No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Synthetic plastics are highly hazardous contaminants; hence they must be replaced with alternatives. This study aimed to prepare corn starch-based bioplastics using fish scale through film casting technique as an alternative to synthetic plastics. In this work, four types of bioplastic films containing different percentages of fish-scale powder and corn starch were prepared. Physical and chemical properties such as texture, color, solubility in hot water, tensile strength, organic content, and morphology of all the four types of the synthesized biopolymer were analyzed. The mixture of fish-scale powder and corn-flour powder in the ratio of 1: 3 yielded the best results. In the biodegradability test, degradation was noticed after 7 days of treatment with organic waste. The degradation was confirmed by surface changes in the morphology and the development of Aspergillus sp. The produced bioplastics were synthesized from eco-friendly, inexpensive, and natural materials. Thus, the present research has provided a viable alternative to synthetic plastics.

No abstract

Calcium doped cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by co-precipitation method with ammonium ceric sulfate as the precursor and ethanol as solvent. They were characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses. Pure CeO2 NPs have a crystallite size of 9 nm, while, calcium-doped ones have 2 nm and are having regular spherical shapes. Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface analysis indicated that calcium-doped CeO2 NPs have larger specific surface area (59.806 m2/g) than pure CeO2 NPs (30-40 m2/g). As a result, chitosan incorporated with calcium doped CeO2 NPs showed better adsorption efficiencies (48-70%) than when incorporated with undoped CeO2 NPs (35-51%). Studies suggested that calcium doped CeO2 NPs are better potential photocatalyst for methyl orange degradation, with efficiencies between 25-68 % (in the time interval of 15-75 min) than their pure counterpart (2-15%).