In search of better NSAIDs four novel nitric oxide donating derivatives of curcumin (compounds 9a–d), and four thiophene curcuminoids (compounds 10a–c, 11) have been synthesised. The cytotoxic effects of these compounds along with the lead compound curcumin (7) and their effect on the production of the reactive oxygen species nitric oxide and pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, TNF-α and chemokine CXCL-8 were evaluated using human monocytic THP-1 and colon adenocarcinoma CACO-2 cell lines. All of the nitric oxide donating curcuminoids 9a–d and the thiophene curcuminoids 10a–c and 11 were non-cytotoxic to THP-1 cells over a concentration range of 10-100 μM and compared with curcumin compounds 10b and 10c, were more toxic. In CACO-2 cells, 10b and 11 appeared to be non-toxic at 10 to 50 μM, whereas 10a and 10c were non-cytotoxic at 10 μM only. These results clearly indicate that the introduction of a nitroxybutyl moiety to curcumin and replacement of phenyl rings with thiophene units reduces the cytotoxic effect of the parent curcumin, whereas a methyl substituted thiophene increases the cytotoxic effects. In THP-1 cells, drugs 10a and 11 significantly decreased IL-1-β production at their non-cytotoxic concentrations, whereas, they did not decrease TNF-α production in CACO-2 cells. Compound 11 showed a significant decrease in CXCL-8 production.

Low grade manganese ore fine was briquetted with different amounts of molasses under different pressure was studied in this investigation. In this study, the characterizations of raw materials were studied by different methods of analyses such as X-ray and chemical analyses. The results of briquetting show that as the pressing pressure load increased both the drop damage resistance and crushing strength increased and the optimum amount of molasses added was 2% and the pressing pressure was 216.7745 MPa. The produced briquettes were reduced by different flow rate of hydrogen at different temperatures, and the reduction kinetics was determined. The results indicated that: 1) The reduction rates by hydrogen increased with increasing temperature of the reduction; 2) Increase hydrogen flow rate at constant temperature of reduction leads to increase rate of reduction; 3) The zero order is control step at time 0-5 min and from 5 to 20 min the gaseous diffusion in case of cylindrical products and from 20 to 60 min the reaction controlled by nucleation and growth.