In Malaysia, there is an increase in both demand and prescribing of supplements. Such trend raises the likelihood of adverse events and treatment costs. Numerous prescribing policies have been suggested for better utilization of resources. However, the adherence and improvement from such policies are yet to be fully characterized.
Polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) are commonly used as nanocarriers for drug delivery, whereby their sizes can be altered for a more efficient delivery of therapeutic active agents with better efficacy. In this work, cross-linked copolymers acted as core-shell NPs from acrylated palm olein (APO) with polyol ester were synthesized via gamma radiation-induced reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation. The particle diameter of the copolymerised poly(APO-b-polyol ester) core-shell NPs was found to be less than 300 nm, have a low molecular weight (MW) of around 24 kDa, and showed a controlled MW distribution of a narrow polydispersity index (PDI) of 1.01. These properties were particularly crucial for further use in designing targeted NPs, with inclusion of peptide for the targeted delivery of paclitaxel. Moreover, the characterisation of the synthesised NPs using Fourier Transform-Infrared (FTIR) and Neutron Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analyses confirmed the possession of biodegradable hydrolysed ester in its chemical structures. Therefore, it can be concluded that the synthesised NPs produced may potentially contribute to better development of a nano-structured drug delivery system for breast cancer therapy.
Nanomaterials can be incorporated in the synthesis of membrane to obtain mixed-matrix membrane with marked improvement in properties and performance. However, stability and dispersion of the nanomaterials in the membrane matrix, as well as the need to use high ratio of nanomaterials for obvious improvement of membrane properties, remain a major hurdle for commercialization. Hence, this study aims to investigate the improvement of polyamide 6,6 membrane properties with the incorporation of silver nanoparticles decorated on graphene oxide (Ag-GO) nanoplates and at the same time focus is given to the issues above. Graphene oxide nanoplates were synthesized using the modified Hummers' method and decorated with silver before embedded into the polyamide 6,6 matrix. Physicochemical characterizations were conducted on both nanoplates and the mixed-matrix Ag-GO polyamide 6,6 membrane. The issues of Ag agglomeration and leaching were not observed, which could be attributed to the decoration of Ag on GO that helped to disperse the nanomaterials and provided a better anchor point for the attachment of Ag nanoparticles. The synthesized membrane showed marked improvement regarding flux (135% increment) and antifouling (40% lower irreversible fouling), which could be ascribed to the more negative charge of membrane surface (-14 ± 6 to -31 ± 3.8 mV) and hydrophilicity (46% enhancement) of the membranes. With minimal embedment of Ag nanoparticles, the membrane showed superior antibacterial property where the E. coli bacteria could not form a single colony on the membrane surface. Overall, the decoration of Ag on GO nanoplates could be a promising approach to resolve the agglomeration and leaching issues as well as reduce the amount of precious Ag in the synthesis of Ag-GO polyamide 6,6 membrane.
The evaluation of complex organic and inorganic coagulant's performances and their relationships could compromise the surface water treatment process time and its efficiency. In this work, process optimization was investigated by comparing an eco-friendly chitosan with the industrially used coagulants namely aluminum sulfate (alum), polyaluminum chloride (PAC), and aluminum chlorohydrate (ACH) in compliance with national drinking water standards. To treat various water samples from different treatment plants with turbidity and pH ranges from 20-826.3 NTU and 5.21-6.80, respectively, 5-20 mg/L coagulant dosages were varied in the presence of aluminum, ferum, and manganese. Among all, 10 mg/L of the respective ACH and chitosan demonstrated 97% and 99% turbidity removal in addition to the removal of the metals that complies with the referred standard. However, chitosan owes fewer sensitive responses (turbidity and residual metal) with the change in its input factors (dosage and pH), especially in acidic conditions. This finding suggested its beneficial role to be used under the non-critical dosage monitoring. Meanwhile, ACH was found to perform better than chitosan only at pH > 7.4 with half dosage required. In summary, chitosan and ACH could perform equally at a different set of optimum conditions. This optimization study offers precise selections of coagulants for a practical water treatment operation.
Bacterial endophytes do have several potential applications in pharmacy, medicine and agricultural biotech industry. The main objective of this study was to understand types of bacterial endophytes associated with dicotyledonous (dicot) and monocotyledonous (monocot) plant species. Isolation of the endophytic bacteria was performed using surface-sterilized various tissue samples, and identification of the endophytic bacterial isolates (EBIs) was completed using 16S rRNA encoding gene sequence similarity based method. In total, 996 EBIs were isolated and identified from 1055 samples of 31 monocot and 65 dicot plant species from Peninsular Malaysia. The 996 EBIs represented 71 different types of bacterial species. Twelve (12) out of 71 species are reported as endophytes for the first time. We conclude that diverse types of bacterial endophytes are associated with dicot and monocot plants, and could be useful in pharmacy, medicine and agricultural biotechnology for various potential applications.
In countries that are rich with oil palm, the use of palm oil to produce bio-based acrylates and polyol can be the most eminent raw materials used for developing new and advanced natural polymeric materials involving radiation technique, like coating resins, nanoparticles, scaffold, nanocomposites, and lithography for different branches of the industry. The presence of hydrocarbon chains, carbon double bonds, and ester bonds in palm oil allows it to open up the possibility of fine-tuning its unique structures in the development of novel materials. Cross-linking, reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT), polymerization, grafting, and degradation are among the radiation mechanisms triggered by gamma, electron beam, ultraviolet, or laser irradiation sources. These radiation techniques are widely used in the development of polymeric materials because they are considered as the most versatile, inexpensive, easy, and effective methods. Therefore, this review summarized and emphasized on several recent studies that have reported on emerging radiation processing technologies for the production of radiation curable palm oil-based polymeric materials with a promising future in certain industries and biomedical applications. This review also discusses the rich potential of biopolymeric materials for advanced technology applications.