Pellet mixed with 5 wt% and 10 wt% of binders was tested. The pelleting process was performed using a pellet mill operated at 100 °C and at 50 MPa. The physical and chemical characteristics including hardness, high heating value and proximate analysis of pellet produces were obtained using durometer and through thermographic analysis and the results were reported in this paper. Bulk and unit density were determined according to ASABE standard. The dataset presented here are the data of palm kernel shell pellet prepared using two types of binder; (1) sago starch and (2) sodium acetate. The pelletization of palm kernel shell aimed to increase the density and strength of the palm kernel shell pellet and consequently provide better thermal degradation characteristics.
The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of salts addition to fermentation medium on hydrogen production, under anaerobic batch culture system. In this study, batch experiments were conducted to investigate the inhibitory effect of both NaCl and sodium acetate on hydrogen production. The optimum pH and temperature for hydrogen production were at initial pH of 7.0 and 30 degrees C. Enhanced production of hydrogen, using glucose as substrate was achieved. In the absence of Sodium Chloride and Sodium Acetate enhanced hydrogen yield (Y(P/S)) from 350 mL g(-1) glucose utilized to 391 mL g(-1) glucose utilized with maximum hydrogen productivity of 77.5 ml/L/h. Results also show that sodium chloride and sodium acetate in the medium adversely affect growth. Hydrogen yield per biomass (Y(P/X)) of 254 ml/L/g, biomass per substrate utilized (Y(X/S)) of 0.268 and (Y(H2/S) of 0.0349. The results suggested that Sodium at any concentration resulted to inhibit the bacterial productivity of hydrogen.
A single line flow injection analysis (FIA) method that incorporated a preconcentrator column packed with C(18) particles and capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector (C(4)D) was developed for the determination of free fatty acid (FFA) in vegetable oils. The carrier stream was methanol/1.5 mM sodium acetate (pH 8) 80:20 (v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL min(-1). Calibration curve was well correlated (r(2)=0.9995) within the range of 1-200 mg L(-1) FFA (expressed as palmitic acid). Sampling rate of 40-60 h(-1) was achieved. Good agreement was found between the standard non-aqueous titrimetry method and the proposed method when applied to the determination of FFA in palm (crude, olein, and refined, bleached and deodorised) and other vegetable (soybean, rice bran, walnut, corn and olive) oils. The proposed method offers distinct advantages over the official method, especially in terms of simplicity, high sampling rate, economy of solvents and sample, offering considerable promise as a low cost automated system that needs minimum human intervention over long periods of time.
In order to assess the feasibility of various carbon sources and plant materials in increasing the growth rate and biomass productivity of Monoraphidium griffithii, ten carbon sources as well as six plant materials were tested in mixotrophic cultures with or without aeration. It was found that glucose, fructose, maltose, sodium acetate and mannitol were potential carbon sources for growth enhancement of M. griffithii. Supplementation of culture medium with these carbon sources resulted in approximately 1-4-fold increase in cell density compared to control in a small scale culture. In a larger scale mixotrophic culture with aeration, 0.05% mannitol and 0.1% fructose resulted in a decent 1-1.5-fold increase in final cell density, approximately 2-fold increase in growth rate and 0.5-1-fold increase in dry biomass weight. Findings from this study suggests that glucose, fructose, maltose and mannitol were potential organic carbon sources for mixotrophic culture of M. griffithii.
Plant tissues, especially durian tissues contain high content of polysaccharides, polyphenols and other secondary metabolites which can co-precipitate with RNA causing problem in further transcriptomic study. In this experiment, three basic chaotic agents, CTAB, SDS and guanidine are used in three basic protocols for RNA isolation. The effectiveness of each method was determined by spectrophotometer, denaturing agarose gels analysis and northern blot hybridization. CTAB combining with additional sodium acetate precipitation step showed highest yield and best quality of isolated RNA which was free from contaminations of polysaccharides, polyphenols and other secondary metabolites. Furthermore, the total RNA from 4-month old durian flesh of clone D24 was successfully used to construct a cDNA library. In conclusion, CTAB method is effective to isolate total RNA on various types of durian tissues for further gene expression analysis.
Calixarene derivatives are reported as potential therapeutic agents. Azo derivatives of calixarenes have not been given much consideration to explore their biomedical applications. In the present study, some azo-based derivatives of calix[4]arene were synthesized and characterized and their antibacterial and antiviral potentials were studied. The mono azo products of sulphanilamide, sulfaguanidine and 2-methyl-4-aminobenzoic acid showed good activity against bacterial strains with minimum inhibition concentration values ranging from 0.97 to 62.5 μg/mL. For mono azo products, the diazotized salt was applied as a limiting reagent. The use of calix[4]arene and sodium acetate trihydrate in 1:3 (molar ratio) helped in partial substitution. Molecular docking was performed to see the interaction of the designed compounds with two bacterial and one viral (neuraminidase) receptor. Some of the derivatives showed good interaction with the active site of bacterial and neuraminidase enzymes through hydrogen, hydrophobic and pi-pi interactions, and could inhibit the activity of the selected enzymes.
Extracts from ‘kesinai’ (Streblus asper) leaves were investigated as a potential source of enzymes that can serve as an alternative to calf rennet in cheese making. Different types of extraction buffers were investigated namely sodium acetate buffer (pH 4.2-5.0), phosphate buffer (pH 6.0-7.0) and Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.0-9.0). Finally, the milk-clotting enzyme was extracted using 100 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.4) with and without 5.0 mg/mL polyvinylpyrrolidone, 0.015 mL/mL Triton X-100 and 2 mM sodium metabisulphite. Purification was carried out using acetone precipitation, and ion-exchange and size-exclusion chromatographic techniques. Results showed that 100 mM Tris-HCl buffer (pH 7.4) was the most efficient extraction buffer among the buffers used in the extraction study. After the final purification step of size-exclusion chromatography, the enzyme was purified 3.3-fold with 42.3% of recovery. The enzyme showed an optimum temperature and pH at 60°C and pH 7.4, respectively. The enzyme was stable up to 70°C for one hour and the partially purified enzyme retained 83% and 96% of its original activity at pH 6.0 and 8.0, respectively. The molecular weight of the partially enzyme was estimated to be 75.8 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The milk-clotting activity of ‘kesinai’ enzyme was found to be lower than that of commercial Mucor rennet.