Vanadia as an electron-hole recombination inhibitor on fibrous silica-titania for selective hole oxidation of ciprofloxacin and Congo red photodegradation.

Vanadia (V2O5)-incorporated fibrous silica-titania (V/FST) catalysts, which were successfully synthesized using a hydrothermal method followed by the impregnation of V2O5. The catalysts were then characterized using numerous techniques, including X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption analyses, ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) analyses. The study found that varying the amount of V2O5 (1-10 wt%) had a significant impact on the physicochemical properties of the FST, which in turn improved the photodegradation efficiency of two organic compounds, ciprofloxacin (CIP) and congo red (CR). 5V/FST demonstrated the best performance in degrading 10 mg L-1 of CIP (83%) and CR (100%) at pH 3 using 0.375 g L-1 catalyst under visible light irradiation within 180 min. The highest photoactivity of 5V/FST is mainly due to higher crystallinity and the highest number of V2O5-FST interactions. Furthermore, as demonstrated by PL analysis, the 5V/FST catalyst has the most significant impact on interfacial charge transfer and reduces electron-hole recombination. The photodegradation of both contaminants follows the Langmuir-Hinshelwood pseudo-first-order model, according to the kinetic study. The scavenger investigation demonstrated that hydroxyl radicals and holes dominated species in the system, indicating that the catalyst effectively generated reactive species for pollutant degradation. A possible mechanism was also identified for FST and 5V/FST. Interestingly, V2O5 acts as an electron-hole recombination inhibitor on FST for selective hole oxidation of ciprofloxacin and congo red photodegradation. Finally, the degradation efficiency of the catalyst remained relatively stable even after five cyclic experiments, indicating its potential for long-term use in environmental remediation.

A comprehensive review on zeolite-based mixed matrix membranes for CO2/CH4 separation.

Biogas consisting of carbon dioxide/methane (CO2/CH4) gas mixtures has emerged as an alternative renewable fuel to natural gas. The presence of CO2 can decrease the calorific value and generate greenhouse gas. Hence, separating CO2 from CH4 is a vital step in enhancing the use of biogas. Zeolite and zeolite-based mixed matrix membrane (MMM) is considered an auspicious candidate for CO2/CH4 separation due to thermal and chemical stability. This review initially addresses the development of zeolite and zeolite-based MMM for the CO2/CH4 separation. The highest performance in terms of CO2 permeance and CO2/CH4 selectivity was achieved using zeolite and zeolite-based MMM, which exhibited CO2 permeance in the range of 2.0 × 10- 7-7.0 × 10- 6 mol m- 2 s- 1 Pa- 1 with CO2/CH4 selectivity ranging from 3 to 300. Current trends directed toward improving CO2/CH4 selectivity via modification methods including post-treatment, ion-exchanged, amino silane-grafted, and ionic liquid encapsulated of zeolite-based MMM. Those modification methods improved the defect-free and interfacial adhesions between zeolite particulates and polymer matrices and subsequently enhanced the CO2/CH4 selectivity. The modifications via ionic liquid and silane methods more influenced the CO2/CH4 selectivity with 90 and 660, respectively. This review also focuses on the possible applications of zeolite-based MMM, which include the purification and treatment of water as well as biomedical applications. Lastly, future advances and opportunities for gas separation applications are also briefly discussed. This review aims to share knowledge regarding zeolite-based MMM and inspire new industrial applications.

Profitable Fischer Tropsch realization via CO2-CH4 reforming; an overview of nickel-promoter-support interactions.

Environmental pollution, climate change, and fossil fuel extinction have aroused serious global interest in the search for alternative energy sources. The dry reforming of methane (DRM) could be a good technique to harness syngas, a starting material for the FT energy process from greenhouse gases. Noble metal DRM catalysts are effective for the syngas generation but costly. Therefore, they inevitably, must be replaced by their Ni-based contemporaries for economic reasons. However, coking remains a strong challenge that impedes the industrialization of the FT process. This article explains the secondary reactions that lead to the production of detrimental graphitic coke deposition on the surface of active nickel catalyst. The influence of nickel particle size, impact of extra surface oxygen species, interaction of Ni catalysts with metal oxide supports/promoters, and larger fraction of exposed nickel active sites were addressed in this review. Size of active metal determines the conversion, surface area, metal dispersion, surface reactions, interior diffusion effects, activity, and yield. The influence of oxygen vacancy and coke deposition on highly reported metal oxide supports/promoters (Al2O3, MgO and La2O3) was postulated after studying CIFs (crystallographic information files) obtained from the Crystallography open database (COD) on VESTA software. Thus, overcoming excessive coking by La2O3 promotion is strongly advised in light of the orientation of the crystal lattice characteristics and the metal-support interaction can be used to enhance activity and stability in hydrogen reforming systems.

CuO improved energy band of AgO/fibrous SiO2-ZrO2 for optimized simultaneous photocatalytic redox of chromium (VI) and p-cresol using response surface methodology.

Ternary CuO/AgO/FSZr photocatalysts were fabricated via the hydrothermal and electrochemical methods with three different CuO loading (1, 3 and 5 wt%), indicated as 1CuO/AgO/FSZr, 3CuO/AgO/FSZr and 5CuO/AgO/FSZr. The photocatalytic reaction was tested towards simultaneous chromium (VI) photoreduction and p-cresol photooxidation and the performance in order as follow: 3CuO/AgO/FSZr > 5CuO/AgO/FSZr > 1CuO/AgO/FSZr > AgO/FSZr > FSZr. CuO/AgO/FSZr photocatalysts showed an improvement in photocatalytic activity compared to AgO/FSZr and FSZr due to the reduction potential of chromium (VI) aligned closer to the conduction band of CuO and provided abundant free active electrons (e-) and holes (h+) with efficient transportation and migration. Interestingly, the 3CuO/AgO/FSZr was established as the best photocatalyst with 98% reduction of chromium (VI) and 83% oxidation of p-cresol simultaneously, owing to its strong corporation between the metal oxides and support and higher total pore volume. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood model were employed for kinetics which followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics model well. Based on the simultaneous photocatalytic mechanism, chromium (VI) and p-cresol were directly reduced and oxidized by e- and h+, respectively. The response surface methodology (RSM) discovered that the quadratic term initial concentration of chromium (VI) is the main significant factor in photocatalytic performance. The optimum parameters for simultaneous photoredox of chromium (VI) and p-cresol predicted from RSM are 9.6 mg L-1 of chromium (VI) concentration, 9.8 mg L-1 of p-cresol concentration and 0.32 g L-1 of catalyst dosage. Under these conditions the error between the predicted and experimental values is only 3.7%. The 3CuO/AgO/FSZr sustained the photocatalytic performance after reused for five cycles and could oxidized various organic pollutants as well as reduced chromium (VI) simultaneously.

Extra-modification of zirconium dioxide for potential photocatalytic applications towards environmental remediation: A critical review.

Photocatalytic degradation is a valuable direction for eliminating organic pollutants in the environment because of its exceptional catalytic activity and low energy requirements. As one of the prospective photocatalysts, zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) is a promising candidate for photoactivity due to its favorable redox potential and higher chemical stability. ZrO2 has a high rate of electron-hole recombination and poor light-harvesting capabilities. Still, modification has demonstrated enhancements, especially extra-modification, and is therefore worthy of investigation. This present review provides a comprehensive overview of the extra-modifications of ZrO2 for enhanced photocatalytic performance, including coupling with other semiconductors, doping with metal, non-metal, and co-doping with metal and non-metal. The extra-modified ZrO2 showed superior performance in degrading the organic pollutant, particularly dyes and phenolic compounds. Interestingly, this review also briefly highlighted the probable mechanisms of the extra-modification of ZrO2 such as p-n heterojunction, type II heterojunction, and Z-scheme heterojunction. The latter heterojunction with excellent electron-hole space separation improved the photoactivity. Extensive research on ZrO2's photocatalytic potential is presented, including the removal of heavy metals, the redox of heavy metals and organic pollutants, and the evolution of hydrogen. Modified ZrO2's photocatalytic effectiveness depends on its band position, oxygen vacancy concentration, and metal defect sites. The opportunities and future problems of the extra-modified ZrO2 photocatalyst are also discussed. This review aims to share knowledge regarding extra-modified ZrO2 photocatalysts and inspire new environmental remediation applications.

Iraqi parents' views of barriers to childhood immunization.

Deficiencies in knowledge about immunization among parents often leads to poor utake or errors in immunization dosage and timing. The aims of this study were to determine Iraqi parents' views of barriers to immunization and beliefs about ways to promote immunization. A questionnaire survey was carried out among 528 Iraqi parents with children who had incomplete immunization status. The main barriers to immunization agreed by the parents were lack of vaccine availability (51.5% of parents) and parents' lack of education (42.4%), while 88.4% of parents thought that lack of funding was not an important barrier. More than 60% of the parents suggested promoting childhood immunization via the media, and 77.5% thought that an increase in funding would not remove barriers to childhood immunization. Better vaccine availability in public health clinics and improving parents' literacy might enhance immunization uptake in Iraq.

Antiepileptic drug utilisation and seizure outcome among paediatric patients in a Malaysian public hospital.

INTRODUCTION: The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the utilisation pattern and seizure outcome of newer and older antiepileptic drugs in paediatric clinical practice in a Malaysian hospital setting. METHODS: Over a two-month period, all paediatric epilepsy patients from Penang General Hospital, Malaysia who were diagnosed according to the classification of the International League Against Epilepsy were followed up prospectively, and the patients' information was gathered with the help of a validated data collection form. This included demographic characteristics, monotherapy and polytherapy of antiepileptic drugs, as well as the number of seizures experienced. RESULTS: Partial seizures, including complex and simple partial seizures (47.2 percent), followed by generalised seizures (40 percent), were the most common seizure types found in this study. An average of 1.51 antiepileptic drugs per patient was prescribed, with 54.3 percent of the patients on monotherapy and 45.7 percent on polytherapy. Overall, sodium valproate was the most frequently prescribed antiepileptic drug (36.8 percent), followed by carbamazepine (30.2 percent) and lamotrigine (10.4 percent). Carbamazepine was the most frequently prescribed monotherapy (28.6 percent), followed by sodium valproate (17.1 percent). The newer antiepileptic drugs were also found to be used as monotherapy in 7.2 percent of the cases. Moreover, a significant difference was observed between the older and newer antiepileptic drugs in terms of the number of seizures experienced (p=0.027). Most (75 percent) of the seizure-free patients were on carbamazepine monotherapy. CONCLUSION: Monotherapy was the most frequently used remedy in all forms of epilepsy. Overall, sodium valproate was the most commonly used drug, while carbamazepine was found to be more frequently used as monotherapy. There was a significant difference found between the older and newer antiepileptic drugs, with 87.5 percent of seizure-free patients on older antiepileptic drugs.

Herbal use amongst multiethnic medical patients in Penang Hospital: pattern and perceptions.

A cross sectional survey on pattern and perception of herbal use among medical patients in Penang Hospital was conducted. Among 250 patients surveyed, 67.9% were using herbal medicine and conventional medicine concomitantly. A majority of the patients used herbs for health maintenance (51.3%) purpose. More than 90% of herbal users did not disclose herbal use to their physician and "Doctor never asked" was the major reason given (54.2%). The Chinese reported the highest rate of herbal use but was least likely to disclose. These findings are important for health professionals to ensure medication safety and recognise potential drug herb interaction.

A knowledge of asthma in school children: a survey among primary school teachers.

A survey was carried out among primary school teachers in the district of Kota Bharu, Malaysia to assess the level of knowledge on asthma and its management. Our findings revealed that primary school teachers were less informed about the management and treatment of asthma. They were relatively more knowledgeable about the causes and symptomatology of asthma. The majority of respondents had misunderstanding regarding the effect of rain, smoking and cold weather on asthma. It is important that teachers should be able to recognise symptoms of an asthmatic attack or take the necessary precautions to avoid such an attack. Many teachers agreed on the need to have an asthma education programme in their teaching curriculum.