This study aimed to obtain an isolate of a mold that has well characteristic for production of citric acid from raw materials available locally by solid-state fermentation and determination of the optimum conditions for production .Fourteen mold isolates producing acid were obtained from different sources, involved decayed fruits and soils. These isolates were subjected to initial qualitative screening followed by secondary quantitative screening In secondary screening a method combined between the submerged fermentation and solid-state fermentation was followed using a piece of sponge saturated by nutrients required for growth and production of acid. It was found that the isolate of A7 was the highest producer for citric acid than any other isolates including three standard isolates obtained from the Laboratory of Biotechnology/ College of Agriculture. Morphological analysis under the light microscope and cultural characteristics on solid media showed that the isolate A7 belongs to Aspergillus niger. Different raw materials were used for the production of citric acid from this isolate by solid-state fermentation included sunflower waste, wheat bran, rice bran as well as ground corn. It was found that the latter was better than others,therefore it was used for optimization of production conditions of the acid. The optimum conditions were achieved on ground corn moistened with water at a ratio 1:0.75 with an initial pH 3 inoculated with 107 spores/ml during an incubation time of 3 days at 25 C0..The productivity of citric acid under these conditions was 20.8 gm/100 gm of the media. Supporting the media with 1% of yeast extract and adding 3% of methanol to moisten solution was found to increase the productivity to 23.0 g /100 g, while the effect of ethanol was limited. Citric acid produced in this study was detected quantitatively and qualitatively by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and it was found that the amount of citric acid produced after three days of incubation under optimum production conditions was ١٣٫٥٤ gm/ 100 gm of media. This value was less than that estimated by the chemical method using pyridine. It was also noted that, beside citric acid, there was another compound produced in visible quantity. Although this compound was not recognized in this study, it is thought to be any of organic acids of Kreb's cycle and this compound may be interact with citric acid when determined by pyridine. According to results of determination of citric acid by HPLC it can be said that the actual production of citric acid was as mentioned above (13.54 gm/ 100 gm) but not as estimated by the chemical method using pyridine
The presence of hydrocarbons in the soil is considered one of the main problems of pollution. In our current study, eight samples isolated from soil saturated with hydrocarbons were taken from different areas of Baghdad, Iraq. In this study, 5 isolates belonging to Pseudomonas aeruginosa by 99%, 4 isolates to Klebsiella pneumoniae by 98%, and 3 isolates to Enterobacter hormaechei by 97% were diagnosed in different ways. A molecular examination was also conducted by 16sRNA. We recorded P. aeruginosa, K. Pneumoniae and E. hormaechei as new local isolates in NCBI. In addition, a comparison was made between our isolates and the global isolates to determine the degree of convergence in the evolutionary line. The genes alkB and nahAc7 were diagno
... Show MoreThis work was conducted to study the extraction of eucalyptus oil from natural plants (Eucalyptus camadulensis leaves) by organic solvents. the effects of the main operating parameters were studied; type of solvent (n-hexane and ethanol), time to reach equilibrium, the temperature (45°C to 65°C) for n-hexane and (45°C to 75°C) for ethanol, solvent to solid ratio (5:1 to 8:1 (v/w)), agitation speed (0 to 900 rpm) and the particle size (0.5 to 2.5 cm) of fresh leaves to find the best processing conditions for the achieving maximum oil yield. The concentration of eucalyptus oil in solvent was measured by using UV-spectrophotometer. The results (for n-hexane) showed that the agitation speed of 900 rpm, temperature 65°C with solvent to soli
... Show MoreThe removal of Anit-Inflammatory drugs, namely; Acetaminophen (ACTP), from wastewater by bulk liquid membrane (BLM) process using Aliquat 336 (QCl) as a carrier was investigated. The effects of several parameters on the extraction efficiency were studied in this research, such as the initial feed phase concentration (10-50) ppm of ACTP, stripping phase (NaCl) concentration (0.3,0.5,0.7 M), temperature (30-50oC), the volume ratio of feed phase to membrane phase (200-400ml/80ml), agitation speed of the feed phase (75-125 rpm), membrane stirring speed (0, 100, 150 rpm), carrier concentration (1, 5, 9 wt%), the pH of feed (2, 4, 6, 8, 10), and solvent type (CCl4 and n-Heptane). The study shows that high ext
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The present paper focuses in a particular on the study of the biochar production conditions by the thermal pyrolysis of biomass from local Iraqi palm fronds, in the absence of oxygen. The biochar product can be used as soil improvers. The effect of temperature on the extent of the thermal pyrolysis process was studied in the range from 523 to 773K with a residence time of 15 minutes and nitrogen gas flow rate of 0.1 l/min. The produced biochar was characterized as will as biomass and degradation products. The results showed that the rate of biochar production decreases with the increasing in temperature, also it was noted that the normalized biochar surface area and pore size increases with the increasin
... Show MoreThe adsorption of Congo red (CR) dye on modified synthetic zeolite 5A , the general name of which is Linde Type A (LTA)which is modified by amino mercepto thiadiazole (AMT) and have been characterized by using fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) , x-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopies, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis.In this work Modified zeolite was utilized as adsorbent to remove (CR) dye from aqueous solution by adsorption. Batch experiments were conducted to study the effects contact time , initial concentration of adsorbate and temperature on dye adsorption. The equilibrium adsorption data were analyzed by using several isotherm models ( Freu
... Show MorePharmaceuticals are widely distributed in different applications and also released into the environment. Adsorption of Ciprofloxacin HCl (CIPH) on Porcelinaite was studied at ambient conditions. The adsorption isotherms can be well described using the Freundlich and Temkin equations. The pH of the solution influences significantly the adsorption capacity of Porcelinaite, the adsorption of CIPH increased from the initial pH 1.3 and then decreased over the pH rang of 3.8-9. The adsorption is sensitive to the change in ionic Strength, which indicate that electrostatic attraction is a significant mechanism for sorption process. The enthalpy change (∆H) for the adsorption of CIPH onto Porcelinaite signifies an endothermic adsorption. The ∆G
... Show MoreThe degradation and mineralization of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) was investigated in this work, using both of UV/H2O2 and photo-Fenton UV/H2O2/Fe+3 systems.The reaction was influenced by the input concentration of H2O2, the amount of the iron catalyst, the type of iron salt, the pH and the concentration of 4-CP. A colored solution of benzoquinon can be observed through the first 5 minutes of irradiation time for UV/H2O2 system when low concentration (0.01mol/L) of H2O2 was used. The colored solution of benzoquinon could also be observed through the first 5 minutes for the UV/H2O2/Fe+3 system at high
concentration (100ppm) of 4-CP. The results have shown that adding Fe+3 to the UV/H2O2 system enhanced
The adsorption behavior of methyl orange from aqueous solution on Iraqi bentonite was investigated. The effects of various parameters such as initial concentration of methyl orange, amount of adsorbent, ionic strength and temperature on the adsorption capacity has been studied. The percentage removal of methyl orange increased with the decrease of initial concentration of methyl orange and it increased with the increase of dose of adsorbent. The adsorbed amount of methyl orange decrease with increasing ionic strength and an increase in temperature. The equilibrium adsorption isotherms have been analysed by the linear, Langmuir and Temkin models. The Langmuir isotherms have the highest correlation coefficients. Thermodynamic paramet
... Show MoreThe removal of boron from aqueous solution was carried out by electrocoagulation (EC) using magnesium electrodes as anode and stainless steel electrodes as cathode. Several operating parameters on the removal efficiency of boron were investigated, such as initial pH, current density, initial boron ion concentration, NaCl concentration, spacing between electrodes, electrode material, and presence of carbonate concentration. The optimum removal efficiency of 91. 5 % was achieved at a current density of 3 mA/cm² and pH = 7 using (Mg/St. St. ) electrodes, within 45 min of operating time. The concentration of NaCl was o. 1 g/l with a 0.5cm spacing between the electrodes. First and second order rate equation were applied to study adsorp
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