A nonprecious metal and biopolymer-based catalyst, Cu/chitosan beads, has been successfully prepared by using a software-controlled flow system. Uniform, spherical Cu/chitosan beads can be obtained with diameters in millimeter-scale and narrow size distribution (0.78 ± 0.04 mm). The size and morphology of the Cu/chitosan beads are reproducible due to high precision of the flow rate. In addition, the application of the Cu/chitosan beads as a green and reusable catalyst has been demonstrated using a convenient and efficient protocol for the direct synthesis of imines via the oxidative self- and cross-coupling of amines (24 examples) with moderate to excellent yields. Importantly, the beads are stable and could be reused more than ten times without loss of the catalytic performance. Furthermore, because of the bead morphology, the Cu/chitosan catalyst has greatly simplified recycling and workup procedures.

By means of biorefinery, biogas production through anaerobic digestion is one of the most common treatments of wastewater in the palm oil industry. After biogas production, the treated palm oil mill effluent (POME) is generally discharged into the environment. However, certain level of hazardous compounds still exists in the treated wastewater, which can lead to the pollution of water bodies. In this study, we have investigated the dynamics of volatile organic acids dwelling in consecutive POME treatment lagoons as well as identified, and categorized, microbial species responsible for the treatment process. Bacteria and methanogens, both hydrogenotrophic and acetoclastic, related to methane production were identified using mcr A and 16S rRNA genes specific primers. Two hydrogenotrophic methanogens, Methanoculleus marisnigri and Methanoculleus chikugoensis , were found abundant in accordance with high formate concentration throughout the process of anaerobic digestion. This study has also isolated eight consortia of microbes that yielded different methane productions by utilizing formate as the substrate in the synthetic medium. The consortia of a group, containing M. marisnigri , M. chikugoensis , uncultured bacteria , Aminobacterium sp. , and Ruminobacillus xylanolyticum , produced the highest methane yield of 259 mL/g COD after 25 days of incubation in the laboratory. The findings from this study are contributing to optimize and increase biogas production in POME, which will allow higher efficiency in palm oil mill wastewater treatment.

This work presents one-incubation one-hour multiplex ELISA enabled by aqueous two-phase systems for five-plex cytokine detection in human ThP-1 macrophages.

This paper reports the simultaneous determination of TPC and AA of beverages using lab-on-a-disc.

This work presents an innovative silica-layer coated capillary with comparison study of the silica-layer coated capillary and the fused-silica capillary for the separation of seven phenolic acids viz. p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (PHPA),p-coumaric acid (PCA),p-hydroxybenzoic acid (PHBA), caffeic acid (CFA), (3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)acetic acid (DHPA), gallic acid (GLA), and 2,3,4-trihydroxybenzoic acid (THBA), together with caffeine (CF), by capillary electro-chromatography (CEC) and micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC), respectively. The running buffer was 25.0 mM borate at pH 9.0, with addition of 50.0 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate for the MEKC mode. The non-coated capillary could not separate all seven phenolic acids by CEC or MEKC. This was achieved using the coated capillary for both CEC and MEKC. The innovative coated capillary with CEC had plate numberN ≥ 2.0 × 10⁴ m⁻¹and resolutionR_s ≥ 1.6 for all adjacent pairs of peaks. The capillary was also able to separate GLA and THBA which are structural isomers. Although MEKC mode provided comparable efficiency and selectivity, the reduced EOF of the coated capillary led to longer separation time. The linear calibration range of the seven phenolic acids and caffeine were different but the coefficients of determinations (r²) were all > 0.9965. The precisions of the relative migration times and peak area ratios of analyte to internal standard were 0.1–1.8% and 1.8–6.8%, respectively. There were no statistical differences in the efficiency of separation of the phenolic acids and caffeine for three coated capillaries. It was applied to the analysis of caffeine and phenolic acids in brewed tea using tyramine as the internal standard. The tea samples were diluted prior to analysis by CEC. The separation was less than 15 min. Caffeine, gallic acid andp-coumaric acid were detected and quantified. Caffeine and gallic acid contents were 10.8–15.0 and 2.6–4.8 mg g⁻¹dry tea leaves, respectively.p-Coumaric acid was detected in only one of the samples with a content of 0.4 mg g⁻¹. Percent recoveries of spiked diluted samples were 90 ± 9 to 106 ± 13%, respectively.Article highlights: Silica-layer coated capillary is first reported for simultaneous separation of seven phenolic acids by non-MEKC analysis. Performance between coated, and non-coated capillaries with analysis by CEC and MEKC were compared. Plate number, resolution, capillary reproducibility, and electroosmotic flow mobility are investigated. Graphical

A simple and rapid capillary electrophoresis method with contactless conductivity detection for direct determination of thiocyanate in saliva to differentiate between smokers and non-smokers is proposed. Simple saliva preparation was performed by centrifugation and the dilute and shoot method (1 : 1, v/v) with a running buffer prior to hydrodynamic injection. The running buffer was 20.0 mM His/MES at pH 6.00 containing 0.1 mM CTAB as the electroosmotic flow modifier. Maleate anions were employed as the internal standard for the precision of the response factor of electrophoresis separation which was carried out at −8.0 kV (266 V cm⁻¹) with a total analysis time of 3.5 min per sample. A linear calibration curve for thiocyanate in the concentration range 0.2–4.0 mM was obtained (r² > 0.999). The limit of quantification was 0.12 mM which is sufficient for the quantitative determination of thiocyanate in saliva for the purpose of identification of smokers and non-smokers. Intra-day and inter-day precisions were 0.7–1.7% RSD and 2.4–6.4% RSD, respectively. Accuracy based on the percentage recovery of spiked saliva samples was in the range of 72–141% (n = 18). The measured thiocyanate levels were significantly different to classify non-smokers from smokers; a cut-off value of 1.0 mM is proposed to separate the two groups. This method is convenient and rapid, suitable for screening of a large number of subjects, such as in clinical work or health-care surveys.