The present study aimed to screen biosurfactant producing microorganisms isolated from different Egyptian samples viz. soil sample contaminated with oil from fuel station, soil sample contaminated with kerosene from classic bread oven, samples from wall of drainage tube of kitchen and bathroom, also waste sample from gas cooktops of kitchen stove. All isolation samples were streaked on MSM medium supplemented with 1% olive oil processing waste as a sole carbon source to recover bacterial isolates with biosurfactant activity. Different screening methods e.g. Oil spreading assay, Emulsification index E24, Drop collapse test, Blue agar plate method (Cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide-CTAB), Blood agar haemolysis, Reduction in SFT and Phenol

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Glass/epoxy (G-E) products are widely used in numerous industries nowadays. This is due to favorable characteristics of these products including low cost, ease of manufacturing, good mechanical properties, and lightweight. The mechanical properties of G-E composites can be enhanced through mixing with natural reinforcement materials. In this work, we investigate the use of date seeds (DSs) as a reinforcement material for G-E composites. A DS filler has been added to G-E hybrid composites as a powder by applying a semiautomatic technique. Glass fibers reinforced with angle-ply ([±45]4) were considered as commonly used G-E composites. G-E reinforced DS composites were analyzed using various mechanical characteristics such as mica-hardness, tensile strength, and impact strength. Effects of the DS filler on the wear volume loss (VL) were investigated at different parameter settings. This loss was analyzed using the traditional Taguchi method and the nontraditional flower pollination algorithm to obtain optimal parameters. Surface inspection using a scanning electron microscope and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) was conducted. The results revealed that the addition of a 10% DS reinforcement to G-E composites enhanced the wear resistance and increased toughness and hardness. Finally, G-E-DS composite optimization was carried out by minimizing the wear VL. This resulted in an optimum DS reinforcement of 10% at a normal load of 10 N, an abrasive size of 1200 mesh, and an abrading distance of 420 m. Deviations from this reinforcement ratio degrade the mechanical properties of the G-E-DS composite. Moreover, the significant factors are the abrasive size, reinforcement material wt%, normal load, and abrading distance. The contributions of these factors are 30.6%, 15.5%, 11.8%, and 10%, respectively. FTIR results indicate that a chemical interaction has occurred between G-E and the organic DS. These experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical ones.

The main objective of this paper is to determine the optimal sizing of a biomass and fuel cell micro-grid. The biomass generator will be utilized as the main source of power generation for the study area, while the fuel cell generator will be used as a backup generator to be used if the biomass generator fails to meet the energy requirements of the study area. In this research, excess energy will be used to produce hydrogen which is to be used by the fuel cells to generate energy instead of using batteries. To achieve the goal of this paper, a multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) technique has been proposed to solve the sizing problem for the introduced micro-grid via an economical perspective which is the cost of energy (COE). The MOPSO algorithm tries to mitigate the COE to the lower values by keeping the loss of power supply probability (LPSP) as minimal as possible. Likewise, statistical analysis has been concluded to study the accuracy of the outcomes of the introduced technique.