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The purpose of this paper is to speak about the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil which serves as an alternate fuel in the absence of conventional fuels such as diesel and petrol. Though much research work was carried out using non-edible crops such as Jatropha and Pongamia, cooking oil utilized in bulk quantity is discarded as a waste. This is reused again as it contains more of esters that when combined with an alcohol in presence of an enzyme as a catalyst yields triglycerides (biodiesel).

The lipase producing strain Rhizopus oryzae and pure enzyme lipase is immobilized and treated with waste cooking oil for the production of FAME. Reaction parameters such as temperature, time, oil to acyl acceptor ratio and enzyme concentration were considered for purified lipase and in the case of Rhizopus oryzae, pH, olive oil concentration and rpm were considered for optimization studies. The response generated through each run were evaluated and analyzed through the central composited design of response surface methodology and thus the optimized reaction conditions were determined.

A high conversion (94.01 percent) was obtained for methanol when compared to methyl acetate (91.11 percent) and ethyl acetate (90.06 percent) through lipase catalyzed reaction at oil to solvent ratio of 1:3, enzyme concentration of 10 percent at 30°C after 24 h. Similarly, for methanol a high conversion (83.76 percent) was obtained at an optimum pH of 5.5, olive oil concentration 25 g/L and 150 rpm using Rhizopus oryzae when compared to methyl acetate (81.09 percent) and ethyl acetate (80.49 percent).

This research work implies that the acyl acceptors methyl acetate and ethyl acetate which are novel solvents for biodiesel production can also be used to obtain high yields as compared with methanol under optimized conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to harness the potential of microwave pre-treatment to prepare carbon from locally available Sterculia foetida fruit shells for adsorption of heavy metals, particularly Nickel ions (Ni++), from effluent.

The pre-treatment methods comprise conventional methods as sun drying and oven drying as well as high intensity microwave drying. Response surface methodology was employed to analyse the optimization of the process. The adsorption behavioural characteristics of the material were established applying adsorption isotherms.

Adsorption of Ni++ was found to be effective in microwave drying at output power of 300 W. It was observed that the maximum adsorption capacity was attained at pH 6; an adsorbent dosage of 0.25 mgml−1 and initial metal ion concentration of 20 ppm with an interactive effect of initial concentration and dosage.

The research puts emphasise on prospecting of novel biomass for carbonization and application of the same for effective adsorption. Available literature on Sterculia foetida is very limited and this work will serve to create database on the amenability of processing.

Automobiles have always been a major cause of air pollution. The vehicular emission contains several harmful pollutants that affect the surroundings and living beings. Mild CO exposure leads to headaches or unconsciousness. CO is also responsible for the global warming as well. CO is mainly generated in the IC engine due to incomplete combustion of the fuel. The purpose of this paper is to implement a CO absorption mechanism inside the exhaust pipe of vehicle.

In this research work the single cylinder four stroke spark-ignition engine is intended to run on petroleum and petroleum blended fuels. A new post-combustion emission control device called cobalt scrubber is employed to reduce the emission of CO during idling which absorb and later release it under transient conditions.

The emission of CO when the engine runs at petroleum is reduced from 6.24 to 3.02 per cent. Methanol 40 per cent+petrol 60 per cent gives a better emission result of 0.98 per cent of CO emission. So, the authors can implement the cobalt scrubber in automobiles to avoid CO emission during idling.

The scrubber clearly overcomes the drawbacks of the existing control techniques. The cobalt scrubber is a cheap, non-radioactive. It can be employed in any kind of vehicle irrespective of its engine.

The use of the scrubber design presented in this article, effectively reduces the emission of CO.

The proposed solar thermal cooling cogeneration cycle is well suited for industrial as well as domestic needs and it eliminates need of electricity for refrigeration system. The purpose of this paper is to integrate power and cooling to minimize the energy usage.

The proposed plant has double turbine with superheater and reheater to extract more energy, operating on single generator. The saturated refrigerant from the exit of the generator is used to run the primary turbine and the exit mass of refrigerant is split into 50:50 cooling to power ratio.

It produces additional power of 24 kW at absorber concentration of 0.42 and turbine inlet concentration of 0.95, with separator temperature of 145°C and atmosphere temperature of 30°C.

The proposed cooling cogeneration cycle is possible to run on all the refrigerant working fluid mixture and it overcomes the problem of Goswami cycle which is not possible to run in hot climatic countries.

The cycle can operate individually as refrigeration cycle, power cycle and both and it will run all climatic conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to extract the eco-friendly natural dye obtained from the flower of Spathodea campanulata and apply on silk fabric using combination of mordants. The fastness properties of the flower of Spathodea campanulata dyed silk fabric have been studied using different combination (1:3, 1:1 and 3:1) of various mordants, such as myrobolan: nickel sulphate, myrobolan: aluminium sulphate, myrobolan: potassium dichromate, myrobolan: ferrous sulphate and myrobolan: stannous chloride. The wash, rub, light and perspiration fastness of the dyed samples have been evaluated.

For dyeing there are three methods are used. They are Pre mordanting, Simultaneous mordanting and Post mordanting methods. Dyed silk materials are tested by using wash fastness, rub fastness, light and perspiration fastness methods.

It is found that Spathodea campanulata dye can be successfully used for the dyeing of silk to obtain a wide range colours by using various combinations of mordants. With regards to colour fastness, test samples exhibit excellent fastness to washing, rubbing, except for pre-mordanting using myrobolan: potassium dichromate combination; and good to excellent fastness to perspiration in both acidic and alkaline media.

Availability of literature related to this work is not available. The study of combination of mordants of this natural dye on silk is a new research work and the large scale preparation is definitely very useful to the society.

Dulcitol (Galactitol) is a sugar alcohol which is produced by redox reaction of galactose. It has been reported that the D-tagatose can be produced from dulcitol (D-galactitol) via the oxidation reaction by the acetic acid bacteria such as Arthobacter globiformis, Gluconobacter oxydans. The D-tagatose sugar is a ketohexose monosaccharide sweetener, which is an isomer of D-galactose. D-tagatose is rarely found in nature and it can be utilized in many ways particular in prebiotic property. The purpose of this paper is to speak about the production and kinetics of D-tagatose from dulcitol using a wild strain of Arthobacter globiformis MTCC 944.

The wild strain Arthobacter globiformis was procured from Microbial Type Culture Collection, Chandigarh and was grown in slants (Dulcitol of 2 percent (w/v)) by sub culturing for every two weeks until transferred to production medium containing 10 percent (w/v) of dulcitol operating aerobically at 25°C and 180 rpm. Biomass estimation was carried out taking samples periodically and measuring its OD value using spectronic-20D spectrophotometer at 600 nm. Kinetics of biomass was determined using Logistic growth kinetic model and that of D-tagatose production was estimated using Leudking-Piret model.

The maximum production of D-tagatose (3.82 g/L) was obtained at the initial dulcitol concentration of 20 g/L and at a pH of 6.0 and temperature of 25°C. Effect of inoculum size on the fermentation of D-tagatose was studied. Threefold increases in yield of tagatose was achieved at the higher inoculum concentration of 24 percent v/v.

The strain Arthrobacter globiformis, selected for the production of D-tagatose is not much investigated strain. Dulcitol, the substrate chosen for the study is less expensive when compare with galactose which is largely used by the investigators.

The purpose of this paper is to optimize production of cellulase enzyme from agricultural waste by using Aspergillus fumigatus JCF. The study also aims at the production of bioethanol using cellulase and yeast.

Cellulase production was carried out using modified Mandel’s medium. The optimization of the cellulase production was carried out using Plackett-Burman and Response surface methodology. Bioethanol production was carried out using simultaneous saccharification and fermentation.

Maximum cellulase production at optimized conditions was found to be 2.08 IU/ml. Cellulase was used for the saccharification of three different feed stocks, i.e. sugar cane leaves, corn cob and water hyacinth. Highest amount of reducing sugar was released was 29.1 gm/l from sugarcane leaves. Sugarcane leaves produced maximum bioethanol concentration of 9.43 g/l out of the three substrates studied for bioethanol production.

The present study reveals that by using the agricultural wastes, cellulase production can be economically increased thereby bioethanol production.

The purpose of this paper is to minimize environmental problems related to raw poultry manure application by stabilizing its nutrient and organic matter (OM) content. This can be achieved by prior digestion before its application to agricultural soils.

In the present study, changes in physicochemical and microbial properties of poultry litter were studied in order to evaluate the suitability of using the digested (stabilized) product for soil amendment. The poultry litter was digested in autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestor (ATAD) where organic solids were degraded and the heat released during the microbial degradation was used to maintain the thermophilic temperatures ( < 50ºC) at a hydraulic retention time of about 3 d.

Results of this study showed that the poultry litter undergoes physicochemical and microbial changes similar to other digestion systems; these changes include self-heating, relative increase in Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, P, K and NO₃-N and decrease in microbial population numbers, C, OM and NH₄-N contents.

ATAD is an effective method for the conversion of poultry litter into organic fertilizer, which can be readily applied to the agriculture land. ATAD is an eco-friendly, cost effective method which also reduces the length of stabilization.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the removal of Congo red dye from aqueous solution using magnetically separable novel adsorbent prepared by coating activated charcoal on magnetic nanoparticles.

The synthesized magnetic nanocomposite of activated charcoal was characterized using Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. The removal of Congo red from aqueous solution using magnetic nanocomposite of activated charcoal was optimized. The equilibrium and kinetics modeling of adsorption of Congo red was analyzed.

The presence of activated charcoal on magnetic nanocomposite was confirmed by FTIR analysis. The average size of the nanocomposite was found to be 12.77 nm using SEM characterization. The elemental composition by EDS analysis confirmed the increase in concentration of carbon due the adsorption of Congo red dye. The optimum conditions for batch adsorption was found to be 1 g/L of adsorbent, dye concentration 50 mg/L, pH 3 and temperature 70°C. The adsorption of Congo red dye on magnetic nanocomposite of activated charcoal was found to follow Temkin adsorption isotherm.

The experimental data were found to fit well with the pseudo second-order kinetics and the rate of adsorption was found to be controlled by intra-particle diffusion.