Ultrasonic-assisted extraction to enhance the recovery of bioactive phenolic compounds from Commiphora gileadensis leaves

The "ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE)" method was utilized in this work to assess how different process parameters affected the yield and recovery of phenolic compounds from the leaf of Commiphora gileadensis, which is one of the medicinal plants with a variety of biological functions. Its leaf is used for a various of therapeutic applications, such as the treatment of bacterial infections, inflammation, and wound healing. The "One-Factor-At-a-Time (OFAT)" approach was employed to examine the impacts of various UAE process parameters on the process of extraction, which include time of extraction, sample/solvent ratio, ultrasonic frequency, and solvent (ethanol) concentration. The extracts were then investigated for the presence of several phytochemicals using analytical techniques such as "Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS)" and "Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)" studies. The findings showed that the maximum extraction yield, the total phenolic content (TPC), and the total flavonoids content (TFC) of the ethanolic extract of the leaves of C. gileadensis using the UAE method were at 31.80 ± 0.41 %, 96.55 ± 2.81 mg GAE/g d.w. and 31.66 ± 2.01 mg QE/g d.w. accordingly under a procedure duration of 15 min, ultrasonic frequency of 20 kHz, solvent/sample ratio of 1:20 g/mL, and solvent concentration of 40 % v/v. The leaves extract of C. gileadensis included 25 phenolic compounds that were previously unreported, and GC-MS analysis confirmed their presence. Hence, it follows that the UAE technique can successfully extract the phytochemicals from C. gileadensis for a variety of therapeutic uses.

Impact of ultrasonicated Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum AF1 on the safety and bioactive properties of stirred yoghurt during storage

In this study, the effects of ultrasonicated Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum AF1 (100 W, 30 kHz, 3 min) on the safety and bioactive properties of stirred yoghurt during storage (4 °C for 21 days) were investigated. The results showed that sonicated cultures were more effective in reducing pathogens than untreated ones. The highest antioxidant activity (DPPH and ABTS), α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibition capacity were found in yoghurt containing sonicated probiotic + sonicated yoghurt starter cultures (P + Y + ). The highest amount of peptides (12.4 mg/g) was found in P + Y + yoghurts at the end of the storage time. There were not significant differences between the exopolysaccharide content of P + Y+ (17.30 mg/L) and P + Y- (17.20 mg/L) yoghurts, although it was significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher than the other samples. The use of ultrasonicated cultures could enhance the safety of stirred yoghurt and improve its functional and bioactive properties.

Sono-electrolysis performance based on indirect continuous sonication and membraneless alkaline electrolysis: Experiment, modelling and analysis

In the present study, experiments of membraneless alkaline sono-electrolysis are combined to a mathematical model describing the performance of a sono-electrolyzer based on the electrochemical resistances and overpotentials (activation, Ohmic and concentration) and the oscillation of the acoustic cavitation bubble, and its related sono-physical and sonochemical effects, as a single unit and within population. The study aims to elucidate the mechanism of action of acoustic cavitation when coupled to alkaline electrolysis, using a membraneless H-cell configuration and indirect continuous sonication (40 kHz, 60 W_e). The calorimetric characterization constituted the bridge between experimental results and the numerical and simulation approach, while the quantification of the rate of produced hydrogen both experimentally and numerically highlighted the absence of the contribution of sonochemistry, and explained the role of ultrasounds by the action of shockwaves and microjets. Finally, the energetic sono-physical approach allowed an estimation of the predominance of the shockwaves and microjets effects according to the bubble size distribution within the population corresponding to the acoustic conditions of the study. The resulting macroscopic effect in sono-electrolysis process has been assessed considering the induced degassing. A reduction in the fraction of electrodes' coverage by bubbles from 76% to 42% has been recorded, corresponding to a decrease of 7.2% in Ohmic resistance and 62.35% in bubble resistance.

Galvano-Fenton Engineering Solution with Spontaneous Catalyst's Generation from Waste: Experimental Efficiency, Parametric Analysis and Modeling Interpretation Applied to a Clean Technology for Dyes Degradation in Water

In this paper, the degradation of the diazo dye naphthol blue black (NBB) using the Galvano-Fenton process is studied experimentally and numerically. The simulations are carried out based on the anodic, cathodic, and 34 elementary reactions evolving in the electrolyte, in addition to the oxidative attack of NBB by HO• at a constant rate of 3.35×107 mol-1·m3·s-1 during the initiation stage of the chain reactions. The selection of the operating conditions including the pH of the electrolyte, the stirring speed, and the electrodes disposition is performed by assessing the kinetics of NBB degradation; these parameters are set to 3, 350 rpm and a parallel disposition with a 3 cm inter-electrode distance, respectively. The kinetics of Fe(III) in the electrolyte were monitored using the principles of Fricke dosimetry and simulated numerically. The model showed more than a 96% correlation with the experimental results in both the blank test and the presence of the dye. The effects of H2O2 and NBB concentrations on the degradation of the dye were examined jointly with the evolution of the simulated H2O2, Fe2+, and HO• concentrations in the electrolyte. The model demonstrated a good correlation with the experimental results in terms of the initial degradation rates, with correlation coefficients exceeding 98%.

A Novel Energy-from-Waste Approach for Electrical Energy Production by Galvano-Fenton Process

A novel approach allowing the production of electrical energy by an advanced oxidation process is proposed to eliminate organic micropollutants (MPs) in wastewaters. This approach is based on associating the Galvano–Fenton process to the generation of electrical power. In the previous studies describing the Galvano–Fenton (GF) process, iron was directly coupled to a metal of more positive potential to ensure degradation of organic pollutants without any possibility of producing electrical energy. In this new approach, the Galvano–Fenton process is constructed as an electrochemical cell with an external circuit allowing recovering electrons exchanged during the process. In this study, Malachite Green (MG) dye was used as a model of organic pollutant. Simultaneous MG degradation and electrical energy production with the GF method were investigated in batch process. The investigation of various design parameters emphasis that utilization of copper as a low-cost cathode material in the galvanic couple, provides the best treatment and electrical production performances. Moreover, these performances are improved by increasing the surface area of the cathode. The present work reveals that the GF process has a potential to provide an electrical power density of about 200 W m⁻². These interesting performances indicate that this novel Energy-from-Waste strategy of the GF process could serve as an ecological solution for wastewater treatment.

Acoustic cavitation events and solvation power of ionic liquid in a novel hybrid technique: A concept proposal toward a green pathway for cellulose decomposition

The present paper reports a numerical investigation of the feasibility of a hybrid concept associating the 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium Acetate [C4mim][CH3COO] to sonication, in terms of cavitation formation and generated extreme conditions allowing cellulose decomposition in the second reactivity site. The results of the proposed model revealed an acoustic power threshold of 1.8 atm, in order to expect a transient cavitation in the ionic liquid, leading to harsh conditions of 1559.8 K and 49 bar within the bulk volume of the acoustic cavitation bubble. The spatial and temporal variation of the temperature was simulated within the bulk volume of the bubble as well as in the thermal boundary layer jointly with the chemical kinetics. The first stage of the polymerization reduction was clearly attained and demonstrated through the decomposition rate of cellulose and the molar rate of emergence of anhydrocellulose, reaching the respective orders of magnitude of 1.71 × 104 mol/m3⋅s and 7.91 × 104 mol/m3⋅s.

Energy balance of high-energy stable acoustic cavitation within dual-frequency sonochemical reactor

The acoustic cavitation bubble as an open energetic system is the seat of conversion of various forms of energy accompanying the bubble oscillation. The energy conversion would explain specific dynamical, thermal and kinetical behaviors. In the present paper, the energy balance related to a stable bubble irradiated by dual-frequency field is simulated numerically and interpreted in accordance with the phenomena occurring inside it. The study particularly focuses on the comparison of the energetic behavior of high-energy stable cavitation with bubbles that are non-active in sonochemistry, submitted to couples of 35, 140, 300 and 515 kHz. The simulation results revealed that pressure forces work is the major energetic input during the bubble oscillation lifetime, while the main energetic loss comes from heat transfer by diffusion and enthalpy loss accompanying water condensation. Besides, high rates of condensation of water molecules and low amounts of accumulated energy inside the bubble volume were identified as the key factors preventing the achievement of the sonochemical activity threshold.

How do dissolved gases affect the sonochemical process of hydrogen production? An overview of thermodynamic and mechanistic effects - On the "hot spot theory"

Although most of researchers agree on the elementary reactions behind the sonolytic formation of molecular hydrogen (H₂) from water, namely the radical attack of H₂O and H₂O₂ and the free radicals recombination, several recent papers ignore the intervention of the dissolved gas molecules in the kinetic pathways of free radicals, and hence may wrongly assess the effect of dissolved gases on the sonochemical production of hydrogen. One may fairly ask to which extent is it acceptable to ignore the role of the dissolved gas and its eventual decomposition inside the acoustic cavitation bubble? The present opinion paper discusses numerically the ways in which the nature of dissolved gas, i.e., N₂, O₂, Ar and air, may influence the kinetics of sonochemical hydrogen formation. The model evaluates the extent of direct physical effects, i.e., dynamics of bubble oscillation and collapse events if any, against indirect chemical effects, i.e., the chemical reactions of free radicals formation and consequently hydrogen emergence, it demonstrates the improvement in the sonochemical hydrogen production under argon and sheds light on several misinterpretations reported in earlier works, due to wrong assumptions mainly related to initial conditions. The paper also highlights the role of dissolved gases in the nature of created cavitation and hence the eventual bubble population phenomena that may prevent the achievement of the sonochemical activity. This is particularly demonstrated experimentally using a 20 kHz Sinaptec transducer and a Photron SA 5 high speed camera, in the case of CO₂-saturated water where degassing bubbles are formed instead of transient cavitation.

Acoustic frequency and optimum sonochemical production at single and multi-bubble scales: A modeling answer to the scaling dilemma

The present work consists of an innovative approach aiming to address the scalability dilemma of the sonochemical activity dependency of acoustic frequency. The study originates from the discordance of observations between the theoretical investigations of the sonochemical activity of the single acoustic cavitation bubble in function of the acoustic frequency, in one hand, and the experimental findings regarding the optimal frequency condition, mainly in terms of pollutant degradation, in the other hand. A single bubble and an up-scaled model of the sonochemical activity are suggested and simulations were conducted based on both of them over the frequencies 20, 200, 300, 360, 443, 500, 600 and 800 kHz under an oxygen atmosphere. The results reveal that the sonochemical production at single bubble scale is monotonously decreasing with the increase of frequency, while all the products demonstrate an absolute optimum of sonochemical production at 200 kHz, except HO^• that attains its maximum molar yield under 300 kHz. Besides, the production of the predominant species, namely HO₂^•, HO^• and O₃, manifests a clear rebound at 500 kHz. All the present results were compared to and confirmed by experimental findings, while the scalability of the concentrations of sonochemically produced species was discussed using a parameter we introduced as "the mass focusing factor".

Oxygen-argon acoustic cavitation bubble in a water-methanol mixture: Effects of medium composition on sonochemical activity

The objective of the present numerical study is to examine the sonochemical production within a single acoustic bubble that oscillates in an aqueous methanol solution under an oxygen-argon mixture. The produced molar yield during the strong collapse was analyzed in accordance with the system composition, i.e. the molar fraction of argon and the volume fraction of methanol. The simulation results based on 180 cases demonstrated the reproducibility of pyrolysis and combustion conditions within the bubble volume. Pure water sonolysis resulted in an optimal production at 90% molar of argon, with O, HO^· and HO₂^· as predominant species at low argon concentrations and O, HO^· et H^· at high concentrations. The addition of methanol changed the whole chemical schema evolving inside the bubble that gave rise to specific species such as CH₂OH,CH₃O,CH₂O,HCO,CO₂ and CO. A common optimum appeared at 40% molar of argon for solutions of 20% (v/v) and up of methanol. An absolute maximum was observed at 40% (v/v) of methanol, in spite of argon concentration. In addition, a significant selectivity of products was observed according to the composition of the medium.

Void fraction, number density of acoustic cavitation bubbles, and acoustic frequency: A numerical investigation

The present paper consists of a numerical study attempting to characterize the bubble population within a sonochemical reactor through modeling and simulating the number density of bubbles and the void fraction. In a first step, both previous parameters were estimated under 1.52 bar and various acoustic frequencies ranging from 20 to 1000 kHz in function of normalized time. The results showed that the average number density of bubbles, varying within the interval 2.810⁴-1.4 × 10¹² bubbles dm^-3, follows a clear monotonous evolving trend as the frequency increases, while the average void fraction, comprised between 9.05 × 10^-5 and 1.95 × 10^-4, demonstrates no dependency of acoustic conditions. In a second step, an energy analysis was performed at microscopic and macroscopic scales, which led the authors to figure out that the evolution of the number density of bubbles in function of acoustic frequency is mainly governed by the energy required to maintain oscillating the single cavitation bubble.

Numerical investigation of the effect of dual frequency sonication on stable bubble dynamics

A computational study aiming to simulate an oxygen single acoustic bubble oscillation under a dual-frequency sonication was presented in this paper. The non-linear response of the bubble to the superposition of two fields of ultrasonic waves was investigated through dynamics parameters, collapse ratios and average velocities. The main goal of this analyze is to link the properties of the wave resulting from the dual-frequency excitation to the dynamics behavior of the bubble. The obtained results prove that, in contrast with the mono-frequency, coupling a wave to lower frequencies enhances the collapse duration and raises the compression ratio in the case of 35 kHz, while associating any of the studied waves to a higher frequency elevates the number of bubble oscillations during a time interval as compared to mono-frequency. The total sonochemical production has been investigated in accordance with the dynamics results, as well as the proportions of the three predominant free radicals, that show a dependency on the value of the basic frequency.

Insights into numerical simulation of controlled ultrasonic waveforms driving single cavitation bubble activity

A computational study treating cavitation phenomenon within a single bubble undergoing various controlled ultrasonic waveforms is presented in this paper. Numerical simulations using sinusoidal, square, triangular and sawtooth waves crossing an aqueous media, saturated with oxygen, are conducted upon various operational conditions of frequency and amplitude. Bubble radius, temperature and pressure were estimated over time for 64 combined cases. The obtained results show that at relatively low acoustic pressure, i.e. 1.5 and 2 atm, the square wave is proved to generate the highest temperature and pressure inside the bubble, while triangular and sawtooth ones remain the less interesting waveforms for sonochemical application within the same operational conditions. At higher amplitudes above 2.5 atm, this trend is changed, especially at low frequencies, i.e. 200 and 300 kHz, where square wave showed some limitations in attaining the optimal values of the strong collapse within one acoustic cycle.

Ultrasonic waveform upshot on mass variation within single cavitation bubble: Investigation of physical and chemical transformations

The mechanical disturbance created by an ultrasonic wave travelling through a liquid medium induces the formation of cavitation that oscillates due to rarefaction and compression of the wave. The duration and the magnitude of the pressure applied by the ultrasonic wave at each instant would generate a specific impact on the variation of the bubble radius, the temperature, the pressure and the mass inside it. In this paper, a numerical study is conducted to simulate four waveforms (sinusoidal, square, triangular and sawtooth) travelling an aqueous media saturated with oxygen with an amplitude of 1.5 and 2 atm and a frequency of 200, 300 and 500 kHz. The purpose is to highlight the mass evolution within acoustic cavitation bubble during one cycle due to physical transformations and sonochemical effect. The obtained results demonstrated that square signal enhances temperature and pressure growth inside the bubble, as well as mass transfer by evaporation and condensation. This leads to an improvement of produced quantities of free radicals but also to a selectivity of O as a major product in the detriment of HO₂ and OH. These trends are less and less observed when passing to sinusoidal, triangular and square signal.

Influence of reactions heats on variation of radius, temperature, pressure and chemical species amounts within a single acoustic cavitation bubble

The scientific interest toward the study of acoustic bubble is mainly explained by its practical benefit in providing a reactional media favorable to the rapid evolution of chemical mechanism. The evolution of this mechanism is related to the simultaneous and dependent variation of the volume, temperature and pressure within the bubble, retrieved by the resolution of a differential equations system, including among others the thermal balance. This last one is subject to different assumptions, some authors deem simply that the temperature varies adiabatically during the collapsing phase, without considering the reactions heat of the studied mechanism. This paper aims to evaluate the pertinence of neglecting reactions heats in the thermal balance, by analyzing their effect on the variation of radius, temperature, pressure and chemical species amounts. The results show that the introduction of reactions heats conducts to a decrease of the temperature, an increase of the pressure and a reduction of the bubble volume. As a consequence, this leads to a drop of the quantities of free radicals produced by the chemical mechanism evolving within the bubble. This paper also proved that the impact of the consideration of reactions heats is dependent of the frequency and the acoustic amplitude of the ultrasonic wave.

Numerical estimation of ultrasonic production of hydrogen: Effect of ideal and real gas based models

Based on two different assumptions regarding the equation describing the state of the gases within an acoustic cavitation bubble, this paper studies the sonochemical production of hydrogen, through two numerical models treating the evolution of a chemical mechanism within a single bubble saturated with oxygen during an oscillation cycle in water. The first approach is built on an ideal gas model, while the second one is founded on Van der Waals equation, and the main objective was to analyze the effect of the considered state equation on the ultrasonic hydrogen production retrieved by simulation under various operating conditions. The obtained results show that even when the second approach gives higher values of temperature, pressure and total free radicals production, yield of hydrogen does not follow the same trend. When comparing the results released by both models regarding hydrogen production, it was noticed that the ratio of the molar amount of hydrogen is frequency and acoustic amplitude dependent. The use of Van der Waals equation leads to higher quantities of hydrogen under low acoustic amplitude and high frequencies, while employing ideal gas law based model gains the upper hand regarding hydrogen production at low frequencies and high acoustic amplitudes.

Computational study of state equation effect on single acoustic cavitation bubble's phenomenon

Many models have been established to study the evolution of the bubble dynamics and chemical kinetics within a single acoustic cavitation bubble during its oscillation. The content of the bubble is a gas medium that generates the evolution of a chemical mechanism governed by the internal bubble conditions. These gases are described by a state equation, linking the pressure to the volume, temperature and species amounts, and influencing simultaneously the dynamical, the thermal and the mass variation in the cavitation bubble. The choice of the state equation to apply has then a non-neglected effect on the obtained results. In this paper, a comparative study was conducted through two numerical models based on the same assumptions and the same scheme of chemical reactions, except that the first one uses the ideal gas equation to describe the state of the species, while the second one uses the Van der Waals equation. It was found that though the dynamic of the bubble is not widely affected, the pressure and temperature range are significantly increased when passing from an ideal gas model to a real one. The amounts of chemical products are consequently raised to approximately the double. This observation was more significant for temperature and pressure at low frequency and high acoustic amplitude, while it is noticed that passing from ideal gas based approach to the Van der Waals one increases the free radicals amount mainly under high frequencies. When taking the results of the second model as reference, the relative difference between both results reaches about 60% for maximum attained temperature and 100% for both pressure and free radicals production.