Specialty Fats Enriched with Behenic and Medium Chain Fatty Acids from Palm Stearin by Lipase Acidolysis

Structured lipids containing behenic and medium chain (MC) fatty acids were prepared from palm stearin using 1,3-specific lipase-catalyzed acidolysis. Incorporation of MC and behenic acids was affected by proportion of substrate, type of fatty acids, reaction time, addition of water and quantity of lipase. It was found that incorporation of caproic acid was less compared to other longer chain fatty acids. Caprylic, capric and behenic acids shared similar incorporation (up to 32 %), which increased with the amount of fatty acids added and the time of reaction. The incorporation of these acids increased with addition of 1 % moisture and the increasing amount of enzyme from 5 to 10 % at the beginning of the reaction. Incorporating behenic and MC fatty acids, reduced palmitic and oleic acids considerably from palm stearin, the extent being the same as those incorporated. However, the reduction of linoleic acid was marginal. The solid fats content of the modified palm stearin containing MC and behenic acids were reduced at all temperatures due to a reduction in higher molecular weight triglycerides and an increasing proportion of lower chain triglycerides. The modified products of palm stearin with added capric and behenic acids were similar to commercial bakery shortenings and those with added capric acid were like salad or cooking oils or butter in melting characteristics.     

Preparation of palm olein enriched with medium chain fatty acids by lipase acidolysis

Medium chain (MC) fatty acids, caprylic (C8:0) and capric (C10:0) were incorporated into palm olein by 1,3-specific lipase acidolysis, up to 36% and 43%, respectively, when added as mixtures or individually after 24 h. It was found that these acids were incorporated into palm olein at the expense of palmitic and oleic acids, the former being larger in quantity and reduction of 18:2 was negligible. The modified palm olein products showed reduction in higher molecular weight triacylglycerols (TGs) and increase in concentration of lower molecular weight TGs compared to those of palm olein. Fatty acids at sn-2 position in modified products were: C10:0, 4%; C16:0, 13%; C18:1, 66%; and C18:2, 15.4%. DSC results showed that the onset of melting and solids fat content were considerably reduced in modified palm olein products and no solids were found even at and below 10 °C and also the onset of crystallisation was considerably lowered. The cloud point was reduced and iodine value dropped from 55.4 to 38 in modified palm olein. Thus, nutritionally superior palm olein was prepared by introducing MC fatty acids with reduced palmitic acid through lipase acidolysis.     

High-Performance Multifunctional Fuel Additives Derived from Renewable Fatty Acids and Phosphazene

The increasing need for high-quality diesel fuel can be fulfilled by using environmental friendly, high-performance additives. We have synthesized novel fatty acid-derived multifunctional additives coupled with phosphazene moiety having the backbone of alternative nitrogen and phosphorous atoms which provided stability, while the additives possessed affinity for the metal surface to form a surface-complex film leading to the hindered metal contact and providing friction-reducing and antiwear properties. In addition, the applicability of the synthesized additives was investigated by testing the anti-oxidant and anticorrosion properties in polyethylene glycol (PEG200) which was taken as the reference base fluid. A rotating bomb oxidation test was used to evaluate the anti-oxidant characteristics, and a four-ball test for the tribological properties. Among the synthesized additives, phosphazene ester of erucic acid exhibited the best antiwear and antifriction properties; however, phosphazene ester of oleic acid was found to be the best anti-oxidant additive.     

A case study for micro‐grid PV: lessons learned from a rural electrification project in India

Micro‐grids in developing countries present a significant application opportunity for photovoltaics (PV) as an energy‐enabling technology. The authors project 10 GW for this application in the next decade. The growth of this sector will be enhanced by shared learning of the best practices. The authors are part of a team that successfully installed 1/3 MW in micro‐grids and presented the lessons learned and a useful methodology for determining key metrics. The PV is part of the rural electrification in India and is representative of current global PV micro‐grids. This project provides basic lighting and electricity for 57 villages in Visakhapatnam in India. The project was carried out with a goal of optimizing power against cost. Various metrics are presented: costs, time, operations and maintenance, and performance. Also discussed are implementation strategies for cost containment, stakeholder considerations, and post‐install support and user payment collection. Learning points are presented on project execution, engagement of local people, and challenges addressed. The aspect of demand capacity level (hours of availability) is examined in more detail, with modeling being performed to identify an optimal approach to increasing the level given the cost constraints. The combination of real data and modeling is a useful approach for PV and micro‐grid optimization. This case study quantitatively supports the value of the use of PV for rural electrification. Beyond this example in India, where the federal government is planning an increase to more than 2000 sites, there is a significant opportunity for PV in the global micro‐grid electrification context. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of Chemically Modified Wheat Gluten to Reduce Formaldehyde Emissions During Curing of Pigment Print Pastes on Fabrics

The study demonstrated that chemically modified wheat gluten reduces formaldehyde emissions from pigment print pastes on fabrics. Gluten was chemically modified by three methods. Deamidation of gluten was performed with sodium hydroxide, and methyl acrylate and ethyl alcohol groups were grafted on gluten. Print paste formulations were prepared with each type of chemically modified gluten, a commercial ethylene urea scavenger and no formaldehyde scavenger. Two types of auxiliary resins (i.e., melamine‐formaldehyde and hexamethoxymelamine‐formaldehyde resins) and four types of binders (i.e., acrylic, butadiene‐acrylic, butadiene‐styrene, and vinyl acetate) were used in conjunction with each of the scavengers. The print paste formulations were applied to cotton polyester poplin fabric and the abilities of the gluten and ethylene urea scavengers to reduce formaldehyde emissions were evaluated. Chemically modified gluten scavengers absorbed as much formaldehyde as the ethylene urea scavengers that are presently used in industry.     

Solid lipid nanoparticles as vesicles for oral delivery of olmesartan medoxomil: formulation,optimization and in vivo evaluation

Objective: Olmesartan medoxomil (OLM) is an antihypertensive drug with low oral bioavailability (28%) resulting from poor aqueous solubility, presystemic metabolism and P-glycoprotein mediated efflux. The present investigation studies the role of lipid nanocarriers in enhancing the OLM bioavailability through oral delivery.

Materials and methods: Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) were prepared by solvent emulsion-evaporation method. Statistical tools like regression analysis and Pareto charts were used to detect the important factors effecting the formulations. Formulation and process parameters were then optimized using mean effect plot and contour plots. The formulations were characterized for particle size, size distribution, surface charge, percentage of drug entrapped in nanoparticles, drug–excipients interactions, powder X-ray diffraction analysis and drug release in vitro.

Results and discussion: The optimized formulation comprised glyceryl monostearate, soya phosphatidylcholine and Tween 80 as lipid, co-emulsifier and surfactant, respectively, with an average particle size of 100?nm, PDI 0.291, zeta potential of ?23.4?mV and 78% entrapment efficiency. Pharmacokinetic evaluation in male Sprague Dawley rats revealed 2.32-fold enhancement in relative bioavailability of drug from SLN when compared to that of OLM plain drug on oral administration.

Conclusion: In conclusion, SLN show promising approaches as a vehicle for oral delivery of drugs like OLM.     

Effect of Green Gram Husk Nanocellulose on Banana Fiber Composite

Nanocellulose is a significant bio entity in the present-day applications of nanocomposites. In this regard, the present work focuses on fabrication of green gram husk cellulose-based hybrid nanocomposites. In the process of nanocellulose extraction, residues obtained after each stage of treatment are characterized through physical and morphological tests. Later, nanocellulose is reinforced in unsaturated polyester with 1, 3, 5, and 7 wt. % to study the tensile properties. The peak tensile strength is found to be 39 MPa at 5wt% of cellulose nanocomposites. Noting the enhancement in tensile properties of nanocomposites, nanocellulose is reinforced in banana fiber composites and its influence on mechanical properties is studied. Nanocellulose/banana fiber hybrid composites showed enhanced tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength.     

Combining evidences from excitation source and vocal tract system features for Indian language identification using deep neural networks

In this paper, a combination of excitation source information and vocal tract system information is explored for the task of language identification (LID). The excitation source information is represented by features extracted from linear prediction (LP) residual signal called the residual cepstral coefficients (RCC). Vocal tract system information is represented by the mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). In order to incorporate additional temporal information, shifted delta cepstra (SDC) are computed. An LID system is built using SDC over both MFCC and RCC features individually and evaluated based on their equal error rate (EER). Experiments have been performed on a dataset consisting of 13 Indian languages with about 115 h for training and 30 h for testing using a deep neural network (DNN), DNN with attention (DNN-WA) and a state-of-the-art i-vector system. DNN-WA outperforms the baseline i-vector system. An EER of 9.93 and 6.25% are achieved using RCC and MFCC features respectively. By combining evidence from both features using a late fusion mechanism, an EER of 5.76% is obtained. This result indicates the complementary nature of the excitation source information to that of the widely used vocal tract system information for the task of LID.     

Keyframe extraction using Pearson correlation coefficient and color moments

Keyframe extraction plays a significant role in wide variety of real-time video processing applications such as video summarization, video management and r