Effect of nickel on some aspects of protein metabolism in the gill and kidney of the freshwater fish, Cyprinus carpio L

Nickel has an adverse effect on some aspects of protein metabolism of the freshwater fish, Cyprinus carpio. The main changes observed were: (a) Decrease in soluble, structural and total proteins, AlAT and AAT activities with an increase in the levels of free amino acids, protease and GDH activities and ammonia in the gill and kidney at 1, 2, 3, and 4 days of exposure to a lethal concentration, 40 mg litre(-1) of nickel; (b) Increase in soluble, structural and total proteins, free amino acids and the activities of protease, AlAT, AAT and GDH with a decrease in ammonia and urea in these organs at 1, 5, 10 and 15 days of exposure to sublethal concentration, 8 mg litre(-1); (c) The magnitude in these changes increased over time with both concentrations of the metal, and was more marked in gill than in kidney.     

Extractive Spectrofluorometric Determination of Quinalphos Using Fluorescein in Environmental Samples

A simple, sensitive, convenient and low cost spectrofluorometric technique for determination of quinalphos is described. Quinalphos is decomposed with sodium ethoxide. Resultant sodium diethyl thiophosphate (Na-DETP) is extracted with a cationic fluorescein as ion pair complex into 1-chloro-2-nitrobenzene. The fluorescence of the ion pair, fluorescein-DETP is measured at 530 nm after excitation at 490 nm. This technique is applicable for the determination of quinalphos in water, food grains and vegetable samples up to ng level with Amberlite XAD-4.     

Comparative study on effect of blending,thermal barrier coating (LHR) and injector nozzle geometry on biodiesel-fuelled engines

Increased petroleum prices, increased threat to the environment from exhaust emissions and global warming have generated intense international interest in developing renewable and alternative non-petroleum fuels for internal combustion engines. Evolving suitable technology for addressing energy crisis creates a continued investigation into the search for sustainable and clean-burning renewable fuels. This work investigates suitability of different non-edible-derived biodiesels such as cotton seed oil methyl ester (COME), Honne oil methyl ester (HnOME) and Rubber seed oil methyl ester (RuOME) to four stroke, single cylinder compression ignition (CI) engine. Engine tests were conducted to study the effect of fuel blending, thermal barrier coating (TBC) or Low Heat Rejection (LHR) and injector nozzle geometry on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of COME, HnOME and RuOME in the modified CI engine. Blends of biodiesels with diesel were varied from 20 to 80% in steps of 20%. Two thermal barrier coatings of partially stabilized zirconium (PSZ) and aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃) were provided on the engine to make it fully adiabatic. Nozzle injectors of 3, 4 and 5 holes, with size of orifice varied from 0.2 to 0.3 mm size were selected for the study. It was concluded that B20 biodiesel blend, PSZ-coated engine and four hole nozzle injector of 0.2 mm size resulted in overall better engine performance with increased brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and reduced HC, CO, smoke emissions for the fuel combinations tested. Combustion analysis to study the effect of biodiesel blends, LHR coatings, injector nozzle geometry on the performance of the biodiesel-fuelled engine has been presented to give more insight into the behaviour of operation.     

Utilization of waste product (tamarind seeds) for the removal of Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions: Equilibrium, kinetics, and regeneration studies

In the present study, an adsorbent was prepared from tamarind seeds and used after activation for the removal of Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions. The tamarind seeds were activated by treating them with concentrated sulfuric acid (98% w/w) at a temperature of 150 °C. The adsorption of Cr(VI) was found to be maximum at low values of initial pH in the range of 1–3. The adsorption process of Cr(VI) was tested with Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich–Peterson, Koble–Corrigan, Tempkin, Dubinin–Radushkevich and Generalized isotherm models. Application of the Langmuir isotherm to the system yielded a maximum adsorption capacity of 29.7 mg/g at an equilibrium pH value ranging from 1.12 to 1.46. The adsorption process followed second-order kinetics and the corresponding rate constants obtained were 2.605 × 10⁻³, 0.818 × 10⁻³, 0.557 × 10⁻³ and 0.811 × 10⁻³ g/mg min⁻¹ for 50, 200, 300 and 400 mg/L of initial Cr(VI) concentration, respectively. The regenerated activated tamarind seeds showed more than 95% Cr(VI) removal of that obtained using the fresh activated tamarind seeds. A feasible solution is proposed for the disposal of the contaminants (acid and base solutions) containing high concentrations of Cr(VI) obtained during the regeneration (desorption) process.     

Derivation of synthetic fuel from waste plastic: investigation of engine operating characteristics on DI diesel engine

The utilization of plastic in day to day life is ever-increasing and has generated a large amount of plastic garbage that needs proper disposal to save the environment from harmful pollution. The plastic waste management becomes a pressing concern in the present scenario in developing countries like India. This research article evaluates the potential of synthetic fuel (SF) derived from waste plastics collected from the local shops. In this current investigation, the SF blends are tested in a direct injection diesel engine to analyze the performance and emission characteristics of the engine. Three different blends were made namely SF20, SF40, and SF60 on a volumetric basis and the tests were carried out. From the experimental results, it was found that brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of the fuel blends was reduced as compared with neat diesel operation regardless of loads whereas SF20 showed a similar trend as that of diesel operation. The analysis of the emission characteristics revealed that the SF20 blends reduced dangerous smoke and carbon monoxide emission as compared with other test fuels. From the overall results, SF20 showed superior performance and emission aspects as compared with other SF blends whereas the engine operated smoothly up to 60% of SF blending at all loading conditions.

     

Utilization of molasses spentwash for production of bioplastics by waste activated sludge

Present study describes the treatment of molasses spentwash and its use as a potential low cost substrate for production of biopolymer polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) by waste activated sludge. Fluorescence microscopy revealed the presence of PHB granules in sludge biomass which was further confirmed by fourier transform-infra-red spectroscopy (FT-IR) and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The processing of molasses spentwash was carried out for attaining different ratios of carbon and nitrogen (C:N). Highest chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and PHB accumulation of 60% and 31% respectively was achieved with raw molasses spentwash containing inorganic nitrogen (C:N ratio = 28) followed by COD removal of 52% and PHB accumulation of 28% for filtered molasses containing inorganic nitrogen (C:N ratio = 29). PHB production yield (Y_p/s) was highest (0.184 g g^?1 COD consumed) for deproteinized spentwash supplemented with nitrogen. In contrast, the substrate consumption and product formation were higher in case of raw spentwash. Though COD removal was lowest from deproteinized spentwash, evaluation of kinetic parameters suggested higher rates of conversion of available carbon to biomass and PHB. Thus the process provided dual benefit of conversion of two wastes viz. waste activated sludge and molasses spentwash into value-added product-PHB.     

Investigations on the interaction of the phototoxic alkaloid coralyne with serum albumins

The interaction of the phototoxic alkaloid coralyne with bovine and human serum albumins (BSA, HSA) was investigated. Absorbance and fluorescence quenching experiments revealed the formation of strong complexes. Based on the binding parameters calculated from Stern-Volmer quenching method, coralyne has higher affinity to BSA (∼10⁵ M⁻¹) compared to HSA (∼10⁴ M⁻¹). Forster resonance energy transfer studies showed that the specific binding distances between Trp (donor) of the proteins and coralyne (acceptor) were 2.95 and 3.10 nm, respectively. The bindings were favored by negative enthalpy and a stronger favorable entropy contribution. The heat capacity values for binding to BSA and HSA were similar, indicating the involvement of similar molecular forces in the complexation. Competitive binding experiments using site markers demonstrated that coralyne binds to site I (subdomain IIA) of both proteins. The secondary structure of the proteins was altered, suggesting a small but definitive partial unfolding on complexation.     

Construction of fuzzy membership functions for urban vehicular exhaust emissions modeling

This paper presents a method for constructing a membership function (MF) for the fuzzy sets that expert systems deal with. This paper introduces a Bezier curve-based mechanism for constructing MFs of convex normal fuzzy sets. The mechanism can fit any given data set with a minimum level of discrepancy. In the absence of data, the mechanism can be intuitively manipulated by the user to construct MFs with the desired shape. MFs have been developed using the proposed mechanism for urban vehicular exhaust emission modeling. It has been observed that all meteorological and vehicular parameters have either S-shaped MFs or Z-shaped MFs. Gaussian MF has been mostly applied for modeling air quality. The present study explored the application of fuzzy MF to analyze air pollution data from vehicular emission. The study reveals that S-shaped and Z-shaped MF can be used in addition to Gaussian MF.     

Ozone-driven photocatalyzed degradation and mineralization of pesticide,Triclopyr by Au/TiO2

Triclopyr is a widely used pesticide which is non-biodegradable and enters aquatic systems. The ozone facilitated photocatalyzed degradation and mineralization of Triclopyr using Au-loaded titania as heterogeneous catalyst is reported. The oxidative degradation activity of the hazardous pesticide was investigated at pH 7.8 under varied reaction conditions, including in presence and absence of ozone, titania alone, in presence and absence of light and with different loadings of Au on support. Photocatalysis with 2% Au/TiO₂ in the presence of ozone yielded 100% degradation of Triclopyr in 2 h. The extent of degradation of pesticide and its mineralization were confirmed by GC-MS. For 10 mg/L of Triclopyr, 0.1 g/L of catalyst was found to be the optimum for mineralization. Results show that photocatalyzed ozonation with Au/TiO₂ as catalyst is a very effective for its removal. No leaching of Au was observed in triplicate runs. Catalyst was fully recoverable and reusable with no loss of activity.     

EFFECTS OF INITIAL ABSTRACTION AND URBANIZATION ON ESTIMATED RUNOFF USING CN TECHNOLOGY1

ABSTRACT: Few studies have been conducted to explore the effects of initial abstraction on estimated direct runoff despite the widespread use of the curve number (CN) method in many hydrologic models to estimate direct runoff. In this study, use of a 5 percent ratio of initial abstraction (I_a) to storage (S) to estimate daily direct runoff with modified CN values for a 5 percent I_a/S value was investigated using the Long‐Term Hydrologic Impact Assessment (L‐THIA) geographic information system (GIS). In addition, the effects on estimated runoff of altering the hydrologic soil group due to urbanization were investigated. The L‐THIA model was applied to the Indiana Little Eagle Creek watershed with 5 percent and 20 percent I_a/S values, considering hydrologic soil group alteration due to urbanization. The results indicate that uses of a 5 percent l_a/S and modified CN values and Hydrologic Soil Group D for urbanized areas in model runs can improve long term direct runoff prediction.