Comparative studies on protein fractions and amino acid composition from sorghum and pearl millet

A defatted flour sample of sorghum and pearl millet were separated into three fractions. These procedures involve extracting the defatted flour with aqueous sodium hydroxide (pH 11.9) followed by precipitation with diluted HCl acid (pH 4.8). The two protein fractions I (soluble at pH 4.8) and II (insoluble at pH 4.8) along with the remaining residues (fraction III) were lyophilized separately. The amino acid composition of the original flour and the three fractions were determined. Lysine seems to be the most deficient amino acid in the original flour and the remaining residues. Fraction I and II, in which the lysine accumulated, have essentially better amino acid profile and consequently nutritionally better quality than the protein of the original defatted flour. The recovered protein-rich fractions I and II should be useful as a protein ingredient in foods. The remaining residues can be extruded into convenience foods.     

A Dual-Band Printed Antenna Design Based on Annular Koch Snowflake Slot Structure

Wireless Personal Communications - The design of a fractal based slot antenna, to serve the dual-band communication applications, is proposed in this paper. The structure of the proposed antenna is...     

Eco friendly adsorbents for removal of phenol from aqueous solution employing nanoparticle zero-valent iron synthesized from modified green tea bio-waste and supported on silty clay

The present research investigated a novel route for the synthesis of nanoparticle zero-valent iron(NZVI) utilizing an aqueous extract of green tea waste as a reductant with ferric chloride. Also, the supported nanoparticle zerovalent iron was synthesized using natural silty clay as a support material(SC-NZVI). The NZVI and SC-NZVI were characterized by infrared spectroscopy(FTIR), scanning electron microscope(SEM), X-ray diffraction(XRD),Brunauer–Emmett–Teller(BET), and zeta potential(ζ). The interpretation of the results demonstrated that the polyphenol and other antioxidants in green tea waste can be used as reduction and capping agents in NZVI synthesis, with silty clay an adequate support. Additionally, the experiments were carried out to explore phenol adsorption by NZVI and SC-NZVI. To determine the optimum conditions, the impact of diverse experimental factors(i.e., initial pH, adsorbent dose, temperature, and concentration of phenol) was studied. Langmuir, Freundlich,and Tempkin isotherms were used as representatives of adsorption equilibrium. The obtained results indicated that the adsorption processes for both NZVI and SC-NZVI well fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model. The appropriateness of pseudo_first_order and pseudo_second_order kinetics was investigated. The experimental kinetics data were good explained by the second-order model. The thermodynamic parameters(ΔH0, ΔS0, andΔG0) for NZVI and SC-NZVI were determined. The maximum removal rates of phenol at optimum conditions,when adsorbed onto NZVI and SC-NZVI, were found to be 94.8% and 90.1%, respectively.     

Bone resembling apatite by amorphous-to-crystalline transition driven self-organisation

Calcium apatite is the main inorganic constituent of mammalian hard tissues such as bones and teeth. Its formation in vivo is likely to be preceded by a transient amorphous phase. If so, the amorphous-to-crystalline transition would have some crucial role in the biomineralisation process. To investigate this possibility, a two-step biomimetic experiment was designed. First, a stable amorphous calcium apatite precursor was synthesized in simulated body fluid (SBF) and was then transformed into a low crystalline apatite. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, vacuum FTIR, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and N₂ adsorption measurements were used to characterise both the precursor and the apatite. The latter exhibits numerous bone-like features including lack of OH, nanometer size, low crystallinity, etc. An amorphous-to-crystalline transition driven self-organisation is observed. The amorphous precursor seems to be the essential step for the creation of bone resembling apatite.