line (Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells line, EAC) and one normal cell line, Homo sapiens, human, (WISH) CCL-25. Different concentrations and treatment durations with Sider honey were tested on the growth of several cancer cell lines types. Histopathological changes in the tumor masses, animal survival, apoptosis and necrosis of the used cancer cell lines (using flow cytometry) were evaluated. Sider honey was administers either to the tumor mass itself by intratumoral injection or via drinking water. One-way ANOVA test was used for the analysis of (the means + standard error) of the optical density obtained from the Elisa reader and flow cytometry. The study revealed that different concentrations of Sider honey affected the growth patterns of all the studied cancer cell lines as well as their histopathological changes, and it depended on the cell line nature and the concentration of honey used. It is obvious that the relative animal survival percentage (bearing Ehrlich ascites carcinoma, EAC cells) was proportionally increased with the increase in the used honey concentrations. The study of apoptosis and necrosis using the flow cytometry technique emphasized the viability results. In conclusion, Sider honey was effective as antitumor agent, in the used concentrations.

Keywords: antitumor, honey, sider, tumor cell lines

Procedia PDF Downloads 537

Authors: Anjali Singh, Ashwani Raju, Vandana Devi, Mohmad Mohsin Atique, Satyendra Singh, Munendra Singh

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India is the biggest consumer of mercury and, consequently, a major emitter too. The increasing mercury contamination in India’s water resources has gained widespread attention and, therefore, atmospheric deposition is of critical concern. However, little emphasis was placed on the role of precipitation in the aquatic mercury cycle of the Ganga Alluvial Plain which provides drinking water to nearly 7% of the world’s human population. A majority of the precipitation here occurs primarily in 10% duration of the year in the monsoon season. To evaluate the sources and transportation of mercury, water sample analysis has been conducted from two selected sites near Lucknow, which have a strong hydraulic gradient towards the river. 31 groundwater samples from Jehta village (26°55’15’’N; 80°50’21’’E; 119 m above mean sea level) and 31 river water samples from the Behta Nadi (a tributary of the Gomati River draining into the Ganga River) were collected during the monsoon season on every alternate day between 01 July to 30 August 2019. The total mercury analysis was performed by using Flow Injection Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS)-Mercury Hybride System, and daily rainfall data was collected from the India Meteorological Department, Amausi, Lucknow. The ambient groundwater and river-water concentrations were both 2-4 ng/L as there is no known geogenic source of mercury found in the area. Before the onset of the monsoon season, the groundwater and the river-water recorded mercury concentrations two orders of magnitude higher than the ambient concentrations, indicating the regional transportation of the mercury from the non-point source into the aquatic environment. Maximum mercury concentrations in groundwater and river-water were three orders of magnitude higher than the ambient concentrations after the onset of the monsoon season characterizing the considerable mobilization and redistribution of mercury by monsoonal precipitation. About 50% of both of the water samples were reported mercury below the detection limit, which can be mostly linked to the low intensity of precipitation in August and also with the dilution factor by precipitation. The highest concentration ( > 1200 ng/L) of mercury in groundwater was reported after 6-days lag from the first precipitation peak. Two high concentration peaks (>1000 ng/L) in river-water were separately correlated with the surface flow and groundwater outflow of mercury. We attribute the elevated mercury concentration in both of the water samples before the precipitation event to mercury originating from the extensive use of agrochemicals in mango farming in the plain. However, the elevated mercury concentration during the onset of monsoon appears to increase in area wetted with atmospherically deposited mercury, which migrated down from surface water to groundwater as downslope migration is a fundamental mechanism seen in rivers of the alluvial plain. The present study underscores the significance of monsoonal precipitation in the transportation of mercury to drinking water resources of the Ganga Alluvial Plain. This study also suggests that future research must be pursued for a better understand of the human health impact of mercury contamination and for quantification of the role of Ganga Alluvial Plain in the Global Mercury Cycle.

Keywords: drinking water resources, Ganga alluvial plain, india, mercury

Procedia PDF Downloads 145

Authors: Brahim Brahmi, Mohammed Hamza Laraki, Mohammad Habibur Rahman, Islam M. Rasedul, M. Assad Uz-Zaman

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The humanoid robot, specifically the NAO robot must be able to provide a highly dynamic performance on the soccer field. Maintaining the balance of the humanoid robot during the required motion is considered as one of a challenging problems especially when the robot is subject to external disturbances, as contact with other robots. In this paper, a dynamic controller is proposed in order to ensure a robust walking (stabilization) and to improve the dynamic balance of the robot during its contact with the environment (external disturbances). The generation of the trajectory of the center of mass (CoM) is done by a model predictive controller (MPC) conjoined with zero moment point (ZMP) technique. Taking into account the properties of the rotational dynamics of the whole-body system, a modified previous control mixed with feedback control is employed to manage the angular momentum and the CoM’s acceleration, respectively. This latter is dedicated to provide a robust gait of the robot in the presence of the external disturbances. Simulation results are presented to show the feasibility of the proposed strategy.

Keywords: preview control, Nao robot, model predictive control

Procedia PDF Downloads 128

Authors: N. S. Risqina, G. Edijanti, P. S. Nurita, L. Endang, R. A. Siti, R. Tri

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Skin is an important and vital organs and also as a mirror of health and life. Facial skin care is one of the main emphasis to get the beautiful, healthy, and fresh skin. Potentially antioxidant phenolic compounds shows, antimutagen, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer. Flavonoids are a group of polyphenolic compounds that have the nature of free radicals, inhibiting the oxidative and hydrolytic enzymes as well as anti-inflammatory. Bitter melon (Momordica charantia Linn) is a plant that contains flavonoids, and phenolic antioxidant activity. Bitter melon has strong antioxidant activity that can counteract the free radicals.These compounds can prevent free radicals that cause premature aging. Gel masks including depth cleansing is the cosmetics which work in depth and could raise the dead skin cells. Measurement of antioxidant activity of the extract and gel mask is done by using the immersion method of DPPH. IC50 value of ethanol extract of bitter melon fruit of 287.932 ppm. The preparation of gel mask bitter melon fruit extract, necessary to test the effectiveness of antioxidants using DPPH method is done by measuring the inhibition of DPPH and using UV spectrophotometer at the wavelength of maximum DPPH solution. Tests conducted at the beginning and end of the evaluation (day 0 and day 28). The purpose of this study is to determine the antioxidant activity of the bitter melon's extract and to determine the antioxidant activity of ethanol extract gel mask pare in varying concentrations, ie 1xIC100 (0.295%), 2xIC100 (0.590%) and 4xIC100 (1.180%). Evaluation of physical properties of the preparation on (Day-0,7,14,21, and 28) and evaluation of antioxidant activity (day 0 and 28). Data were analyzed using One Way ANOVA to determine differences in the physical properties of each formula. The statistical results showed that differences in the formula and storage time affects the adhesion, dispersive power, dry time and pH it is shown on a significant value of p <0.05, but longer storage does not affect the pH because the significance value p> 0,05. The antioxidant test showed that there are differences in antioxidant activity in all formulas. Measurement of antioxidant activity of bitter melon fruit extract gel mask on day 0 with a concentration of 0.295%, 0.590%, and 1.180%, respectively, are 124,209.277 ppm, ppm 83819.223 and 47323.592 ppm, whereas day 28 consecutive 130 411, 495 ppm, and 53239.806 95561.645 ppm ppm. The Conclusions drawn that there are antioxidant activity in preparation gel mask of bitter melon fruit extract. The antioxidant activity of bitter melon fruit extract gel mask on the day 0 with a concentration of 0.295%, 0.590%, and 1.180%, respectively, are 124,209.277 ppm, ppm 83819.223 and 47323.592 ppm, whereas on day 28 of antioxidant activity gel mask bitter melon fruit extract with a concentration of 0.295%, 0.590%, and 1.180% in succession, namely: 130,411.495 ppm, ppm 95561.645 and 53239.806 ppm.

Keywords: antioxdant, bitter melon, gel mask, IC50

Procedia PDF Downloads 470

Authors: Medina O. Kadiri, John E. Gabriel

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Heavy metals are metallic elements with a relatively high density, at least five times greater compared to water. The sources of heavy metal pollution in the environment include industrial, medical, agricultural, pharmaceutical, domestic effluents, and atmospheric sources, mining, foundries, smelting, and any heavy metal-based operation. Although some heavy metals in trace quantities are required for biological metabolism, their higher concentrations elicit toxicities. Others are distinctly toxic and are of no biological functions. Microalgae are the primary producers of aquatic ecosystems and, therefore, the foundation of the aquatic food chain. A study investigating the effects of copper and zinc on the two chlorophytes-Chlorella vulgaris and Dictyosphaerium pulchellum was done in the laboratory, under different concentrations of 0mg/l, 2mg/l, 4mg/l, 6mg/l, 8mg/l, 10mg/l, and 20mg/l. The growth of the test microalgae was determined every two days for 14 days. The results showed that the effects of the test heavy metals were concentration-dependent. From the two microalgae species tested, Chlorella vulgaris showed appreciable growth up to 8mg/l concentration of zinc. Dictyoshphaerium pulchellum had only minimal growth at different copper concentrations except for 2mg/l, which seemed to have relatively higher growth. The growth of the control was remarkably higher than in other concentrations. Generally, the growth of both test algae was consistently inhibited by heavy metals. Comparatively, copper generally inhibited the growth of both algae than zinc. Chlorella vulgaris can be used for bioremediation of high concentrations of zinc. The potential of many microalgae in heavy metal bioremediation can be explored.

Keywords: heavy metals, green algae, microalgae, pollution

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Roya Razavizadeh, Razieh Soltaninejad, Hakimeh Oloumi

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Glycyrrhiza glabra L. (Licorice) is one of the oldest medicinal plants in Iran and secondary metabolites present in the plant root is used in food and pharmaceutical industries. With the use of heavy metals as elicitors, plant secondary metabolite production can be increased. In this study, the effects of the concentrations of 1 and 10 μM of zinc oxide and copper oxide on the contents of reducing sugars (as precursor of secondary metabolites), proline, glycyrrhizin, total phenolic compounds, flavonoids and anthocyanin in Glycyrrhiza glabra seedlings were investigated. Also, the correlation between the content of these metabolites in the treated seedlings was examined using Pearson's test. The amount of reducing sugars at concentration of 10 μM zinc oxide was decreased. Whereas, the amounts of proline and glycyrrhizin under treatment 1 and 10 μM copper oxide and 1 μM zinc oxide compared with the control plants was increased. The content of total phenolic compounds was increased with increasing concentrations of copper oxide. The highest amount of flavonoids was observed at concentrations of 1 and 10 μM copper oxide. Anthocyanin content was increased in concentration of 1 μM copper oxide. Also, the tannin content of the Glycyrrhiza glabra seedlings at concentrations of 10 μM zinc oxide was increased. Based on the result it seemed that at concentrations of 1 and 10 μM copper oxide the amount of glycyrrhizin, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, anthocyanins were significantly increased, whereas, zinc oxide had no significant impact on the levels of these metabolites.

Keywords: zinc oxide, copper oxide, phenolic compounds, licorice (glycyrrhiza glabra L.), glycyrrhizin

Procedia PDF Downloads 470

Authors: Lina Lauciene, Vaida Andruleviciute, Ingrida Sinkeviciene, Mindaugas Malakauskas, Loreta Serniene

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Dairy product manufacturers constantly are looking for new markets for their production. And in most cases, the problem of product compliance with the composition requirements of foreign products is highlighted. This is especially true of the composition of milk fat in dairy products. It is well known that there are many factors such as feeding ratio, season, cow breed, stage of lactation that affect the fatty acid composition in milk. However, there is less evidence on the impact of the technological process on the composition of fatty acids in raw milk and products made from it. In this study the influence of the technological process on fat composition in 82% fat butter, 15% fat curd, 3.6% fat yogurt and 2.5% fat UHT milk was determined. The samples were collected at each stage of production, starting with raw milk and ending with the final product in the Lithuanian milk-processing company. Fatty acids methyl esters were quantified using a GC (Clarus 680, Perkin Elmer) equipped with flame ionization detector (FID) and a capillary column SP-2560, 100 m x 0.25 mm id x 0.20 µm. Fatty acids peaks were identified using Supelco® 37 Component FAME Mix. The concentration of each fatty acid was expressed in percent of the total fatty acid amount. In the case of UHT milk production, it was compared raw milk, cream, milk mixture, and UHT milk but significant differences were not estimated between these stages. Analyzing stages of the yogurt production (raw milk, pasteurized milk, and milk with a starter culture and yogurt), no significant changes were detected between stages as well. A slight difference was observed with C4:0 - a percentage of this fatty acid was less (p=0.053) in the final stage than in milk with the starter culture. During butter production, the composition of fatty acids in raw cream, buttermilk, and butter did not change significantly. Only C14:0 decreased in the butter then compared to buttermilk. The curd fatty acid analysis showed the increase of C6:0, C8:0, C10:0, C11:0, C12:0 C14:0 and C17:0 at the final stage when compared to raw milk, cream, milk mixture, and whey. Meantime the increase of C18:1n9c (in comparison with milk mixture and curd) and C18:2n6c (in comparison with raw milk, milk mixture, and curd) was estimated in cream. The results of this study suggest that the technological process did not affect the composition of fatty acids in UHT milk, yogurt, butter, and curd but had the impact on the concentration of individual fatty acids. In general, all of the fatty acids from the raw milk were converted into the final product, only some of them slightly changed the concentration. Therefore, in order to ensure an appropriate composition of certain fatty acids in the final product, producers must carefully choose the raw milk. Acknowledgment: This research was funded by Lithuanian Ministry of Agriculture (No. MT-17-13).

Keywords: dairy products, fat composition, fatty acids, technological process

Procedia PDF Downloads 172

Authors: Madhu Aneja, Sapna Sharma

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The water-based bioconvection of a nanofluid containing motile gyrotactic micro-organisms over nonlinear inclined stretching sheet has been investigated. The governing nonlinear boundary layer equations of the model are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations via Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation and similarity transformations. Further, the modified set of equations with associated boundary conditions are solved using Finite Element Method. The impact of various pertinent parameters on the velocity, temperature, nanoparticles concentration, density of motile micro-organisms profiles are obtained and analyzed in details. The results show that with the increase in angle of inclination δ, velocity decreases while temperature, nanoparticles concentration, a density of motile micro-organisms increases. Additionally, the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number, Sherwood number, density number are computed for various thermophysical parameters. It is noticed that increasing Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter leads to an increase in temperature of fluid which results in a reduction in Nusselt number. On the contrary, Sherwood number rises with an increase in Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter. The findings have been validated by comparing the results of special cases with existing studies.

Keywords: bioconvection, finite element method, gyrotactic micro-organisms, inclined stretching sheet, nanofluid

Procedia PDF Downloads 189