Heavy metal (HM) pollution has long been a significant source of environmental deterioration and a problem for the safety of food. Iraqis prefer rice over any other food, and since heavy metals have a direct impact on health, their traces in rice have drawn particular attention. Before cooking rice, it is usual in Iraq to wash and soak it. Some 55 varieties of imported and local rice were sampled from Erbil city markets in 2022 with the aim of determining the concentration of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb before and after soaking. Standard procedure of acid digestions was applied on the raw and soaked samples. The solutions were analyzed using ICPE-9820 Shimadzu. The mean concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb (in mg/kg) in the rice samples bef

Iron–phthalocyanine (FePc) organic photoconductive detector was fabricated using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique to work in ultraviolet (UV) and visible regions. The organic semiconductor material (iron phthalocyanine) was deposited on n-type silicon wafer (Si) substrates at different thicknesses (100, 200 and 300) nm. FePc organic photoconductive detector has been improved by two methods: the first is to manufacture the detector on PSi substrates, and the second is by coating the detector with polyamide–nylon polymer to enhance the photoconductivity of the FePc detector. The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics, responsivity, photocurrent gain, response time and the quantum efficiency of the fabricated photoconduc

Portland cement is considered the most involved product in environmental pollution. It is responsible for about 10% of global CO2 emissions [1]. Limestone dust is a by-product of limestone plants and it is produced in thousands of tons annually as waste material. To fulfill sustainability requirements, concrete production is recommended to reduce Portland cement usage with the use of alternative or waste materials. The production of sustainable high strength concrete by using nanomaterials is one of the aims of this study. Limestone dust in 12, 16, and 20% by weight of cement replaced cement in this study. The study was divided into two parts: the first was devoted to the investigation of the best percentage of replacement of waste

The aim of this research is to study the influence of additives on the properties of soap greases, such as lithium, calcium, sodium, lithium-calcium grease, by adding varies additives, such as graphite, molybdenum disulfide, carbon black, corrosion inhibitor, and extreme pressure.
These additives have been added to grease to obtain the best percentages that improve the properties of grease such as load carrying, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, drop point, and penetration.
The results showed the best weight percentages to all types of grease which give good properties are 1.5% extreme pressure additive, 3% graphite, 1% molybdenum disulfide, 2.5% carbon black.
The other hand, the best weight percentage for corrosion inhibit

This study investigates the improvement of Iraqi atmospheric gas oil characteristics which contains 1.402 wt. % sulfur content and 16.88 wt. % aromatic content supplied from Al-Dura Refinery by using hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process using Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 prepared catalyst in order to achieve low sulfur and aromatic saturation gas oil. Hydrodearomatization (HDA) occurs simultaneously with hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process. The effect of titanium on the conventional catalyst Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 was investigated by physical adsorption and catalytic activity test. Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was prepared under vacuum impregnation condition to ensure efficient precipitation of metals within the carrier γ-Al2O3. The loading percentage of met

This study investigates the improvement of Iraqi atmospheric gas oil characteristics which contains 1.402 wt. % sulfur content and 16.88 wt. % aromatic content supplied from Al-Dura Refinery by using hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process using Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al₂O₃ prepared catalyst in order to achieve low sulfur and aromatic saturation gas oil. Hydrodearomatization (HDA) occurs simultaneously with hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process. The effect of titanium on the conventional catalyst Ni-Mo/γ-Al₂O₃ was investigated by physical adsorption and catalytic activity test.Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was prepared under vacuum impregnation condition to ensure efficient pr

This work presents a novel technique for the detection of oil aging in electrical transformers using a single mode optical fiber sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The aging of insulating oil is a critical issue in the maintenance and performance of electrical transformers, as it can lead to reduce insulation properties, increase risk of electrical breakdown, and decrease operational lifespan. Many parameters are calculated in this study in order to examine the efficiency of this sensor like sensitivity (S), signal to noise ratio (SNR), resolution (refractive index unit) and figure of merit (FOM) and the values are for figure of merit is 11.05, the signal to noise ratio is 20.3, the sensitivity is 6.63, and the resolution is 3

There is of great importance to know the values of the optical constants of materials due to their relationship with the optical properties and then with their practical applications. For this reason, it was proposed to study the optical constants of amorphous silicon nanostructures (quantum well, quantum wire, and quantum dot) because of their importance in the world of optical applications. In this study, it was adopted the Herve and Vandamme (HV) model of the refractive index because it was found that this model has very good optical properties for almost all semiconductors. Also, it was carried out by applying experimental results for the energy gaps of these three nanostructures, which makes the results of the theoretical calculations

Palladium nanoparticles are produced by Polyol method. The characterization of the Pd nanoparticle has been conducted by various techniques such as SEM and AFM. The results of Pd powder showed that the particle size is directly proportional to the temperature and the reaction time. The optimum conditions for obtaining minimum nanoparticles size are 45 oC reaction temperature and 60 min reaction time and the smaller particle size achieved is equal to 25 nm. The optical limiting of smaller size nanoparticles has been studied. The palladium nanoparticles appear to be attractive candidates for optical limiting applications.