Reactions and emissivity of cerium oxide with phosphate binder coating on basic refractory brick

High emissivity coatings which aim to help the cement industry reduce heat loss in its production process have been developed with different CeO₂ and AlH₆O₁₂P₃ ratios (1:3, 1:5, and 1:12 by volume). The coating slurries were shear thinning and after heat treatment in air at 1300°C, 1°C/min, dwell 3 hours, XRD revealed that CePO₄ forms more easily as the Ce/P ratio decreases. The composition with a 1:5 ratio of CeO₂:AlH₆O₁₂P₃ was gun sprayed on basic refractory bricks, then heat treated under the same conditions as the slurries. SEM, (S)TEM and EDX were used to study thickness, microstructure, and chemical composition of the coatings which revealed that the coating was composed of pores, CeO₂ grains, CePO₄ grains, and M-P-O glass. SEM images show that CePO₄ was nucleated from a reaction between CeO₂ and AlH₆O₁₂P₃. Consequently, CePO₄ grains (~2 µm diameter) were smaller than CeO₂ (~10 µm diameter). The emissivities of un-coated and coated basic refractory bricks were measured at 1100 and 1300°C over the wave number range of 700-12 000 cm⁻¹. At both temperatures, the emissivity of the coated bricks was higher than the uncoated bricks and the emissivity was measured to be higher at a higher temperature for both samples. The coated bricks gave the highest emissivity of 0.81 from 1050 to 11 000 cm⁻¹ which is about twice the un-coated bricks for the same conditions. This demonstrates that the developed high emissivity coating has potential to be used with basic refractory brick.     

King Boletus mushroom-derived bioactive protein hydrolysate: characterisation,antioxidant, ACE inhibitory and cytotoxic activities

The enzymatic-bromelain King Boletus mushroom protein hydrolysate (eb-KBM) was determined in terms of the biological properties (antioxidant, antihypertensive and cytotoxic activities) and compared with unhydrolysed or water-soluble King Boletus mushroom extract (ws-KBM). The eb-KBM showed high antioxidant activities, as assessed by ABTS (70.9%), DPPH (60.9%) assays and hydroxyl radicals (66.0%) scavenging method. Angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity of eb-KBM was 21.1% at 1 mg protein mL⁻¹. Anticancer activity-relevant cytotoxicity of eb-KBM in ChaGo-K1 (undifferentiated lung carcinoma) and HEP-G2 (hepatocarcinoma) cells was higher than that of ws-KBM, with lower IC₅₀ values (6.43 and 6.35 µg mL⁻¹, respectively). The great biological activities of eb-KBM were related to its amino acid composition, with high contents of hydrophobic amino acids and aromatic amino acids. These results indicate that King Boletus mushroom protein hydrolysate or bioactive peptide could be used as natural antioxidative, ACE inhibitory and anticancer activities in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.