DNA Fingerprints of Two Tilapia Fish Species of Euphrates River at Governorate ofAl-Muthanna Using RAPD Markers

During the last decade, tilapia species (Cichlidae: Teleostei) becamemembers of Iraqi fish fauna. They characterized with morphological similarity amonggenera and species. That makes species differentiation not easily. Molecular methodsfollowed to differentiate between redbelly tilapia Coptodon zillii (Gervais, 1848) andblue tilapia Oreochromis aureus (Steindachner, 1864) of the Euphrates River sectorat Al-Samawah city. RAPD-PCR method used to create the genetic fingerprints of twotilapia fish species. Seven decamer primers (OPA08, OPA10, OPA13, OPA17,OPA19, OPB08 and OPC02) used to amplify DNA fragments using PCR-RAPDtechnique. Forty-four bands scored after electrophoresis on 2% agarose gel alongwith molecular marker fragmented to each 100 base pair. The molecular weight ofbands was calculated using PhotoCapt-MW software. The volume of bands rangedfrom C. zillii 168 bp to 2227 bp while they ranged from 62 bp to 2154 bp in O.aureus. The results achieve the RAPD fingerprints of two tilapia species in EuphratesRiver at for genetic Al-Samawa city and draw the genetic tree with the same speciesfrom Shatt A-Arab River in Basrah city. The study concluded that there is the closestrelatedness among tilapia populations from Euphrates and Shatt Al-Arab Rivers. Theresults proved that RAPD markers were efficient to generate DNA fingerprints oftilapia fish species. Furthermore, the utilizing of the RAPD markers can differentiatethe two studied species. The present study may be the first genetic study on thesetilapia fish species. Moreover, this would be the baseline studies in the future. Inaddition, this study would be valuable for conservation program and documentationof identities of tilapia fish species in Iraqi inland water

Acid assisted-hydrothermal carbonization of solid waste from essential oils industry: Optimization using I-optimal experimental design and removal dye application

Solid waste (SW) generated from extracting of essential oils from medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) is an abundant and renewable resource, but proper recycling is necessary to prevent negative environmental impacts from improper disposal. This study focused on converting SW from essential oil (EO) extraction industry by citric acid-catalyzed hydrothermal carbonization (c-HTC) coupled with chemical activation into a carbonaceous material to remove organic pollutants. For this purpose, an I-optimal design coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) was developed to investigate the relationship between the severity factor (SF) of the c-HTC process and citric acid dose (HTCcat) on carbon retention rate (CRR) and hydrochar mass yield (MY). Under optimal conditions (5.32 and 2 g for SF and HTCcat, respectively), an optimized hydrochar (HCop) was characterized by a CRR and MY of 71.02% and 56.14%, respectively. HCop was chemically activated by KOH solution (AHCop) and characterized by a specific surface area of 989.81 m2.g−1, a pore volume of 0.583 cm3.g−1, a higher heating value (HHV) of 37.3 MJ/Kg, oxygenated surface functions such as –OH, –COOH, C-O and a methylene blue (MB) removal rate of 90.71%. In addition, modelling of the adsorption isotherms found that the Freundlich isotherm better describes the experimental data, and the second-order model regulates the adsorption kinetics well. Furthermore, The maximum adsorption capacity of AHCop was 588.24 mg.g−1, with a separation factor of 0.625 under the operating conditions (t = 6 h, T = 25 °C, m(AHCop) = 0.2 g, [MB]0 = 300 mg.L-1, and pH = 7), indicating its potential for effectively removing organic pollutants. Together, these results provide crucial information on using c-HTC to convert waste biomass into functional carbon materials to remove organic pollutants efficiently. Therefore, several studies must be conducted out to discover other application fields of this material

Nitrogen and phosphorus co-doped carbocatalyst for efficient organic pollutant removal through persulfate-based advanced oxidation processes

Carbocatalysts doped with heteroatoms such as nitrogen or sulphur have been reported to be useful in persulfate-based advanced oxidation processes for organic pollutant removal. However, there is limited research on the effect of doping with phosphorus atoms on degradation performance. In this work, a new nitrogen and phosphorus-doped carbocatalyst (N, P-HC) was designed using hydrothermal carbonization followed by pyrolysis at 700 °C, with olive pomace as a carbon source, to degrade organic pollutants in the presence of peroxydisulfate (PDS). Experimental results showed that N, P-HC, with its large specific surface area (871.73 m2.g−1), high content of N-pyridinic and N-pyrrolic groups, and the presence of P-O-C and O-P-C bonds, exhibited high degradation performance (98% degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) in 40 min, with an apparent rate constant (kapp) of 0.055 min−1 and an excellent turnover frequency (TOF) of 0.275 min−1). Quenching study and EPR analysis revealed that singlet oxygen generation (1O2) and direct electron transfer were the main reaction pathways for the non-radical pathway in the degradation of RhB. The improved catalytic efficiency in the N, P-HC/PDS/RhB system can be attributed to the synergistic effect between N and P atoms in the graphitic structure of the carbocatalyst, its high surface area, and the presence of oxygenated functional groups on the surface of the N, P-HC. The used N, P-HC carbocatalyst can also be efficiently recovered by heat treatment at 500 °C. Overall, this study presents a simple and environmentally friendly method for synthesizing a high-performance N, P co-doped olive pomace-based carbocatalyst for water decontamination through PS-AOPs processes