We first discuss cement production and special nomenclature used by cement industrialists in expressing the composition of their cement products. We reveal different types of cement products, their compositions, properties, and typical uses. Wherever possible, we tend to give reasons as to why a particular cement type is more suitable for a given purpose than other types. Cement manufacturing processes are associated with emissions of large quantities of greenhouse gases and environmental pollutants. We give below quantitative and qualitative analyses of environmental impact of cement manufacturing. Controlling pollution is a mandatory legal and social requirement pertinent to any industry. As cement industry is one of the biggest CO2 emitters, it is appropriate to discuss different ways and means of CO2 capture, which will be done next. Finally, we give an account of production of nanocement and advantages associated with nanocement. Nanofillers such as nanotitania, nanosilica, and nanoalumina can be produced in large industrial scale via top-down approach of reducing size of naturally available bulk raw materials to those in the nanorange of 1 nm–100 nm. We mention the preparation of nanotitania and nanosilica from Sri Lankan mineral sands and quartz deposits, respectively, for the use as additives in cement products to improve performance and reduce the amount and cost of cement production and consequent environmental impacts. As of now, mineral sands and other treasures of minerals are exported without much value addition. Simple chemical modifications or physical treatments would add enormous value to these natural materials. Sri Lanka is gifted with highly pure quartz and graphite from which silica and graphite nanoparticles, respectively, can be prepared by simple size reduction processes. These can be used as additives in cements. Separation of constituents of mineral sands is already an ongoing process.
Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) has been used as a spice and a medicinal herb since ancient times. The main active ingredient of turmeric is curcumin, a polyphenol that helps prevent and control neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases and some cancers. However, curcumin has drawbacks such as low water-solubility, poor absorption, fast metabolism, quick systemic elimination, low bioavailability, poor pharmacokinetics, low stability, and low penetration targeting efficacy. To overcome these drawbacks, a common method used is encapsulating curcumin in nanocarriers for targeted delivery. However, the degraded products of nanocarriers have raised concerns. In this research, we synthesized nanoparticles of curcumin, nanocurcumin without using nanocarriers. To do so, curcumin was soxhlet extracted from raw turmeric rhizome. The stock solutions of different curcumin concentrations prepared in dichloromethane were added to boiling water at different flow rates and sonicated for different time intervals. An average particle size of 82 ± 04 nm was obtained with 5.00 mg/mL stock solution concentration, at 0.10 mL/min flow rate and 30 min sonication time. The particle size tends to increase with the flow rate and the concentration of curcumin in the stock solution but decreases with the sonication time. X-ray diffraction shows sharp and intense diffraction peaks for curcumin, indicating its identity and high crystallinity, but nanocurcumins are amorphous. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy spectra confirm the presence of all the functional groups of curcumin in nanocurcumin. Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images show the perfectly spherical morphology of nanocurcumin. Although curcumin is not water-soluble, nanocurcumin formulations are freely dispersible in water.
Targeted drug delivery (TDD) is an advanced and smart method of delivering drugs to the patients in a targeted sequence that increases the concentration of delivered drug only at the targeted body part of interest (organs/tissues/cells). This will in turn enhance efficacy of treatment by reducing side effects and the required dose of the drug. TDD ensures a certain defined minimally required constant amount of a therapeutic agent for a prolonged period of time to a targeted diseased area within the body. This helps maintain the required plasma and tissue drug levels in the body thereby avoiding any damage to the healthy tissue via the drug. Various drug carriers that are envisaged in advanced delivery systems are soluble polymers, inorganic nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, biodegradable microsphere polymers (synthetic and natural), neutrophils, fibroblasts, artificial cells, lipoproteins, liposomes, micelles and immune micelle. In selecting such a vehicle, important factors to consider are chemical and physical properties drugs, side effects or cytotoxicity to healthy cells, route to be taken for the delivery of the drug, the targeted site, and the disease. As such, TDD formulations are prepared by considering the specific properties of target cells, nature of markers or transport carriers or vehicles, which convey drug to specific receptors, and ligands and physically modulated components.
Cisplatin is a commonly used anticancer drug which belonging to the first generation of platinumbased anticancer drugs developed. The cis configuration enables the binding of the coordination complex to one or two DNA strand(s) and thereby crosslinking the DNA strands triggering the cells to die in a programmed manner. It is used to treat various types of cancers such as small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer, cervical cancer, and germ cell tumours. When administered into blood, cisplatin reacts with thiol containing proteins present in blood plasma thus reducing its bioavailability and increasing cytotoxicity. It is, therefore, associated with numerous side effects including nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity, nausea, vomiting and ototoxicity. This paper describes a novel method to overcome these drawbacks and to improve bioavailability and the efficacy of the drug and to decrease dosage by encapsulating the drug in porous nanoparticles of vaterite and allowing to release slowly only at the vicinity of cancer cells by taking the advantage of the low solubility of vaterite at slightly acidic pH of cancer cells and the insolubility of vaterite in neutral and slightly basic pH conditions of blood and healthy cells.
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