Anti-idiotype (Id) vaccine therapy has been tested and shown to be effective, in several animal models, for triggering the immune system to induce specific and protective immunity against bacterial, viral and parasitic infections. The administration of anti-Id antibodies as surrogate tumor-associated antigens (TAA) also represents another potential application of the concept of the Id network. Limited experience in human trials using anti-Id to stimulate immunity against tumors has shown promising results. In this "counter-point" article, we discuss our own findings showing the potential of anti-Id antibody vaccines to be novel therapeutic approaches to various human cancers and also discuss where anti-Id vaccines may perform better than traditional multiple-epitope antigen vaccines.
Tuberculosis (TB) remains an important cause of mortality and morbidity. The TB vaccine, BCG, is not fully protective against the adult form of the disease and is unable to prevent its transmission although it is still useful against severe childhood TB. Hence, the search for new vaccines is of great interest. In a previous study, we have shown that proteoliposomes obtained from Mycobacterium smegmatis (PLMs) induced cross reactive humoral and cellular response against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) antigens. With the objective to evaluate the protective capability of PLMs, a murine model of progressive pulmonary TB was used. Animals immunized with PLMs with and without alum (PLMs/PLMsAL respectively) showed protection compared to non-immunized animals. Mice immunized with PLMsAL induced similar protection as that of BCG. Animals immunized with BCG, PLMs and PLMsAL showed a significant decrease in tissue damage (percentage of pneumonic area/lung) compared to non-immunized animals, with a more prominent effect in BCG vaccinated mice. The protective effect of the administration of PLMs in mice supports its future evaluation as experimental vaccine candidate against Mtb.
Clean, safe and readily available water is very crucial in everyday life, especially for health, hygiene, and the productivity of the community. Unfortunately, increase in contaminants in water supplies from human activities and industrialization is very worrying. Conventional wastewater treatment includes the usage of alum that will affect health with prolonged consumption. This research was carried out to focus on the development of wastewater treatment system using adsorbent from Moringa oleifera seeds. Adsorbent was successfully synthesized from the seeds of Moringa oleifera. Characterization of the sample was made using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), while the effectiveness of water treatment was analyzed using Turbidity Meter. Then, all samples were tested against kaolin wastewater. XRD results showed that all the adsorbent samples were amorphous in nature. FTIR results indicated that there were hydroxyl group and carboxylic group in the sample representing numerous oxygen-riddled functional groups on the surface. From SEM results, it was clearly shown that the pore structure and size of Moringa oleifera affected the capability of adsorption where the smaller the size, the more effective the sample. Turbidity test showed that the sample that worked best for wastewater treatment was adsorbent from Moringa oleifera seeds in size of 125µm that was heated for 4 hours with 93.76% turbidity removal. Therefore, this study proved that the adsorbent from Moringa oleifera seeds is very suitable for high turbidity wastewater treatment. Further studies investigating the combination of conventional activated carbon with adsorbent from Moringa oleifera seeds should be conducted before these samples are made available for further use so that we can compare which sample works best for wastewater treatment.
Haemorrhagic septicaemia (HS) is a major disease in cattle and buffaloes, caused by certain serotypes of Pasteurella multocida, mainly B and E serotypes. Frequent HS outbreak has a major impact in many Asian countries, including Malaysia, where farmers encounter economic loss due to low milk production as well as death of their livestock. There are four types of vaccines available; broth bacterins, alum precipitated vaccine, aluminium hydroxide gel vaccine and oil adjuvant vaccine (OAV), but these vaccines can only provide short term immunity and therefore need to be administered annually. Hence, the development of a protein vaccine using recombinant antigen can be a potential candidate for the production of HS vaccine that would give longer immunity. We have successfully cloned the ABA392 gene fragment into a protein expression vector, pET-30a. The protein was expressed from our ABA392/pET30a clone and the immunogenicity of the protein has been tested on rats. This vaccine was able to trigger an immune response and therefore has the potential to be tested as suitable vaccine candidate in future studies. It is envisaged that this subunit vaccine will make a significant contribution in the management of HS among livestock in future.
Mastitis is an inflammatory condition of the udder that occurs as a result of the release of leucocytes into the udder in a response to bacterial invasion. The major causes of mastitis are an array of gram positive and negative bacteria, however, algae, virus, fungi, mechanical or thermal injury to the gland have also been identified as possible causes. Mastitis vaccines are yet to be developed using Malaysian local isolate of bacteria. The objective of the present experimental trial was to develop a monovalent vaccine against mastitis using S. aureus of Malaysian isolate and to evaluate the clinical responses such as temperature, respiratory rates and heart rates in vaccinated cows. S. aureus is a major causative bacteria in clinical and subclinical types of mastitis in cows. Four concentrations of the bacterin (106, 107, 108 and 109 cfu/ml of the local isolate of S. aureus) were prepared using Aluminium potassium sulfate adjuvant. Thirty cows were grouped into four treatment groups (B, C, D and E) with a fifth group as control (A). These groups were vaccinated intramuscularly(IM) with the prepared monovalent vaccine and its influence on the vital signs were intermittently measured. The mean of rectal temperature was significantly different (p˂ 0.05) at 0hr Post Vaccination [1]" in groups D and E (39.5 ± 0.15 °C and 39.4 ± 0.15 °C respectively) and at 3 h PV in groups C, D and E (39.8 ± 0.14 °C, 39.9 ± 0.14 °C and 40.3 ± 0.14 °C respectively) compared to the control group. This indicated a sharp increased rectal temperatures between 0hr and 3 h PV in groups C, D and E which later declined at 24 h PV. The mean of rectal temperature of group E was significantly different (p˂ 0.05) at weeks 1 and 2 PV (39.87 ± 0.19 °C and 39.80 ± 0.18 °C respectively) compared to the control group. The mean of heart rate was significantly different (p˂ 0.05) at week 1 PV in groups D and E (83.0 ± 3.8 beats/minute and 80.0 ± 3.8 °C respectively) compared to control. A trending decrease was however observed in heart rates of group E from weeks through 4 PV and in group D from weeks 1 through 3 PV. The mean of respiratory rates was significantly different (p˂ 0.05) at week 3 PV in group B and D (31.0 ± 1.2 breaths/minute and 28.0 ± 1.2 breaths/minute) compared to control. In conclusion, this study highlights responses of these vital signs due to vaccination against S. aureus causing mastitis in cows. To the best of our knowledge the findings of this study adds value to the shallow literature on vital signs alterations in cows vaccinated against mastitis as elevated levels of temperature and heart rates of group D and E indicated obvious response.
Biological aerated filter (BAF), sand filtration (SF), alum and Moringa oleifera coagulation were investigated as a pre-treatment for reducing the organic and biofouling potential component of an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane in the treatment of lake water. The carbohydrate content was mainly responsible for reversible fouling of the UF membrane compared to protein or dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content. All pre-treatment could effectively reduce these contents and led to improve the UF filterability. Both BAF and SF markedly led to improvement in flux than coagulation processes, and alum gave greater flux than M. oleifera. This was attributed to the effective removal and/or breakdown of high molecular weight (MW) organics by biofilters. BAF led to greater improvement in flux than SF, due to greater breakdown of high MW organics, and this was also confirmed by the attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis. Coagulation processes were ineffective in removing biofouling potential components, whereas both biofilters were very effective as shown by the reduction of low MW organics, biodegradable dissolved organic carbon and assimilable organic carbon contents. This study demonstrated the potential of biological pre-treatments for reducing organic and biofouling potential component and thus improving flux for the UF of lake water treatment.
In this study of coagulation operation, a comparison was made between the optimum jar test values for pH, coagulant and coagulant aid obtained from traditional methods (an adjusted one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) method) and with central composite design (the standard design of response surface methodology (RSM)). Alum (coagulant) and polymer (coagulant aid) were used to treat a water source with very low pH and high aluminium concentration at Sri-Gading water treatment plant (WTP) Malaysia. The optimum conditions for these factors were chosen when the final turbidity, pH after coagulation and residual aluminium were within 0-5 NTU, 6.5-7.5 and 0-0.20 mg/l respectively. Traditional and RSM jar tests were conducted to find their respective optimum coagulation conditions. It was observed that the optimum dose for alum obtained through the traditional method was 12 mg/l, while the value for polymer was set constant at 0.020 mg/l. Through RSM optimization, the optimum dose for alum was 7 mg/l and for polymer was 0.004 mg/l. Optimum pH for the coagulation operation obtained through traditional methods and RSM was 7.6. The final turbidity, pH after coagulation and residual aluminium recorded were all within acceptable limits. The RSM method was demonstrated to be an appropriate approach for the optimization and was validated by a further test.
Sg. Papar is one of the rivers in Kota Kinabalu which is mainly used for water supply especially in Papar district. For the past years, many pollution cases concerning Sg. Papar have been reported which originated from various sources including pig farm, agricultural run-off and deforestation. These resulted in a frequent shutdown of the water treatment plants in Papar district leading to water supply disturbance and water supply deficiency in the affected area. The data utilized in this study were obtained from water quality tests performed on river water samples taken from Limbahau water treatment plant recorded from September 2013 to September 2016. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used in this study to analyze and correlate the physicochemical parameters with the water treatment plant shutdown. The results revealed that eight parameters (pH, alum, nitrate, TDS, DO, conductivity, colour and chloride) analysed in this study correlate with each other and the parameter that mostly caused the drastic change in the river water and as pollution index is turbidity. This study is critical for understanding the relationship between the water quality paramters and environmental issues.
Fried banana is one of the popular local snacks in Malaysia. However, tremendous interest in healthy food has risen among consumers and producers resulting in a rising demand for low-fat foods. Thus, oil uptake needs to be considered during frying since it also affects the flavour, odour
and general organoleptic properties of the food. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of different concentrations of sugar beet pectin in the frying batter of fried banana and introduce the new usage of sugar beet pectin as one of the ingredients in the frying batter. Three different formulations of frying batter were prepared using 1%, 1.5% and 2% of sugar beet pectin (SBP) together with other ingredients including rice flour, water, plain flour, baking powder and salt. The addition of sugar beet pectin improved the characteristic of the batter as well as the fried banana crust. The moisture content of the crust increased about 7.6% when 1.5% SBP (F2) was used in the formulation thereby reducing the oil absorption by 8.5%. The crust crispiness also increased by 16.7% when 1.5% SBP (F2) was added to the frying batter formulation. Batter pick-up value was found highest in F1 (1% SBP) with 8.84% increment as compared to batter with no added hydrocolloids. Addition of SBP in batter formulations significantly increased the batter pick-up value. In terms of acceptability, F1 (1% SBP) was the most preferred by the panellist which was due to the appearance and colour of the fried bananas. All formulations obtained attributes scores higher than six thus were accepted by the panellists.
Recent trend to recover value-added products from wastewater calls for more effective pre-treatment technology. Conventional landfill leachate treatment is often complex and thus causes negative environmental impacts and financial burden. In order to facilitate downstream processing of leachate wastewater for production of energy or value-added products, it is pertinent to maximize leachate treatment performance by using simple yet effective technology that removes pollutants with minimum chemical added into the wastewater that could potentially affect downstream processing. Hence, the optimization of coagulation-flocculation leachate treatment using multivariate approach is crucial. Central composite design was applied to optimize operating parameters viz. Alum dosage, pH and mixing speed. Quadratic model indicated that the optimum COD removal of 54% is achieved with low alum dosage, pH and mixing speed of 750 mgL-1, 8.5 and 100 rpm, respectively. Optimization result showed that natural pH of the mature landfill leachate sample is optimum for alum coagulation process. Hence, the cost of pH adjustment could be reduced for industrial application by adopting optimized parameters. The inherent mechanism of pollutant removal was elucidated by FTIR peaks at 3853 cm-1 which indicated that hydrogen bonds play a major role in leachate removal by forming well aggregated flocs. This is concordance with SEM image that the floc was well aggregated with the porous linkages and amorphous surface structure. The optimization of leachate treatment has been achieved by minimizing the usage of alum under optimized condition.
Landfill leachate is a heavily polluted and a likely hazardous liquid that is produced as a result of water infiltration through solid wastes generated industrially and domestically. This study investigates the potential of using psyllium husk as coagulant and coagulant aid for the treatment of landfill leachate. Psyllium husk has been tested as primary coagulant and as coagulant aid with poly-aluminum chloride (PACl) and aluminum sulfate (alum). As primary coagulant, the optimum dosage and pH for PACl were 7.2 and 7.5 g/L, respectively, with removal efficiencies of 55, 80 and 95% for COD, color and TSS, respectively. For alum, the optimum conditions were 11 g/L alum dosage and pH 6.5 with removal efficiencies of 58, 79 and 78% for COD, color and TSS, respectively. The maximum removal efficiencies of COD, color and TSS were 64, 90 and 96%, respectively, when psyllium husk was used as coagulant aid with PACl. Based on the results, psyllium husk was found to be more effective as coagulant aid with PACl in the removal of COD, color and TSS as compared to alum. Zeta potential test was carried out for leachate, PACl, alum and psyllium husk before and after running the jar test to enhance the results of the jar test experiments.
Coagulation-flocculation is a relatively simple physical-chemical technique in treatment of old and stabilized leachate which has been practiced using a variety of conventional coagulants. Polymeric forms of metal coagulants which are increasingly applied in water treatment are not well documented in leachate treatment. In this research, capability of poly-aluminum chloride (PAC) in the treatment of stabilized leachate from Pulau Burung Landfill Site (PBLS), Penang, Malaysia was studied. The removal efficiencies for chemical oxygen demand (COD), turbidity, color and total suspended solid (TSS) obtained using PAC were compared with those obtained using alum as a conventional coagulant. Central composite design (CCD) and response surface method (RSM) were applied to optimize the operating variables viz. coagulant dosage and pH. Quadratic models developed for the four responses (COD, turbidity, color and TSS) studied indicated the optimum conditions to be PAC dosage of 2g/L at pH 7.5 and alum dosage of 9.5 g/L at pH 7. The experimental data and model predictions agreed well. COD, turbidity, color and TSS removal efficiencies of 43.1, 94.0, 90.7, and 92.2% for PAC, and 62.8, 88.4, 86.4, and 90.1% for alum were demonstrated.
Suspended solids, colour and chemical oxygen demand (COD) are among the main pollutants in landfill leachate. Application of physical or biological processes alone is normally not sufficient to remove these constituents, especially for leachate with a lower biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)/ COD ratio. The main objective of this research was to investigate the efficiency of coagulation and flocculation processes for removing suspended solids, colour and COD from leachate produced in a semi-aerobic landfill in Penang, Malaysia. A 12-month characterization study of the leachate indicated that it had a mean annual BOD/COD ratio of 0.15 and was partially stabilized, with little further biological degradation likely to occur. Particle size analysis of the raw leachate indicated that its 50th percentile (d50) was 11.68 microm. Three types of coagulants were examined in bench scale jar test studies: aluminium sulphate (alum), ferric chloride (FeCl3) and ferrous sulphate (FeSO4). The effects of agitation speed, settling time, pH, coagulant dosages and temperature were examined. At 300 rpm of rapid mixing, 50 rpm of slow mixing, and 60 min settling time, higher removals of suspended solids (over 95%), colour (90%) and COD (43%) were achieved at pH 4 and 12. FeCl3 was found to be superior to other coagulants tested. At pH 4 and 12, fair removal of suspended solids was observed at a reasonably low coagulant dose, i.e., 600 mg L(-1); hHowever, about 2500 mg L(-1) of coagulant was required to achieve good removals at pH 6. Better removals were achieved at higher temperature. The d50 of sludge after coagulation at pH 4 with a 2500 mg L(-1) FeCl3 dose was 60.16 microm, which indicated that the particles had been removed effectively from the leachate. The results indicate that coagulation and flocculation processes can be used effectively in integrated semi-aerobic leachate treatment systems, especially for removing suspended solids, colour and COD.
An evaluation of two commonly used coagulants, alum and ferric chloride was conducted to treat retention pond water using microfiltration. To determine the effectiveness of these coagulants in removing turbidity, color, and total suspended solids two different sets of the experiments were performed. Preliminary test was carried out to evaluate the optimum dosages of coagulants. Optimum turbidity removal was achieved with a 4 and 20 mg/L dosage for ferric chloride and alum, respectively. Generally, coupling microfiltration with coagulation using both alum and ferric chloride exhibited excellent effectiveness for turbidity, color, and total suspended solids removal. The efficiency for alum and ferric chloride for turbidity removal were 96 and 98%, respectively, which was greater than 89% removal using microfiltration alone. Furthermore, microfiltration only demonstrated 81 and 83% removal efficiency for color and total suspended solids removal, respectively. However, microfiltration-coagulation using alum and ferric chloride resulted about 83 and 93% color removal, and 92 and 94% total suspended solids removal, respectively.
Despite recent interest in transforming biomass into bio-oil and syngas, there is inadequate information on the compatibility of byproducts (e.g., biochar) with agriculture and water purification infrastructures. A pyrolysis at 300°C yields efficient production of biochar, and its physicochemical properties can be improved by chemical activation, resulting in a suitable adsorbent for the removal of natural organic matter (NOM), including hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances, such as humic acids (HA) and tannic acids (TA), respectively. In this study, the adsorption affinities of different HA and TA combinations in NOM solutions were evaluated, and higher adsorption affinity of TA onto activated biochar (AB) produced in the laboratory was observed due to its superior chemisorption tendencies and size-exclusion effects compared with that of HA, whereas hydrophobic interactions between adsorbent and adsorbate were deficient. Assessment of the AB role in an adsorption-coagulation hybrid system as nuclei for coagulation in the presence of aluminum sulfate (alum) showed a synergistic effect in a HA-dominated NOM solution. An AB-alum hybrid system with a high proportion of HA in the NOM solution may be applicable as an end-of-pipe solution.
The objective of this study is to extract and characterize lignin from oil palm biomass (OPB) by dissolution in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([bmim][Cl]), followed by the lignin extraction through the CO2 gas purging prior to addition of aluminum potassium sulfate dodecahydrate (AlK(SO4)2 · 12H2O). The lignin yield, Y(L) (%wt.) was found to be dependent of the types of OPB observed for all precipitation methods used. The lignin recovery, RL (%wt.) obtained from CO2-AlK(SO4)2 · 12H2O precipitation was, however dependent on the types of OPB, which contradicted to that of the acidified H2SO4 and HCl solutions of pH 0.7 and 2 precipitations. Only about 54% of lignin was recovered from the OPB. The FTIR results indicate that the monodispersed lignin was successfully extracted from the OPT, OPF and OPEFB having a molecular weight (MW) of 1331, 1263 and 1473 g/mol, and degradation temperature of 215, 207.5 and 272 °C, respectively.
Biocatalyst should have sufficient and efficient activity for the intended
biotechnological application. In the quest for novel biocatalyst, there is a need to have a
genetic diversity either by finding it within the astronomically large number of possible
candidates or to obtain it by bioengineering an existing gene supported by various
bioinformatic and molecular engineering tools. Nowadays, it is well-known that a huge
number of microorganisms is unculturable and poses great challenges to access biocatalysts
from these microbes. Metagenomics is one of the methods widely applied to reach out
maximum possible variants to “bioprospect” biocatalysts. On the other hand, other approaches
are available to bioengineer enzymes by modifying the DNA sequence precisely based on the
structure and the function information of the protein in the case of rational design, or by a
brave creation of anarchic mutations of the DNA sequence with directed evolution method. In
this regard, both approaches, whether to bioprospect or to bioengineer biocatalysts have
advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed in this paper.KEY WORDS: Sugar
industry wastewater; aluminium sulphate; primary treatment, ferric chloride; polyaluminium
chloride
sugar industry is one of the industries that produce a high amount of
pollutant since its wastewater contains high amount of organic material, biochemical
oxygen demand (bod) and chemical oxygen demand (cod). if this waste is
discharged without a proper treatment into the watercourse, it can cause problem to aquatic
life and environment. for the primary treatment process, sugar wastewater can be treated
by using chemical precipitation method which involves coagulation process. currently,
ferric chloride has been used as the coagulant but it consumes more alkalinity and
corrosive. in this study, the suitable coagulant to be used to treat the wastewater from sugar
industry and the optimum conditions to achieve high percentage removal of cod was
determined. the characteristic of the wastewater was firstly determined. then, the most
suitable coagulant to be used for the treatment was studied by determining their efficiency
to reduce cod and tss in the wastewater at different dosages. aluminium sulphate
(alum), ferric chloride and polyaluminium chloride (pac) were chosen to be studied for
suitable coagulant. The optimum condition of the coagulant (ph, coagulant dosage, fast
mixing speed) was determined by using design expert software. results showed that alum
can be used to effectively remove 42.9% of cod and 100% of tss at high dosage (50
mg/l). the optimum condition of alum was at ph 5.2, 10 mg/l of alum and 250 rpm of
mixing speed. this shows that at optimum condition, alum can be used to treat wastewater
from sugar industry.
Increasing agricultural irrigation to counteract a soil moisture deficit has resulted in the production of hazardous agricultural wastewater with high turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD). An innovative, sustainable, and effective solution is needed to overcome the pollution and water scarcity issues caused by the agricultural anthropogenic processes. This research focused on a sustainable solution that utilized a waste (broken lentil) as natural coagulant for turbidity and COD removal in agricultural wastewater treatment. The efficiency of the lentil extract (LE), grafted lentil extract (LE-g-DMC) and aluminium sulphate (alum) coagulants was optimized through the response surface methodology. Three-level Box-Behnken design was used to statistically visualize the complex interactions of pH, concentration of coagulants and settling time. LE achieved a significant 99.55% and 79.87% removal of turbidity and COD at pH 4, 88.46 mg/L of LE and 6.9 minutes of settling time, whereas LE-g-DMC achieved 99.83% and 80.32% removal of turbidity and COD at pH 6.7, 63.08 mg/L of LE-g-DMC and 5 minutes of settling time. As compared to alum, LE-g-DMC required approximately 30% less concentration. Moreover, LE and LE-g-DMC also required 75% and 65% less settling time as compared to the alum. Both LE and LE-g-DMC produced flocs with excellent settling ability (5.77 mg/L and 4.48 mL/g) and produced a significant less volume of sludge (10.60 mL/L and 8.23 mL/L) as compared with the alum. The economic analysis and assessments have proven the feasibility of both lentil-based coagulants in agricultural wastewater treatment.
Methoxylation is a relevant technological process applied in the production of high-value α-pinene derivatives. This report investigates the use of potassium alum [KAl(SO4)2 · 12H2O] as a catalyst in the methoxylation of α-pinene. In this study, the methoxylation reaction was optimized for the highest conversion of α-pinene and selectivity, assessed for the factors, catalyst loading (0.5; 1.0; and 1.5 g), volume ratio of α-pinene: methanol (1:4, 1:7, 1:10), reaction temperature (50, 55, 60 and 65 °C), and reaction time (72, 144, 216, 288, 360 min). The highest selectivity of KAl(SO4)2∙12H2O in the methoxylation of α-pinene was achieved under an optimal condition of 1 g of catalyst loading, volume ratio of 1:10, as well as the reaction temperature and incubation time of 65 °C and 6 h, respectively. GC-MS results revealed the yields of the methoxylated products from the 98.2% conversion of α-pinene, to be 59.6%, 8.9%, and 7.1% for α-terpinyl methyl ether (TME), fenchyl methyl ether (FME), bornyl methyl ether (BME), respectively. It was apparent that a lower KAl(SO4)2∙12H2O loading (0.5-1.5 g) was more economical for the methoxylation reaction. The findings seen here indicated the suitability of the KAl(SO4)2 · 12H2O to catalyze the methoxylation of α-pinene to produce an commercially important ethers.