Multipurpose Fruit Juice Machine for Preventing Fruit Wastage in Nigeria Villages

Fruits are produced in large quantities in developing countries because of the favourable climatic conditions but the level of spoilage is high. It is essential to extract and preserve fruit juice to have a regular supply throughout the year. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a machine that could be used to extract juice from several fruits. Thus, the objective of the research work was to develop a multipurpose small scale fruit juice machine that could be adopted by an average farmer in the rural regions to increase their juice intake. A fruit juice extractor was designed, developed and tested. The machine utilised a serrated auger for crushing the fruits before squeezing out the juice. The performance evaluation showed that the machine has an extraction capacity of 88.4 kg h-1 and 84.5 kg h-1 for pineapple and sweet orange respectively. The efficiencies of the juice extractor for pineapple and sweet orange were 91.13% and 85.96% respectively. The average production cost of the machine was estimated as 390 US dollars.

A Combined Deep Eutectic Solvent–Ionic Liquid Process for the Extraction and Separation of Platinum Group Metals (Pt, Pd, Rh)

Recovery of platinum group metals from spent materials is becoming increasingly relevant due to the high value of these metals and their progressive depletion. In recent years, there is an increased interest in developing alternative and more environmentally benign processes for the recovery of platinum group metals, in line with the increased focus on a sustainable future. To this end, ionic liquids are increasingly investigated as promising candidates that can replace state-of-the-art approaches. Specifically, phosphonium-based ionic liquids have been extensively investigated for the extraction and separation of platinum group metals. In this paper, we present the extraction capacity of several phosphonium-based ionic liquids for platinum group metals from model deep eutectic solvent-based acidic solutions. The most promising candidates, P66614Cl and P66614B2EHP, which exhibited the ability to extract Pt, Pd, and Rh quantitively from a mixed model solution, were additionally evaluated for their capacity to recover these metals from a spent car catalyst previously leached into a choline-based deep eutectic solvent. Specifically, P66614Cl afforded extraction of the three target precious metals from the leachate, while their partial separation from the interfering Al was also achieved since a significant amount (approx. 80%) remained in the leachate.

Separation of Th from leachate of monazite sulphation process using amine solvent extraction

The solvent extraction is one of the most common method for separating Th from solution. Primary amine has higher selectivity for the extraction of Th(IV) than U(VI) and RE(III) in sulfate media. N1923 (a primary aliphatic amine with amino nitrogen linked to a secondary carbon consisting of branched alkyl groups in C19–23 range) is commonly used to extractTh. At room temperature using 0.1M N1923 amine as solvent in this work, the results showed thatthorium maximum extraction capacity was about 2.5g/L with concentration of sulfuric acid in the aqueous phase was 1M and for 3 minutes shaking. At room temperature for 3 minutes shaking the best conditions for scrubbing processwas using the mixture of acids H2SO4 0.2M and HNO3 0.1M, result inover 75%, Th was scrubbed in the aqueous phase only 0.7%. The separation of Th from leachate of monazite sulphation process was carried out on a multistage continuous flow extraction device (12 boxes), the thorium purity was 98%. Therefore, the use of amine solvents can purify thorium from rare-earth solutions in a sulfate medium

COMPARATIVE EXTRACTION OF Mn AND Pb USING EDTA AND CITRATE TO ASSESS THEIR MOBILITY FROM TWO DUMPSITES IN ZARIA METROPOLIS

An estimate of the labile fractions of different trace metals (Mn and Pb) in soil from two dumpsites with complexing agents (EDTA and Citrate) was carried out. The dump sites used for this study receives both commercial and domestic wastes. Physiochemical parameters and the total metal concentrations of the soil was determined, extraction with EDTA and Citrate were used to study the potential metal extraction capacity at different time intervals and the extraction rates of metal released as a function of time (between 0 to 24 hr). The relatively low levels of silt, clay, organic matter and CEC indicates high permeability, hence leachability of heavy metals in the soil and suggest that it might be amenable to remediation by soil washing. The removal efficiency showed that complete solubilization of metals did not occur, as not all the complexing agents added to the soil, was bound to the target metal. This might be due to the presence of other ions such as Ca and Fe which form relatively high stable complexes. EDTA yielded much more than citrate for both metals under consideration. Lead was extracted more than Manganese, which suggest Lead has been more labile in solution than Manganese and EDTA as a stronger complexing agent than citrate. The level of extraction was constant for the period of 60 min to 720 min after which it increased considerably

Intercropping Sedum Alfredii and Cicer Arietinum L. Does Not Present a Suitable Land Use Pattern For Multi-Metal-Polluted Soil

Background and aims Intercropping of hyperaccumulators with commercial crops is widely accepted in single-metal-polluted farmland. However, the ecological risks of non-hyperaccumulated metals in intercropping systems have not been revealed. Methods To evaluate Pb and Cu activation and absorption in an intercropped system of Sedum alfredii and Cicer arietinum L., sequential extraction and dissolved organic matter (DOM) characterization were used to describe the migration of metals in the intercropping system. Results This study found that the concentrations of DOM in the S. alfredii monoculture and intercropping system were significantly higher than those in the C. arietinum L. monoculture, and DOM from the former two cultivation strategies had significantly higher Cd, Pb, and Cu extraction capacity than those from the latter. Compared with the C. arietinum L. monoculture, C. arietinum L. intercropping had significantly lower Cd content owing to the depletion of Cd by S. alfredii. However, Cu and Pb concentrations in the former were significantly higher than those in the latter because S. alfredii mobilized these metals but did not hyperaccumulate them. Conclusion The results indicated that intercropping efficiently decreased the potential risk of Cd, but deteriorated the ecological risk of Pb and Cu. Therefore, intercropping does not present a suitable land-use pattern for multi-metal-polluted soil.

Effects of Magnetically Treated Sedum Alfredii Seeds On The Dissolved Organic Matter Characteristics of Cd-Contaminated Soil During Phytoextraction

The effects of magnetic field treatments on the two determining factors of phytoremediation, growth status and element uptake capacity, of Sedum alfredii have been thoroughly studied; however, minimal studies have been performed to determine the influence of the Cd hyperaccumulator Sedum alfredii, grown from magnetically treated seeds, on the dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics in its rhizosphere. A series of pot experiments were conducted to evaluate the variations in the DOM concentration and fractionations in the rhizosphere of S. alfredii treated with external magnetic fields. Compared with the untreated seeds, S. alfredii grown from magnetically treated seeds excreted more DOM in its rhizosphere. Additionally, the hydrophilic DOM fractionation proportion, which presented a greater capacity to mobilize Cd in the soil, increased from 42.7 % in the control sample to 47.2 % in the 150 mT magnetically treated S. alfredii sample. The water-soluble and exchangeable forms of Cd (extracted using deionized water and NH4NO3, respectively) in the rhizosphere of the magnetically treated S. alfredii were significantly lower than those of the control sample. Furthermore, the Cd extraction capacity of DOM from the rhizosphere of the magnetically treated S. alfredii was greater than that of the control sample, thereby increasing the Cd uptake ability of the magnetically treated species. These results suggest that the secretion of large amounts of DOM, especially acid and hydrophilic fractionations, is an essential mechanism of magnetically treated S. alfredii to mobilize Cd in the soil.

Impact of draw velocity profile on footprint definition for primary rock

In block/panel caving mines the footprint geometry and the undercut level height are key planning elements that have a bearing on the project final value. Selection of these parameters obviously depends on the economic objective, but it is also strongly influenced by rock mass characteristics that define column extraction capacity from draw points. This paper presents a simple methodology that allows defining the footprint and the best height of draw (BHOD) based on column extraction velocities, which are defined with the aim of controlling mass rock dynamic response while caving is propagated. The proposed methodology can be used by industry because of the ease of application. A study case is presented for a block model which is evaluated by both the proposed methodology and nominal profit estimation.

Entity Extraction for Clinical Notes, a Comparison Between MetaMap and Amazon Comprehend Medical

Extracting meaningful information from clinical notes is challenging due to their semi- or unstructured format. Clinical notes such as discharge summaries contain information about diseases, their risk factors, and treatment approaches associated to them. As such, it is critical for healthcare quality as well as for clinical research to extract those information and make them accessible to other computerized applications that rely on coded data. In this context, the goal of this paper is to compare the automatic medical entity extraction capacity of two available entity extraction tools: MetaMap (MM) and Amazon Comprehend Medical (ACM). Recall, precision and F-score have been used to evaluate the performance of the tools. The results show that ACM achieves higher average recall, average precision, and average F-score in comparison with MM.

Rapid, Effective, and Versatile Extraction of Gluten in Food with Application on Different Immunological Methods

One of the main concerns in gluten analysis is to achieve efficient extraction of gluten proteins. Conventional ethanol-based extraction solutions are inefficient and, because of this, it is necessary to use reducing agents or acids for proper solubilization. The extraction recommended by CODEX Standard 118-1979 (revised 2008) utilizes Cocktail solution (patent WO 02/092633 A1). However, it is harmful with a disgusting odor and is not compatible with some immunological techniques. Here, the versatility and extraction capacity of a new Universal Gluten Extraction Solution (UGES) (patent ES 2 392 412 A1) were evaluated using different methodological conditions, food matrices, and various immunological methods. UGES includes safer compounds for both the user and the environment, and it displayed similar extraction efficiency to that of the extraction method recommended for sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The extraction time was significantly reduced from 100 to 40 min, depending on the type of the sample. Furthermore, unlike the currently used solution, UGES is compatible with competitive ELISA.