Among the items that have been widely used as a solution to reduce energy consumption and air pollution are cycles of simultaneous generation of electricity and heat or CHP. In such cycles, the gas turbine’s exhaust gases enter the steam production unit to produce the required steam or hot water. In the meantime, and due to the increasing use of oxidized fuel cells, combined circuits including fuel cells, gas turbines, and recovery boilers have been considered. In this paper, the combined cycle, including fuel, gas turbine, and recovery boiler, was thermodynamically analyzed, and its performance results are compared with a normal CHP cycle. Electrochemical and chemical modeling of fuel cells and exergy and thermodynamic analysis of all cycle components have been performed. In the cycle, performance changes with basic cycle parameters such as the temperature of the combustion products entering the gas turbine, the boiler steam pressure, the pinch point, the flow intensity, and the fuel cell stack temperature were analyzed. According to the results, the efficiency of the combined cycle with a fuel cell, is much higher, 61% compared with the 50% of the normal CHP.

This study underscores the teleology of micellization behaviours of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and sodium lauroyl sarcosinate (SLS), an anionic surfactant. The configuration of SDS/SLS water soluble in the presence of 4.0 x 10-5 moldm-3 aqueous solution of procaine hydrochloride within the temperature range of 293.15 K to 313.15 K was observed. Critical micelle concentration (CMC), and degree of counter ion binding (ß) were determined from conductivity data. The CMC of SDS and SLS decreased to reach a minimum (T= 308.15 K and 303.15 K for SDS and SLS) and then increased with increasing temperature. On applying mass action model, the obtained CMC values were used to determine the thermodynamic parameters (i.e. free energy of micellization (?G°m), enthalpy of micellization (?H°m) and entropy of micellization (?S°m)). As a function of temperature, the value was negative and the negativity was enhanced in surfactants-PHC medium as compared with aqueous medium. This is an indication that spontaneity increases in micelle formation in the SDS+PHC and SLS+PHC systems than water. Entropy-enthalpy compensation were observed on applying Lumry-Rajender-entropy compensation model. The observed compensation temperatures, Tc, for SDS and SLS, were not the same with and without PHC. SDS had Tc values of 302.8±3.14 and 307.7±1.63, while for SLS, Tc=305.46±3.14 and 307.33±2.18. A clear indication of enthalpy–entropy compensation phenomenon was observed.

Epichlorohydrin cross-linked chitosan (EP-Cs) was prepared was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetry (TG-DTA) and differential calorimetric analysis (DSC), and used as adsorbent for methyl green (MG) removal. Epy-Chit was soaked in methyl green solution with concentration of 40 mg/L using a batch adsorption system, to measure the adsorption capacity of the EP-Cs and the percentage of MG removed from the aqueous solution. The optimum MG adsorption on EP-Cs occurred at pH 7.8, agitation time of 60 minute and adsorbent dosage of 0.02 g were observed. Adsorption results show that the EP-Cs exhibited the excellent performance for the MG removal from aqueous solution. This study suggests that EP-Cs could be explored as an adsorbent for removing other organic pollutants.

This research study evaluates a novel, sensitive, and selective spectrophotometric method for the estimation of copper(II) by using a new chromogenic reagent 4-[(Z)-(4-methoxybenzylidene) amino]-5-methyl-4H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiol (MAMTT) (Schiff base). The maximum absorbance was found to be at 613 nm. Experimental conditions were optimized. Beer’s law was seen in 12.7-50.83 µg/mL of copper concentration range. Calculated molar absorptivity, detection limit and quantification limit of the complex were 0.307x104 L mol-1.cm-1, 6.328 µg/cm3 and 19.177 µg/cm3, respectively. The study of interference of common ions was carried out. The current process was enforced for the estimation of copper in water samples.

Breast cancer is one of the most lethal diseases that has resulted in many deaths in the world. Development of new compounds and repurposing of approved drugs have become very attractive in the field of drug design. Computer-aided drug design has become popular because it is cost effective and time saving. In this work, the molecular descriptors of some amino chalcone derivatives were derived using the density functional theory; some of the optimized molecules were also docked at the active site of a human serine/threonine-protein kinase receptor, 3FC2, to obtain their binding affinities. The potential surface energies for all compounds range from -190.4 kJ/mol to -172.3 kJ/mol for low energy regions and 199.8 kJ/mol to 263.3 kJ/mol for high energy regions indicating that the ligands would bind well with receptors. All compounds have higher binding energy than the standard drug, 5-Fu (-6.19 kcal/mol) when docked into the active site of 3FC2 and their mode of interaction are just like it was in 5-Fu. Our observations are still subject to confirmation via clinical and pre-clinical investigations.

In this work, to synthesis the 2-(2-hydroxy ethyle)-2,3-dihydro-1,4-phthalazinedione and 2,3-bis(2-hydroxyethyle)-2,3-dihydro-1,4-phthalazinedione, 2-boromoethanol was reacted with phthalhydrazide in DMAc at presence of triethylamine in mole ratio of 1.5:1 and 3:1 respectively. The structure of the monomers was evaluated using the IR and 1H-NMR spectra. New polyurethanes were synthesized by reaction of the monomers with various diisocyanates including, tolylene diisocyanate, isophorane diisocyanate and hexamethylene diisocyanate. The measured viscosity for these polymers was found to be at the range of 0.45-0.6 dlg-1. The structure of the polymers was proved by IR, 1HNMR spectra and CHN analysis. The TGA and DTG results confirmed high thermal stability for the synthesized polymers.

The control of Striga infestation in agricultural produce proved to be difficult especially in Africa. This study therefore aimed at finding a way of making the plant useful. The results revealed that all the plants contain flavonoids, glycosides, tannins, phenols, oxalate and carbohydrates. Alkaloid and saponnins were only found to be present in S. gesnerioides. A relative high amount of flavonoids (6.86+0.42 mgRutin/g) and phenols in the stem (9.36+0.55 mgGAE/g) of S. gesnerioides closely followed by leaves of S. hermontheca 4.06+0.25 mgRutin/g, 13.06+0.32 mgGAE/g respectively. The presence of these bioactive components indicates the plant’s potential as a source of major secondary metabolites that may serve as novel medicines. The percentage inhibition concentration at 50% (IC50) of S. hermontheca stem, root and leaves were 73.13 µg/g, 41.39 µg/g and 207.01 µg/g respectively. The stem, roots and haustorium of S. gesneriodes indicated an IC50 of 70.39 µg/g, 55.33 µg/g and 55.07 µg/g respectively while S. aciatica 52.35 µg/g, and 72.71 µg/g respectively. Compared to standard ascorbic acid with IC50 of 57.78 µg/g, the three species have relative significant antioxidant activity. Further successive extraction, purification and characterization of the bioactive components found present in this research will make further research interesting.