Investigation of particle collection and flotation kinetics within the Jameson cell downcomer

Nanocarrier-Based Approaches for the Efficient Delivery of Anti-Tubercular Drugs and Vaccines for Management of Tuberculosis

Drug-resistant species of tuberculosis (TB), which spread faster than traditiona TB, is a severely infectious disease. The conventional drug therapy used in the management of tuberculosis has several challenges linked with adverse effects. Hence, nanotherapeutics served as an emerging technique to overcome problems associated with current treatment. Nanotherapeutics helps to overcome toxicity and poor solubility issues of several drugs used in the management of tuberculosis. Due to their diameter and surface chemistry, nanocarriers encapsulated with antimicrobial drugs are readily taken up by macrophages. Macrophages play a crucial role as they serve as target sites for active and passive targeting for nanocarriers. The surface of the nanocarriers is coated with ligand-specific receptors, which further enhances drug concentration locally and indicates the therapeutic potential of nanocarriers. This review highlights tuberculosis's current facts, figures, challenges associated with conventional treatment, different nanocarrier-based systems, and its application in vaccine development.

Assessment of wastes recycling for deinking purposes in ozone assisted green process

This study investigates techno-economic aspects of wastepaper recycling to optimize process efficiency and operating cost. The deinking was carried out using pulping followed by froth flotation. The development of a waste management process was achieved employing refinery wastewater to provide chemical reagents in pulping. Ozone was also used as a gas media in flotation to improve brightness and number of ink-spot and to reduce chemical oxygen demand (COD) simultaneously. An enhancement in the brightness was observed from 50.1 to 64.1% ISO that was superior to the brightness of virgin newspaper before printing (61.0% ISO). It was equivalent to a reduction of 55% (from > 100,000 to 45,058) in number of ink-spot. The quality of flotation effluent was assessed by measuring the COD and phthalocyanine concentration. The COD reduction of 67% (from 3250 to 1072 mg/L) and phthalocyanine reduction of 85% (from 2 to 0.3 mg/L) were achieved after 30 min ozonation. According to the obtained results, approximately 67% of the direct (variable) cost reduced while the wastewater was used in pulping because of saving NaOH and water consumption. Associating the refinery and paper recycling wastewater treatment units, while taking into account the environmental and economic benefits of ozone, results in a quality paper and significantly preserves the environment.

A Brief Review of Pulp and Froth Rheology in Mineral Flotation

In mineral flotation, rheological problems have limited the efficient upgrading of low-grade and complex ores. Since pulp and froth rheology are deemed to play different roles in influencing the separation performance, in this paper, a brief review on pulp and froth rheology in flotation is provided, with an objective of developing a basic understanding of rheology in flotation. The essential variables that affect the rheology of a flotation pulp and froth are discussed. The methods for measuring pulp and froth rheology are presented. The correlations of pulp and froth rheological properties to flotation performance are reviewed. Strategies that are currently used to mitigate the deleterious effects of problematic ores in flotation are also provided for flotation optimization. Research gaps are also proposed to highlight the need of further exploration of flotation rheology in future.

Adsorption Behavior of Surfactant on Lignite Surface: A Comparative Experimental and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study

Experimental and computational simulation methods are used to investigate the adsorption behavior of the surfactant nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPEO10), which contains 10 ethylene oxide groups, on the lignite surface. The adsorption of NPEO10 on lignite follow a Langmuir-type isotherm. The thermodynamic parameters of the adsorption process show that the whole process is spontaneous. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) analysis indicates that a significant fraction of the oxygen-containing functional groups on the lignitic surface were covered by NPEO10. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show that the NPEO10 molecules were found to adsorb at the water-coal interface. Moreover, polar interactions are the main effect in the adsorption process. The density distributions of coal, NPEO10, and water molecules along the Z axis show that the remaining hydrophobic portions of the surfactant extend into the solution, creating a more hydrophobic coal surface that repels water molecules. The negative interaction energy calculated from the density profiles of the head and tail groups along the three spatial directions between the surfactant and the lignitic surface suggest that the adsorption process is spontaneous. The self-diffusion coefficients show that the presence of NPEO10 causes higher water mobility by improving the hydrophobicity of lignite.