Fiber based antibacterial materials have gained an enormous attraction for the researchers in these days. In this study, a novel Sericin Encapsulated Silver Nanoclusters (sericin-AgNCs) were synthesized through single pot and green synthesis route. Subsequently these sericin-AgNCs were incorporated into ultrafine electrospun cellulose acetate (CA) fibers for assessing the antibacterial performance. The physicochemical properties of sericin-AgNCs/CA composite fibers were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and wide X-ray diffraction (XRD). The antibacterial properties of sericin-AgNCs/CA composite fibers against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were systematically evaluated. The results showed that sericin-AgNCs incorporated in ultrafine CA fibers have played a vital role for antibacterial activity. An amount of 0.17 mg/mL sericin-AgNCs to CA fibers showed more than 90% results and elevated upto >99.9% with 1.7 mg/mL of sericin-AgNCs against E. coli. The study indicated that sericin-AgNCs/CA composite confirms an enhanced antibacterial efficiency, which could be used as a promising antibacterial product.

The importance of statistical modeling is obvious because it imparts an imperative role in predicting the effects of significant factors on any experimental process. In recent days, ELMs (Emulsion Liquid Membranes) are considered as an effective technique for the treatment of industrial wastewater. Despite of many advantages over the other treatment methods, ELM technology encounters one serious drawback of the stability of emulsion. The subject of this research is to identify the factors which are important to study the stability of ELM and also to evaluate the response of these parameters on stability. The membrane used in this study consisted of Span-80 and Hexane as surfactant and diluent respectively. The internal aqueous phase was H2SO4. The experimental setup was designed by using a well-known statistical approach of DoE (Design of Experiment) and the data was analyzed by Taguchi Method using a fractional factorial design. All the parameters including aqueous phase concentration, surfactant concentration, volume ratio of organic to aqueous phase, emulsification speed and emulsification time were selected as key factors to study their effect on the stability of ELM. Using different statistical techniques, it was found that emulsification speed and volume ratio of organic to aqueous phase are two most significant parameters. The significance level of these factors i.e. emulsification speed and volume ratio of organic to aqueous phase was statistically found as 99.7 and 99.9% respectively. A statistical model was also developed and the experimental results were compared with estimated results. The value of correlation coefficient, R2 was calculated as 0.997 indicating that the developed model fits the data very well.

The present work demonstrates the new nanofiber mats prepared through co-electrospinning of two different polymers i.e. corn protein namely Zein and Nylon-6. The composite nanofiber membrane was used as an effective adsorbent material for the removal of toxic reactive dye i.e. Reactive Blue 19 (RB 19) from water solution. These co-electrospun nanofibers had good mechanical strength compared to zein nanofibers alone. Experimental results suggested that zein/nylon nanofibers have greater potential for total removal of RB19 at room temperature within 10 min of contact time from aqueous solution. The maximum capacity was found to be 70 mg/g of nanofibers. The mechanism of RB19 removal on proposed nanofibers is mainly through hydrogen bond and electrostatic means.

The work focuses on the removal of Arsenic-III (As(III)) from water sample by an indigenous iron ore from Balochistan by adsorption method. Three iron ore samples were analyzed by X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) and a sample from Shikarap containing iron 36.2% was selected because it contained the highest amount of hematite. The batch study was conducted to examine the adsorption by iron ore and maximum adsorption was observed at pH 6, 1/2 g dose per 50 mL solution, contact time 2 hr and shaking speed 150 rpm. At the optimized conditions, the removal was 89% when monitored at 50μg L-1 initial concentration of arsenic. The arsenic removal was monitored by Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) using hydride generation. Dubinin - Radushkevich (D-R), Freundlich and Langmuir's isotherms were examined. The highest adsorption capacityof iron ore for As(III) removal was observed 13.67 μg g-1 by Langmuir model and Freundlich isotherm indicated good adsorption intensity with value n = 1.512. Thermodynamic parameters revealed that adsorption was exothermic and physisorption. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX)techniques were applied to scan the surface morphology and the percentage elemental composition of samples respectively. SEM results demonstrated that Shikarap mineral grains are an oval shape and these were changed after the uptake of As(III). The EDX spectra of Shikarap mineral confirm the As(III) adsorption on particles as As 4.19%.

The graphene based highly conductive and flexible devices has received momentous attraction and growth in recent years for potential multifunctional uses. The development of flexible and washable textile sensors, actuators, energy storage and energy harvesting systems. Textile fabrics coated with graphene and conductive polymers have been used for wearable self-powered e-textiles, such as tribo-electric, piezoelectric, and Thermoelectric. Herein this research, 100% woven cotton fabric is Fictionalized with graphene oxide (GO) using industrial-scale cold pad batch dyeing technique for the development of low-grade body heat into self-powered wearable e-textiles. The conductive polymer PEDOT: PSS was coated using layer by layer approach. The study demonstrates that the resultant textile electrodes showed reduced electrical sheet resistance from 2.5 MΩ to 15KΩ, with a reduced graphene oxide and further reduced to (2.5 -12.5 Ω) for conductive polymer. The sheet resistance was decreased with the number of dyeing cycles (10-15) and increased with 20 washing cycles vice versa. The study demonstrates that the sensor response and performance were improved with increasing the content percent of rGO and PEDOT: PSS. The tensile strength of as coated fabric electrodes was improved from (25.0-85.5 mPa) and fabric thickness was increased to (26-38µm) without compromising or influencing the air permeability. The resultant textile electrodes may potentially be used in smart textiles for self-powered flexible wearable generators, sensors, and energy storage. The study demonstrates that the cold pad batch dyeing method is a suitable and effective method for the fabrication of graphene-based textiles.

The Woven preforms are generally manufactured by weaving technique using either complex 3D weaving machines or especially designed patent machines. The advantage of conventional technique lies in the flexibility of yardage production and composite may be developed by lamination or directly using 3D multilayer structure. Due to the stiffer nature of high-performance fibers, the conventional weaving technology causes damage of fibers in general and strength and modulus in particular. The warp creel is one of the main elements of weaving machine which is responsible for such fiber damage due to inflexible unwinding of fiber spool caused by friction. Therefore, in this research, a warp creel with novel features has been designed and manufactured to replace the conventional warp beam for smooth processing of high performance fibers. For this purpose, different parts of the proposed warp creel were designed and manufactured, including creel frame and adjustable spindles. These parts were manufactured with different specifications and order to carry out the smooth processing of high-performance tow. All these parts were manufactured with MS steel. The developed warp creel was used for the production of high-performance fiber preforms. In this study, three different high-performance fibers (Carbon, Kevlar and Glass) were used to fabricate plain woven preforms. The main objective of this research is the preclusion of the fibers/filaments from deterioration from weaving mechanism. The results showed the minimum number of filaments of carbon tow being damaged. The use of MS steel material and highly polished parts resulted in least amount of frictional contacts which in turn improved the apparent quality of the formed preforms.