Removal Of Zinc (Ii) Ions From Industrial Wastewater By Activated Carbon Synthesized From Mangrove (Rhizophora Mangle)

Water pollution has become one of the major issues in Malaysia, due to the release of industrial wastewater containing heavy metals. A suitable adsorbent is required to overcome this problem. Activated carbon is one the common adsorbent used for adsorption processes. Commercially available activated carbon (CAC) is expensive because it is made from non-renewable resources and require advanced processing methods to be produced. In recent years, production for activated carbon from agricultural products has gained attention for its ability in enhancing adsorption processes. Therefore, this study focuses on the potential use of agricultural wastes that are abundantly available in Malaysia, which is mangrove wood, as the precursor for the preparation of inexpensive adsorbent that can be applied to eliminate Zn (II) ions from industrial wastewater. The preparation conditions of the char through microwave heating were made at various radiation power and time. The optimization of microwave radiation power and time was performed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The optimal activated carbon was obtained at 616 W and 4 mins under physical activation with CO2. Apart from that, the adsorption process using the mangrove-based activated carbon was investigated under several conditions. The adsorption of Zn (II) ions was performed in batch system. From the experimental data, the ideal KOH impregnation ratio was at 0.5 with 98.97% of activated carbon yield and zinc (II) ions removal of 84.44%. The surface properties and morphology and functional groups of the prepared adsorbents were examined using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and CHNS Elemental Analyzer. The equilibrium phase during adsorption for all batch experiment was reached within 5 hours. The initial concentration of Zn (II) solutions was studied at different concentrations such as 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 ppm. Whereas the varying temperatures selected for the experiment were 20, 40 and 60°C. The highest Zn (II) ions removal and adsorption capacity was reached at 10 ppm and 60°C with percentages of 82.70% and 20.4043 mg/g respectively. The Langmuir isotherm model exhibit the best fit for the adsorption carried out. The maximum adsorption capacity using Langmuir isotherm was 27.6243 mg/g. The experimental data was also well fitted with pseudo-second order kinetics with R2 value of 0.9999. Finally, the thermodynamics study proved that the adsorption process is naturally endothermic. The process is spontaneous and faster at higher temperature of 60°C

Intraocular Lens Case Designs

IOLAB Corporation makes two types of intraocular lenses for the replacement of cataracts: one from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and a newer one from silicone. IOLAB ships the lens to the doctor in a two-piece case made from polycarbonate. At a price of $0.53 per case, IOLAB spends about$270,000 per year on lens cases (based on 1994 purchases of 500,000 cases). IOLAB asked us to reduce the cost of the existing lens case and to design a new case to protect and fold the silicone lens. We designed three items

Contrasting Pediatric and Adult Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates

Children may share a reservoir of MRSA strains that have an antimicrobial drug resistance profile distinct from that of adults

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcal Bacteremia in a Hematology Unit: Molecular Epidemiology and Analysis of Clinical Course

An increase in vancomycin-resistant enterococcal (VRE) bacteremia in hemato-oncological patients (n=19) in our institution from 2000 through 2001 led us to analyze the molecular epidemiologic patterns and clinical features unique to our cases. The pulsed field gel electrophoresis of the isolates revealed that the bacteremia was not originated from a single clone but rather showed endemic pattern of diverse clones with small clusters. A different DNA pattern of blood and stool isolates from one patient suggested exogenous rather than endogenous route of infection. Enterococcus faecium carrying vanA gene was the causative pathogen in all cases. Patients with VRE bacteremia showed similar clinical courses compared with those with vancomycin-susceptible enterococcal (VSE) bacteremia. Vancomycin resistance did not seem to be a poor prognostic factor because of similar mortality (5/8, 62.5%) noted in VSE bacteremia. Initial disease severity and neutropenic status may be major determinants of prognosis in patients with VRE bacteraemia

Synthesis of CuO, ZnO and SnO2 Coupled TiO2 Photocatalyst Particles for Enhanced Photodegradation of Rhodamine B Dye

Environmental pollution is a global problem and dye pollution is one of the major factors. TiO2 shows promising photocatalytic properties that can degrade organic pollutants such as dye under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. However, TiO2 possesses some disadvantages such as a wide band gap and a high recombination rate of electron-hole pairs. Coupling TiO2 with various metal oxides can enhance photocatalytic properties. In this work, photodepositon (reduction of metal ions on TiO2) followed by the thermal oxidation method were used for the coupling of TiO2 with CuO, ZnO, or SnO2 under various methanol concentrations (25 vol% or 50 vol%) and deposition duration (1 h or 3 h) to observe the effect of these parameters on the photocatalytic degradation activity on Rhodamine B (RhB) dye (up to 90 min). The rate constant of the photodegradation reaction (k) has improved from 0.0141 min−1 (uncoupled TiO2) to 0.0151~0.0368 min−1. Overall, CuO/TiO2 and SnO2/TiO2 samples have shown similar photocatalytic properties (average rate constants of 0.0341 min−1 and 0.0327 min-1, respectively), and both performed better than ZnO/TiO2 in terms of RhB photodegradation (average rate constants of 0.0197 min−1). The difference in photocatalytic performance can be explained by the bandgap of metal oxides and their relative band positions with TiO2. Lastly, CuO/TiO2 (50 vol%, 3 h) and SnO2/TiO2 (50 vol%, 3 h) have shown the best photocatalytic properties respectively due to a longer deposition time and higher concentration methanol, resulting in more deposited materials. Copyright © 2023 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

BORIS Portal, the institutional research data and project repository: New opportunities and perspectives

The new institutional BORIS Portal research data and project repository has been launched at the University of Bern in September 2021. With BORIS Portal research data, the requirements of funding agencies for archiving and accessibility of research data can be met, data can be secured, and access rights can be managed. Researchers from the University of Bern (UniBE), including the Insel, can archive research data according to FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) on the systems of the university's automatically backed-up IT services; openly share research data or restrict access to the data to a certain period of time or provide metadata only; integrate anonymized data e.g., from clinical studies into the submission workflow with Data Transfer Agreement (DTA); and determine, manage and declare usage and access rights for each individual file, if needed. The BORIS Portal project information system enables researchers at the UniBE to (i) provide access to information about funded individual and collaborative as well as national and international research projects; (ii) assign personnel responsibilities within projects (roles); and (iii) linking projects, data, researchers, and scientific publications. In addition, BORIS Portal provides the governing bodies of the University of Bern with information for developing and sharpening the research profiles and research strategies. Among other things, BORIS Portal enables and facilitates the targeted promotion of research (e.g., promotion of young researchers, interdisciplinary collaboration) linking research outputs at the national and international levels. As a public open platform, BORIS Portal is intended to create transparency about the research activities of the UniBE for a public domain. For the industry community, BORIS Portal can offer uncomplicated contact to researchers. The work in progress is related to creating researchers’ profiles and linking them to other resources, e.g., awards; exporting project information to researchers' profiles and institute's web pages; make it possible to import project information that is already available in other systems into the BORIS Portal (e.g., project databases of research funding institutions). Likewise, data and metadata can be exported from BORIS research data and project to internal or external partner systems