Physical and chemical modification of distillery sludge for Pb(II) biosorption

The waste distillery sludge from sugar-cane industry was pretreated physically (boiled, heated and autoclaved) as well as chemically (HCl, H(2)SO(4), H(3)PO(4), NaOH, Ca(OH)(2), Al(OH)(3), C(6)H(6), HCHO, CH(3)OH and C1(2)H(25)OSO(3)Na (sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS)) for assessing the comparative sorption capacity of untreated and modified distillery sludge for Pb(II) biosorption from aqueous solutions. Experiments were conducted in shake flasks on a batch basis to access the effect of different experimental parameters such as pH, biosorbent dosage, biosorbent size, initial Pb(II) concentration and contact time. The uptake capacity 'q' (mg/g) of untreated and pretreated distillery sludge was in following order: NaOH (51.29+/-1.21)>HCl (49.82+/-1.22)>HCHO (49.56+/-1.14)>H(2)SO(4) (47.71+/-1.20)>HgCl(2) (45.32+/-1.06)>Ca(OH)(2) (44.01+/-1.18)>MeOH (43.73+/-1.23)>C(6)H(6) (42.72+/-1.19)>H(3)PO(4) (42.01+/-1.17)>SDS (40.87+/-1.27)>autoclaved (40.23+/-1.24)>Boiled (39.95+/-1.19)>heated (38.87+/-1.32)>Al (OH)(3) (38.30+/-1.14)>untreated (37.76+/-1.21). In further parameter studies, the optimized biosorbent size was 0.250 mm at pH 5 and best dose was 0.05 g of biosorbent. The applicability of the Langmuir and Freundlich models for sorption process was tested and best fitted model was Langmuir with the coefficient of determination (R(2)) value, 0.97, the process followed second order kinetic mechanism.     

H~+,N~+和Ar~+离子束辐射诱导碳纳米结构的变化(英文)

在室温和高温下,以不同辐射剂量的H+、N+和Ar+离子辐照多壁碳纳米管和无定形碳纳米线。利用透射电镜和拉曼光谱研究多壁碳纳米管和无定形碳纳米线的结构变化及损伤。以70keV N+离子束辐射多壁碳纳米管在室温下可形成无定形碳纳米线。1000K下70keV的H+离子束照射导致无定形碳纳米线向金刚石结构转变。离子辐照多壁碳纳米管的有序程度足够高,70keV的N+和Ar+离子能够引起碳从多壁碳纳米管的剥落。离子辐射能够为缺陷的转化提供必需的动力学驱动力。     

Scientometric assessment of engineering in Malaysians universities

There is a world trend for Research Performance Evaluation (RPE), developing of new scientometric indices and examining of their application. Consequently, concerns and anomalies arise about the convergent validity and reliability of these indices for the decision making purposes. This is especially prevalent in the region/countries/disciplines having less or emerging trends of publishing and getting citations. The present scientometric study addresses usefulness of the most noted metric h-index along with other selected indicators in the field of Engineering in Malaysians universities. To understand, the role of this metric if any, we examined the functional correlation, predictive value and its relationship with national assessment criteria. Results report that this indicator has good potential to work alone, ease in use and robust to get a broader snapshot for positioning and performance evaluation. However, for better decision making purpose, this can be used for broader contextual peer assessment process along with other indicators. Its validity is further checked with two size independent institutional h-indices: h_G–H and h_m.     

Removal of ciprofloxacin from aqueous solution using wheat bran as adsorbent

Current study describes sorption of antibiotic drug (ciprofloxacin) by using nontoxic and biocompatible carrier, i.e., wheat bran (WB). For sorption study, various parameters were optimized and Freundlich, Dubinin–Radushkevich, Langmuir, and Temkin isotherm models were applied to demonstrate the mechanism of sorption, while kinetics study for sorption was evaluated using diffusion models, pseudo-first-order kinetic (Langergren) and pseudo-second-order (Ho and McKay) kinetic models. In addition, thermodynamics study was also carried out. However, sorption of ciprofloxacin was pH depended and it showed 75% drug release in alkaline medium (at pH = 1.5) indicating the good release ability of WB for ciprofloxacin.