The inflammatory response is a crucial aspect of the tissues’ responses to deleterious inflammogens. This complex response involves leukocytes cells such as macrophages, neutrophils, and lymphocytes, also known as inflammatory cells. In response to the inflammatory process, these cells release specialized substances which include vasoactive amines and peptides, eicosanoids, proinflammatory cytokines, and acute-phase proteins, which mediate the inflammatory process by preventing further tissue damage and ultimately resulting in healing and restoration of tissue function. This review discusses the role of the inflammatory cells as well as their by-products in the mediation of inflammatory process. A brief insight into the role of natural anti-inflammatory agents is also discussed. The significance of this study is to explore further and understand the potential mechanism of inflammatory processes to take full advantage of vast and advanced anti-inflammatory therapies. This review aimed to reemphasize the importance on the knowledge of inflammatory processes with the addition of newest and current issues pertaining to this phenomenon.

Mesostructured silica nanoparticles (MSN) and Ni loaded onto MSN (Ni/MSN) for the methanation of CO2 were prepared by the sol-gel and impregnation methods. Catalytic testing was conducted in the temperature range of 423-723 K under atmospheric pressure in the presence of H2. Ni supported on MSN was compared with others types of support such as MCM-41 (Mobile Crystalline Material), HY (protonated Y zeolite), SiO2 and γ-Al2O3. The activity of CO2 methanation followed the order: Ni/MSN > Ni/MCM-41 > Ni/HY > Ni/SiO2 > Ni/γ-Al2O3. The nitrogen physisorption and pyrrole adsorbed IR spectroscopy results indicated that the high activity of Ni/MSN is due to the presence of both intra-and interparticle porosity which led to the high concentration of basic sites. In addition, the correlation between N-H band intensity and the turnover frequency revealed that the methanation activity increased with increasing of the concentration of basic sites. The presence of defect sites or oxygen vacancies in MSN was responsible for the formation of surface carbon species, while Ni sites dissociated hydrogen to form atomic hydrogen. The surface carbon species then interacted with atomic hydrogen to form methane. The Ni/MSN catalyst performed with good stability and no deactivation up to 200 h.

h i g h l i g h t s Ostrich-eggshell waste as the raw material to synthesize calcium oxide heterogeneous base catalyst. Biofuel, biodiesel is produced from waste cooking oil via two steps transesterification reaction. Biodiesel yield was 96% and 94% for calcined ostrich-and calcined chicken-eggshells under same optima reaction condition. Biodiesel produced from calcined ostrich-eggshell and calcined chicken-eggshell satisfied ASTM D6751.

Calcium-based mixed oxides catalysts (CaMgO and CaZnO) have been investigated for the transesterification of Jatropha curcas oil (JCO) with methanol, in order to evaluate their potential as heterogeneous catalysts for biodiesel production. Both CaMgO and CaZnO catalysts were prepared by coprecipitation method of the corresponding mixed metal nitrate solution in the presence of a soluble carbonate salt at ∼ pH 8-9. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programmed desorption of CO2 (CO2-TPD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and N2 adsorption (BET). The conversion of JCO by CaMgO and CaZnO were studied and compared with calcium oxide (CaO), magnesium oxide (MgO) and zinc oxide (ZnO) catalysts. Both CaMgO and CaZnO catalysts showed high activity as CaO and were easily separated from the product. CaMgO was found more active than CaZnO in the transesterification of JCO with methanol. Under the suitable transesterification conditions at 338 K (catalyst amount = 4 wt. %, methanol/oil molar ratio = 15, reaction time = 6 h), the JCO conversion of more than 80% can be achieved over CaMgO and CaZnO catalysts. Even though CaO gave the highest activity, the conversion of JCO decreased significantly after reused for forth run whereas the conversion was only slightly lowered for CaMgO and CaZnO after sixth run.

Biochars have received increasing attention because of their potential environmental applications such as soil amending and atmospheric C sequestration. In this study, biochar was produced from waste rubber-wood-sawdust. The produced biochars were characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) gas porosimetry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Pyrolysis temperature was shown to have a strong influence on both thermal and chemical characteristic of biochar samples. The experimental data shows that the biochar samples can absorb around 5% water by mass (hydrophilic) at lower temperatures (<550 °C), and that lignin is not converted into a hydrophobic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) matrix. At higher temperatures (>650 °C), biochar samples were thermally stable and became hydrophobic due to the presence of aromatic compounds. Carbon content (over 85%) increased with increasing temperature, and showed an inverse effect to the elemental ratios of H/C and O/C. The very low H/C and O/C ratios obtained for the biochar indicated that carbon in this material is predominantly unsaturated. BET results showed that the sawdust derived biochars have surface areas between 10 and 200 m2 g−1 and FTIR indicated an aromatic functional group about 866 cm−1 in most of the samples. The rate of CO2 adsorption on sawdust derived biochar generally increased with increasing temperature from 450 to 650 °C but then decreased with increase in the production temperature. Derived biochar represents a potential alternative adsorbent for C sequestration.

ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by hydrothermal method using different molar ratios of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as structure directing agents. The effect of surfactants on the morphology of the ZnO crystals was investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. The results indicate that the mixture of cationic-anionic surfactants can significantly modify the shape and size of ZnO particles. Various structures such as flakes, sheets, rods, spheres, flowers and triangular-like particles sized from micro to nano were obtained. In order to examine the possible changes in other properties of ZnO, characterizations like powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), thermogravimetric and differential thermogravimetric analysis (TGA-DTG), FTIR, surface area and porosity and UV-visible spectroscopy analysis were also studied and discussed.

Biodiesel of non food vegetal oil origin is gaining attention as a replacement for current fossil fuels as its non-food chain interfering manufacturing processes shall prevent food source competition which is expected to happen with current biodiesel production processes. As a result, non edible Jatropha curcas plant oil is claimed to be a highly potential feedstock for non-food origin biodiesel. CaO-MgO mixed oxide catalyst was employed in transesterification of non-edible J. curcas plant oil in biodiesel production. Response surface methodology (RSM) in conjunction with the central composite design (CCD) was employed to statistically evaluate and optimize the biodiesel production process. It was found that the production of biodiesel achieved an optimum level of 93.55% biodiesel yield at the following reaction conditions: 1) Methanol/oil molar ratio: 38.67, 2) Reaction time: 3.44 h, 3) Catalyst amount: 3.70 wt.%, and 4) Reaction temperature: 115.87 °C. In economic point of view, transesterification of J. curcas plant oil using CaO-MgO mixed oxide catalyst requires less energy which contributed to high production cost in biodiesel production. The incredibly high biodiesel yield of 93.55% was proved to be the synergetic effect of basicity between the active components of CaO-MgO shown in the physicochemical analysis.

No abstract