Recent biotechnological developments in reshaping the microalgal genome: A signal for green recovery in biorefinery practices

The use of renewable energy sources as a substitute for nonrenewable fossil fuels is urgently required. Algae biorefinery platform provides an excellent alternate to overcome future energy problems. However, to let this viable biomass be competent with existing feedstocks, it is necessary to exploit genetic manipulation and improvement in upstream and downstream platforms for optimal bio-product recovery. Furthermore, the techno-economic strategies further maximize metabolites production for biofuel, biohydrogen, and other industrial applications. The experimental methodologies in algal photobioreactor promote high biomass production, enriched in lipid and starch content in limited environmental conditions. This review presents an optimization framework combining genetic manipulation methods to simulate microalgal growth dynamics, understand the complexity of algal biorefinery to scale up, and identify green strategies for techno-economic feasibility of algae for biomass conversion. Overall, the algal biorefinery opens up new possibilities for the valorization of algae biomass and the synthesis of various novel products.

Phytotherapic Drugs For Covid19 Treatment: A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

The rapid eruption of Coronavirus at the end of 2019 has caused global health crisis and significant loss to the economy and social well-being. This created a massive shortage of advanced health facilities with inadequate medicinal supply, further deteriorating human health conditions. On the basis of adverse effects of the ongoing pandemic, this review is proposed to evaluate the antiviral efficacy of plant-based therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 (commonly called COVID19) infection. It highlights the possible action of the mechanism of phytotherapeutic drugs against coronavirus inhibition, further validated by clinical trials on herbal formulas. Though the experimental studies on COVID19 treatment are limited, the undesirable side effects of herbal drugs and unidentified compounds cannot be ignored.

OBJECTIVE

We have made an effort to study the prospective plant-derived bioactive entities and their effectiveness in the treatment of COVID19 and emphasize safety and regulatory concerns of phytomedicines.

METHODS

The methodology involves the relevant studies on COVID19 treatment based on herbal extracts and the purified bioactive metabolites. The e-literature survey is done by downloading research articles available on PubMed (National library of medicine), Elsevier, and Google scholar search engines. The keywords used are plant metabolites, natural bioactive, phytotherapeutic drugs, clinical trials, SARS-CoV-2, Coronavirus inhibitors and herbal extracts.

RESULTS

The review pays particular attention to the etiological study of the COVID19 virus and its inhibition using medicinal plant metabolites as immunomodulatory agents. The application of valuable bioactive like phenolic compounds, saponins, alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids and terpenoids in preparing herbal formula/drug. The drug resistance of bioactive compounds and their side effects on human health were discussed for effective phytomedicine. Thus, emphasizing the perspectives of phytotherapeutic drugs as a safe remedy to boost immunomodulatory functions and antiviral activity against COVID19.

CONCLUSION

Altogether, the review presents the action mechanism of plant extracts rich in bioactive compounds and depicted potential antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. These plant bioactive compounds can serve as lead molecules to develop phytomedicine, ensuring all safety regulations in the clinical trials to treat or prevent COVID19 viral infections.

Exploration of Chemical Reaction Effects on Entropy Generation in Heat and Mass Transfer of Magneto-Jeffery Liquid

In many chemical engineering processes, a chemical reaction between a foreign mass and the fluid does occur. These processes find relevance in polymer production, oxidation of solid materials, ceramics or glassware manufacturing, tubular reactors, food processing, and synthesis of ceramic materials. Therefore, an exploration of homogeneous first-order chemical reaction effects on heat and mass transfer along with entropy analysis of Jeffrey liquid flow towards a stretched isothermal porous sheet is performed. Fluid is conducting electrically in the company of transverse magnetic field. Variations in heat and mass transfer mechanisms are accounted in the presence of viscous dissipation, heat source/sink and cross-diffusion aspects. The partial differential equations system governing the heat transfer of Jeffery liquid is reformed to the ordinary differential system through relevant transformations. Numerical solutions based on Runge-Kutta shooting method are obtained for the subsequent nonlinear problem. A parametric exploration is conducted to reveal the tendency of the solutions. The present study reveals that the Lorentz force due to magnetism can be used as a key parameter to control the flow fields. Entropy number is larger for higher values of Deborah and Brinkman numbers. It is also established that the concentration species field and its layer thickness of the Jeffery liquid decreases for a stronger chemical reaction aspect. To comprehend the legitimacy of numerical results a comparison with the existing results is made in this exploration and alleged an admirable agreement.

Studies on rheological and leaching characteristics of heavy metals through selective additive in high concentration ash slurry

The generation and disposal level of thermal power plant ash in India is a challenging task. The conventional mode of dilute phase ash slurry (10-20% solids by weight) transport through pipelines being practiced in majority of these plants not only consumes huge amount of precious water and pumping energy but also causes serious environmental problem at the disposal site. The present study investigates the rheological and leaching characteristics of an Indian ash samples at high solids concentrations (>50% by weight) using sodium silicate as an additive. The flow behaviour of ash slurry in the concentration range of 50-60% by weight is described by a Bingham-plastic model. It was indicated that the addition of sodium silicate (0.2-0.6% of the total solids) could able to reduce both the slurry viscosity and the yield stress. The analysis of the ash samples for the presence of heavy metals such as Fe, Cd, Ni, Pb, Zn, Cu, Co, As and Hg were carried out following Hansen and Fisher procedure. The addition of sodium silicate affected the leaching characteristics of the ash samples over a period of 300 days resulting in the reduction of leaching of heavy metals.

Evaluation of cyfluthrin and fenfluthrin for their insecticidal activity against three vector mosquitoes

The EC50/EC90 concentrations of cyfluthrin and fenfluthrin were tested for their activity against different developmental stages of three important vector mosquitoes viz., Anopheles stephensi Liston, Aedes aegypti (Linn.) and Culex quinquefasciatus Say. The EC90 concentrations of both cyfluthrin and fenfluthrin showed ovicidal effect on An. Stephensi and Ae. aegypti whereas EC90 of cyfluthrin checked the hatching of eggs completely in Cx. quinquefasciatus. Fenfluthrin at EC50 concentration reduced the percentage of hatching significantly (p < 0.05) only in An. stephensi. Both the compounds were more active against the fourth larval instars of all mosquito species and cyfluthrin in culicines (17.3% Ae. aegypti = 9.1%) and fenfluthrin in anophenlines (An. stephensi = 36.8%) brought about maximum inhibition in adult emergence. Various types/degrees of morphogenetic aberrations were induced in all mosquito species on treatment with these compounds. Cyfluthrin treated female mosquitoes showed reduced fecundity rates in An. stephensi (p < 0.05), Cx. quinquefasciatus (p < 0.001) and fenfluthrin treated in An. stephensi (p < 0.5) and Ae. aegypti (p < 0.05). The fertility rates of all the mosquito species were significantly reduced (p < 0.001) by both the compounds.

The effect of chitin synthesis inhibitors on the development of Brugia malayi in Aedes aegypti

Two chitin synthesis inhibitors (CSIs) viz., triflumuron and hexaflumuron interfere++ with the development of Brugia malayi in Aedes aegypti (a black-eyed Liverpool strain). The development of B. malayi was slow in both the treated populations and the infection rate, infectivity rate and L3 load per mosquito decreased significantly (P < 0.001) in comparison with untreated controls. Hexaflumuron was found to be more inhibiting than triflumuron.