Flexible sensors for real-time monitoring of moisture levels in wound dressings.

OBJECTIVE: Few studies have investigated methods to monitor the moisture distribution and filling percentage of dressings during wound management. In this study, a new system allowing moisture monitoring across the wound dressing to be measured is examined. METHOD: The system is composed of a wound bed model with a fluid injection system to mimic exudate flow, a flexible sensor array and data acquisition software. The sensor is composed of 14 flexible electrode arrays, screen-printed on a flexible support and placed on the top of a wound dressing. The system is used to evaluate the performance of a foam-based dressing model. RESULTS: During constant injection of fluid, the wound dressing absorbed moisture at the wound interface throughout the experiment, and expanded as the fluid spread from the wound bed to the edging areas of the foam. The in-time monitoring by the use of the screen-printed electrodes allowed a mapping of the dressing wet surface and estimation of the foam saturation (filling percentage) based on a simple acquisition method without the need to remove the dressing from the wound bed. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study propose a non-invasive method to monitor the filling of the wound dressing and consequently, a potential solution for determining the optimal dressing change during wound management without causing irritation or further damage to the periwound skin.

Descriptive and multivariate analyses of four Tunisian wastewater treatment plants: A comparison between different treatment processes and their efficiency improvement.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the performance of four wastewater treatment plants/processes over a 4 year period. The wastewater flow evolution, energy consumption, and quality indicator parameters (BOD5, COD and TSS) at the inlet and outlet sites of the plants were determined. In comparing three domestic WWTPs with different wastewater treatment processes, the multivariate analyses (RDA and ANOVA) showed that although the Agareb plant received the highest pollution load, it displayed a high level of removal efficiency especially for COD, BOD, TSS, TKN and NH4+. It also revealed that the fluctuations in the wastewater composition and its contamination by varied industrial discharge could lead to the decrease in performance of the WWTP with activated sludge process as observed for the Southern Sfax plant. However, the electrolysis of the outlet water of Southern Sfax plant showed a significant improvement in COD removal.

A new insight into highly contaminated landfill leachate treatment using Kefir grains pre-treatment combined with Ag-doped TiO2 photocatalytic process.

This study investigates the performance of the combination of biological pre-treatment with Kefir grains (KGs) and photocatalytic process using Ag-doped TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) for the simultaneous removal of toxic pollutants from landfill leachate (LFL). After 5 days of 1% (w/v) KGs pre-treatment at 37 °C, TOC, COD, NH4+-N, and PO43- removal rates were 93, 83.33, 70 and 88.25%, respectively. The removal efficiencies were found to be 100, 94, 62.5, 53.16 and 47.52 % for Cd, Ni, Zn, Mn and Cu, respectively. The optimal conditions of Ag-doped TiO2 photocatalytic process were optimized using Box-Behnken design and response surface methodology (BBD-RSM) to enhance the quality of pre-treated LFL. Interestingly, Ag-doped TiO2 photocatalytic process increases the overall removal efficiencies to 98, 96, 85 and 93% of TOC, COD, NH4+-N, and PO43-, respectively. Furthermore, the removal efficiency of toxic heavy metals was gradually improved. In addition, KGs and Ag-doped TiO2 exhibited excellent recyclability showing the potential of combined biological/photocatalytic process to treat hazardous LFL.

Removal of Acid Orange 51 by micro zero-valent iron under different operational conditions and evaluation of toxicity.

The removal of Acid Orange 51 (AO 51) dye in aqueous solution by microscale zero-valent iron (m-ZVI) was investigated. The m-ZVI powder was characterized granulometrically by laser particle sizer and morphologically by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The effects of pH, m-ZVI concentration, H2O2 addition, and dye concentration on the decolorization of AO 51 were experimentally investigated. Results indicate that the removal efficiency is independent from pH values, increases with increasing ZVI dosage, and decreases with dye concentration. With 1 g/L of m-ZVI, AO 51 was effectively removed without and with addition of 25 mM H2O2, yielding a decolorization efficiency of around 70% and 98%, respectively, at pH 3 within 60 min of reaction time. The involvement of ˙OH in oxidizing AO 51 was examined by measuring the removal rates based on ˙OH scavenging molecule. Finally, the disappearance of AO 51 was estimated by monitoring the UV-Vis spectral evolution after 120 min of treatment while the Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) was performed to verify the occurrence of organic sorption on m-ZVI surface. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) images before and after the reaction illustrated morphological changes on m-ZVI surface. The detoxification of the treated solution was demonstrated using phytotoxicity test.

Preparation and characterization of photocatalytic Gd-doped TiO2 nanoparticles for water treatment.

In recent years, the photocatalytic process by using TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) has produced a great interest in wastewater treatment due to its interesting features such as low-cost, environmental compatibility, and especially capacity to eliminate persistent organic compounds as well as microorganisms in water. In the present work, the photocatalytic activity of Gd-doped TiO2 nanopowders, with different doping amount 0.1, 1, and 5 mol% synthesized by the sol-gel method, was studied under UV/Visible irradiation for water treatment application. The Gd-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were investigated for their photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye and antibacterial activities against two bacterial strains namely Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (S. maltophilia) and Micrococcus luteus (M. luteus). MB dye was used as a pollutant model to estimate reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and to correlate killing action of nanoparticles with the generation of ROS. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy were used to characterize the as-synthesized nanomaterials. Photocatalytic, as well as antibacterial tests, showed that doping with an appropriate amount of Gd could reduce the radiative recombination process of photogenerated electron-hole pairs in TiO2 and induce a significant enhancement in photocatalytic and consequently antibacterial activity. The experimental sequence of bactericidal activity and photocatalytic degradation efficiency exhibited by the different gadolinium-doped nanoparticles was the following: 0.1 mol% Gd-doped TiO2 > 1 mol% Gd-doped TiO2 > 5 mol% Gd-doped TiO2 > pure titania.