The present study was designed to investigate the possibility of exploiting the interspecies interaction of microbial cells in order to enhance the production of prodigiosin by local isolate S. marcescens S23. Prodigiosin is a promising drug owing to its characteristics of antibacterial, antifungal, immunosuppressive and anticancer activities. S. marcescens S23 was isolated from soil sample and already recognized via morphological, biochemical and molecular identification process. The first step was to detect the optimal conditions for maximum prodigiosin production using chemically defined liquid medium. The results revealed that the optimal conditions for prodigiosin production were sucrose as carbon source; peptone as nitrogen source;

Industrial dyes are major pollutants in wastewater and river water with an initial visible concentration of 1 mg/L. Recent studies have shown the possibility of using polyphenol oxidase in catalytic biological treatment due to its ability to oxidize a large number of dyes and pollutants in wastewater and the flexibility to work in wide ranges of temperature, pH and salinity. It is easy availability as well as the low economic cost resulting from its use in biological treatments, this enzyme polyphenol oxidase was used. The findings in this study showed that the extraction of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) from potato peel was homogenized with potassium phosphate buffer (0.1 M, pH 7) at a ratio of 1:10 (weight: volume) for two min. The res

     In the present investigation, the synthesis of copper nanoparticles from green tea was attempted and investigated for its capacity to adsorb drugs (Ciprofloxacin). The copper nanoparticles (Cu-NPs) were characterized by different techniques of analysis such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images, atomic force microscope (AFM),  blumenauer-emmer-teller (BET), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and zeta potentials techniques. Cu-NPs lie in the mesoporous material category with a diameter in the range of 2-50 nm. The aqueous solution was investigated for the removal of ciprofloxacin (CIP) with green tea-synthesized Cu-NPs. The results showed that ciprofloxacin efficiency depe

A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents bolts from slipping within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes the typical construction tolerance issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly. Therefore, it can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow including the following: (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (

A crucial area of research in nanotechnology is the formation of environmentally benign nanoparticles. Both unicellular and multicellular play an important role in synthesis nanoparticles through the production of inorganic materials either intracellularly or extracellularly. The agents (pigments, siderophores, cell extracted metabolites and reducing compounds) were used to prepare silver nanparticles with different sizes and shapes. The color variations (dark yellow, slightly dark yellow and golden yellow) arising from changes in the composition, size, and shape of nanoparticles, surrounding medium can be monitored using UV-visible spectrophotometer. These effects are due to the phenomena called surface plasmon resonance. The silver nanopa

In this work, metal oxides nanostructures, mainly, copper oxide (CuO), nickel oxide (NiO), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and multilayer structure were synthesized by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The structural purity and nanoparticle size of the prepared nanostructures were determined. The individual metal oxide samples (CuO, NiO and TiO2) showed high structural purity and minimum particle sizes of 34, 44, 61 nm, respectively. As well, the multilayer structure showed high structural purity as no elements or compounds other than the three oxides were founds in the final sample while the minimum particle size was 18 nm. This reduction in nanoparticle size can be considered as an advantage for the dc reactive magnetron sputtering tec

The esterification of oleic acid with 2-ethylhexanol in presence of sulfuric acid  as homogeneous catalyst was investigated in this work to produce 2-ethylhexyl oleate (biodiesel) by using semi batch reactive distillation. The effect of reaction temperature (100 to 130°C), 2-ethylhexanol:oleic acid molar ratio (1:1 to 1:3) and catalysts concentration (0.2 to 1wt%) were studied. Higher conversion of 97% was achieved with operating conditions of reaction temperature of 130°C, molar ratio of free fatty acid to alcohol of 1:2 and catalyst concentration of 1wt%. A simulation was adopted from basic principles of the reactive distillation using MATLAB to describe the process. Good agreement was achieved.

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     Despite their long successful use, synthetic dyes have several problems due to their carcinogenic and toxic effects. Besides providing bright colors, some natural pigments have shown notable antimicrobial activity; thus, they could be utilized as functional dyes in many applications such as making colored antimicrobial textiles. In this work, a yellow pigment produced by Streptomyces thinghirensis AF7 and has a notable antimicrobial activity was used to produce a colored antimicrobial textile. The extracted yellow pigment was subjected to a purification step using silica gel column eluted with di ethyl ether solvent. The FTIR, GC-MS and NMR analysis showed that the colorings in this type of product are due to t