Applied Chemistry

We herein discuss TLC analyzer software (freeware) as an inexpensive tool for the analysis of astronomical images. Interestingly, recently developed TLC analyzer software has been used by the chemist for the quantitative chromatographic analysis of organic compounds. The high accuracy measurement software utilities for analysis of astronomical images have been too expensive for most of the schools and the colleges. However, this is the beginner’s spectrophotometer of its kind which makes elaboration even at pixel level of high resolution astronomical JPEG images. The TLC analyzer even has found to be more proficient with other image processing software such as ImageJ (public domain software), Spectra.

Sustainable development is the major discussion on the world center stage today. For instance, UNESCO declared 2005-2015 as the world decade of education for sustainable development.  In addition, an intrinsic part of the United Nations millennium goals is to ensure environmental sustainability and one of the targets is integrate the principles of sustainable development into the policy of every country around the world. Nigeria as a country is not left out in the comity of nations in various use and applications of chemicals in almost all facet of life which usually have health and safety implications. The chemical and its ancillary industries contribute up to 80% of the waste released into the air water and land every day.  The practice of sustainable chemistry also known as green chemistry is the only antidote to address the myriads of problems threatening the future shape of our environment. The effect of greenhouse emissions of CO₂ arising from the intensive burning of fuels in the various automobiles on the roads, the accumulation and non biodegradable nature of the various fertilizers and pesticide in use for agriculture, the direct discharge, dumping of toxic chemicals and wastes into the ecosystem and the food chain, and the non regulatory nature on the use of the various chemicals in our research, teaching and industrial laboratories.

A multi-end reeling machine with re-reeling unit has been fabricated at BSRTI for production of raw silk with high quality and quantity. The experiment was done by thirty samples of green cocoons in four different seasons to determine the cocoon characteristics and reeling performances on multi-end reeling machine. Mean renditta, raw silk recovery %, reelability %, waste % were found 11.01, 69.80%, 63.24% and 24.26%. It was also found that mean tenacity and elongation percentage were 3.10 (g/d) and 18.70% in multi-end reeling machine, whereas it was 2.83 (g/d) and 18.61% in cottage basin respectively. BSRTI fabricated multi-end reeling machine was suggested as an improved reeling appliances commercially to get high quality raw silk production.

Present study was undertaken to find out the influence of different cultivation forms of mulberry variety BM-3 on leaf nutrition, yield and economic traits of silkworm. Leaf harvested from High Bush and Bush contains higher amount of Moisture 70.48%, 69.77% compare to Low-cut and Tree. Bush also contains high crude protein and minerals, 21.25 and 8.95 respectively compare to high bush, low-cut and tree. Nine yield contributing characters were evaluated and all shown significant difference among each other except 10 leaf weight per plant at p<0.05 with Duncan multiple range test. Shell ratio for low cut and tree was highly significant at p<0.01 similarly raw silk percentage was also found highest for tree (30.26) and second highest for low-cut (30.22). It can be suggested that Mulberry leaf from Bush and High Bush cultivation form is suitable for young age silkworm and leaves from Low-cut and Tree is suitable for late age silkworm.

The wide application of organotin compounds have caused considerable amounts of these compounds to enter the different ecosystems. Organotins have been of environmental concerns due to their direct introduction into the environment, bioaccumulation, and toxicities even to non-target organisms both aquatic and terrestrial. They are notable sources of pollution and may be of ecotoxicological effects on the various ecosystems. It is not only the particular organisms that may be affected but the whole ecosystems. They are very persistent and bioavailable to biota even after a long time. The persistence of organotins in polluted ecosystem is a function of adsorption and degradation processes. Hence, this review which aim at providing an overview of the environmental persistence of organotin compounds.

Phosphate ores are used for phosphoric acid, fertilizers and animal feed production. In Egypt phosphate ore reserves are present in three main localities namely; Nile valley, new valley in western desert, and the eastern desert along the red sea coast. Currently, newly discovered phosphate ores are being mined from Nile valley areas mainly for exportation and partially for local production of fertilizers. However, in exporting such ores, the mining companies export only the coarse fractions of the run of mine ores of high grade (over 30 % P2O5) while the fine fractions of low grade (~ 18-22 % P2O5 content), for the time being, are rejected. This is because such fine fractions contain different gangue minerals such as calcite and silica. This paper aims at studying the amenability of upgrading such rejected fine fractions of Nile valley areas through application of froth flotation process. Such flotation technique is investigated to separate the associated gangues (silica and calcite) from the fine fractions of phosphate ores. The different operating conditions affecting on the efficiency of separation of phosphate mineral from its associated gangues are studied. These parameters, among others, are collector dosage, depressant dose, and pH. At the optimum conditions of flotation, a phospho-concentrate of about P2O5 of 29.5 % and 7.6 % A.I. is obtained from a feed sample containing about 21.13 % P2O5 and 19 % A.I.

In the present study fulvic acids (FAs) were first isolated from fulvic water (FW) and fulvic urea (SU) and then their quantification was accomplished by spectrophotometric methods. Aqueous solutions of FAs, FW and SU were made at pH 7.0 in the visible wavelength region at 25 oC using calibration curve method. Plot of absorbance Vs concentration of FAs at fixed wavelength (424 nm) was linear up to 120 mg L-1. The calculated FAs concentrations were in reasonable agreement with the gravimetric estimation made by solvent extraction.

The present work is concerned with the synthesis and the structural elucidation of the two ligands, viz., 2-thio picolinamide (TPA) and 2-N-benzyl TPA. The isolated solid complexes are subjected to characterised by Wet chemical analysis (N, S, metal), Conductivity measurements, Infrared including far infrared spectral measurements and H¹ NMR, and Mass spectral measurements.

Wool fabric samples were dyed with the natural dye sambucus nigra, then post-mordanted with three different mordants individually: alum, chrome and ferrous. Thermal analysis of the undyed (blank), dyed and dyed mordanted samples is applied to study the thermal stability of the samples under investigation using thermogravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques. TG tested results indicate that the thermal stability of dyed wool mordanted with ferrous is enhanced than the blank (undyed) and other dyed mordanted samples. The relative TG results show that char residue of the wool samples after 600 °C is higher than the blank one, meaning lesser volatile hazardous components. DSC measurements show remarkable variation in the thermal behavior according to the type of mordant. Also, there is a change in the char yield and the temperature of decomposition. Fastness properties of the examined dyed wool fabrics were also examined and reported.

The industrial effluents have been recommended as potential source of irrigation water and nutrient sources for commercial cropping system. However, the high nutrient loads and presence of some growth retarding substances in industrial effluent may cause severe impact on plant germination and gross productivity of a commercial crop. Prior to field application the industrial effluent should be tested for its ecotoxicity using seed bioassay test. The of this study was to investigate the toxicity of distillery effluent (DE) using seeds of moong (Vigna radiata), guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba), Makai (Zea mays) and gehu (Triticum aestivum). For lab trial, a total of a total of five different concentrations of distillery effluents (20, 40, 60, 80 and 100%) were prepared by adding required quantity of distilled water. Seed germination, root length, shoot length, root weight, shoot weight and chlorophyll level etc. were measured in experimental set-ups. Result suggested 40% DE strength suitable for plants: C. Tetragonoloba (67.7%), T. aestivum (64%) and Z. Mays (92.3%) except in V.radiate (98% germination with 60% DE). The high DE indicates a toxic impact on seed germinations. The seedling growth and biomass also showed a close relationship with strength of DE in treatment set-up. In majority of set-ups, set-up with 20 – 60 % DE strength showed the better results of plant groths. The biochemical stress of high DE strength on seedling was also observed in this study. The study clearly support the utility of DE for plant production but after proper dilutions of the effluent.