Background: Plasma-activated water (PAW) is considered one of the emerging strategies that has been highlighted recently in the food industry for microbial decontamination and mycotoxin detoxification, due to its unique provisional characteristics. Aim: The effectiveness of PAW for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA), and fumonisin B1 (FB1) detoxification in naturally contaminated poultry feeds with its impacts on the feed quality were inspected. Methods: PAW-30 and PAW-60 were utilized for feed treatment for six time durations (5, 10, 15, 20, 40 and 60 min) each. The alterations in the physicochemical properties of PAW after different time durations of plasma inducement and treatment with and without feed samples were monitored. Competitive Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) was employed for estimation of mycotoxin levels and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was utilized for results confirmation. Feed composition analyses with peroxide values (PVs) estimation were implemented according to standard analytical methods. Results: The physicochemical properties of PAW showed a significant decrease (P<0.05) in pH value from 6.72 to 2.68 and a significant increase (P<0.05) in oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), electrical conductivity (EC) and temperature from 235 mV, 5.1 μS/cm and 20.5 °C to 499.2 mV, 727.6 μS/cm and 26.8 °C, respectively after 60 min of plasma inducement in a time-dependent manner. The mycotoxins decay kinetics after PAW application were illustrated. Mycotoxins degradation efficiency significantly increased (P<0.05) with increasing water activation time. A significant increase (P<0.05) in AFB1, OTA and FB1 degradation levels was reported mainly during the first 10 min of treatment for AFB1 and the first 15 min for OTA and FB1 to record values of 28.33, 32.14 and 34.62% and 33.80, 40.70 and 43.38% after 60 min of feed exposure to PAW-30 and PAW-60, respectively. Significant differences (P<0.05) between examined mycotoxins in their degradation levels were recorded, where FB1 exhibited the highest degradation levels. Generally, feed compositions were slightly affected by PAW and fats were still having good quality. Conclusion: The possibility of PAW for degrading more than a quarter to a third of the original quantity of targeted mycotoxins in poultry feeds after 10 min of treatment with a slight effect on feed quality.
Oil/water emulsions are one of the major threats to environment nowadays, occurs at many stages in the production and treatment of crude oil. The oil recovery process adopted will depend on how the oil is present in the water stream. Oil can be found as free oil, as an unstable oil/water emulsion and also as a highly stable oil/water emulsion. The current study was dedicated to the application of microbubble air flotation process for the removal of such oily emulsions for its characters of cost-effective, simple structure, high efficiency and no secondary pollution. The influence of several key parameters on the process removal efficiency was examined, namely, initial oil concentration, pH value of t
The study aims mainly to evaluate the performance of Sharq Dijila water treatment plant in removing turbidity for the period of 1-4-2001 to 31-3-2004. Daily data for turbidity of raw, clarified, filtered, and supplied water were analyzed. The results of the study showed that there is a wide variation in turbidity levels of raw water fluctuating between 10-1000 NTU with mean value of 41.3 NTU. Turbidity values of the clarified water varied between 1.4-77 NTU. Based on the turbidity value of 10 NTU and 20 NTU (the design maximum turbidity) the readings gave an acceptable percentage of 32.4% and 86% respectively. The turbidity of filtered water ranged between 0.2-4.5 NTU which are completely in compliance with Iraqi and WHO standards. In ac
... Show MoreRecycling process presents a sustainable pavement by using the old materials that could be milled, mixed with virgin materials and recycling agents to produce recycled mixtures. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of water on recycled asphalt concrete mixtures, and the effect of the inclusion of old materials into recycled mixtures on the resistance of water damage. A total of 54 Marshall Specimens and 54 compressive strength specimens of (virgin, recycled, and aged asphalt concrete mixtures) had been prepared, and subjected to Tensile Strength Ratio test, and Index of Retained Strength test. Four types of recycling agents (used oil, oil + crumb rubber, soft grade asphalt cement, and asphalt cement + Su
... Show MoreThe provision of safe water for people is a human right; historically, a major number of people depend on groundwater as a source of water for their needs, such as agricultural, industrial or human activities. Water resources have recently been affected by organic and/or inorganic contaminants as a result of population growth and increased anthropogenic activity, soil leaching and pollution. Water resource remediation has become a serious environmental concern, since it has a direct impact on many aspects of people’s lives. For decades, the pump-and-treat method has been considered the predominant treatment process for the remediation of contaminated groundwater with organic and inorganic contaminants. On the other side, this tech
... Show MoreDespite extensive investigation as biocompatible drug carriers, gelatin nanoparticles (GNPs) have not been thoroughly assessed for carrying chemically distinct cationic molecules such as acriflavine (ACF) and triethylenetetramine (TETA). In this study, we hypothesize that GNPs can effectively encapsulate ACF and TETA, forming stable delivery systems with distinct antibacterial and cytotoxic activities. ACF encapsulated in gelatin was prepared adapting desolvation technique. The procedure involved stirring of an aqueous solution of gelatin and ACF at room temperature, the pH was titrated to eight using NaOH followed by addition of ethanol. The resulting nanopart
In this study water quality index (WQI) was calculated to classify the flowing water in the Tigris River in Baghdad city. GIS was used to develop colored water quality maps indicating the classification of the river for drinking water purposes. Water quality parameters including: Turbidity, pH, Alkalinity, Total hardness, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Chloride, Sulfate, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia, Orthophosphate and Total dissolved solids were used for WQI determination. These parameters were recorded at the intakes of the WTPs in Baghdad for the period 2004 to 2011. The results from the annual average WQI analysis classified the Tigris River very poor to polluted at the north of Baghdad (Alkarkh WTP) while it was very poor to very polluted in t
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The current research problem includes a variety of research motivations to serve the private health sector, which is witnessing a great competition from internal and external environments. In this regard, private medical clinics are increasingly seeking to attract and retain customers through the quality of their service offerings represented by health services. Innovative and effective marketing methods to improve performance and stay in competition, by relying on the physical evidence of the product as a component of the marketing mix of services and its role in particular in packaging and supporting the health service with concrete evidence that affects the customer an
... Show MoreFootball has progressed from being a ritual and a celebration to become an amateur sport, a professional sport, and now, increasingly, a commercial sport. In the analysis of football business model, the systemic approach should be adopted. If sport is regarded as one of the business sectors, then the application of business system methodology can be fully justified. The interest to create strong football business system calls for the search of the ways of popularizing football business model and boosting the economic potential of its participants. In the research literature tend to ignore the business processes within the sports business. Besides, the systemic approach in football business is usually limited to p
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