Pulsed Electric Field Assisted Extraction of Cellulose From Mendong Fiber (Fimbristylis globulosa) and its Characterization

In the present work, the properties of cellulose extracted from mendong fiber have been investigated. The experiments were conducted by two different methods to extract the cellulose from mendong fiber, which is extracted by alkali and alkali assisted by PEF. The cellulose was analyzed using X-ray diffraction, Fourier Transform Infra Red, Thermogravimetric Analysis, and compared with cellulose of commercial product. The morphology of cellulose after extraction was observed using both optical and Scanning Electron Microscope. The crystalline structure properties of cellulose extracted from mendong fiber assisted by pulsed electric field (PEF) were similar to the commercial cellulose.     

Asian urbanisms and the privatization of cities

The majority of Asia’s cities are being constructed from private funding and by private labor. This has always been the case for so-called informal settlements. Recently, however, the newly acquired socioeconomic status, aspirations, and cultural horizons of the emergent professional and business middle classes in Asia have captured both popular imagination and critical academic attention. These classes are building their own urban spaces, with or without state intervention or support. To what extent can these trends be understood by drawing upon the existing Anglophone literature, which conventionally considers the global cities of Western Europe and North America as the leading edge of urban change and theorization? What can diverse empirical cases in Asia tell us about the global privatization of urban space? Arising from a workshop on the privatization of urban space in Asia, this Viewpoint article addresses four issues that arise from comparison of several Asian cases. More specifically, this work challenges Western-centered assumptions about the spatiotemporal origins of urban change; positions Asia at the leading edge of certain urban trends that may also be discerned elsewhere; questions the prior ‘public-ness’ implied by the term ‘privatization;’ and unravels the dystopianism of Anglophone academic treatment of privately owned, constructed, or regulated spaces.