In this work, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were biosynthesized from leaves of Ziziphus mauritiana Lam. jujube plant in Iraq and tested against fungal pathogens. Extract of leaves of Z. mauritiana mixed with 10-3 M AgNO3exposed to slight sunlight for 3 days. Characterization of AgNPs was done using UV-visible spectroscopy, SPM (scanning probe microscopy) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The change of solution color from pale brown to dark brown and the exhibited maximum peak at 445 nm accepted as an indicator to biosynthesized AgNPs. Aqueous extract of Ziziphus mauritiana is considered as biological reduced and stabilized agent for Ag+ to Ag0. AFM showed the formation of irregular shapes of AgNPs. The biosynthesized silver nanoparticles ha

In this study, a low-cost biosorbent, dead mushroom biomass (DMB) granules, was used for investigating the optimum conditions of Pb(II), Cu(II), and Ni(II) biosorption from aqueous solutions. Various physicochemical parameters, such as initial metal ion concentration, equilibrium time, pH value, agitation speed, particles diameter, and adsorbent dosage, were studied. Five mathematical models describing the biosorption equilibrium and isotherm constants were tested to find the maximum uptake capacities: Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson, Sips, and Khan models. The best fit to the Pb(II) and Ni(II) biosorption results was obtained by Langmuir model with maximum uptake capacities of 44.67 and 29.17 mg/g for these two ions, respectively, w

Prediction of daily rainfall is important for flood forecasting, reservoir operation, and many other hydrological applications. The artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm is generally used for stochastic forecasting rainfall which is not capable to simulate unseen extreme rainfall events which become common due to climate change. A new model is developed in this study for prediction of daily rainfall for different lead times based on sea level pressure (SLP) which is physically related to rainfall on land and thus able to predict unseen rainfall events. Daily rainfall of east coast of Peninsular Malaysia (PM) was predicted using SLP data over the climate domain. Five advanced AI algorithms such as extreme learning machine (ELM), Bay

The adsorption of Pb(II) ions onto bentonite and activated carbon was investigated. The effects of pH, initial adsorbent dosage, contact time and temperature were studied in batch experiments. The maximum adsorption capacities for bentonite and activated carbon were 0.0364 and 0.015 mg/mg, respectively. Thermodynamic parameters such as Gibbs free energy change, Enthalpy change and Entropy change have been calculated. These thermodynamic parameters indicated that the adsorption process was thermodynamically spontaneous under natural conditions and the adsorption was endothermic in nature. Experimental data were also tested in terms of adsorption kinetics, the results showed that the adsorption processes followed well pseudo second- order