Applied Chemistry

Energy demand is increasing while fossil fuels, the main source of energy, threaten their depletion and consequently their market value increases. In addition to this crisis, climate change and air pollution caused by the combustion emissions of fossil fuels pose problems of increased greenhouse effect. Due to the environmental problems caused by the use of fossil fuels, attention has been paid to the production of biodiesel as an alternative to petrodiesel. Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly alternative diesel fuel made from renewable resources made from vegetable oils and animal fats. It is a renewable energy source that seems to be an ideal solution for global energy needs. The current method of biodiesel production is the transesterification of the inedible oil with an alcohol (methanol or ethanol) in the presence of a catalyst or not. The transesterification reaction is very sensitive to the parameters and oil nature such as the acid composition and the free fatty acid content. Other variables include reaction such as temperature, ratio of alcohol to vegetable oil, catalyst, and intensity of mixing, purity of reagents. The development of biofuels creates new agricultural sectors and could offer new niche markets for farmers in exploitable areas. This study aims to make a comparative study transesterification processes for biodiesel production.

Chemical industries are continuously faced with increasing challenges of safety requirements in plant design and operation. Consequently, more and more attention has been focused on developing greener, safer and efficient chemical processes employing process intensifying methodologies and equipment. While engineered safety devices can be added on to a plant as risk mitigation measures, safety is most reliably ensured by developing inherently safer techniques. This paper reviewed some of the process intensification approaches that could be utilized by chemical industries to improve inherent safety in plant design and operation protocols. Although the potentials of the techniques described in this review for intensification of chemical processing have already been proven in the laboratories, however their application on the industrial scale still presents a difficult challenge.

Ceria stabilized zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA) /ceria composites for industrial ceramic applications have been studied. Five samples were prepared, ceria was added to ceria stabilized zirconia/alumina composites by various amounts of (0-20 wt. %). The fabricated samples were sintered at 1600 - 1700oC. The sintered samples were characterized for their physical properties such as bulk density and apparent porosity. The samples were characterized by XRD, SEM and TEM and mechanical tests. It was observed that the formation of cerium hexaaluminate and cerium zirconate in the studied bodies deteriorates the Vicker hardness and fracture toughness of the ceria stabilized ZTA bodies.

The physicochemical parameters of the Nypa fruticans ( Nypa palm) frond and petiole have been determined. The fibre dimensions determined were: fibre length, fibre diameter, cell wall thickness, lumen diameter, slenderness ratio, flexibility ratio and Runkel ratio. Chemical composition determined were lignin contents, cellulose contents and the ash contents. Soluble contents were also determined. Petiole contained more water soluble than the frond but the frond contained more 1% NaOH soluble. The solubles in 1:2 ethanol-benzene were of the same order for both samples. Soda pulps were produced at the pulping temperature of 120oC using 8% and 12% NaOH as cooking liquors at the pulping time of 30 and 60min. The pulps obtained were characterized by determining the pulp yield and residual Klason lignin. Pulp yield and residual Klason lignin decreased with increase in the concentration of the pulping liquor and the cooking time. These results obtained indicate that Nypa fruticans frond and petiole left as waste in Nigeria can be exploited for the production of commercial pulps for several industrial applications.

In the article presents the results of a study of kinetic regularities stimulated by microwave electromagnetic radiation acylation of diethylamine m-toluic acid in the presence of intense microwave absorbing Zn-B-P/Al2O3/?1- catalyst. Mounted parallel series circuit of the target formation (N, N-diethyl-m-toluic acid) and the reaction byproducts and the observed kinetic model proposed transformations. With the use of optimization software for chemical engineering processes calculated the kinetic parameters of total and partial transformations of m-toluic acid and diethylamine.

Ionically conducting polymer electrolytes are important materials for practical applications in solar cells, high energy density solid-state batteries, super capacitors, fuel cells, sensors and electrochemical devices. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been attracting intensive interest for scientific research and industrial applications owing to their low fabrication cost, environmentally friendly operation and relatively high efficiency. In order to improve the efficiency of DSSCs, many efforts on modification of polymer gel electrolyte have been made through synthesizing new polymers or adding inorganic nanofillers. Hence, we report on the synthesis of polymer nanocomposite electrolyte consisting of polyvinylpyrrolidone-polyethylene glycol (PVP-PEG)/nano ZnO/KI/I2. Zinc oxide nanoparticle synthesized by sol-gel method is used as inorganic nanofiller. Polymeric nanocomposite electrolyte was prepared by blending polymer with ZnO nanoparticle using solution-casting technique. The property of nanocomposites depends mainly on the chemistry of polymer matrices. The dispersion of nanoparticles in the polymer matrices is a general prerequisite for achieving desired mechanical and physical properties. ZnO nanoparticles and polymer nanocomposite were characterised by Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infra Red (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis and Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM). The effect of structural modification of material on conductivity of polymer and its composite was evaluated and compared by SEM and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The polymer nanocomposite electrolyte synthesised have its practical application in the fabrication of DSSC.

A reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of Belinostat in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage form. The separation was affected on a Altima ODS C18 column (150 mm x 4.6 mm,5µ) using a mobile phase mixture of buffer and acetonitrile in a ratio of 40:60 v/v at a flow rate of 1.0mL/min. The detection was made at wave length of 210 nm. Calibration curve was linear over the concentration range of 25 – 150 µg/mL of Belinostat. The proposed method was validated as per International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. The method was accurate, precise, specific , rapid and found to be suitable for the quantitative analysis of the drug and dosage forms. Forced degradation studies have been carried out under different conditions.

The most important aspect of organic chemical reactivity is the chemistry of carbonyl group (>C=O) .It directly undergoes nucleophilic attack by different substrates and yields a series of compounds.The prostereogenic carbon gets converted to stereogenic carbon by a nucleophilic attack on either side of the plane of carbonyl group. Different organic compounds containing >C=O group undergo photocyclisation or photoreduction reactions and result a variety of compounds of both chemical and mechanistic interest. ?-diketones an important class of carbonyl compounds afford stable ylides and Aldol adducts when interacted with different reagents under varying conditions.

Treatment and disposal of oily wastewater, presently is one of the serious environmental problems contributors. Numerous methods have been used to remove residual oil from wastewater, such as adsorption, flocculation, electrocoagulation and flotation. The focus of this research was to prepare and investigate the using of chitosan as an oil adsorbent and coagulant of the excessive residue oil droplets from an oily wastewater. In this respect, shrimp waste (shell) was treated with 9% (w/w) NaOH at 65oC for 90 min to obtain a purified crab chitin, and then 1g of purified crab chitin was treated with (w/w) 50% sodium hydroxide solution at 136oC for 1h to obtain pure chitosan. The prepared chitin and chitosan were characterized by the FT-IR spectrometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The FT-IR spectrum shows three characteristic absorption bands of chitosan one of them was very strong and appeared at about 3306 cm-1 this for stretching vibration bands of (N-H and O-H), the second strong one appeared at about 1593.54 cm-1 that assigned for (-CONH-) and the third band at 1054.90 cm-1 for (C-O-C). The XRD patterns of chitosan show two characteristics crystalline peaks at 2? of 9.24° and 19.2° indicates the formation of chitosan from chitin. The surface morphology of chitosan before and after oil adsorption was examined using SEM. Then, the percentage of oil droplets removal was evaluated by HPLC.

The aqueous extract of Pomegranate Peel and Roselle (AE Pom P and Ros) has been studied as a possible source of green inhibitor for the corrosion of mild steel in 1 M HCl at temperature range 25-55o C utilizing the conventional weight loss, open circuit potential (OCP) , linear and Tafel polarization techniques. The assessment of (AE Pom P and Ros) against different microorganisms has additionally been providing by using selected biocide. Moreover the structure of (AE Pom P and Ros) is analyzed by GC-MS spectra.The optimum dose of biocide which showed good stability for the corrosion inhibitor for more than one year , diminishes the inhibition efficiency for about 20% due to its slightly acidic in nature (pH=4).The inhibition efficiency was found to increase with increasing concentration of the inhibitor and with decreasing temperature. The adsorption of (AE Pom P and Ros) on the mild steel surface obeys the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Polarization studies indicate that the (AE Pom P and Ros) is mixed type inhibitor. The thermodynamic functions of adsorption processes were calculated from weight loss at different temperatures data and were used to analyses the inhibitor mechanism. The surface morphology of the mild steel specimens was evaluated using SEM and EDAX analysis.