Used cooking oil was undergoing trans-esterification reaction to produce biodiesel fuel. Method of production consisted of pretreatment steps, trans-esterification, separation, washing and drying. Trans-esterification of treated oils was studied at different operation conditions, the methanol to oil mole ratio were 6:1, 8:1, 10:1, and 12:1, at different temperature 30, 40, 50, and 60 ^º C, reaction time 40, 60, 80, and 120 minutes, amount of catalyst 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 wt.% based on oil and mixing speed 400 rpm. The maximum yield of biodiesel was 91.68 wt.% for treated oils obtained by trans-esterification reaction with 10:1 methanol to oil mole ratio, 60 ^º C reaction temperature, 80 minute reactio

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the surface roughness and dimensional accuracy of commercially obtainable alginate impression material in terms of imbibition after immersion in two different media. Materials and method: Two disinfecting agents, ethanol 70% and povidone-iodine 4%, were used to access the dimensional accuracy and surface roughness of alginate impression material. Weights of specimen discs of alginate impressions were measured before and immediately after immersion to gain a measure of imbibition. For surface roughness, disinfected specimens rectangle was examined before and after disinfection. Results: Minimal changes in weight were observed after disinfection, but a statistically non-significant differenc

Six isolates of A. pullulans were collected from many sources including Hibiscus sabdariffa (Roselle), old Roofs of houses and bathroom surface that referred as Ap ros1, Ap or2, 3, 4 and Ap bs5, 6 respectively, all these isolates were identified based on morphological characteristics and nutritional physiology profiles, all were able to utilize various carbon and nitrogen sources such as glucose, xylose, sucrose, maltose, ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate and ammonium chloride, also they showed positive test for starch and amylase, while α-cellulose, ethanol, and methanol were could not be ass

Background: The present study was carried out to compare shear bond strength of sapphire bracket bonded to zirconium surface after using different methods of surface conditioning and assessment of the adhesive remnant index. Materials and methods: The sample composed of 40 zirconium specimens divided into four groups; the first group was the control, the second group was conditioned by sandblast with aluminum oxide particle 50 μm, the third and fourth group was treated by (Nd: YAG) laser (1064nm)(0.888 Watt for 5 seconds) for the 1st laser group and (0.444 Watt for 10 seconds) for the 2nd laser group. All samples were coated by z-prime plus primer. A central incisor sapphire bracket was bonded to all samples with light cure adhesive res

One of the most important problems facing the world today is the energy problem. The solution was in finding renewable energy sources such as solar energy. The solar energy applications in Iraq is facing many problems . One of the most important problems is the accumulation of dust on the solar panels surface which causes decreasing its performance sharply. In the present work, a new technique was presented by using two-axis solar tracking system to reduce the accumulated dust on the solar panel surface and compared it with the fixed solar panels which installed at tilt angles 30° and 45°. The results indicated that the maximum losses of the output power due to accumulation of dust on the fixed solar panels is about 31.4% and 23.1% res

Introduction: The current study investigated the use of acid-treated rice husks to remove heavy metals and organic pollutants from water containing heavy metals (R2C and Cd2) and organic pollutants (phenol and atrazine). Methods: The adsorption effect of acid-treated rice husks was compared with other adsorbents such as activated carbon, chitosan, and bentonite clay. Result: both acid-treated rice husks and activated carbon were highly efficient materials, and thus, rice husks were established as a cost-effective alternative. It was revealed that acid treatment of rice husks enhanced adsorption capacity by half, and lead removal was nearly doubled. The most effective pH value for optimizing organic pollutants and heavy metals while

Current studies interested on the biosynthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) using hot plants extracts of Allium sativum and characterization of them using: Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffractions (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT- IR), UV–visible spectral and Hot stage. The results found that all NPs are had nano-size. ZnO NPs was produced by four procedures using hot extract of Allium sativum. The average diameters were: 101.59 nm, 110.33 nm, 75.69 nm, 88.67 nm for first, second, third and fourth procedures respectively compared with 47.57 nm for standard NPs. The Roughness averages (Ra) were: 10.8 nm, 6.83 nm, 13.8 nm, 0.541 nm for first, second, third and fourth respectively. The Root mean square (Sq

Etoricoxib (EXB) is a highly selective cox-2 inhibitor which belongs to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). EXB is a class II drug according to the biopharmaceutical classification system (BCS), which possess a very low aqueous solubility in water.  In the present study, many trials were made to improve the aqueous solubility and dissolution rate of EXB by solid dispersion technique.

Eighteenth EXB formulas were formulated as a solid dispersion using a variety of hydrophilic polymers (as carriers)   including poloxamer 407 (PXM 407), poloxamer 188 (PXM 188) and polyethylene glycol 4000 (PEG 4000) at different drug: polymer ratios (1:1, 1:3 and 1:5). These formulas were prepared by two methods; solvent

This paper presents a meta-heuristic swarm based optimization technique for solving robot path planning. The natural activities of actual ants inspire which named Ant Colony Optimization. (ACO) has been proposed in this work to find the shortest and safest path for a mobile robot in different static environments with different complexities. A nonzero size for the mobile robot has been considered in the project by taking a tolerance around the obstacle to account for the actual size of the mobile robot. A new concept was added to standard Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for further modifications. Simulations results, which carried out using MATLAB 2015(a) environment, prove that the suggested algorithm outperforms the standard version of AC

Many objective optimizations (MaOO) algorithms that intends to solve problems with many objectives (MaOP) (i.e., the problem with more than three objectives) are widely used in various areas such as industrial manufacturing, transportation, sustainability, and even in the medical sector.  Various approaches of MaOO algorithms are available and employed to handle different MaOP cases. In contrast, the performance of the MaOO algorithms assesses based on the balance between the convergence and diversity of the non-dominated solutions measured using different evaluation criteria of the quality performance indicators. Although many evaluation criteria are available, yet most of the evaluation and benchmarking of the MaOO with state-of-art a