Sharif Digital Repository

Horseradish peroxidase was encapsulated in calcium alginate for the purpose of phenol removal. Upon immobilization, pH profile of enzyme activity changes as it shows higher value at basic and acidic solution. Investigation into time course of phenol removal for both encapsulated and free enzyme showed that encapsulated enzyme had nearly similar efficiency in comparison with the same concentration of free enzyme; however the capsules were reusable up to four cycles without any changes in their retention activity  

Horseradish peroxidase was encapsulated in calcium alginate for the purpose of phenol removal. Considering enzyme encapsulation efficiency, retention activity and enzyme leakage of the capsules, the best gelation condition was found to be 1 % w/v of sodium alginate solution and 5.5 % w/v of calcium chloride hexahydrate. Upon immobilization, pH profile of enzyme activity changes as it shows higher value at basic and acidic solution. Besides, for each phenol concentration there would be an enzyme concentration which going further than this value has no significant effect on phenol removal. Investigation into time course of phenol removal for both encapsulated and free enzyme showed that... 

Gelation time and degradation rate of thermally-sensitive aqueous solutions of chitosan/Gp (glycerophosphate disodium salt) have been studied. The effects of different parameters such as Gp salt concentration, solution temperature, degree of deacetylation of chitosan (DDA) and drug loading on the gelation time have been investigated. Gravimetric analysis, gel permeation chromatography and FTIR spectrophotometry were used to investigate the influence of the DDA and concentration of chitosan solution on hydrogel degradation. The presented results indicated that gelation time decreases by increasing Gp salt concentration, temperature, concentration and DDA of chitosan solutions, while drug... 

Porous scaffolds composed of gelatin/poly (vinyl alcohol), (Gel/PVA), were prepared using combination of freeze gelation and freeze drying methods. The effect of polymer concentration, gelatin/PVA ratio, and glutaraldehyde/gelatin ratio (GA/Gel) was investigated on morphology of pores, swelling ratio, biodegradation, and skin cell culture. At optimum preparation conditions the scaffolds had uniform pore size distributions showing high swelling ratio of 23.6. The scaffolds were of biodegradable nature and almost degraded in 28 days. Human dermal fibroblast cells (HDF) were cultured on the scaffolds and MTS assay was conducted to evaluate the influence of PVA on growth and proliferation of the... 

A new gelator based of oleylamide has been introduced, which was gelled nonpolar hydrocarbon and CCl4 solvents through self-assembly. Also, the gelator formed a two-component hydrogel in combination with SDS, an anionic surfactant. UV-Vis studies revealed that the H-type and J-type aggregation of organogels in hexane and hydrogel in water, respectively. The xerogel, obtained by evaporating the solvent of organogel, selectively gelled and adsorbed oil spills on water surfaces. The effect of the various parameters, including temperature, water acidity and pH on the oil spill adsorption was studied, revealing the high ability of the xerogel to removing the oil contamination from water in up to... 

Gelcasting is a novel forming method in fabricating complex three dimensional ceramic parts, and has many parameters and characteristics required to be specified. Up to now, few articles have been published on determination of the idle time of gelation precisely. In this work the chemorheology of gelation in aqueous solution of acrylamide and N, N′ methylenebisacrylamide monomer, and zirconia (PSZ) suspensions of this solution was investigated. As the viscosity of gel system increases abruptly in gelation point, idle time can be determined precisely by measurement of viscosity against time. Idle time can also be determined through temperature measurement against time since the reaction of... 

The existence of the important similarities between gelation and glass transition makes it hard to distinguish between the two types of nonergodic states experimentally. Here, we report on a stochastic analysis of the scattered light intensity through a colloidal particles suspension during the gel and glass formation. In this analysis, we exploit the methods developed for complex hierarchical systems, such as turbulence. Using the multiplicative log-normal cascade models, we provide a criterion to distinguish gels from glasses  

Diversion in heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs plays the most important role to the success of acidizing. Without the use of diversion, more acid preferentially flows into the high-permeability region and leaves the low-permeability region underreacted. But a clear understanding of diverting agents, such as polymer-based in-situ-gelled acids, can help uniformly stimulate the near-wellbore region. In this paper, we correct the rheological model that was developed by Ratnakar et al. (2013) according to experimental data from Gomaa and Nasr-El-Din (2010b) by considering shear-rate effect in a two-scale continuum model. It is found that the rheology parameters and shear rate are influential... 

Nanocrystalline Y3-xMMxFe5O12 powders (MM denotes Misch-metal, x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0) were synthesized by a sol-gel combustion method. Magnetic properties and crystalline structures were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and a scanning electron microscope. The XRD patterns showed that the single-phase garnet of Y3-xMMxFe5O12 was formed at x values ≤ 1.0. The saturation magnetization of powders increased with decreasing MM content and reached the maximum value at Y3 Fe5O12. The crystallite size of powders calcined at 800°C for 3 h was in the range of 38-53 nm. © 2008 American Ceramic Society  

In this study, 40% CaO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was used for biodiesel production from corn oil. A transesterification reaction was done for 5h at a temperature of 65°C in the presence of corn oil, methanol (methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1), and CaO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst (0.06g/g (6wt%)). Catalyst used in this study was synthesized using the sol-gel method. In this method, two parameters of gelation temperature and nitric acid concentration were used as variables in the catalyst synthesis step, and experiments were designed using central composite design (CCD). The results indicate that the optimal point is achieved at a gelation temperature of 70°C and... 

The multistep release of therapeutic agents in the theranostic particulate systems has remained as a challenge in smart drug delivery. In this study, superparamagnetic nanoparticles of Fe3O4 were coated with a blend of F127/F68 grades of pluronic in order to adjust the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) and consequently engineering of the release temperature. Pluronic as a biocompatible thermo-sensitive polymer is frequently used as a self-emulsifying drug delivery system. Magnetite nanoparticles with double layer coating of oleic acid and pluronic F127 have been reported as an on-demand smart carrier for hydrophobic drugs. LCST was examined using differential scanning calorimetry... 

Three-dimensional porous scaffolds are essential in tissue engineering applications. One of the most conventional methods to form porosity in scaffolds is freeze-drying, which is not energy efficient and cost effective. Therefore in this work, it was experimentally investigated whether gelatin, with its unique mechanical properties and cell binding applications, could be used as a comprising polymer of scaffolds with porous structure made by the freeze-gelation method. Chitosan, gelatin and chitosan/gelatin scaffolds were fabricated by the freeze-gelation method and their behaviors, determined by analysis of scanning electron microscopy images, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy,... 

In this study, fabrication of a three-dimensional porous scaffold was performed using freeze gelation method. Recently, fabrication of scaffolds using polymer blends has become common for many tissue engineering applications due to their unique tunable properties. In this work, we fabricated alginate-gelatin porous hydrogels for wound healing application using a new method based on some modifications to the freeze-gelation method. Alginate and gelatin were mixed in three different ratios and the resulting solutions underwent freeze gelation to obtain 3D porous matrices. We analyzed the samples using different characterization tests. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results indicated... 

Porous scaffolds composed of gelatin/poly (vinyl alcohol), (Gel/PVA), were prepared using combination of freeze gelation and freeze drying methods. The effect of polymer concentration, gelatin/PVA ratio, and glutaraldehyde/gelatin ratio (GA/Gel) was investigated on morphology of pores, swelling ratio, biodegradation, and skin cell culture. At optimum preparation conditions the scaffolds had uniform pore size distributions showing high swelling ratio of 23.6. The scaffolds were of biodegradable nature and almost degraded in 28 days. Human dermal fibroblast cells (HDF) were cultured on the scaffolds and MTS assay was conducted to evaluate the influence of PVA on growth and proliferation of the... 

A simple gelating process is developed for the conventional acetonitrile-based electrolyte of dye solar cells, based on ethyl cellulose as the gelator. The electrolyte becomes quasi-solid-state upon addition of an ethanolic solution of ethyl cellulose to the conventional acetonitrile-based liquid electrolyte. The photovoltaic conversion efficiency with the new gel electrolyte is only slightly lower than with the liquid electrolyte, e.g., 6.5 % for liquid electrolyte versus 5.9 % for gel electrolyte with 5.8 wt% added ethyl cellulose. Electrolyte gelation has small effect on the ionic diffusion coefficient of iodide, and the devices are remarkably stable for at least 550 h under irradiation... 

Amorphous barium titanate nanothin films were prepared by sol-gel dip-coating method. According to transmission spectrum, the refractive index and optical band gap of nanothin films have been determined. High transmission spectrum without any fluctuation in visible wavelength region was recorded. Experimental results indicated that the surface morphology of prepared nanothin films were improved and as a result of that, a better optical properties, less optical losses and higher band gap width were obtained in contrast with other reported data. It was found that optical propagation loss of BaTiO3 nanothin film was much lower than normal polycrystalline BaTiO3 thin film. It seems to us that,... 

Poly (vinyl alcohol) and nano-diamond, PVA/ND, hydrogels were prepared and assessed as prosthetic material suitable for replacement of the nucleus pulposus. The hydrogels were prepared by gamma irradiation at various doses (15 kGy, 25 kGy, 35 kGy, 45 kGy) and at various ND concentrations ranging from 0.25 wt.% to 3 wt.%. Extent of gelation, equilibrium water content, and viscoelastic properties of swelled hydrogels at definite water contents were measured and examined as a function of ND concentration as well as gamma dose. According to viscoelastic measurements, the strength of hydrogels increased considerably over that of pure PVA at a low concentration of ND. By increasing irradiation... 

Zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings are quite successful in protecting steel against corrosion under severe exposing conditions. In spite of providing excellent cathodic protection to steel structure after film curing, two-component zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings have some limitations, one of which is inadequate shelf life as a result of in-can binder gelation. In this work, the preparation steps of ethyl silicate such as pre-hydrolysis, dehydration and organometallic reactions were surveyed and herein an approach towards understanding the cause and effect relationship of the use of ingredients is presented. The effects of water and catalytic acid dosages on gel time under accelerated... 

The effects of H2O/SiO2, TMAOH/SiO2, Na/(Na+K), and SiO2/Al2O3 ratios in the parent gels on the crystallization of nanoparticles of T-type zeolites were studied. A Taguchi orthogonal experimental design with the above-mentioned parameters (each at three levels) was used to optimize the experiment parameters by the analysis of variances (ANOVA). Applying the Taguchi method significantly reduced the time and cost required for optimization. The synthesized products were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. As a result of the Taguchi analysis, H2O/SiO2 and TMAOH/SiO2 were the most influencing parameters for the synthesis of zeolite T. © 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH...