A high concentration of phosphorus in wastewater may lead to excessive algae growth and deoxygenation of the water. In this work, nanofiltration (NF) of phosphorus-rich solutions is studied in order to investigate its potential in removing and recycling phosphorus. Wastewater samples from a pulp and paper plant were first analyzed. Commercial membranes (DK5, MPF34, NF90, NF270, NF200) were characterized and tested in permeability and phosphorus removal experiments. NF90 membranes offer the highest rejection of phosphorus; a rejection of more than 70% phosphorus was achieved for a feed containing 2.5 g/L of phosphorus at a pH <2. Additionally, NF90, NF200 and NF270 membranes show higher permeability than DK5 and MPF34 membranes. The separation performance of NF90 is slightly affected by phosphorus concentration and pressure, which may be due to concentration polarization and fouling. By adjusting the pH to 2 or adding sulfuric acid, the separation performance of NF90 was improved in removing phosphorus. However, the presence of acetic acid significantly impairs the rejection of phosphorus.
Novel nanoemulsion-based drug delivery systems (DDS) have been proposed as alternative and effective approach for the delivery of various types of poorly water-soluble drugs in the last decade. This nanoformulation strategy significantly improves the cell uptake and bioavailability of numerous hydrophobic drugs by increasing their solubility and dissolution rate, maintaining drug concentration within the therapeutic range by controlling the drug release rate, and reducing systemic side effects by targeting to specific disease site, thus offering a better patient compliance. To date, cavitation technology has emerged to be an energy-efficient and promising technique to generate such nanoscale emulsions encapsulating a variety of highly potent pharmaceutical agents that are water-insoluble. The micro-turbulent implosions of cavitation bubbles tear-off primary giant oily emulsion droplets to nano-scale, spontaneously leading to the formation of highly uniform drug contained nanodroplets. A substantial body of recent literatures in the field of nanoemulsions suggests that cavitation is a facile, cost-reducing yet safer generation tool, remarkably highlighting its industrial commercial viability in the development of designing novel nanocarriers or enhancing the properties of existing pharmaceutical products. In this review, the fundamentals of nanoemulsion and the principles involved in their formation are presented. The underlying mechanisms in the generation of pharmaceutical nanoemulsion under acoustic field as well as the advantages of using cavitation compared to the conventional techniques are also highlighted. This review focuses on recent nanoemulsion-based DDS development and how cavitation through ultrasound and hydrodynamic means is useful to generate the pharmaceutical grade nanoemulsions including the complex double or submicron multiple emulsions.
In the present investigation, the operating efficiency of a bench-top air-driven microfluidizer has been compared to that of a bench-top high power ultrasound horn in the production of pharmaceutical grade nanoemulsions using aspirin as a model drug. The influence of important process variables as well as the pre-homogenization and drug loading on the resultant mean droplet diameter and size distribution of emulsion droplets was studied in an oil-in-water nanoemulsion incorporated with a model drug aspirin. Results obtained show that both the emulsification methods were capable of producing very fine nanoemulsions containing aspirin with the minimum droplet size ranging from 150 to 170 nm. In case of using the microfluidizer, it has been observed that the size of the emulsion droplets obtained was almost independent of the applied microfluidization pressure (200-600 bar) and the number of passes (up to 10 passes) while the pre-homogenization and drug loading had a marginal effect in increasing the droplet size. Whereas, in the case of ultrasound emulsification, the droplet size was generally decreased with an increase in sonication amplitude (50-70%) and period of sonication but the resultant emulsion was found to be dependent on the pre-homogenization and drug loading. The STEM microscopic observations illustrated that the optimized formulations obtained using ultrasound cavitation technique are comparable to microfluidized emulsions. These comparative results demonstrated that ultrasound cavitation is a relatively energy-efficient yet promising method of pharmaceutical nanoemulsions as compared to microfluidizer although the means used to generate the nanoemulsions are different.
Nanocomposites of Zn/Al-layered double hydroxide(anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonate) were synthesized by spontaneous direct assembly of inorganic and organic phases from aqueous solution. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns showed that a pure, single nanocomposite phase of good crystallinity was obtained using 1.0 M antraquinone-2,6-disulfonate ion (AQ26) and aging at 80 degrees C using conventional heating for 7 days or 0.5 h under microwave radiation, and these samples are denoted as ZAAN26C or ZAAN26MH, respectively. Zn/Al-nitrate-layered double hydroxide synthesized by a conventional method (ZANLC) showed a basal spacing of 8.3 A while both the nanocomposites showed 18.8 A as a result of AQ26 intercalation. FTIR study showed that the resulting nanocomposites are free from nitrate, the co-anion present in the mother liquor, indicating that only AQ26 is preferred during intercalation for the formation of the nanocomposite. The Brunauer, Emmet and Teller (BET) and micropore surface areas for ZAAN26C decreased relative to the ZANLC from 16.2 to 4.7 and 1.6 to 1.3 m2/g, respectively. These results indicate that AQ26 can be rapidly interdcalated in layered double hydroxide using microwave-aging resulting in a nanocomposite.
A new photonics biosensor configuration comprising a Double-side Ring Add-drop Filter microring resonator (DR-ADF) made from SiO2-TiO2 material is proposed for the detection of Salmonella bacteria (SB) in blood. The scattering matrix method using inductive calculation is used to determine the output signal's intensities in the blood with and without presence of Salmonella. The change in refractive index due to the reaction of Salmonella bacteria with its applied antibody on the flagellin layer loaded on the sensing and detecting microresonator causes the increase in through and dropper port's intensities of the output signal which leads to the detection of SB in blood. A shift in the output signal wavelength is observed with resolution of 0.01 nm. The change in intensity and shift in wavelength is analyzed with respect to the change in the refractive index which contributes toward achieving an ultra-high sensitivity of 95,500 nm/RIU which is almost two orders higher than that of reported from single ring sensors and the limit of detection is in the order of 1 × 10(-8) RIU. In applications, such a system can be employed for a high sensitive and fast detection of bacteria.
Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) are generally nano-scale tubes comprising a network of carbon atoms in a cylindrical setting that compared with silicon counterparts present outstanding characteristics such as high mechanical strength, high sensing capability and large surface-to-volume ratio. These characteristics, in addition to the fact that CNTs experience changes in their electrical conductance when exposed to different gases, make them appropriate candidates for use in sensing/measuring applications such as gas detection devices. In this research, a model for a Field Effect Transistor (FET)-based structure has been developed as a platform for a gas detection sensor in which the CNT conductance change resulting from the chemical reaction between NH3 and CNT has been employed to model the sensing mechanism with proposed sensing parameters. The research implements the same FET-based structure as in the work of Peng et al. on nanotube-based NH3 gas detection. With respect to this conductance change, the I-V characteristic of the CNT is investigated. Finally, a comparative study shows satisfactory agreement between the proposed model and the experimental data from the mentioned research.
A new patterning method using Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) strands capable of producing nanogaps of less than 100 nm is proposed and investigated in this work. DNA strands from Bosenbergia rotunda were used as the fundamental element in patterning DNA on thin films of aluminium (Al) metal without the need for any lithographic techniques. The DNA strands were applied in buffer solutions onto thin films of Al on silicon (Si) and the chemical interactions between the DNA strands and Al creates nanometer scale arbitrary patterning by direct transfer of the DNA strands onto the substrate. This simple and cost-effective method can be utilized in the fabrication of various components in electronic chips for microelectronics and Nano Electronic Mechanical System (NEMS) applications in general.
Nanocrystalline SnO(x) (x = 1-2) thin films were prepared on glass substrates by a simple chemical bath deposition method. Triethanolamine was used as complexing agent to decrease time and temperature of deposition and shift the pH of the solution to the noncorrosive region. The films were characterized for composition, surface morphology, structure and optical properties. X-ray diffraction analysis confirms that SnO(x) thin films consist of a polycrystalline structure with an average grain size of 36 nm. Atomic force microscopy studies show a uniform grain distribution without pinholes. The elemental composition was evaluated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The average O/Sn atomic percentage ratio is 1.72. Band gap energy and optical transition were determined from optical absorbance data. The film was found to exhibit direct and indirect transitions in the visible spectrum with band gap values of about 3.9 and 3.7 eV, respectively. The optical transmittance in the visible region is 82%. The SnO(x) nanocrystals exhibit an ultraviolet emission band centered at 392 nm in the vicinity of the band edge, which is attributed to the well-known exciton transition in SnO(x). Photosensitivity was detected in the positive region under illumination with white light.
Manipulation and injection of single nanosensors with high cell viability is an emerging field in cell analysis. We propose a new method using fluorescence nanosensors with a glass nanoprobe and optical control of the zeta potential. The nanosensor is fabricated by encapsulating a fluorescence polystyrene nanobead into a lipid layer with 1,3,3-trimethylindolino-6'-nitrobenzopyrylospiran (SP), which is a photochromic material. The nanobead contains iron oxide nanoparticles and a temperature-sensitive fluorescent dye, Rhodamine B. The zeta potential of the nanosensor switches between negative and positive by photo-isomerization of SP with ultraviolet irradiation. The positively-charged nanosensor easily adheres to a negatively-charged glass nanoprobe, is transported to a target cell, and then adheres to the negatively-charged cell membrane. The nanosensor is then injected into the cytoplasm by heating with a near-infrared (NIR) laser. As a demonstration, a single 750 nm nanosensor was picked-up using a glass nanoprobe with optical control of the zeta potential. Then, the nanosensor was transported and immobilized onto a target cell membrane. Finally, it was injected into the cytoplasm using a NIR laser. The success rates of pick-up and cell immobilization of the nanosensor were 75% and 64%, respectively. Cell injection and cell survival rates were 80% and 100%, respectively.
Microfluidics-based lab-on-chip (LOC) systems are an active research area that is revolutionising high-throughput sequencing for the fast, sensitive and accurate detection of a variety of pathogens. LOCs also serve as portable diagnostic tools. The devices provide optimum control of nanolitre volumes of fluids and integrate various bioassay operations that allow the devices to rapidly sense pathogenic threat agents for environmental monitoring. LOC systems, such as microfluidic biochips, offer advantages compared to conventional identification procedures that are tedious, expensive and time consuming. This paper aims to provide a broad overview of the need for devices that are easy to operate, sensitive, fast, portable and sufficiently reliable to be used as complementary tools for the control of pathogenic agents that damage the environment.
The discovery of semiconducting behavior of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has resulted in a large number of literatures in the study of DNA electronics. Sequence-specific electronic response provides a platform towards understanding charge transfer mechanism and therefore the electronic properties of DNA. It is possible to utilize these characteristic properties to identify/detect DNA. In this current work, we demonstrate a novel method of DNA-based identification of basidiomycetes using current-voltage (I-V) profiles obtained from DNA-specific Schottky barrier diodes. Electronic properties such as ideality factor, barrier height, shunt resistance, series resistance, turn-on voltage, knee-voltage, breakdown voltage and breakdown current were calculated and used to quantify the identification process as compared to morphological and molecular characterization techniques. The use of these techniques is necessary in order to study biodiversity, but sometimes it can be misleading and unreliable and is not sufficiently useful for the identification of fungi genera. Many of these methods have failed when it comes to identification of closely related species of certain genus like Pleurotus. Our electronics profiles, both in the negative and positive bias regions were however found to be highly characteristic according to the base-pair sequences. We believe that this simple, low-cost and practical method could be useful towards identifying and detecting DNA in biotechnology and pathology.
In this work, two natural sources, including pomegranate peel extract and cochineal dye were employed for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles. The natural silver complex from pomegranate peel extract resulted in nano-sized structures through solution-phase method, but this method was not efficient for cochineal dye-silver precursor and the as-formed products were highly agglomerated. Therefore, an alternative facile solid-state approach was investigated as for both natural precursors and the results showed successful production of well-dispersed nanoparticles with narrow size distribution for cochineal dye-silver precursor. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX), and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).
The current work analyzes the effects of concentric ballooned catheterization and heat transfer on the hybrid nano blood flow through diseased arterial segment having both stenosis and aneurysm along its boundary. A fractional second-grade fluid model is considered which describes the non-Newtonian characteristics of the blood. Governing equations are linearized under mild stenosis and mild aneurysm assumptions. Precise articulations for various important flow characteristics such as heat transfer, hemodynamic velocity, wall shear stress, and resistance impedance are attained. Graphical portrayals for the impact of the significant parameters on the flow attributes have been devised. The streamlines of blood flow have been examined as well. The present finding is useful for drug conveyance system and biomedicines.
The paper discuss the design of 1-bit full adder circuit using Shannon theorem. This proposed full adder circuit is used as one of the circuit component for implementation of Non- Restoring and Restoring divider circuits. The proposed adder and divider schematics are designed by using DSCH2 CAD tool and their layouts are generated by Microwind 3 VLSI CAD tool. The divider circuits are designed by using standard CMOS 0.35 microm feature size and corresponding power supply 3.5 V. The parameters analyses are carried out by BSIM 4 analysis. We have compared the simulated results of the Shannon based divider circuit with CPL and CMOS adder cell based divider circuits. We have further compared the results with published results and observed that the proposed adder cell based divider circuit dissipates lower power, gives faster response, lower latency, low EPI and high throughput.
The unsteady two-dimensional laminar g-Jitter mixed convective boundary layer flow of Cu-water and Al2O3-water nanofluids past a permeable stretching sheet in a Darcian porous is studied by using an implicit finite difference numerical method with quasi-linearization technique. It is assumed that the plate is subjected to velocity and thermal slip boundary conditions. We have considered temperature dependent viscosity. The governing boundary layer equations are converted into non-similar equations using suitable transformations, before being solved numerically. The transport equations have been shown to be controlled by a number of parameters including viscosity parameter, Darcy number, nanoparticle volume fraction, Prandtl number, velocity slip, thermal slip, suction/injection and mixed convection parameters. The dimensionless velocity and temperature profiles as well as friction factor and heat transfer rates are presented graphically and discussed. It is found that the velocity reduces with velocity slip parameter for both nanofluids for fluid with both constant and variable properties. It is further found that the skin friction decreases with both Darcy number and momentum slip parameter while it increases with viscosity variation parameter. The surface temperature increases as the dimensionless time increases for both nanofluids. Nusselt numbers increase with mixed convection parameter and Darcy numbers and decreases with the momentum slip. Excellent agreement is found between the numerical results of the present paper with published results.
A top-down nanofabrication approach is used to develop silicon nanowires from silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers and involves direct-write electron beam lithography (EBL), inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) and a size reduction process. To achieve nanometer scale size, the crucial factors contributing to the EBL and size reduction processes are highlighted. The resulting silicon nanowires, which are 20 nm in width and 30 nm in height (with a triangular shape) and have a straight structure over the length of 400 μm, are fabricated precisely at the designed location on the device. The device is applied in biomolecule detection based on the changes in drain current (Ids), electrical resistance and conductance of the silicon nanowires upon hybridization to complementary target deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). In this context, the scaled-down device exhibited superior performances in terms of good specificity and high sensitivity, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 10 fM, enables for efficient label-free, direct and higher-accuracy DNA molecules detection. Thus, this silicon nanowire can be used as an improved transducer and serves as novel biosensor for future biomedical diagnostic applications.
The heat and mass transfer on time dependent hydrodynamic squeeze flow of Jeffrey nanofluid across two plates over permeable medium in the slip condition with heat generation/absorption, thermal radiation and chemical reaction are investigated. The impacts of Brownian motion and thermophoresis is examined in the Buongiorno's nanofluid model. Conversion of the governing partial differential equations to the ordinary differential equations is conducted via similarity transformation. The dimensionless equations are solved by imposing numerical method of Keller-box. The outputs are compared with previous reported works in the journals for the validation of the present outputs and found in proper agreement. The behavior of velocity, temperature, and nanoparticles concentration profiles by varying the pertinent parameters are examined. Findings portray that the acceleration of the velocity profile and the wall shear stress is due to the squeezing of plates. Furthermore, the velocity, temperature and concentration profile decline with boost in Hartmann number and ratio of relaxation to retardation times. It is discovered that the rate of heat transfer and temperature profile increase when viscous dissipation, thermophoresis and heat source/sink rises. In contrast, the increment of thermal radiation reduces the temperature and enhances the heat transfer rate. Besides, the mass transfer rate decelerates for increasing Brownian motion in nanofluid, while it elevates when chemical reaction and thermophoresis increases.
Very narrow and pure silver nanoparticles were synthesized by modified thermal treatment method via oxygen and nitrogen flow in succession. The structural and optical properties of the calcined silver nanoparticles at 600°C with diverse Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) concentrations varied from 2% to 4% were studied by means of different techniques. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to monitor the production of pure Ag nanoparticles at a given Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) concentration. The X-ray powder diffraction spectra are evidence for the transformation of the amorphous sample at 30°C to the cubic crystalline nanostructures at the calcination temperatures for all Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) concentrations. The transmission electron microscopy images showed the creation of spherical silver nanoparticles with the average particle size decreased by increasing Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) concentrations from 4.61 nm at 2% to 2.49 nm at 4% Poly(vinylpyrrolidone). The optical properties were investigated by means of UV-vis absorption spectrophotometer, which showed an increase in the conduction band of Ag nanoparticles with increasing Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) concentrations from 2.83 eV at 2% Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) to 2.94 eV at 4% Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) due to decreasing particle size. This was due to less attraction between conduction electrons and metal ions for smaller particle size corresponding to fewer atoms that made up the metal nanoparticles.
We used 40 ± 5 nm gold nanoparticles (GNPs) as colorimetric sensor to visually detect swine-specific conserved sequence and nucleotide mismatch in PCR-amplified and non-amplified mitochondrial DNA mixtures to authenticate species. Colloidal GNPs changed color from pinkish-red to gray-purple in 2 mM PBS. Visually observed results were clearly reflected by the dramatic reduction of surface plasmon resonance peak at 530 nm and the appearance of new features in the 620-800 nm regions in their absorption spectra. The particles were stabilized against salt-induced aggregation upon the adsorption of single-stranded DNA. The PCR products, without any additional processing, were hybridized with a 17-base probe prior to exposure to GNPs. At a critical annealing temperature (55 °C) that differentiated matched and mismatched base pairing, the probe was hybridized to pig PCR product and dehybridized from the deer product. The dehybridized probe stuck to GNPs to prevent them from salt-induced aggregation and retained their characteristic red color. Hybridization of a 27-nucleotide probe to swine mitochondrial DNA identified them in pork-venison, pork-shad and venison-shad binary admixtures, eliminating the need of PCR amplification. Thus the assay was applied to authenticate species both in PCR-amplified and non-amplified heterogeneous biological samples. The results were determined visually and validated by absorption spectroscopy. The entire assay (hybridization plus visual detection) was performed in less than 10 min. The LOD (for genomic DNA) of the assay was 6 µg ml(-1) swine DNA in mixed meat samples. We believe the assay can be applied for species assignment in food analysis, mismatch detection in genetic screening and homology studies between closely related species.