Carbon-based nanocomposite membranes have recently drawn tremendous attentions among membrane scientists due to their excellent chemical, mechanical stability and antifouling properties against oil deposition/adsorption.

Viral infections and outbreaks have become a major concern and are one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The development of successful antiviral therapeutics and vaccines remains a daunting challenge. The discovery of novel antiviral agents is a public health emergency, and extraordinary efforts are underway globally to identify safe and effective treatments for different viral diseases. Alkaloids are natural phytochemicals known for their biological activities, many of which have been intensively studied for their broad-spectrum of antiviral activities against different DNA and RNA viruses. The purpose of this review was to summarize the evidence supporting the efficacy of the antiviral activity of plant alkaloids at half-maximum effective concentration (EC₅₀) or half-maximum inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) below 10 μM and describe the molecular sites most often targeted by natural alkaloids acting against different virus families. This review highlights that considering the devastating effects of virus pandemics on humans, plants, and animals, the development of high efficiency and low-toxicity antiviral drugs targeting these viruses need to be developed. Furthermore, it summarizes the current research status of alkaloids as the source of antiviral drug development, their structural characteristics, and antiviral targets. Overall, the influence of alkaloids at the molecular level suggests a high degree of specificity which means they could serve as potent and safe antiviral agents waiting for evaluation and exploitation.

There is an increasing need for the desalination of high concentration brine (>TDS 35,000 ppm) efficiently and economically, either for the treatment of produced water from shale gas/oil development, or minimizing the environmental impact of brine from existing desalination plants. Yet, reverse osmosis (RO), which is the most widely used for desalination currently, is not practical for brine desalination. This paper demonstrates technical and economic feasibility of ICP (Ion Concentration Polarization) electrical desalination for the high saline water treatment, by adopting multi-stage operation with better energy efficiency. Optimized multi-staging configurations, dependent on the brine salinity values, can be designed based on experimental and numerical analysis. Such an optimization aims at achieving not just the energy efficiency but also (membrane) area efficiency, lowering the true cost of brine treatment. ICP electrical desalination is shown here to treat brine salinity up to 100,000 ppm of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) with flexible salt rejection rate up to 70% which is promising in a various application treating brine waste. We also demonstrate that ICP desalination has advantage of removing both salts and diverse suspended solids simultaneously, and less susceptibility to membrane fouling/scaling, which is a significant challenge in the membrane processes.

Despite its attractive features for energy saving separation, the performance of forward osmosis (FO) has been restricted by internal concentration polarization and fast fouling propensity that occur in the membrane sublayer. These problems have significantly affected the membrane performance when treating highly contaminated oily wastewater. In this study, a novel double-skinned FO membrane with excellent anti-fouling properties has been developed for emulsified oil-water treatment. The double-skinned FO membrane comprises a fully porous sublayer sandwiched between a highly dense polyamide (PA) layer for salt rejection and a fairly loose dense bottom zwitterionic layer for emulsified oil particle removal. The top dense PA layer was synthesized via interfacial polymerization meanwhile the bottom layer was made up of a zwitterionic polyelectrolyte brush - (poly(3-(N-2-methacryloxyethyl-N,N-dimethyl) ammonatopropanesultone), abbreviated as PMAPS layer. The resultant double-skinned membrane exhibited a high water flux of 13.7 ± 0.3 L/m².h and reverse salt transport of 1.6 ± 0.2 g/m².h under FO mode using 2 M NaCl as the draw solution and emulsified oily solution as the feed. The double-skinned membrane outperforms the single-skinned membrane with much lower fouling propensity for emulsified oil-water separation.

To explore proteolytic activity of endophytic fungi inhabiting date palm roots, a Penicillium bilaiae isolate, displaying the highest level of protease production, has been recovered. Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to optimize culture conditions for protease production by the fungus. Plackett-Burman design allowed for screening of variables effective in protease production. Results indicated that temperature, initial pH and glucose concentration dramatically affect protease yield. These factors were further optimized using a Box-Behnken design and RSM. A combination of initial pH (6.26), temperature (24.5 °C), glucose (13.75 g/L), NaNO₃ (1.5 g/L), MgSO₄ (0.2 g/L), KH₂PO₄ (0.5 g/L) and KCl (0.5 g/L) were optimum for maximum production of protease. A 1086-fold enhancement of protease production was gained after optimization. Biochemical properties of fungal protease including the effect of pH and temperature on the activity and the stability of proteolytic enzyme were determined. Moreover, the influence of carbon and nitrogen sources, metal ions, detergents as well as enzyme inhibitors was investigated. Our results highlighted that protease of Penicillium bilaiae isolate TDPEF30 could be considered as a promising candidate for industrial applications.

Water pollution caused by the release of organic pollutants is a major environmental concern worldwide. These pollutants can have harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems and the organisms living within them, as well as on human health when contaminated water is consumed. It is essential to implement proper treatment and management strategies to prevent and mitigate water pollution. Moreover, the major untreated industrial effluents are synthetic organic compounds especially 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) which cause several environmental issues and heath related problems in humans. To cope with this problem, an excellent 2D porous material based on p-DMAC4/GO composite has been synthesized as adsorbent material for the effective removal of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol pollutant from wastewater. In this regard, the advanced analytical tools such as Fourier-Transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used for its characterization. The results justified the chemical composition, excellent crystalline nature, surface morphology and elemental composition of the synthesized composite material. The synthesized adsorbent material showed 95% adsorption of TCP from wastewater system at optimal conditions i.e., pH (6), adsorbent dosage (30 mg) and shaking time (60 min). The mathematical models such as isotherms, thermodynamics and kinetics studies validate the nature of adsorption process of TCP pollutant. The adsorption data found to be best fitted with Langmuir isotherms (R² = 0.99); whereas kinetic study suggested the pseudo-second-order nature of reaction with R² = 0.99. The thermodynamics study confirmed the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the TCP pollutant onto the surface of p-DMAC4/GO material. Moreover, the results of current work were also compared with existing reported adsorbents and data suggested the higher efficiency, feasibility, and reusability of p-DMAC4/GO material to remove the TCP pollutant from the wastewater system.