Physicochemical and Biochemical Characterization, Total Phenolic and Energy Value from Bulbs of Different Onion (Allium cepa L.) Varieties in Senegal

The purpose of this study is to investigate the physicochemical properties of some local varieties of onion (Allium cepa L.) and compare them with an imported variety, all collected in May 2021. Proteins, reducing sugars, lipids, and polyphenol content were estimated according to the AFNOR standardized methods. The determination of calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium, potassium and phosphorus was performed by atomic absorption spectrophotometer coupled with a CCD detector. The results highlighted an average acidity of 0.377% ± 0.002% lower than the value of the imported variety which is 0.520% ± 0.001%. Local varieties have a pH ranging from 6.35 ± 0.003 to 6.42 ± 0.004, while the variety has a pH of 6.36 ± 0.003. The ash and dry matter contents vary respectively from 4.788% ± 0.004% to 8.253% ± 0.003% and 7.945% ± 0.021% to 11.945% ± 0.007% for the local varieties. Moreover, the imported one has ash and dry matter contents of 5.175% ± 0.007% and 10.035% ± 0.021% respectively. The results show that the protein, reducing sugar and lipid contents in the local onion varieties vary respectively from 2.815 ± 0.000 to 15.634 ± 0.001 g·100 g-1;4.691 ± 0.001 to 12.596 ± 0.002 g·100 g-1 and 0.006 ± 0.001 to 0.050 ± 0.057 g·100 g-1. Furthermore, the imported variety has a protein, reducing sugar and lipid content of 5.649 ± 0.002;8.565 ± 0.002 g·100 g-1 and 0.011 ± 0.010 g·100 g-1 respectively. The maximum levels of total polyphenols are obtained in the imported variety, Bellani and Gandiol, respectively 9.973 ± 0.001, 4.535 ± 0.002, and 3.425 ± 0.006 mg EAG/g of dry matter. The local varieties have a significant calorific intake of between 35.451 ± 0.001 and 112.980 ± 0.003 kcal·100 g-1 compared to the imported one with an energy value of 56.953 ± 0.001 kcal·100 g-1 of dry matter. The bulbs of different onion varieties studied have a fairly high content of mineral elements. The potassium content of local varieties is between 502.16 ± 0.06 mg·100 g-1 and 582.77 ± 0.04 mg·100 g-1 while the imported variety has a content of 536.62 ± 1.30 mg·100 g-1. They note that the local varieties have a better calcium content (249.75 ± 0.07 to 434.20 ± 0.57 mg·100 g-1) and magnesium (142.15 ± 0.07 to 162.60 ± 0.42 mg·100 g-1) than the imported variety (229.58 ± 0.04 mg·100 g-1) except for the varieties White Grano (228.29 ± 0.01 mg·100 g-1) and Rouge Amposta (117.00 ± 0.42 mg·100 g-1) respectively. These results reveal that Gandiol, Dayo and Orient F1 are nutritionally found better due to their higher antioxidant property, proteins, carbohydrates, and reducing sugar and should be included in diets to supplement our daily allowance needed by the body.

Characterization of Wastewater in School Environments for an Ecological Treatment Solution: A Case Study of Ndiebene Gandiol 1 School

The study conducted at Ndiebene Gandiol 1 school in Senegal has unveiled serious environmental and public health challenges. The wastewater analysis revealed high levels of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), and fecal coliforms, signaling potential risks to the well-being of students and staff. This situation mirrors a wider issue in rural educational settings, where inadequate sanitation persists. Intensive wastewater treatment options are known for their effectiveness against high pollutant loads but are resource-intensive in both energy and cost. Conversely, extensive treatment systems, while requiring more land, provide a sustainable alternative by harnessing natural processes for pollutant removal. The research suggests a hybrid treatment approach could serve the school’s needs, balancing the robust capabilities of intensive methods with the ecological benefits of extensive systems. Such a solution would need to be tailored to the specific environmental, financial, and logistical context of the school, based on comprehensive feasibility studies and stakeholder engagement. This study’s findings underscore the urgency of addressing sanitation in schools, as it is intrinsically linked to the health and academic success of students. Quick, effective, and long-term strategies are vital to secure a healthier and more prosperous future for the youth. With proper implementation, the school can transform its sanitation facilities, setting a precedent for rural educational institutions in Senegal and similar contexts globally.

Optimised CNN Architectures for Handwritten Arabic Character Recognition

Handwritten character recognition is considered challenging compared with machine-printed characters due to the different human writing styles.Arabic is morphologically rich,and its characters have a high similarity.The Arabic language includes 28 characters.Each character has up to four shapes according to its location in the word(at the beginning,middle,end,and isolated).This paper proposed 12 CNN architectures for recognizing handwritten Arabic characters.The proposed architectures were derived from the popular CNN architectures,such as VGG,ResNet,and Inception,to make them applicable to recognizing character-size images.The experimental results on three well-known datasets showed that the proposed architectures significantly enhanced the recognition rate compared to the baseline models.The experiments showed that data augmentation improved the models’accuracies on all tested datasets.The proposed model outperformed most of the existing approaches.The best achieved results were 93.05%,98.30%,and 96.88%on the HIJJA,AHCD,and AIA9K datasets.

Phenotypic Characterization and QTL/Gene Identification for Internode Number and Length Related Traits in Maize

Internode number and length are the foundation to constitute plant height, ear height and the above-ground spatial structure of maize plant. In this study, segregating populations were constructed between EHel with extremely low ear height and B73. Through the SNP-based genotyping and phenotypic characterization, 13 QTL distributed on the chromosomes (Chrs) of Chr1, Chr2, Chr5-Chr8 were detected for four traits of internode no. above ear (INa), average internode length above ear (ILaa), internode no. below ear (INb), and average internode length below ear (ILab). Phenotypic variation explained (PVE) by a single QTL ranged from 6.82% (qILab2-2) to 12.99% (qILaa5). Zm00001d016823 within the physical region of qILaa5, the major QTL for ILaa with the largest PVE was determined as the candidate through the genomic annotation and sequence alignment between EHel and B73. Product of Zm00001d016823 was annotated as a WEB family protein homogenous to At1g75720. qRT-PCR assay showed that Zm00001d016823 highly expressed within the tissue of internode, exhibiting statistically higher expression levels among internodes of IN4 to IN7 in EHel than those in B73 (P Zm00001d016823 might provide novel insight into molecular mechanism beyond phytohormones controlling internode development in maize.

Effect of Co on Solidification Characteristics and Microstructural Transformation of Non-equilibrium Solidified Cu-Ni Alloys

Non-equilibrium solidification structures of Cu55Ni45 and Cu55Ni43Co2 alloys were prepared by the molten glass purification cycle superheating method.The variation of the recalescence phenomenon with the degree of undercooling in the rapid solidification process was investigated using an infrared thermometer.The addition of the Co element affected the evolution of the recalescence phenomenon in Cu-Ni alloys.The images of the solid-liquid interface migration during the rapid solidification of supercooled melts were captured by using a high-speed camera.The solidification rate of Cu-Ni alloys,with the addition of Co elements,was explored.Finally,the grain refinement structure with low supercooling was characterised using electron backscatter diffraction(EBSD).The effect of Co on the microstructural evolution during nonequilibrium solidification of Cu-Ni alloys under conditions of small supercooling is investigated by comparing the microstructures of Cu55Ni45 and Cu55Ni43Co2 alloys.The experimental results show that the addition of a small amount of Co weakens the recalescence behaviour of the Cu55Ni45 alloy and significantly reduces the thermal strain in the rapid solidification phase.In the rapid solidification phase,the thermal strain is greatly reduced,and there is a significant increase in the characteristic undercooling degree.Furthermore,the addition of Co and the reduction of Cu not only result in a lower solidification rate of the alloy,but also contribute to the homogenisation of the grain size.

A Method for Detecting and Recognizing Yi Character Based on Deep Learning

Aiming at the challenges associated with the absence of a labeled dataset for Yi characters and the complexity of Yi character detection and recognition,we present a deep learning-based approach for Yi character detection and recognition.In the detection stage,an improved Differentiable Binarization Network(DBNet)framework is introduced to detect Yi characters,in which the Omni-dimensional Dynamic Convolution(ODConv)is combined with the ResNet-18 feature extraction module to obtain multi-dimensional complementary features,thereby improving the accuracy of Yi character detection.Then,the feature pyramid network fusion module is used to further extract Yi character image features,improving target recognition at different scales.Further,the previously generated feature map is passed through a head network to produce two maps:a probability map and an adaptive threshold map of the same size as the original map.These maps are then subjected to a differentiable binarization process,resulting in an approximate binarization map.This map helps to identify the boundaries of the text boxes.Finally,the text detection box is generated after the post-processing stage.In the recognition stage,an improved lightweight MobileNetV3 framework is used to recognize the detect character regions,where the original Squeeze-and-Excitation(SE)block is replaced by the efficient Shuffle Attention(SA)that integrates spatial and channel attention,improving the accuracy of Yi characters recognition.Meanwhile,the use of depth separable convolution and reversible residual structure can reduce the number of parameters and computation of the model,so that the model can better understand the contextual information and improve the accuracy of text recognition.The experimental results illustrate that the proposed method achieves good results in detecting and recognizing Yi characters,with detection and recognition accuracy rates of 97.5%and 96.8%,respectively.And also,we have compared the detection and recognition algorithms proposed in this paper with other typical algorithms.In these comparisons,the proposed model achieves better detection and recognition results with a certain reliability.

Audio2AB:Audio-driven collaborative generation of virtual character animation

Background Considerable research has been conducted in the areas of audio-driven virtual character gestures and facial animation with some degree of success.However,few methods exist for generating full-body animations,and the portability of virtual character gestures and facial animations has not received sufficient attention.Methods Therefore,we propose a deep-learning-based audio-to-animation-and-blendshape(Audio2AB)network that generates gesture animations and ARK it's 52 facial expression parameter blendshape weights based on audio,audio-corresponding text,emotion labels,and semantic relevance labels to generate parametric data for full-body animations.This parameterization method can be used to drive full-body animations of virtual characters and improve their portability.In the experiment,we first downsampled the gesture and facial data to achieve the same temporal resolution for the input,output,and facial data.The Audio2AB network then encoded the audio,audio-corresponding text,emotion labels,and semantic relevance labels,and then fused the text,emotion labels,and semantic relevance labels into the audio to obtain better audio features.Finally,we established links between the body,gestures,and facial decoders and generated the corresponding animation sequences through our proposed GAN-GF loss function.Results By using audio,audio-corresponding text,and emotional and semantic relevance labels as input,the trained Audio2AB network could generate gesture animation data containing blendshape weights.Therefore,different 3D virtual character animations could be created through parameterization.Conclusions The experimental results showed that the proposed method could generate significant gestures and facial animations.

A Novel 6G Scalable Blockchain Clustering-Based Computer Vision Character Detection for Mobile Images

6G is envisioned as the next generation of wireless communication technology,promising unprecedented data speeds,ultra-low Latency,and ubiquitous Connectivity.In tandem with these advancements,blockchain technology is leveraged to enhance computer vision applications’security,trustworthiness,and transparency.With the widespread use of mobile devices equipped with cameras,the ability to capture and recognize Chinese characters in natural scenes has become increasingly important.Blockchain can facilitate privacy-preserving mechanisms in applications where privacy is paramount,such as facial recognition or personal healthcare monitoring.Users can control their visual data and grant or revoke access as needed.Recognizing Chinese characters from images can provide convenience in various aspects of people’s lives.However,traditional Chinese character text recognition methods often need higher accuracy,leading to recognition failures or incorrect character identification.In contrast,computer vision technologies have significantly improved image recognition accuracy.This paper proposed a Secure end-to-end recognition system(SE2ERS)for Chinese characters in natural scenes based on convolutional neural networks(CNN)using 6G technology.The proposed SE2ERS model uses the Weighted Hyperbolic Curve Cryptograph(WHCC)of the secure data transmission in the 6G network with the blockchain model.The data transmission within the computer vision system,with a 6G gradient directional histogram(GDH),is employed for character estimation.With the deployment of WHCC and GDH in the constructed SE2ERS model,secure communication is achieved for the data transmission with the 6G network.The proposed SE2ERS compares the performance of traditional Chinese text recognition methods and data transmission environment with 6G communication.Experimental results demonstrate that SE2ERS achieves an average recognition accuracy of 88%for simple Chinese characters,compared to 81.2%with traditional methods.For complex Chinese characters,the average recognition accuracy improves to 84.4%with our system,compared to 72.8%with traditional methods.Additionally,deploying the WHCC model improves data security with the increased data encryption rate complexity of∼12&higher than the traditional techniques.

Granulometric and Mineralogical Characterization of the Sands of the Middle Course of the Kasai River (Territory of Ilebo, Province of Kasai/DR Congo)

The sand bars, in perpetual transformation, observable in the middle course of the Kasai river on the section between the city of Ilebo (pk605) to the confluence of the Loange river (pk525), pose enormous navigability problems. This may be dependent on hydrosedimentological characteristics of the Kasai River. This abundance of sand thus conditions the morphology of the middle course of the Kasai River in the section under our study. It therefore constitutes sedimentary navigation obstacles. The objective of this study is the granulometric and mineralogical characterization of the bar sands of the Kasai River in this study section. Particle size analyzes reveal these are moderately well classified to well classified unimodal sands (Classification coefficient between 1.29 to 1.742) largely presenting grain size symmetry and rarely fine asymmetry (Asymmetry coefficient—Skewness between −0.197 to 0.069) with mesorkurtic and rarely leptokurtic and platykurtic acuity (Angulosity coefficient—Kurtosis between 0.814 to 1.323). All these parameters evolve in sawtooth patterns from upstream to downstream. And then, an automated mineralogical analysis of the sands of the Kasaï River using a Qemscan FEG Quanta 650 made it possible to determine a very varied mineralogical procession with a sawtooth evolution. It is largely dominated by quartz (between 93.73% and 99.07%), followed by calcite (0.01% - 2.66%), iron oxides (0.01% - 1.88%), orthoclase (0.04% - 0.99%), plagioclase (0.01% - 0.75%) and Kaolinite (0.18% - 0.71%). Finally, this mineralogical procession is characterized by a group of minerals which do not reach the threshold of 0.55% such as: illite, apatite, ilmenite, muscovite, chlorite, biotite, montmorillonite, rutile, pyrophyllite, siderite, zircon and dolomite. The evolution of the mineralogical procession of the sands of the bars is not as clear as in the case of particle size parameters.

Frontier Progress of Landscape Character Assessment in China

The role of Landscape Character Assessment(LCA)at the level of territorial landscape governance spans both natural and social sciences.By analyzing the development history,research distribution,methods and applications of cutting-edge cases of LCA in China,the following conclusions are drawn:①the LCA research in China originated earlier than that in Europe,but has not yet been systematically applied to the implementation of urban and rural planning at all levels;②the fundamental theory of LCA in China has been well constructed,with three main research directions:technologyled,assessment-led,and assessment combined with other theories;③the development of LCA in rural areas is more mature than in urban areas,but the progress of research is uneven across regions;④the current research presents significant“bottom-up”academic characteristics,and there is an urgent need for government decision-making authorities and academia to jointly promote a“top-down”standardized governance mechanism to comprehensively promote the modernization of territorial landscape governance.

Clay Materials for Ceramics Application from N’Djamena in the Chad Republic: Mineralogical, Physicochemical and Microstructural Characterization

Herein, we report some characteristics of the clayey materials (CMs) collected from Kaliwa (C1), Kabé (C2) and Malo (C3) district in N’Djamena (Chad). Three samples were characterized applying XRF, XRD, FTIR, SEM. In addition, TGA/DSC were performed to control decomposition/mass loss and show phase transitions respectively of CMs. Geochemical analysis by XRF reveals the following minerals composition: SiO2 (~57% - 66%), Al2O3 (~13% - 15%), Fe2O3 (~6% - 10%), TiO2 (~1% - 2%) were the predominant oxides with a reduced proportion in C1, and (~7%) of fluxing agents (K2O, CaO, Na2O). Negligible and trace of MgO (~1%) and P2O5 was noted. The mineralogical composition by XRD shows that, C1, C2 and C3 display close mineralogy with: Quartz (~50%), feldspar (~20%) as non-clay minerals, whereas clays minerals were mostly kaolinite (~15%), illite (~5%) and smectite (~10%). FTIR analysis exhibits almost seemingly similar absorption bands characteristic of hydroxyls elongation, OH valence vibration of Kaolinite and stretching vibration of some Metal-Oxygen bond. SEM micrographs of the samples exhibit microstructureformed by inter-aggregates particles with porous cavities. TGA/DSCconfirm the existence of quartz (570˚C to 870˚C), carbonates (600˚C - 760˚C), kaolinite (569˚C - 988˚C), illite (566˚C - 966˚C), MgO (410˚C - 720˚C) and smectite (650˚C - 900˚C). The overall characterization indicates that, these clayey soils exhibit good properties for ceramic application.

Method and Description of Sedimentary System Characterization Based on Sequence Stratigraphy

A Oilfield is the most representative mid to deep oil field in the Bohai Sea, with the main oil bearing intervals being the upper and middle Shahejie-3 sections of the Paleogene Shahejie Formation. By combining well seismic analysis, the middle section of Shahejie-3 is divided into high-level system tract and forced lake retreat system tract, corresponding to the II oil formation and I oil formation, respectively. Using sequence stratigraphy methods, based on seismic profiles and drilling lithological cycles, the high stand system tract is divided into 5 stages of delta progradation. The first and second stages are high angle S-type progradation with large sedimentary thickness, the third stage is oblique progradation, and the fourth and fifth stages are S-oblique composite progradation;By combining seismic data, we characterized the large-scale (8 small-scale) progradation bodies of 5 periods, clarified the distribution characteristics of reservoir planes, and laid the foundation for the later exploration of oilfield potential.

Chip Surface Character Recognition Based on OpenCV

Chip surface character recognition is an important part of quality inspection in the field of microelectronics manufacturing.By recognizing the character information on the chip,automated production,quality control,and data collection and analysis can be achieved.This article studies a chip surface character recognition method based on the OpenCV vision library.Firstly,the obtained chip images are preprocessed.Secondly,the template matching method is used to locate the chip position.In addition,the surface characters on the chip are individually segmented,and each character image is extracted separately.Finally,a Support Vector Machine(SVM)is used to classify and recognize characters.The results show that this method can accurately recognize the surface characters of chips and meet the requirements of chip quality inspection.

Phenotypic and Molecular Characterization of Staphylococcaceae and Enterobacteriaceae Species Isolated from Smoked, Dried, and Braised Fish Marketed in Ouagadougou

Background: To preserve its nutritional properties, fish must have good sanitary quality. The objective of this study was to investigate some pathogens contaminating smoked, dried, and braised fish marketed in Ouagadougou. Methodology: Potential pathogens of Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus were screened in eight (8) species of processed fish. The investigation of the germs was carried out following the normative methods of microbiology. The identities of the strains were determined by API 20 E (BioMerieux S.A., France) and API STAPH (BioMerieux S.A., France) kits for Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus species respectively. The uidA gene profile in Escherichia coli isolates was determined by simplex PCR. The identity of Staphylococcus aureus was confirmed by amplification of specific 23S rDNA regions and nuc gene profile with PCR. Results: A total of 235 fish samples were analyzed. A diversity of Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococcus was detected. Twenty species of Enterobacteriaceae were identified among which, the most frequent were Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp, Raoultella ornithinolytica and Serratia odorifera, respectively in 22.6%, 4.3%, 28.9%, 17.4% of the samples analyzed. However, eleven species of Staphylococcus were identified among which, Staphylococcus xylosus, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus lugdunensis, and Staphylococcus sciuri were the most frequent with respective percentages of 47.7%, 23.4%, 12.8% and 10.6% of samples. For all the samples, the species frequently isolated were: Raoultella ornithinolytica, Escherichia coli, Serratia odorifera, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus xylosus, and Staphylococcus lugdunensis. The uidA gene specific to Escherichia coli was detected in 82.85% of strains (29/35). Amplification of the specific 23S rDNA region using staur primers was observed in 98% (49/50) of the isolated Staphylococcus aureus strains and the nuc gene was detected in 86% of Staphylococcus aureus strains. Conclusion: The isolated bacteria are potential pathogens involved in foodborne illnesses and intoxications. Effective sanitary safety systems must be implemented to guarantee the sanitary quality of fish supplied to consumers.

Arabic Optical Character Recognition:A Review

This study aims to review the latest contributions in Arabic Optical Character Recognition(OCR)during the last decade,which helps interested researchers know the existing techniques and extend or adapt them accordingly.The study describes the characteristics of the Arabic language,different types of OCR systems,different stages of the Arabic OCR system,the researcher’s contributions in each step,and the evaluationmetrics for OCR.The study reviews the existing datasets for the Arabic OCR and their characteristics.Additionally,this study implemented some preprocessing and segmentation stages of Arabic OCR.The study compares the performance of the existing methods in terms of recognition accuracy.In addition to researchers’OCRmethods,commercial and open-source systems are used in the comparison.The Arabic language is morphologically rich and written cursive with dots and diacritics above and under the characters.Most of the existing approaches in the literature were evaluated on isolated characters or isolated words under a controlled environment,and few approaches were tested on pagelevel scripts.Some comparative studies show that the accuracy of the existing Arabic OCR commercial systems is low,under 75%for printed text,and further improvement is needed.Moreover,most of the current approaches are offline OCR systems,and there is no remarkable contribution to online OCR systems.

Characterization of Atypical Individuals of Lannea in Burkina Faso

Background and Objectives: The species to the Lannea genus are trees, shrubs with compound leaves. Thus, individuals called atypical Lannea with single leaves and of socio-economic interests have been identified in the central plateau region (Burkina Faso). This study aimed to contribute to the identification of atypical species. Material and Methods: The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method using specific primers was performed and consisted of extracting DNA from young leaves of Lannea individuals, amplifying and then sequencing portions of discriminating DNA (matK, rbcL and rps16). Results: It was shown that individuals belong to the Lannea genus, but are subdivided into three subgroups: a first subgroup containing Lannea microcarpa and two subgroups with no previously identified Lannea species. Conclusion: These atypical individuals are ecotypes or mutants of Lannea microcarpa.

Morpho-Physiological and Biochemical Characterization of Soybean-Associated Rhizobia and Effect of Their Liquid Inoculant Formulation on Nodulation of Host Plants in the Cameroon Cotton Fields Zone

The aim of this research was to assess the diversity of the Cameroon cotton zone in soybean associated rhizobia in order to formulate the most efficient elite inoculant to boost both the cotton and soybean production. Therefore, soybean associated rhizobia were isolated and characterized morphologically, physiologically and biochemically on YEMA culture media. For each of the two soybean varieties (Houla1 and TGX1910 14F) used, the trials were laid out in two IRAD-fields of North Cameroon (Sanguere-Paul) and Far-North (Soukoundou) respectively, under a complete randomized complete block design, the isolate formulations representing the treatments. The six isolated strains (IS1, IS2, IS3, IS4, IS5, IS6) from which seven liquid inoculant were formulated were revealed to belong to the same slow growing group of rhizobia, with a high level of tolerance to temperature, pH, and salinity, with optimum growth at respectively 28˚C, pH (7 - 9), salt (1% - 5%). Not surprisingly, root nodules were formed by both inoculated and uninoculated soybean plants. However, the most efficient soybean-rhizobia symbiosis for nodulations were isolate IS6 associated to TGX1910 14F variety, and isolate IS5 associated to Houla1variety at Sanguere-Paul. Whereas isolate M was associated to TGX1910 14F variety, Houla 1 variety had affinity with native rhizobia isolates at Soukoundou. The present results suggest the adaptability of rhizobia isolates to a particular soybean variety at a particular cotton fields zone. These findings should be taken into consideration for commercial inoculant formulation.

Characterization of the Natural and Organomodified Clay Soil of Moukosso (Republic of Congo) by Dimethylsulfoxide: Application to the Adsorption of Lead (II) in Aqueous Solution

In this study, the authors characterized the raw clayey soil of Moukosso and modified by dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) by several analytical methods, namely: X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and gravimetric thermal analysis (TGA). The cation exchange capacity (CEC) was also determined. Mineralogical analysis by XRD revealed the presence of muscovite (29.7%), kaolinite (8.9%), anatase (2.4%) and quartz (58.9%). The characterization of the organo-clay by infrared and by thermogravimetric analysis confirmed the intercalation of DMSO by the presence of vibration bands at 1008 cm-1 and 1070 cm-1 and a strong increase in the loss of mass. The cation exchange capacity of the raw material is 7.4 meq/100g. Rapid adsorption of Pb2+ ions was observed between 5 and 15 minutes of stirring time in both cases (raw clay and organomodified clay). The modeling of the isotherms by the models of Langmuir and Freudlich showed that these are of type S with a maximum amount of adsorption of 22.471 mg/g for the fine fraction and 41.493 mg/g for the clay intercalated with DMSO. Langmuir’s model best reproduces the experimental data of this study.

Physic, Chemical and Mineralogical Characterizations of Clays Used in the Making of Traditional Ceramics in the City of Katiola, C ôte d’Ivoire

In C ?te d’Ivoire, traditional ceramics are widely used in the form of pottery. The latter is used to store food, water and cereals. Analyzes (X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), inductive plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and analysis thermal gravimetric (ATG)) were carried out to determine the morphology, the chemical, physical and pedological constituents of these raw materials. It appears from this study that the clays used in the Mangoro pottery of Katiola contain silica SiO2, alumina Al2O3 and iron oxide Fe2O3 as well as kaolinite, muscovite, smectite and quartz.

Physico-Chemical Characterization of Nine Agricultural Biomasses of the Togolese Flora

Green coal or bio-coal is coal produced with rich biodegradable materials, elaborated from agricultural and household residues with a high percentage of carbon. This green charcoal (fuel briquettes) is an alternative to charcoal. Well known for its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, charcoal is one of the causes of tree felling. The valorization of waste by the manufacture of biofuels could be an alternative to the use of charcoal. The general objective of the present study is the valorization of nine biomasses from Togo as raw materials. Specifically, physico-chemical characteristics such as dehydration, acidity, and conductivity were determined. Information on the structure and composition of the biomass was found. These data on the nature of the biomass were found through the use of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and Thermogravimetry (TGA). The promising results inform on the nature of the analyzed samples and allow the selection of the best biomass which would give an important thermal conductivity for the manufacture of the briquettes, but also of the binders to be used according to the physico-chemical characteristics like the pH.