This paper reports the synthesis and use of a novel metal-organic framework (MOF), named Zr-BADS, within the thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes for reverse osmosis (RO) applications. Two types of zirconium-based MOFs, Zr-BADS-1 and Zr-BADS-2, were synthesized via a solvothermal method using bicinchoninic acid disodium salt as a linker and either dimethylformamide or ethanol as solvent, respectively. TFN membranes were prepared by embedding these MOFs within the polyamide thin film supported by a polysulfone support sheet. The specific surface area of Zr-BADS-1 and Zr-BADS-2 was determined to be 396.1 and 278.6 m2/g, respectively, indicating significant surface area conducive to water permeation. Scanning electron microscopic analysis revealed a uniform distribution of Zr-BADS nanoparticles (NPs) with particle sizes ≤ 100 nm within the TFN membranes. TEM images confirmed the dense packing of NPs within the membranes, influencing their texture and enhancing performance. FTIR spectroscopy demonstrated the presence of characteristic peaks corresponding to MOFs within the TFN membranes, with changes observed at higher loading ratios. The observed contact angle decreased with increasing MOF loadings, indicating an enhancement in the hydrophilicity. Zr-BADS-1 NPs increased water flux at its optimal loading of 0.3%, and the flux raised to 5.4 L/m2 h bar. Salt rejection slightly decreased at low concentrations but improved at higher loading ratios, indicating the interplay between porosity and charge effects. Zr-BADS-1 outperformed other MOFs in salt rejection and water flux, suggesting it is a remarkable RO membrane filler. This study demonstrates the potential of Zr-BADS MOFs for future membrane applications in the environment.
(9)
(4)
Numerical study has been conducted to investigate the thermal performance enhancement of flat plate solar water collector by integrating the solar collector with metal foam blocks.The flow is assumed to be steady, incompressible and two dimensional in an inclined channel. The channel is provided with eight foam blocks manufactured form copper. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region. The energy equation is used with local thermal equilibrium (LTE) assumption to simulate the thermofield inside the porous medium. The current investigation covers a range of solar radiation intensity at 09:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 04:00
... Show MoreGastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a prevalent clinical condition, that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Objective: To assess the level of soluble HLA-E (sHLA-E) as a biomarker in the diagnosis and immunopathogenesis of GERD patients. Methods: The case-control prospective study included 40 GERD patients who were consulted at the Gastroenterology Unit of AlKindy Teaching Hospital, as along with 40 healthy control subjects. The study period extended from January 2023 to May 2024. Blood was drawn from both groups and serum was separated to assesssHLA-E using a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in sHLA-E levels between GERD patients and healthy cont
... Show More
Recent years have seen an explosion in graph data from a variety of scientific, social and technological fields. From these fields, emotion recognition is an interesting research area because it finds many applications in real life such as in effective social robotics to increase the interactivity of the robot with human, driver safety during driving, pain monitoring during surgery etc. A novel facial emotion recognition based on graph mining has been proposed in this paper to make a paradigm shift in the way of representing the face region, where the face region is represented as a graph of nodes and edges and the gSpan frequent sub-graphs mining algorithm is used to find the frequent sub-structures in the graph database of each emotion. T
... Show More
(48)
(40)
In this work, a simulated study was carried out for designing a novel spiral rectangular patch of microstrip antenna that is used in ultra-wideband applications by using a high frequency structure simulator software (HFSS). A substrate with dielectric constant of 4.4 and height 2.10 mm (commercial substrate height available is about 0.8-1.575 mm) has been used for the design of the proposed antenna. The design basis for enhancing bandwidth in the frequency range 6.63 - 10.93 GHz is based on increasing the edge areas that positively affect the antenna's efficiency. This design makes the designed antenna cost less by reducing the area of the patch. It has been noticed that the bandwidth of the antenna under this study is increasing to 4.30
... Show More
(5)
(2)
The term "nano gold," also known as "gold nanoparticles," is commonly used. These particles are extremely small, with a diameter of less than 100 nm, which is only a fraction of the width of a human hair. Due to their tiny size, nano gold particles are often found in a colloidal solution, where they are suspended in a liquid stabilizer. This colloidal gold is essentially another name for nano gold. The main method for producing gold nanoparticles in a colloidal solution is the citrate synthesis technique, which involves combining different solutions to precipitate the gold nanoparticles. In biological systems, copper complexes play a significant role at the active sites of many metalloproteins. These complexes have potential applications in
... Show More
The newly synthesized Schiff base ligand (E)-2-((2-phenylhydrazono)methyl)naphthalen-1-ol (phenyl hydrazine derivative), is allowed to react with each of the next mineral ion: Ni2+, Cu2+, Zn2+andCd2+successfully resulting to obtain new metal complexes with different geometric shape. The formation of Schiff base complexes and also the origin Schiff base is indicated using LC-Mass that manifest the obtained molar mass, FT-IR proved the occurrence of coordination through N of azobenzene and O of OH by observing the shifting in azomethines band and appearing of M-N and N-O bands. Moreover, we can also detect by such apparatus, the presence of aquatic water molecule inside the coordination sphere. UV-Vis spectra of all resultants reveale
... Show More
(11)
(5)