Contamination of surface and groundwater with excessive concentrations of fluoride is of significant health hazard. Adsorption of fluoride onto waste materials of no economic value could be a potential approach for the treatment of fluoride-bearing water. This experimental and modeling study was devoted to investigate for the first the fluoride removal using unmodified waste granular brick (WGB) in a fixed bed running in continuous mode. Characterization of WGB was carried out by FT-IR, SEM, and EDX analysis. The batch mode experiments showed that they were affected by several parameters including contact time, initial pH, and sorbent dosage. The best values of these parameters that provided maximum removal percent (82%) with the initial concentration of F-1 ions (10 mg/L) and agitation speed (200 rpm) were 90 min, 8, and 3 g/100 mL, respectively. The experimental data were found to fit the Freundlich isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity of fluoride on WGB was 1.1 mg/g. The continuous mode experiments clearly confirmed the important role of WGB bed in hindering and confining the propagation of the fluoride-loaded plume as well as there was a very good matching (RMSE ≤ 0.0398) with the predicted results obtained by the simulated mathematical model using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a software.
The taxonomy of Ficus L., 1753 species is confusing because of the intense morphological variability and the ambiguity of the taxa. This study handled 36 macro-morphological characteristics to clarify the taxonomic identity of the taxa. The study revealed that Ficus is represented in the Egyptian gardens with forty-one taxa; 33 species, 4 subspecies and 4 varieties, and classified into five subgenera: Ficus Corner, 1960; Terega Raf., 1838; Sycomorus Raf., 1838; Synoecia (Miq.) Miq., 1867, and Spherosuke Raf.,1838; out of them seven were misidentified. Amongst, four new Ficus taxa were recently introduced to Egypt namely: F. lingua subsp. lingua Warb. ex De Wild. & T. Durand, 1901; F. pumila L., 1753; F. rumphii Blume, 1825, and F. su
... Show MoreIn this work, enhancement to the fluorescence characteristics of laser dye solutions hosting highly-pure titanium dioxide nanoparticles as random gain media. This was achieved by coating two opposite sides of the cells containing these media with nanostructured thin films of highly-pure titanium dioxide. Two laser dyes; Rhodamine B and Coumarin 102, were used to prepare solutions in hexanol and methanol, respectively, as hosts for the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles and thin films were prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The enhancement was observed by the narrowing of fluorescence linewidth as well as by increasing the fluorescence intensity. These parameters were compared to those of the dye only and the dye solution
... Show Moredue to the presence of chemoresistance and the risk of tumor recurrence and metastasis. There is a pressing necessity to develop efficient treatments to improve response for treatment and increase prolong survival of breast cancer patients. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted interest for its features as a noninvasive and relatively selective cancer treatment. This method relies on light-activated photosensitizers that, upon absorbing light, generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) with powerful cell-killing outcomes. Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), a transcription factor, plays a key role in cancer development by regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Inhibiting NF-κB can sensitize tumor cells to chemotherapeuti
... Show MoreLED is an ultra-lightweight block cipher that is mainly used in devices with limited resources. Currently, the software and hardware structure of this cipher utilize a complex logic operation to generate a sequence of random numbers called round constant and this causes the algorithm to slow down and record low throughput. To improve the speed and throughput of the original algorithm, the Fast Lightweight Encryption Device (FLED) has been proposed in this paper. The key size of the currently existing LED algorithm is in 64-bit & 128-bit but this article focused mainly on the 64-bit key (block size=64-bit). In the proposed FLED design, complex operations have been replaced by LFSR left feedback technology to make the algorithm perform more e
... Show MoreIn the era of the digital economy, public organizations need to consolidation the capabilities of entrepreneurial alertness to reduce the risks of sudden transformations and changes, and to find effective mechanisms to discover and invest in environmental opportunities proactively, as this concern has become a knowledge gap in public sector institutions, the current research aims to identify the role of digital competence in influencing on entrepreneurial alertness in the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), the descriptive analytical approach was used as a research method to describe and analyze the main research variables. digital competence as an explanatory variable includes three dimensions: digital infrastructure, digital integration, and d
... Show MoreIn this study, the potential of adsorption of amoxicillin antibiotic (AMOX) from aqueous solutions using prepared activated carbon (AC) was studied. The used AC was prepared from an inexpensive and available precursor (sunflower seed hulls (SSH)) and activated by potassium hydroxide (KOH). The prepared AC was examined for its ability to remove AMOX from aqueous contaminated solutions and characterized with the aid of N2 -adsorption/desorption isotherm Brunauer–Emmett– Teller, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared. Zeta potential of the prepared activated carbon from sunflower seed hulls (SSHAC) were studied in relation to AMOX adsorption. The physical and chemical propert
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