In vitro shoot multiplication of Ziziphus spina-christi by shoot tip culture

In vitro shoot multiplications were obtained successfully from shoot tips of Ziziphus spina-christi by placing explants into solidified medium (MS medium) supplemented with 0.01 mg/l NAA and 0.1 mg/l BA or 0.1 mg/l IAA and 1.0 mg/l kinetin. It was concluded that lower concentrations of all cytokinin studied were better for lateral bud proliferation and that BA and 2IP were better than kinetin in the production of lateral branches. No growth regulators were required for shoot growth and elongation. The shoots rooted best on MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/l IBA. Plantlet survival after transfer to soil was more than 90%. The shoot proliferation method described could be used for the mass clonal propagation of selected genotype cv Noaf variety. The variety is in a great demand due to its attractive fruit characteristics such as flavour, sweetness and fruit yield

Natural coagulates for wastewater treatment; a review for application and mechanism

The increase of water demand and wastewater generation is among the global concerns in the world. The less effective management of water sources leads to serious consequences, the direct disposal of untreated wastewater is associated with the environmental pollution, elimination of aquatic life and the spread of deadly epidemics. The flocculation process is one of the most important stages in water and wastewater treatment plants, wherein this phase the plankton, colloidal particles, and pollutants are precipitated and removed. Two major types of coagulants are used in the flocculation process included the chemical and natural coagulants. Many studies have been performed to optimize the flocculation process while most of these studies have confirmed the hazardous effects of chemical coagulants utilization on the ecosystem. This chapter reviews a summary of the coagulation/flocculation processes using natural coagulants as well as reviews one of the most effective natural methods of water and wastewater treatment

Groundwater resources assessment using integrated geophysical techniques in the southwestern region of Peninsular Malaysia.

Combined geophysical techniques such as multi-electrode resistivity, induced polarization, and borehole geophysical techniques were carried out on volcano-sedimentary rocks in the north of Gemas as part of the groundwater resource’s investigations. The result identifies four resistivity units: the tuffaceous mudstone, tuffaceous sandstone, the tuff bed, and the shale layer. Two types of aquifer systems in terms of storage were identified within the area: one within a fracture system (tuff), which is the leaky area through which vertical flow of groundwater occurs, and an intergranular property of the sandy material of the aquifer which includes sandstone and tuffaceous sandstone. The result also reveals that the aquifer occupies a surface area of about 3,250,555 m2 with a mean depth of 43.71 m and a net volume of 9.798 × 107 m3. From the approximate volume of the porous zone (28 %) and the total aquifer volume, a usable capacity of (274.339 ± 30.177) × 107 m3 of water in the study area can be deduced. This study provides useful information that can be used to develop a much broader understanding of the nature of groundwater potential in the area and their relationship with the local geology

Thermodynamic analysis of methanation of palm empty fruit bunch (PEFB) pyrolysis oil with and without in situ CO2 sorption

Thermodynamic equilibrium analysis for conversion of palm empty fruit bunch (PEFB) bio-oil to methane using low-temperature steam reforming (LTSR) process was conducted by assuming either isothermal or adiabatic condition, with and without sorption enhancement (SE-LTSR), with CaO(S) or Ca(OH)2(S) as CO2 sorbent. Temperatures of 300-800 K, molar steam to carbon (S/C) ratios of 0.3-7.0, pressures of 1-30 atm and molar calcium to carbon ratios (Ca:C) of 0.3-1.0 were simulated. For reasons of process simplicity, the best conditions for CH4 production were observed for the adiabatic LTSR process without sorption at S/C between 2.5 and 3 (compared to the stoichiometric S/C of 0.375), inlet temperature above 450 K, resulting in reformer temperature of 582 K, where close to the theoretical maximum CH4 yield of 38 wt % of the simulated dry PEFB oil was obtained, resulting in a reformate consisting of 44.5 vol % CH4, 42.7 vol % CO2 and 12.7 vol % H2 and requiring only moderate heating mainly to partially preheat the reactants. Temperatures and S/C below these resulted in high risk of carbon by-product

Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata)

All authors: Salvador Carranza , Meritxell Xipell, Pedro Tarroso, Andrew Gardner, Edwin Nicholas Arnold, Michael D. Robinson, Marc Simó-Riudalbas, Raquel Vasconcelos, Philip de Pous, Fèlix Amat, Jiří Šmíd, Roberto Sindaco, Margarita Metallinou †, Johannes Els, Juan Manuel Pleguezuelos, Luis Machado, David Donaire, Gabriel Martínez, Joan Garcia-Porta, Tomáš Mazuch, Thomas Wilms, Jürgen Gebhart, Javier Aznar, Javier Gallego, Bernd-Michael Zwanzig, Daniel Fernández-Guiberteau, Theodore Papenfuss, Saleh Al Saadi, Ali Alghafri, Sultan Khalifa, Hamed Al Farqani, Salim Bait Bilal, Iman Sulaiman Alazri, Aziza Saud Al Adhoobi, Zeyana Salim Al Omairi, Mohammed Al Shariani, Ali Al Kiyumi, Thuraya Al Sariri, Ahmed Said Al Shukaili, Suleiman Nasser Al Akhzami.In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman’s terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman’s 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).This work was funded by grants CGL2012-36970, CGL2015-70390-P from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (cofunded by FEDER) to SC, the project Field study for the conservation of reptiles in Oman, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman (Ref: 22412027) to SC and grant 2014-SGR-1532 from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya to SC. MSR is funded by a FPI grant from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (BES-2013-064248); RV, PT and LM were funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through post-doc grants (SFRH/BPD/79913/2011) to RV, (SFRH/BPD/93473/2013) to PT and PhD grant (SFRH/BD/89820/2012) to LM, financed by Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH) – Quadro de Referência Estrategico Nacional (QREN) from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministerio da Educação e Ciência

Autothermal reforming of palm empty fruit bunch bio-oil: thermodynamic modelling

This work focuses on thermodynamic analysis of the autothermal reforming of palm empty fruit bunch (PEFB) bio-oil for the production of hydrogen and syngas. PEFB bio-oil composition was simulated using bio-oil surrogates generated from a mixture of acetic acid, phenol, levoglucosan, palmitic acid and furfural. A sensitivity analysis revealed that the hydrogen and syngas yields were not sensitive to actual bio-oil composition, but were determined by a good match of molar elemental composition between real bio-oil and surrogate mixture. The maximum hydrogen yield obtained under constant reaction enthalpy and pressure was about 12 wt% at S/C = 1 and increased to about 18 wt% at S/C = 4; both yields occurring at equivalence ratio Φ of 0.31. The possibility of generating syngas with varying H2 and CO content using autothermal reforming was analysed and application of this process to fuel cells and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is discussed. Using a novel simple modelling methodology, reaction mechanisms were proposed which were able to account for equilibrium product distribution. It was evident that different combinations of reactions could be used to obtain the same equilibrium product concentrations. One proposed reaction mechanism, referred to as the ‘partial oxidation based mechanism’ involved the partial oxidation reaction of the bio-oil to produce hydrogen, with the extent of steam reforming and water gas shift reactions varying depending on the amount of oxygen used. Another proposed mechanism, referred to as the ‘complete oxidation based mechanism’ was represented by thermal decomposition of about 30% of bio-oil and hydrogen production obtained by decomposition, steam reforming, water gas shift and carbon gasification reactions. The importance of these mechanisms in assisting in the eventual choice of catalyst to be used in a real ATR of PEFB bio-oil process was discussed

Platelet-rich plasma for regeneration of neural feedback pathways around dental implants: a concise review and outlook on future possibilities

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