Investigation of Mechanical Properties for Reinforced Polyester Composites with Palm Fronds

Natural fibers have become essential elements to produce composites, which have the renewability, sustainability, low cost and less health hazardous. Natural wastes improved the physical and mechanical properties of polyester-based composites. Reinforced polyester composites with natural fibers are spread widely in recent decades as an alternative to synthetics. This paper deals with effectiveness of palm fronds when they were added to a polyester. Percentage of palm fibers with respect to polyester is considered through present work. A Pin-on-disc tribometer has been used in experimental work under external forces, and the correlations of coefficient of friction have been used to make analysis of the experimental results. Ibertest universal testing machine was used to measure the tensile strength at a crosshead speed of 8 mm/min. The experimental analysis shows the improvement of properties of the used reinforced polyester, where, the results show that the highest values of coefficient of friction are 1.16667 for 5 N load and the lowest value is 0.55 for 9 N load. And the change for load 11 N is not significant. And also, 7.01 MPa is the highest value for tensile strength with the lowest value of modulus of rigidity 5.84 when the palm frond content is 3% and the lowest value of tensile test is 4.81 MPa with the highest value of modulus of rigidity 11.9 when 21% content.

Discovery of bipinnatifid fronds of Protoblechnum contractum(Gu et Zhi)

IN Permian floras of China, a dispute over the relationship among the Protoblechnum and other similar plants such as Compsopteris, Glenopteris and Supaia has been existing for a long time, and moreover it has not been completely solved up to now. Halle placed a few simple pinnate fronds from the Shihhotze Formation in the genus Protoblechnum and named them Protoblechnum Wongii Halle 70 years ago when he was studying the fossil plants from the Late Palaeozoic strata in Shanxi, China. He did not think forked or unforked fronds as an important dividing genus condition in discussing the distinction among Protoblechnum and other relative fossils. Zalessky alSO found some specimens similar to Chinese Protoblechnum while he studied the Permian fossil plants from Russia. However, he did not approve of

New phenomenon in early development of sporelings in Gracilaria asiatica Chang et Xia(Gracilariaceae,Rhodophyta)

Study on the early development of sporelings from carpospores of Gracilaria asiatica Chang et Xia was conducted indoors under controlled culture conditions. Besides normal development of sporelings, a new developmental phenomenon of filamentous frond was observed. It was composed of one or two rows of cells, and took place from the outmost brim of the basal disc. During the early disc stage of germinated carpospores, one or two filamentous fronds formed on about 10% basal discs. Simul-taneously, young fronds began to arch slightly from the centers of single and coalescent discs; lately more filamentous fronds up to 80% appeared on the brims of basal discs. Meanwhile one or more upright fronds protuberated on the basal discs. Generally, filamentous fronds exhibited in self-existence or co-existence forms with normal young sporelings on the same basal disc, and single cell detached from filamentous fronds developed into a new filamentous frond. This new phenomenon exhibited a unique differentiation pathway during the early development of G. asiatica, which would be potential for the ap-plication in artificial sporelings nursery.

Phytochemical and anti-bacterial activity of epidermal glands extract of Christella parasitica (L.) H. Lev.

Objective:To study the morphology,biochemistry and bioactivity of the epidermal glands of the glandular morphotype of Christella parasitica(C.parasitica)(L.) H.Lev.Methods: Morphological studies on epidermal glands were earned out by using light microscope and scanning electron microscope.To prepare the extract,the shade-dried fronds of glandular morphotype were soaked in acetone.For antibacterial studies paper disc method was followed by using various pathogenic bacteria.Results:Detailed micromorphological,phytochemical and bioactivity studies on a medicinal fern C.parasitica(L.) H.Lev.showed its inlraspecific variation in antibacterial activity.The presence or absence of the epidermal glands was the key factor for antibacterial activity in the morphovariants of this species.The epidermal glands were orange-coloured,stalked and elongated ones of about 84.2μm×45μm,and distributed on the undersurface of cosla,coslules and veins in croziers,young and mature leaves.Frequency of glands varied from 15/cm on costa in mature leaves to 140/cm on costules in croziers.The acetone extract of the glands showed antibacterial activities and also toxic effect against mosquito larvae and tadpoles of frog.Preliminary phytochemical analysis and HPLC studies of the gland extract showed the presence of various kinds of terpenoids,alkaloids,tannins,saponins and flavonoids in it.Conclusions:The present study shows that epidermal glands of the glandular morphotype of C. parasitica(L.) H.Lev.have several bioactive compounds and such rare moiphovariant should be conserved in nature.The next step is to isolate the pure compounds and to screen the bioactivity of individual compounds of the epidermal glands.

Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants using green oil palm frond-derived carbon quantum dots/titanium dioxide as multifunctional photocatalysts under visible light radiation

The present work suggested the use of waste oil palm frond as an alternative precursor for nitrogendoped carbon quantum dots(NCQDs)and proposed a straightforward in-situ hydrothermal method for the preparation of NCQDs/TiO_(2)nanocomposites.The elemental composition,morphological,structural and optical characteristics of NCQDs/TiO_(2)nanocomposites have been comprehensively investigated.The successful grafting of NCQDs on TiO_(2)matrix was confirmed by the formation of Ti AOAC bond and the electronic coupling between theπ-states of NCQDs and the conduction band of TiO_(2).For the first time,the oil palm frond-derived NCQDs/TiO_(2)was adopted in the photodegradation of methylene blue(MB)under visible-light irradiation.As a result,the photocatalytic efficiency of NCQDs/TiO_(2)nanocomposites(86.16%)was 2.85 times higher than its counterpart TiO_(2)(30.18%).The enhanced performance of nanocomposites was attributed to the pivotal roles of NCQDs serving as electron mediator and visiblelight harvester.Besides,the optimal NCQDs loading was determined at 4 ml while the removal efficiency of NCQDs/TiO_(2)-4 was the highest at a catalyst dosage of 1 g.L^(-1)under alkaline condition.This research work is important as it proposed a new insight to the preparation of biomass-based NCQDs/TiO_(2)using a facile synthetic method,which offers a green and sustainable water remediation technology.

Comparable Study of Xylanase Production from Aspergillus niger via Solid State Culture

With the high availability of agricultural wastes in Malaysia, green energy is practical to be conducted. Thus, a research on the modification of the physical conditions of the solid state culture system, specifically different initial moisture content, fermentation temperature, inoculums size and different percentage of carbon and nitrogen sources were conducted to compare the usage of two different lignocellulosic materials which were oil palm frond and banana petiole respectively. After using a conventional method （one factor at a time）, the optimum fermentation conditions would be a combination of 70% initial moisture content （v/w）, at 28 ~C fermentation temperature with supplementation of 1% sucrose （w/w） and 1% peptone using 1 mL of inoculum in order to achieve highest xylanase production which was 1,711.87 U/mL and 1,579.60 U/mL for oil palm frond and banana petiole respectively. It was suggested that oil palm frond showed higher xylanase production compared to banana petiole.

Barbara Longhi’s Saint Justina of Padua:Pagan Symbolism and Christian Martyrology

Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)skillfully created small devotional altarpieces depicting holy saints with their respective attributes of martyrdom,seen in Saint Agnes of Rome(c.291-304)with an ewe,Saint Cecilia(c.200-235)with a portable organ,Saint Catherine of Alexandria(c.287-304)with a broken spiked wheel,and Saint Justina of Padua(c.3rd century)with a small sword in her chest.For their physical sacrifice,Heaven rewarded them with a palm frond as an honorific spiritual gift.Barbara included some of these saints in her paintings on the theme of holy conversation(sacra conversazione;a religious gathering with the Madonna and Child)and depicted the female saints as a single panel-solo image-for private devotion or supplicatory assistance.Most of the biographies and historicity about the lives of these saints are recounted by Jacobus de Voragine(1222-1298),Archbishop of Genoa,in his Golden Legend(Legenda Aurea,1275).This essay only comments on the iconography of one of Barbara’s female saints,Saint Justina of Padua.

SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON TISSUE CULTURE IN LAMINARIA JAPONICA AND UNDARIA PINNATIFIDA

The totipotency of higher plant somatic cells was first demonstrated by Steward on carrot. Since then, tissue culture has been widely practised from which the totipotency of many plant somatic cells has been observed. The key substance in inducing totipotency seems to be kinetin and cytokinin. Similar work was reported on the Laminaria sporophytes by Saga et al. with limited success. In our laboratory, we used the sporophytes of Laminaria japonica and Undaria pinnatifida to test the totipotency of the somatic cells with a newly synthetic hormone C-751.

Phenol contaminated municipal wastewater treatment using date palm frond biochar:Optimization using response surface methodology

Phenol is classified as an emerging contaminant which can be very toxic even at low concentrations and should be removed from wastewaters before reaching the environment.In this study date palm frond and leaf were pyrolyzed at different temperatures to identify the best adsorbent(feedstock)and pyrolysis temperature to remove phenol from aqueous solutions.Date palm frond pyrolyzed at 600℃,termed DPF600,achieved the highest phenol removal rates of 64%and adsorption capacity of 15.93 mg/g.Response surface methodology approach using Box-Behnken design was implemented to obtain the optimal pH(6),contact time(20 h)and dosage(0.1 g)for the maximum phenol adsorption.A predicted adsorption capacity was found as 16.62 mg/g which was in close agreement with the experimental adsorption capacity of 17.38 mg/g.Isotherm and kinetic models in both linear and non-linear forms indicated that Freundlich model(R^(2)=0.99,χ^(2)=0.02,RMSE=1.09)and pseudo-second order model(R^(2)=0.99,χ^(2)=0.85,RMSE=5.41)fit best the obtained experimental data.Thermodynamics calculations affirmed that the adsorption of phenol onto DPF600 biochar was endothermic and spontaneous.The point of zero charge was found to be at 6.5 for DPF600 biochar.Scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray,Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction confirmed adsorption of phenol onto DPF600 biochar.Application of DPF600 biochar to remove phenol from synthetic primary and secondary treated wastewater samples achieved 60 and 85%removal rates and 241 mg/g and 22.28 mg/g adsorption capacities,respectively.Regeneration studies showed promising adsorption capacities indicating the efficacy of DPF600 for the removal of phenol from wastewater.