Combined permeable pavement and photocatalytic titanium dioxide oxidation system for urban run‐off treatment and disinfection

Permeable pavement systems (PPS) are frequently associated with high removal efficiencies for water quality parameters. Their effluent can, therefore, be recycled, for example, for sprinkling onto gardens. Nevertheless, some stakeholders fear that potentially pathogenic organisms within the treated run‐off could be too high, and therefore they request disinfection before recycling. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to assess the efficiency of a batch flow combined titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and ultraviolet (UV) light photocatalytic reactor in removing water‐borne microbial contaminants from the effluent of PPS. Combined TiO₂ and UV photocatalytic reaction times between 80 and 100 min were required for the complete removal of Escherichia coli, total coliforms and faecal Streptococci, which had mean initial counts of 1.5 × 10⁷, 4.4 × 10⁶ and 6.9 × 10⁵ colony‐forming units (CFU) per 100 mL, respectively. In comparison, UV disinfection alone resulted in insignificant microbial removal. Suspended TiO₂ powder was more effective than small immobilised TiO₂ crystals.     

pH Responsive Abelmoschus esculentus Mucilage and Administration of Methotrexate: In-Vitro Antitumor and In-Vivo Toxicity Evaluation

The rapid progression in biomaterial nanotechnology apprehends the potential of non-toxic and potent polysaccharide delivery modules to overcome oral chemotherapeutic challenges. The present study is aimed to design, fabricate and characterize polysaccharide nanoparticles for methotrexate (MTX) delivery. The nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by Abelmoschus esculentus mucilage (AEM) and chitosan (CS) by the modified coacervation method, followed by ultra-sonification. The NPs showed much better pharmaceutical properties with a spherical shape and smooth surface of 213.4–254.2 nm with PDI ranging between 0.279–0.485 size with entrapment efficiency varying from 42.08 ± 1.2 to 72.23 ± 2.0. The results revealed NPs to possess positive zeta potential and a low polydispersity index (PDI). The in-vitro drug release showed a sustained release of the drug up to 32 h with pH-dependence. Blank AEM -CS NPs showed no in-vivo toxicity for a time duration of 14 days, accompanied by high cytotoxic effects of optimized MTX loaded NPs against MCF-7 and MD-MBA231 cells by MTT assay. In conclusion, the findings advocated the therapeutic potential of AEM/CS NPs as an efficacious tool, offering a new perspective for pH-responsive routing of anticancer drugs with tumor cells as a target.     

Synthesis,characterization of β-CD based novel hydrogels with dual objectives of drug release and dye removal

Iranian Polymer Journal - In our recent work, we have reported on hydrogels devoid of cross-linkers. After observing the successful swelling and water retention properties, we have introduced...     

An Exemplar Imidazoline Surfactant for Corrosion Inhibitor Studies: Synthesis,Characterization, and Physicochemical Properties

An optimized one-pot recipe has been developed to synthesize a surfactant molecule, referred to as OMID, consisting of an imidazoline head group and aliphatic tail, which is an exemplar corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in acidic solutions. As evidenced by gas chromatography, ¹H and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance, and Fourier-transform infrared data, a high-purity product was achieved without the use of either a solvent or catalyst. Critical micelle concentration values and corrosion inhibition efficiencies ( η %) were determined in aqueous solutions of hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid using surface tensiometry and linear polarization resistance measurements, respectively. Hydrolysis of the imidazoline head group as a function of pH (0–11) was explored with ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy. In addition, N 1s and C 1s X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data were acquired from both surface-adsorbed OMID and a multilayer of the imidazoline head group of OMID. These latter data are highly relevant to those attempting to understand OMID inhibition chemistry.     

A Code Assignment Algorithm for Nonblocking OVSF Codes in WCDMA

OVSF codes are used as channelization codes in WCDMA. Due to code blocking property of OVSF codes, the bandwidth available in the system is severely limited. Code reassignments mitigate the impact of the blocking property at the expense of causing delays and decreasing the throughput of the system. Nonblocking OVSF (NOVSF) codes have been proposed to alleviate the adverse effect of code reassignments. This paper presents a code assignment algorithm for NOVSF codes, which does not require any code reassignments. Simulation results show that NOVSF codes achieve better throughput than OVSF codes, even though code reassignments are allowed in the assignments of OVSF codes.     

Preconcentration and solid phase extraction method for the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd in environmental and biological samples using activated carbon by FAAS

2-{[1-(2-Hydroxynaphthyl) methylidene] amino} benzoic acid (HNMABA) was synthesized for solid phase extraction (SPE) to the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd in environmental and biological samples by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry (FAAS). These metals were sorbed as HNMABA complexes on activated carbon (AC) at the pH range of 5.0+/-0.2 and eluted with 6 ml of 1M HNO3 in acetone. The effects of sample volume, eluent volume and recovery have been investigated to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of proposed method. The effect of interferences on the sorption of metal ions was studied. The concentration of the metal ions detected after preconcentration was in agreement with the added amount. The detection limits for the metals studied were in the range of 0.75-3.82 microg ml(-1). The proposed system produced satisfactory results for the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd metals in environmental and biological samples.     

Biosorption of Cr(VI) by immobilized biomass of two indigenous strains of cyanobacteria isolated from metal contaminated soil

Biosorption of Cr(VI) using native strains of cyanobacteria from metal contaminated soil in the premises of textile mill has been reported in this paper. Biosorption was studied as a function of pH (1-5), contact time (5-180 min) and initial chromium ion concentration (5-20mg/l) to find out the maximum biosorption capacity of alginate immobilized Nostoc calcicola HH-12 and Chroococcus sp. HH-11. The optimum conditions for Cr(VI) biosorption are almost same for the two strains (pH 3-4, contact time 30 min and initial chromium concentration of 20mg/l) however, the biomass of Chroococcus sp. HH-11 was found to be more suitable for the development of an efficient biosorbent for the removal of Cr(VI) from wastewater, as it showed higher values of q(m) and K(f), the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm parameters. Both the isotherm models were suitable for describing the biosorption of Cr(VI) by the cyanobacterial biosorbents.     

Determination of lithium isotopic composition by thermal ionization mass spectrometry

A mass spectrometric method has been proposed for the determination of the isotopic composition of lithium. It is based upon thermal ionization of LiOH loaded onto a single SiO2-coated Re filament. By this method, stable emissions of Li+ ion have been achieved for an extended period of time. The proposed method is capable of analyzing trace quantities (approximately 40 ng) of Li in the presence of sodium with an uncertainty of +/-0.000 25 (two standard deviations of the mean).