Antibacterial activity of modified kaolinite and bentonite with antibacterial agents againstPseudomonas aeruginosawas studied. These clays have been modified with only cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and copper (Cu) and the combination of both. Characterization of the studied materials with X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform-Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyzer and Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) revealed the successful preparation of CTAB-clays, Cu-clays and CTAB-Cu-clays without distorting the structure of these clays. From the antibacterial assay of the studied materials by Inhibition Growth Study and Minimum Inhibition Concentration (MIC) technique, CTAB-Cu-clays have been proven to have the highest antibacterial activity due to the synergistic effect of CTAB and Cu as antibacterial agents. It can be concluded that modification of clays with CTAB and Cu can become new alternative powerful antibacterial agent.
Effluent discharged from various industries is one of the point sources of pollutions that affect the water quality. The effluent contains a high concentration of hazardous compounds of metal ions. Membrane technology using ultrafiltration membrane had proven successful in treating physical and organic impurities from water and wastewater. The importance of this study was to clarify the effectiveness of additive concentration in nanofiltration membrane for heavy metals removal. The physicochemical characteristics and copper ions removal efficiencies were determined for a different amount of silica extracted from sugarcane bagasse as an additive added to polysulfone polymer membranes. The PSF-Si membranes were fabricated via the phase inversion technique. The results show that silica in the formulation and fabrication of polysulfone membrane gives added value to membrane porosity, water content, and hydrophilicity. The most effective membrane in removing copper ions was the membranes with the lowest silica content, which is PSF-21 Si-2. The PSF-21 Si-2 membrane is hydrophilic, attracts a large amount of water, and gives a pure water flux of 56 L/m2hr to pass through the membrane. Moreover, the copper rejection increased from 92% to 98% as the copper concentration increased for the best membrane formulation PSF-21 Si-2.
Angiogenesis is the formation of new microvascular network from the pre-existing blood vessel. In tissue engineering approaches, angiogenesis is essential for the promotion of micro-vascular network inside an engineered scaffold construct, mimicking a functional blood vessel in vivo. In the in vivo system, the formation of new blood vessels depends on the properties fibrin gel extracellular matrix. In this study, we have investigated the effect of different fibrinogen and thrombin composition on the biophysical properties of fibrin gel. Higher concentration of thrombin (4.0 Units/milliliter) yields a shorter clotting time of the fibrin gel and result in better water uptake property while at lower concentration of thrombin (0.5 Units/milliliter), the clotting time takes much longer. Also, at lowest concentration ratio of fibrinogen to thrombin (0.5 milligram/milliliter to 4.0 Units/milliliter), the turbidity study shows the lowest absorbance compared to other samples. Different concentration of fibrinogen and thrombin also affect the microstructure of the fibrin gel. The variation of these properties will be then manipulated to be used for in vitro angiogenesis. This study opens broader application of fibrin extracellular matrix in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering researches.
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