Incorporating fish oils into commonly consumed foods is an emerging technique for increasing the daily intake of omega-3 fatty acid. However, the high vulnerability of fish oil towards oxidative deterioration reduces shelf life stability. Microencapsulation by spray drying with different combinations of biopolymers and other parameters may provide a solution by preventing further oxidation of fish oil and permitting its delivery to food items. This study emphasised the influence of developed biopolymer materials (maltodextrin, maltodextrin + gum arabic, maltodextrin + starch, maltodextrin + whey protein isolates and maltodextrin + sodium caseinate) for emulsion formulation, inlet air temperature (160, 170, 180, 190 and 200 °C) and emulsion ratios (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35%) on the physicochemical properties of powdered menhaden fish oil by spray drying technique.

Doping is the use of prohibited substances by athletes to improve their performance. World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratories require various metabolite reference standards of the prohibited chemical substances or drugs for routine quality control. Therefore, it was proposed to develop efficient synthetic methodologies for highly pure reference materials of Phase II metabolites of octopamine, norfenefrine and etilefrine, which are prohibited in sports by WADA under the S6 stimulant category. The reference materials were characterized using various analytical techniques. New high-performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection (HPLC-DAD) methods were developed for purity assessment.

Most studies have focused on the degradation of endocrine-disrupting chemicals using persulfate activation processes. Therefore, the current study compares various sulfate radical activation processes in an aqueous solution of a mixture of diethyl phthalate, butylparaben and bisphenol A that are present in water and wastewater. The effects of initial persulfate dose and pH variation, the effect of concentration of target endocrine-disrupting chemicals and degradation efficiency under various processes were studied. Additionally, the toxicity and cost estimation of the systems were also examined.

Marine archaea have gained special attention for their unique ability to survive in extreme salt concentrations. Some archaeal isolates have been found to thrive in the presence of radioactive contaminants. In this study, Halococcus sp. ENMS8 has been isolated from marine sediment sample with special emphasis on bioremediation of radionuclide cesium.

Epichlorohydrin (ECH) production is an important industrial process, owing to its importance in windmill blade manufacture, but it suffers from several drawbacks such as high energy use, large wastewater production and low atom efficiency. This original study investigates a novel chlorohydrin-free technology with an enhanced separation system for ECH production. Rigorous process simulations were performed in Aspen Plus for the classic and novel processes, and a fair techno-economic and sustainability comparison was made between the new catalytic oxidation route and the classic chlorohydrin process.

Most studies have focused on the degradation of acrylamide (AM) by a single strain. There are relatively few studies on the treatment of AM by anaerobic activated sludge. Previous studies have shown that conductive particles can change the mode of electron transport between anaerobic microorganisms. Therefore, this study compared the enhancement effect of three different particles (Fe3O4, granular activated carbon (GAC), graphite) on the treatment of synthetic AM wastewater by anaerobic activated sludge under different temperature conditions (30, 25, 20 °C) and particle dose (2, 6 g L−1).

Carbon materials have been regarded as valuable adsorbents for removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) owing to their high specific surface area and abundant pore structure. However, the complexity and high cost of the process used to treat the feedstock to produce commercial activated carbon has limited its application. In this reported study, a series of biochar materials was prepared using the KOH modification method employing corn cob as the raw material. The effects of different potassium hydroxide dosages, various activation temperatures and the activator addition method on the structure, physicochemical properties and VOC adsorption performance of the resulting biochars and their structure–activity relationship were systematically studied.

Greenhouse gases, especially CO2, are primary factors for global warming and CO2 emissions continue to increase annually. Many legislations and agreements have been made to decrease, or at least stabilize, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Moreover, promising CO2 capture technologies, such as adsorption using solid sorbents, have been developed and shown high CO2 adsorption capacity.

The sustainability performance of extractive distillation (ED) that collectively considers energy efficiency, process safety, economic profitability, process control, and environmental emission has not been widely reported. Motivated by this lack of research, we analyzed and compared the sustainability performance of the intensified side-stream ED (SSED) with that of the conventional extractive distillation (CED) for the separation of binary azeotropic mixtures. Two different design approaches were analyzed; the first approach involves designing the intensified SSED by preserving the original CED column configuration, while the second approach involves optimizing the original column configuration to become a new intensified SSED configuration.

The control of biofouling is crucial in the membrane separation process. In the present study, graphene oxide-silver (GO-Ag) nanocomposite was fabricated and incorporated into polycaprolactone (PCL) membrane for the first time to increase its antibacterial properties and reduce its biofouling. Characterization of GO-Ag nanocomposite was done by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Also, The PCL/GO-Ag membranes were characterized by XRD, attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), porosity determination, water contact angle measurement, and tensile test. Furthermore, pure water flux (PWF) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection of the membranes were evaluated. Also, the antibacterial activity of membranes was investigated by diffusion inhibition zone test and plate count of colony-forming units.

Heavy oil has the characteristics of high viscosity and low American Petroleum Institute gravity, which makes it difficult to transport and produce. The key to efficiently utilizing heavy oil is reducing viscosity and improving quality. Hydroconversion has the advantages of viscosity reduction and decreasing coke production, but it is difficult to separate the nonmagnetic catalysts from the reaction system, which affects the industrial application.

Shale gas oil-based drill cuttings are receiving increasing attention because of their hazards and contamination. In this study, two catalysts (Fe2(SO4)3 and a synthesised catalyst) were used to study the pyrolysis products, possible reaction mechanisms, and kinetic characteristics via thermogravimetry-mass spectrometry (TG-MS) analysis. The results indicate that the synthesised catalyst, YAP-3, exhibited an improved catalytic effect on the pyrolysis of drill cuttings with a good conversion rate. The reaction activation energy during the pyrolysis was reduced from 9.6 kJ/mol to 1.4 kJ/mol. In addition to hydrocarbons, the pyrolysis products contained nitrogen oxides and other compounds. A comparison of the peak temperature range and response intensity of the same substance with the same mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) showed that YAP-3 significantly promoted the formation of pyrolysis products. This study provides theoretical support for the catalytic pyrolysis treatment of shale gas drill cuttings.

The profitable production of gluconic acid (GA), an organic acid extensively used in the food and beverages industries, relies on the use of cheap and available substrates with high sugar content. The high oxygen demand for the microbial conversion of glucose to GA is still a bottleneck of industrial production in conventional stirred-tank reactors. Therefore, in this study, for the first time, the effect of increased air pressure up to 4 bar on GA production and sugar consumption in batch and step-wise fed-batch cultures in sugarcane molasses (ScM) and grape must (GM) medium was studied.

Among the methods to produce hydrogen biologically, dark fermentation stands out mainly due to its low operating requirements. Organic wastes, such as brewing industry waste slurries and glycerol, can provide a cost-effective feedstock with the additional potential of generating value-added byproducts, while addressing a wastewater treatment issue.

Desalination membranes have been widely in demand for separating dyes and salts. However, dyes are easily adsorbed on/in the membranes, deteriorating membrane performance. Coupling photocatalysis and membrane separation might be a promising strategy for efficiently alleviating membrane fouling. Aiming at the defects of single catalyst, this work constructed photocatalytic membranes based on heterostructured Fe3O4-doped g-C3N4 (FeCN)/TiO2 catalysts by successively filtrating FeCN aqueous dispersion and titanium butoxide/isopropanol solution on the hydrolyzed polyacrylonitrile substrate.

Biochars have become one of the most intensively and extensively investigated soil amendment materials in terms of their production, application and fate in the soil because of benefits such as increased soil quality and fertility. Biochar from woodchips and bone char from meat bone waste from a poultry slaughterhouse were prepared at 300 and 500 °C and then thoroughly mixed with two soils (cambisol and luvisol) that differed in their physicochemical parameters in ratios of 2% and 5% (w/w).

Food waste (FW) is easily acidified to produce acid inhibition, which limits the treatment efficiency of anaerobic digestion (AD). To improve the AD efficiency of FW, two-stage anaerobic digestion (TSAD) technique was used to test the effect of food-to-microorganism (F/M) ratio on hydrogen production and the effect of Tween 80 addition on methane production. Changes in volatile fatty acids during FW TSAD were analyzed. Furthermore, the energy recovery of different TSAD conditions was compared.

Adsorbents from local materials with high adsorption capacity (Qm) are strongly needed. In this study, mandarin peels (MP) as a local waste material were refluxed in 80% sulfuric acid (H2SO4) to produce a novel biochar, which was oxidized by boiling in 50% hydrogen perioxide (H2O2) and then aminated via refluxing in tetraacetic acid (TETA) to produce mandarin biochar-C-TETA (MBCT). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Barrett–Joyner–Halenda (BJH), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and thermgravimetric analysis (TGA) studied various characterizations of MBCT. The optimal pH for AY17 dye absorption was discovered to be 1.5 using 0.75 g L−1 MBCT, the maximum absorption capacity predicted for the MBCT was 1250 mg g−1. The high new absorption peaks at 1439.89 and 1362.38 cm−1 in MBCT imply that amino groups were successfully generated onto the surface of MBCT due to TETA treatment. The experimental data were examined using the Langmuir (LNR) and Freundlich (FRH) isotherm models. The FRH best explained the experimental MBCT data. The pseudo-first-order (PFOM) and pseudo-second-order (PSOM) models, intraparticle diffusion (INDM) and film diffusion (FDM) models were applied to calculate the kinetic data. The PFOM rate model ideally defined the absorption of AY17 dye to MBCT with a linear regression coefficient (R2 > 0.99). The key mechanism for absorbing AY17 dye molecules to MBCT was chemisorption, which entails the distribution or exchange of electrons between the absorbent and the dye due to the valency force. According to the findings, the novel MBCT adsorbent had a remarkable adsorption capacity (Qm = 1250 mg g−1) and could be reused without losing its absorption effectiveness. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).

In this work, the construction of a zero-valent iron-loaded spent bleaching earth carbon binary micro-electrolysis system (Fe0/SBE@C) was first developed for antimony(V) (Sb(V)) removal in water.

Woody biomass has a low hydrothermal-carbonization (HTC) degree and the hydrolysis process of some of its components is similar to that of saccharides. To improve the adsorption performance of wood-chips hydrothermal char (hydrochar) for tetracycline in water, molasses and potassium ferrate (K2FeO4) were added to its HTC process; K2FeO4 catalyzed the carbonization of raw materials and the surface of wood chips and saccharides in molasses, along with the iron ions mutually polymerized, added more reactive-oxygen functional groups to the hydrochar surface. The effects of K2FeO4 and molasses on the morphology, pore structure, surface oxygen-containing functional groups, and tetracycline-adsorption properties of hydrothermal carbon were investigated.