Chemical compositions of the marine algae Gracilaria salicornia (Rhodophyta) and Ulva lactuca (Chlorophyta) as a potential food source

BACKGROUND: The nutritional compositions of two edible red (Gracilaria salicornia) and green (Ulva lactuca) seaweeds were determined to evaluate their possible uses as potential food ingredients. RESULTS: In general, these species contained limited amounts of lipids ranging between 0.99 and 2.00 g 100 g^?1 dry weight) and considerably high amount of minerals, especially in G. salicornia (38.91 g 100 g^?1 d.w.). The crude protein values varied between 9.58 and 10.69 g 100 g^?1 d.w. Amounts for total amino acids were 889.78 ± 22.64 mg g^?1 protein d.w. in G. salicornia and 543.3 ± 15.14 mg g^?1 protein d.w. in U. lactuca. The most abundant fatty acids were C12:0, C16:0, C20:4 ω6 and C22:5 ω3, in addition to C18:1 in G. salicornia. Both seaweed species were balanced sources of ω3 and ω6 fatty acids with a ratio of ω6/ω3 that varied between 1.2 and 1.17. Between the seaweeds investigated, high levels of K (2414.02‐11 380.06 mg 100 g^?1 d.w.) were observed and the amounts of Ca, Na and Fe were higher than those reported for land plants. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, G. salicornia and U. lactuca may be utilised as value‐added products for human nutrition purposes. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Electrochemically synthesized polypyrrole/MWCNTs-Al2O3 ternary nanocomposites supported Pt nanoparticles toward methanol oxidation

As known, a good support enhances the activity and durability of any catalyst. In the current study, polypyrrole (PPY)/nanocomposite (MWCNTs and Al₂O₃) films were fabricated by electrochemical polymerization of pyrrole solution with a certain amount of nanoparticles on titanium substrates and were used as new support materials for Pt catalyst. The modified electrodes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) techniques. High catalytic activity and long-time stability toward methanol oxidation of Pt/PPY–MWNTs-αAl₂O₃ catalyst have also been verified by cyclic voltammetry results and chronoamperometric response measurements. This catalyst exhibits a vehemently high current density (345.03 mA cm^?2) and low peak potential (0.74 v) for methanol oxidation. Other electrochemical measurements (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), CO stripping voltammetry and Tafel test) clearly confirmed that Pt/PPY–MWNTs-αAl₂O₃/Ti electrode has a better performance toward methanol oxidation compared to the other electrodes and that can be used as a promising electrode material for application in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs).     

The effect of Al2O3 nano additions on failure of GFRP plate with two parallel pin loaded holes

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The aim of this study is to scrutinize the effect of nano-additions on failure modes and loads of glass-epoxy laminate subjected two parallel...     

微波辅助燃烧法制备镁铝尖晶石纳米粉体的研究

Stoichiometric MgAl2O4 spinel nanoparticles were synthesized by microwave assisted combustion reaction from aluminium nitrate nanohydrate(Al(NO3)3.9H2O) and Sol-Gel prepared magnesium hydroxide(Mg(OH)2) in the presence of urea((NH2)2CO) as a fuel,in about 20 min of irradiation.X-ray diffraction(XRD) studies reveal that mi-crowave assisted combustion synthesis route yields single-phase spinel nanoparticles with larger crystalline size(around 75 nm) than other conventional heating methods.Scanning electronic microscope(SEM) images show nanoparticles with spherical shape and homogenous morphology.The surface area measurements(SBET) show crystals with 2.11 m2/g and 0.0033 mL/g pore volume.     

Possibility of using chemical fertilizers instead of 9K medium in bioleaching process of low-grade sulfide copper ores

The possibility of applying chemical fertilizers as a source of nutrients for bacterial growth in bioleaching process was investigated. In the first part of the experiment the nutrient content of four sulfide copper ore samples was determined. The results confirmed that the amount of calcium, magnesium and sulfur were sufficient to support bacterial growth, whereas nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium were not sufficient. Therefore, N, P, and K from a chemical fertilizer source were applied to the sulfide copper ores to make a cost-effective bioleaching process. According to shake flask experiments by using mesophilic, iron-sulfur oxidizing bacteria, bacterial activity and copper recovery in some proposed media was satisfactory compared to 9K medium. Additionally, potassium had positive effect on the copper ore bioleaching while NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ had inhibitory effect on the bacterial activity.     

A study on virtual machine deployment for application outsourcing in mobile cloud computing

In mobile cloud computing, application offloading is implemented as a software level solution for augmenting computing potentials of smart mobile devices. VM is one of the prominent approaches for offloading computational load to cloud server nodes. A challenging aspect of such frameworks is the additional computing resources utilization in the deployment and management of VM on Smartphone. The deployment of Virtual Machine (VM) requires computing resources for VM creation and configuration. The management of VM includes computing resources utilization in the monitoring of VM in entire lifecycle and physical resources management for VM on Smartphone. The objective of this work is to ensure that VM deployment and management requires additional computing resources on mobile device for application offloading. This paper analyzes the impact of VM deployment and management on the execution time of application in different experiments. We investigate VM deployment and management for application processing in simulation environment by using CloudSim, which is a simulation toolkit that provides an extensible simulation framework to model the simulation of VM deployment and management for application processing in cloud-computing infrastructure. VM deployment and management in application processing is evaluated by analyzing VM deployment, the execution time of applications and total execution time of the simulation. The analysis concludes that VM deployment and management require additional resources on the computing host. Therefore, VM deployment is a heavyweight approach for process offloading on smart mobile devices.     

Modified glassy carbon electrode with multiwall carbon nanotubes as a voltammetric sensor for determination of noscapine in biological and pharmaceutical samples

A simple and highly sensitive method is described for direct voltammetric determination of noscapine in blood and pharmaceutical sample. Glassy carbon electrode with effective method is modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) to cause activation of multiwall carbon nanotubes structures for electrocatalyzes of noscapine oxidation. The cyclic voltammetric (CV) results indicated that MWNTs remarkably enhances electrocatalytic activity toward the oxidation of noscapine, which is leading to considerable improvement of anodic peak current for noscapine, and allows the development of a highly sensitive voltammetric sensor for detection of noscapine in pharmaceutical and clinical samples. Under the optimum condition, the calibration curve was linear in the concentration range 4.0 × 10⁻⁷–1.0 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹ with the detection limit of 8.0 × 10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹ and relative standard deviation (R.S.D.%) lower than 1.0% (n = 5). Finally, some kinetic parameters were determined and multistep mechanism for oxidation of noscapine for first time was proposed.     

Model‐Reference Adaptive Moment Control of Uncertain Nonlinear Stochastic Systems

In this paper, a new model‐reference adaptive moment control method is proposed to control the first and second moments of an uncertain nonlinear system with additive external stochastic excitation. This method has established a closed‐loop control system that calculates an adaptive stochastic nonlinear input by introducing a Lyapunov function and adaptive update law. The proposed adaptive structure is innovative in trying to minimize two errors simultaneously: the moments tracking error and the error between the nonlinear system output and reference model. Furthermore, the proposed method can control the expected and covariance matrices of the states without needing to solve the complicated Fokker‐Planck‐Kolmogorov differential equation or using the approximate methods. Simulation has been performed on two practical examples, which show a good performance for the designed controller.     

Synergistic Effect of Maghemite and Titania Nanoparticles in PVA-Alginate Encapsulated Beads for Photocatalytic Reduction of Pb(II)

In this paper, maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃) and titanium oxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles were synthesized by hydrothermal and coprecipitation methods, respectively. These nanoparticles were combined together in various ratios (1:10, 1:20, 1:60, 1:80, and 1) and embedded in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-alginate beads. These beads were tested for photocatalytic behavior in eliminating toxic Pb(II) from the aqueous solution. The photocatalytic experiments were performed under sunlight irradiation and without sunlight. Several operating conditions such as initial Pb(II) concentration, pH, contact time, and TiO₂: γ-Fe₂O₃ ratios were investigated to evaluate their effect on the process. The recycling attributes of these beads were also investigated. The results revealed that 100% of the Pb(II) was eliminated in 100 min at pH 7 under sunlight when the ratio of TiO₂:γ-Fe₂O₃ was kept to 1. The PVA-alginate maghemite and titania beads showed better efficiency for Pb(II) removal than PVA-alginate titania beads and PVA-alginate maghemite beads. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis also revealed that Pb(II) removal was via photocatalytic reduction due to the presence of Pb(0) in the high-resolution scan at 130–160 eV. Also, the PVA-alginate titania and maghemite beads can be readily isolated from the aqueous solution after the photocatalytic process and reused for at least 6 times without significant losses in their initial properties. The reduction of Pb(II) with PVA-alginate titania and maghemite beads fitted the Langmuir–Hinshelwood (L–H) kinetic model at a correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.9923.     

Sonochemical Synthesis,Characterization and Sonocatalytic Performance of Terbium-Doped CdS Nanoparticles

Terbium-doped cadmium sulfide nanoparticles with different terbium contents were successfully synthesized via sonochemical route. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, photoelectron X-ray spectroscopy, and UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy techniques. The as-prepared nanocatalyst were used for sonocatalytic degradation of Methylene Blue. Among the different amounts of dopant, 8 % Tb-doped CdS showed the highest sonocatalytic activity. The order of inhibitory effect of radical scavengers was 1, 4 Benzoquinone > SO₃ ^2? > CO₂ ^3?> I^?. The effects of various parameters such as initial dye concentration, catalyst loading, ultrasonic power, and the presence of radical scavengers were investigated.