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Stress – induced lipids are unsuitable as a direct biodiesel feedstock; A case study with Chlorella. pyrenoidosa
No full textThe effects of various stresses on the suitability of lipid synthesized by Chlorella pyrenoidosa for biodiesel
production were investigated. Lipids were characterized for detailed fatty acid methyl ester profiling and
biodiesel properties like cetane number (CN), iodine value, cold filter plugging point (CFPP). Maximum
biomass productivity (106.63 mg L1 d1
) and lipid content (29.68%) were obtained at indoor cultivation
(nitrate sufficient, pH 8–10, 24 h illumination). However, compared to this condition, other nitrate suffi-
cient cultures [pH 6–8 and 10–12 (24 h illumination), and at ambient CO2 and 16:8 h light:dark photoperiod
(pH unadjusted)] showed �12–14% lower lipid productivity. Upon 50% nitrate depletion (at
indoor and outdoor; pH unadjusted) lipid content has increased by 7.62% and 17%, respectively. Though
stress conditions helped enhancing lipid accumulation, there was two-fold increase in PUFA content
compared to that observed at pH 8–10. This resulted in fuel properties which did not comply with the
biodiesel standards
Nanotechnology in Agroecosystem: Implications on Plant Productivity and its Soil Environment
No full textCompared to conventional or other contaminants, nanoparticles pose some new environmental challenges for scientists and environmentalists worldwide. Nanotechnology will leave no field untouched including agriculture by its ground breaking scientific innovations. So far, the use of nanotechnology in agriculture has been mostly theoretical, but it has begun to have a significant effect in the main areas of the food industry. Nanoparticles finding great potential as delivery systems to specific targets in living organisms and is being used in medical sciences. In plants, the same principles can be applied for a broad range of uses, particularly to tackle phytopathological infections, nutrition supplement and as growth adjuvant. Nanoparticles can be tagged to agrochemicals or other substances as delivery agent to plant system and tissues for controlled release of chemicals. Doing so, the negative effects of nanomaterials must not be overlooked, such as toxicity generated by free radicals leading to lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. Under this scenario, there is a need to predict the environmental effect of these nanoparticles in the foreseeable future. Key focus of the discussion will particularly relate the nanoparticles as adjuvant for agricultural crops, which may be toxic to plants and microbes naturally present in soil and generation of nanowaste in agroecosystem
Non-noble NieCu/ACC bimetallic catalyst for dehydrogenation of liquid organic hydrides for hydrogen storage
No full textThe effect of Cu on dehydrogenation activity of Ni has been observed when dehydroge-nation of methyl cyclohexane (MCH) was carried out by using bimetallic NieCu supported on activated carbon cloth (ACC) catalysts with various Ni to Cu ratios and constant total metal content of about 10 wt%. The dehydrogenation of MCH was studied for delivery of clean hydrogen to hydrogen fueling station. Catalysts have been synthesized by adsorption method and characterized by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Among all combinations of this study 8 wt% Ni þ 2 wt% Cu/ACC was found to show strong synergetic effect. This catalyst exhibited relatively high H2 evolution rate 39.4 mmol/gmet/min during the dehy-drogenation of MCH. At the same time methane evolution rate was relatively low which indicated insignificant side reaction of hydrogenolysis. The study reveals that presence of specific amount of Cu enhances the dehydrogenation activity of Ni and suppresses the hydrogenolysis activity for the same. The NieCu/ACC catalyst may be a potential non-noble metal catalyst for dehydrogenation reaction
Biomimetic carbon dioxide sequestration using immobilized bio-composite materials
No full textMesoporous alumina has been synthesized using egg shell membrane (ESM) as template. Aluminum
ion has been loaded on ESM by simple adsorption technique and then calcined to obtain the mesoporous
alumina. The characterizations of alumina loaded ESM (ESMAl) have been done by various techniques like
XRD, TEM, EDX and surface area. From immobilization studies the optimum pH and temperature for free
and immobilized CA were determined to be 7.5 and 25 ◦C, respectively. The Km and Vmax of immobilized
CA was found to be 5.3 mM and 1.753 �moles/ml/min by p-NPA assay. The storage stabilities for free
and immobilized CA were performed at 25 ◦C and it was found that the half life period for immobilized
CA has been improved by a factor 1.25 as compared to free CA. From leaching study the immobilized CA
could be reused up to 7th cycles. The carbonation capacity of immobilized CA was found to be 24.84 mg
of CaCO3/mg of enzyme as compared to 33.05 mg of CaCO3/mg of enzyme for free CA
Prioritizing hazardous pollutants in two Nigerian water supply schemes: a risk-based approach
No full textObjective To rank pollutants in two Nigerian water supply schemes according to their effect on human health using a risk-based approach. Methods Hazardous pollutants in drinking-water in the study area were identified from a literature search and selected pollutants were monitored from April 2010 to December 2011 in catchments, treatment works and consumer taps. The disease burden due to each pollutant was estimated in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) using data on the pollutant’s concentration, exposure to the pollutant, the severity of its health effects and the consumer population.
Findings The pollutants identified were microbial organisms, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, nickel, lead and zinc. All were detected in the catchments but only cadmium, cobalt, chromium, manganese and lead exceeded World Health Organization (WHO) guideline values after water treatment. Post-treatment contamination was observed. The estimated disease burden was greatest for chromium in both schemes, followed in decrea
Efficient photocatalytic hydrogen generation by silica supported and platinum promoted titanium dioxide
No full textTitanium dioxide was supported on mesoporous silica and promoted with Pt and Ru. The supported
photocatalysts show high surface area and better photocatalytic activity in visible light as compared to
the benchmark Degussa P25. These photocatalysts were characterized using XRD, BET-SA, and UV-DRS
techniques. The surface area of supported photocatalyst was 140.6 m2/g which is higher than Degussa P-
25. Supported photocatalyst was evaluated for hydrogen evolution via water splitting reaction using
ethanol as a sacrificial donor. Hydrogen yield observed is 4791.43 mmol/h/g of TiO2 and that for P-25 is
161 mmol/h/g of TiO2 under visible light irradiation. The value is 30 times higher than benchmark
material Degussa P-25. This photocatalyst is also found stable up to 24 h without replenishing with
sacrificial donor ethanol. However silica gel/TiO2/Ru does not show any exciting result for hydrogen
generation. The effect of various operating parameters like photocatalyst loading, Illumination time and
intensity of light on supported photocatalyst also has been studied
Genetic variants associated with breast cancer risk for Ashkenazi Jewish women with strong family histories but no identifiable BRCA1/2 mutation
No full textThe ability to establish genetic risk models is
critical for early identification and optimal treatment of
breast cancer. For such a model to gain clinical utility,
more variants must be identified beyond those discovered
in previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS).
This is especially true for women at high risk because of
family history, but without BRCA1/2 mutations. This study
incorporates three datasets in a GWAS analysis of women
with Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) homogeneous ancestry. Two
independent discovery cohorts comprised 239 and 238 AJ
women with invasive breast cancer or preinvasive ductal
carcinoma in situ and strong family histories of breast
cancer, but lacking the three BRCA1/2 founder mutations,
along with 294 and 230 AJ controls, respectively. An
independent, third cohort of 203 AJ cases with familial
breast cancer history and 263 healthy controls of AJ
women was used for validation. A total of 19 SNPs were
identified as associated with familial breast cancer risk in
AJ women. Among these SNPs, 13 were identified from a
panel of 109 discovery SNPs, including an FGFR2 haplotype.
In addition, six previously identified breast cancer
GWAS SNPs were confirmed in this population. Seven
of the 19 markers were significant in a multivariate predictive
model of familial breast cancer in AJ women, three
novel SNPs [rs17663555(5q13.2), rs566164(6q21), and
rs11075884(16q22.2)], the FGFR2 haplotype, and three previously published SNPs [rs13387042(2q35), rs2046210
(ESR1), and rs3112612(TOX3)], yielding moderate predictive
power with an area under the curve (AUC) of the
ROC (receiver-operator characteristic curve) of 0.74.
Population-specific genetic variants in addition to variants
shared with populations of European ancestry may improve
breast cancer risk prediction among AJ women from highrisk
families without founder BRCA1/2 mutation
Characterization and optimization of production of exopolysaccharide from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
No full textChlamydomonas reinhardtii strain RAC was isolated based on its ability to secrete large amount of exopolysaccharide (EPS). The purified EPS had a molecular weight of 2.25�10(5)Da, and showed fibrillar structure with surfaces having sheet-like appearance. Chemical analysis showed the presence of galacturonic acid, ribose, arabinose, xylose, glucose, galactose and rhamnose sugars. The production of EPS was optimized by the classical one-at-a-time approach and Plackett-Burman design, followed by response surface methodology. The resulting response surface model was statistically significant (p<0.5) and predicted maximum EPS production of 628 mg/L. The optimum production medium consisted of CaCl2 - 74, NaNO3 - 422, K2HPO4 - 10 and MgSO4 - 200mg/L with a pH 7. The EPS showed significant antioxidant activity, which can have several industrial applications. This is the first report on characterization and production of EPS from a Chlamydomonas strain isolated from India. Its differences from the earlier reported EPS are discussed
Treatment of refractory nano-filtration reject from a tannery using Pd – catalysed wet air oxidation
No full texttWe attempted catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) of nanofiltration (NF)-reject using Pd based catalyst viz.,Pd/activated charcoal (AC) and PdCl2with the objective of degradation of refractory organic pollutants.Refractory organic pollutants in NF-reject before and after WAO and CWAO were confirmed by GC–MSanalysis. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of temperature, catalyst dosage andair partial pressure on the rate of removal of total organic carbon (TOC). The reaction kinetics can beconveniently described by considering two-stage first order kinetics. The use of Pd/AC afforded 85% TOCremoval, the corresponding rate constant (k) was 2.90 ± 0.075 × 10−3min−1(Pd/AC, 100 mg/L; T, 473.15 K;Pair, 0.69 MPa). On the other hand, 75% TOC was removed with k = 2.31 ± 0.075 × 10−3min−1using Pd2+catalyst (Pd2+, 16.66 mg/L; T, 473.15 K; Pair, 0.69 MPa). The observed rate of mineralization under Pd-catalyzed conditions was significantly higher than that of the uncatalyzed oxidation (41%) under thesimilar experimental conditions. Catalyst stability experiments were performed and TEM, SEM, XRD,Raman and XPS characterization data collected. Despite some morphological transformation of support,Pd catalyst was stable under CWAO conditions
Utilization of Rice – husk and Coconum Shell Carbons for Water Disinfection
No full textIn the present study, experiments were conducted to investigate the feasibility of using carbon derived from rice husk and coconut shell for the decontamination of water containing Escherichia coli (E. coli). The effects of silver impregnation on these agro-waste carbons were also investigated. All the carbons showed >99% removal of E. coli. Among the four carbons studied, rice husk based carbon (RHC) showed better removal than the other carbons investigated. However, silver impregnated carbons showed only marginal increase in the decontamination experiments. SEM and BET results reveal that the carbons were mesoporous in nature. FTIR shows the presence of functional groups viz. C=O and –OH that might be responsible for adsorption of E. coli on the carbon