The present study aimed to determine the chemical composition and the synergistic effect of three plants’ essential oils (EOs), Eucalyptus camaldulensis (ECEO), Mentha pulegium (MPEO), and Rosmarinus officinalis (ROEO), against three bacterial strains, Proteus mirabilis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus, in order to increase the antimicrobial effectiveness by the use of a low dose of essential oils, consequently decreasing the toxicity and negative impact. For this reason, an augmented simplex-centroid mixture design was used to build polynomial models in order to highlight the synergy between the essential oils against bacterial strains. Antimicrobial effect screening was performed by the disc diffusion method and the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were also studied. The gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) results show the richness of these essential oils by terpenic compounds, especially 1,8-Cineole and P-Cymene for ECEO, Pulegone for MPEO, and
α
-Pinene and Camphene for ROEO. Moreover, a significant antibacterial effect has been demonstrated and the best values were revealed by MPEO and ECEO against P. mirabilis and K. pneumoniae, with inhibition zones (IZ) of 25 and 20 mm, respectively, and an MIC of 0.0391% (v:v) against K. pneumoniae. The optimal mixtures showed a synergistic effect of essential oils, and the lowest minimal inhibitory concentrations of the mixtures (MICm) were in the order of 29.38% of MPEO, 45.37% of ECEO, and 25.25% of ROEO against P. mirabilis and in the order of 60.61% of MPEO and 39.39% of ROEO against K. pneumoniae. These results indicate the antibacterial efficacy of the three essential oils combined and suggest their importance in the treatment of urinary tract infections caused by resistant bacterial strains.
The present study is focused on the experimental verification of the efficiency of Arbutus unedo L. leaves against the crystallization of calcium oxalate. The inhibition of crystallization has been studied in vitro with the absence and the presence of the different concentrations of the infusion and hydroalcoholic extract of the plant. This study consists of measuring, using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer, the temporal evolution of the optical density at λ = 620 nm corresponding to the crystals formation. The latter have been characterized by microscopic observation using an optical microscope, and by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results suggest a greater effectiveness of the plant infusion with respect to the hydroalcoholic extract against crystallization or nucleation at percentages of 69.41 ± 0.24 or 19.76 ± 0.27% and at 93.92 ± 2.61 and 45.16 ± 3.06% against the aggregation, for both the infusion and the hydroalcoholic extract respectively. A. unedo leaves is a very promising and effective remedy against the crystallization of calcium oxalate and especially in the aggregation stage.
In the course of this project we were able to develop a wastewater treatment method, column filtration, which turned out to be effective, affordable, and easily implementable. We tested filtration/adsorption process on a mixture of three dyes, methylene blue (MB), crystal violet (CV), and methyl orange (MO) on a column 50 cm of height and 5 cm in diameter. The column material consisted of equal amounts of walnut shells powder (WSP), corn cob powder calcined (CCPC), and pyrophyllite (PY) was proved to be more efficient. The aim of the present study was to optimize and standardize the operational and experimental parameters of the column. A number of tests were carried out to do this by changing the particle size of the adsorbent materials, the percolation debit of the filtrate and the height of the filter bed. The examination by UV-visible spectrometry shows that the removal percentage by 99% was carried out by the diameter of 120 lm predominantly with percolation debit of the filtrate of 50 mL min À1 and the height of column bed of 4.5 cm. When the materials having macroscopic porous structure with a very small grain diameter were used, of small-sized dyes into the filtering medium without being trapped. On the other hand, it is noticed that the efficiency of the adsorption by filtration increases with the increase in the height of the filter bed and decreases with the increase of both the percolation debit and particle size of the adsorbents.
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