In larger parts of the Middle East palliative care is still misunderstood among health professionals, cancer patients and the public at large. One reason to that is because the term does not ...obviously communicate the intent of this clinical discipline, which is lending better quality of life while combating cancer. Further, culture, tradition and religion have contributed to this misgiving and confusion especially at the terminal stage of the disease.
The Middle East Cancer Consortium jointly with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Oncology Nursing Society, the San Diego Hospice Center for Palliative Medicine and the Children's Hospital & Clinics of Minnesota initiated a series of training courses and workshops in the Middle East to provide updated training to physicians, nurses, social workers and psychologists from throughout the region with basic concepts of palliative care and pain managements in adults and children cancers.
During the past 6 years hundreds of professionals took part in these educational and training activities, thereby creating the core of trained caregivers who start to make the change in their individual countries.
The outcome of consecutive training activities can overcome geopolitical instabilities, and yield a genuine change in approach of both regulators, medical administrators, medical staff and the public; as to the important contribution of palliative care services to the welfare of the patient and his/her family.
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•Poly(ethylenimine)-functionalized pyroxene nanoparticles (PEI-PNPs) embedded into Diatomite has been prepared.•High removal efficiency of dye from real textile wastewater was ...achieved.•Breakthrough curves were described by convection-dispersion transport equation.•The breakthrough data was also analyzed using the equivalent length of unused bed approach.
In this study, polyethylenimine-functionalized pyroxene nanoparticles (PEI-PNPs) were embedded into Diatomite (D4500), a commonly used filter aid, at <5wt% to remove a dissolved commercial textile red dye (CRD) from wastewater in batch and continuous flow column experiments. An array of characterization techniques, such as XRD, BET, HRTEM, and SEM was carried out for the Diatomite embedded nanoparticles. The filter aid was mainly composed of macroporous diatomaceous earth, its adsorption surface area and capacity for the CRD were improved significantly via embedding more PEI-PNPs. The adsorption isotherms in the batch studies were fairly explained by the Sips model. The adsorption performance of the fixed-bed column was tested for D4500, before and after embedding it with virgin and PEI-functionalized pyroxene nanoparticles, to determine the breakthrough curves under different operational conditions (e.g., inlet concentration of CRD, inlet flow rate, bed height, and nanoparticle concentration in Diatomite, %nps). The convection-dispersion transport equation was used to describe the obtained breakthrough curves, which enabled the determination of the axial dispersion coefficient (DL) and the Peclet number (Pe). Additionally, the breakthrough data was analyzed using the equivalent length of unused bed (HUNB) approach. In this approach Pe was correlated with HUNB with a good accuracy with the correlation: HUNB=0.013Pe+1.25 when Q and Co are the operational control parameters, while the correlation: HUNB=4.08e−0.002Pe when Z and %nps are the operational control parameters. These correlations can be helpful and useful for scaling up our proposed process for real industrial applications.
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The possible supramolecular interactions (noncovalent interactions in water) of the pollutant molecules with the developed adsorbent for their removal: (a) hydrogen bonding interactions, (b) ...electrostatic interactions and (c) host-guest interactions in the formed cavities within the PEI polymer anchored on the anionic surface of the nano-pyroxene material through metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces and/or pi-pi interactions.
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In this study, a fixed-bed column adsorption process was employed to remove organic pollutants from a real industrial wastewater effluent using polyethylenimine-functionalized pyroxene nanoparticles (PEI-PY) embedded into Diatomite at very low mass percentage. Various dynamic parameters (e.g., inlet concentration, inlet flow rate, bed height, and PEI-nanoparticle concentration in Diatomite, (%nps)) were investigated to determine the breakthrough behavior. The obtained breakthrough curves were fit with a convection-dispersion model to determine the characteristic parameters based on mass transfer phenomena. The axial dispersion coefficient (DL) and group of dimensionless numbers; including Renold number (Re), Schmidt number (Sc), and Sherwood number (Sh) were all determined and correlated by Wilson-Geankoplis correlation that was used to estimate the external film diffusion coefficients (Kc) at 0.0015 < Re<55.
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•Oxy-cracking process is conducted as an alternative approach to petcoke utilization.•The process was optimized for high conversion, selectively and small amount of CO2.•The petcoke ...oxidation undergoes in parallel consecutive reactions.•The oxy-cracked petcoke was found to be carboxylic and phenolic acids and their salt.•The oxy-cracking technique could be employed for petcoke demineralization.
The global production of residual feedstock has reached 150 million metric tons per annum and is expected to increase in the future due to the progressively increasing heavier nature of the crudes. Petroleum coke (petcoke), one of these residues, is a solid-rich carbon typically produced during the upgrading of heavy oil and delay coking of vacuum residue in the refinery. Finding an alternative technique to treat this massive amount of petcoke is highly needed as the conventional processes like gasification and combustion have limitations in terms of efficiency and environmental friendliness. In this study, an oxy-cracking technique, which is a combination of cracking and oxidation reactions, is conducted as an alternative approach for petcoke utilization. The reaction is conducted in a Parr reactor where petcoke particles are solubilized in an aqueous alkaline medium and partially oxidized under mild operating temperature and pressure. Several operating conditions on petcoke oxy-cracking were investigated, such as temperature, oxygen pressure, reaction time, particle size and mixing rate to optimize the solubility and selectivity of oxy-cracked products. The results showed that the temperature and the residence time are the two major important parameters that affect the reaction conversion and selectivity. This enabled us to propose a reaction pathway based on the radical mechanism to describe the kinetic behavior of petcoke. Reaction kinetics indicated that petcoke oxidation undergoes a parallel-consecutive reaction in which an oxidative decomposition took place in the first step producing different oxidized intermediates. The oxy-cracked petcoke was characterized by FTIR, XPS and NMR analyses. The oxy-cracked products were found to contain carboxylic, carbonyl, phenolic, and sulfonic functions. Moreover, the elemental analysis showed that most of the metals remained in the residue, suggesting that the proposed technique could be employed for petcoke demineralization.
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•Oxy-cracking technology is a novel approach for converting feedstocks into value-add products.•Works at mild temperatures and pressures in an aqueous alkaline medium.•The process has ...high conversion, selectively and almost zero CO2 emissions.•Provides multiple product pathways with unique technical and business opportunity.•Offers new opportunity for the wastewater treatment and pharmaceutical effluents.
The oil industry faces economic and environmental challenges due to its energy- and water-intensive processes. Surplus residual feedstocks and the water produced via heavy oil upgrading and processing are among the most challenging problems in the oil industry. Utilization these waste materials and a lack of efficient technologies to treat them are the main challenges causing the industry to consider them as waste materials. Existing technologies only add a small value, require high capital investment, and generate high greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, in this study, we review and highlight the major findings regarding the oxy-cracking process, which is introduced as an alternative beyond combustion, as an environmentally friendly technique for converting these feedstocks into value-added products and also enhances the recyclability of wastewater. Through these residual feedstocks are partially oxidized in basic aqueous media at mild operational temperatures (150–230 °C) and pressures (3.4–5.2 MPa). Several operating conditions have been reported to optimize the conversion and selectivity of the products, and the results showed that the temperature and residence time have significant impacts on the yield and environmental impact. The experimental findings were validated with theoretical calculations, which provided insights on understanding the kinetic behavior based on the radical mechanism. The characterization findings revealed that the oxy-cracking could be a platform for a wide range of products such as humic acids, clean fuel, and carbon nanomaterials, and to recover valuable metals. Moreover, this process could be implemented for treatment of oil sand processes affected water and for decomposing emerging pharmaceuticals.
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This work is a first attempt to understand the mechanism of metformin thermal decomposition under inert conditions. Thermal gravimetric analysis coupled with mass spectrometry was used to probe the ...thermal degradation reactions. Density functional theory and second-order perturbation (MP2) theoretical calculations were used to construct a reaction mechanism for metformin decomposition. It was evident that the reactions are initiated via formation of methyl radicals, and ammonia via 1.3-H shift, followed by a series of different secondary reaction pathways. The formation of cyanamide, dimethylamine and HCN were among the main secondary products. The proposed mechanism is important for future treatment of wastewater containing metformin and similar drugs formulations, and their possible conversion to useful commodities.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Pharmaceutical compounds are emerging contaminants that have been detected in surface water across the world. Because conventional wastewater treatment plants are not designed to treat such ...pollutants, new technologies are needed to degrade and oxidize such contaminants. The newly developed oxy-cracking process was utilized to treat the antidiabetic drug, metformin. The process, which involved partial oxidation of metformin in alkaline aqueous medium, proved to decompose the drug into small organic molecules, with minimum emission of CO
, therefore, increasing its biodegradability and removal from industrial treatment plants. The reaction gaseous products were probed by online gas chromatography. The liquid phase before and after oxy-cracking was analyzed for total carbon content by TOC and gas chromatography mass spectrometry. The products formed from the nitrogen-rich drug included ammonia, amines, amidines, and urea derivatives. A reaction mechanism for the oxy-cracking process is proposed. Because the hydroxyl radical (˙OH) is believed to play a central role in the oxy-cracking process, the mechanism is initiated by ˙OH attacks on metformin, followed by single decomposition or isomerization steps into stable products. The reactions were investigated using density functional theory calculations and validated using high quality 2
order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory energy calculations.
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Over the last few years, nanoparticles have been used as thermal enhancement agents in many heat transfer based fluids to improve the thermal conductivity of the fluids. Recently, many experiments ...have been carried out to prepare different types of nanofluids (NFs) showing a tremendous increase in thermal conductivity of the base fluids with the addition of a small amount of nanoparticles. However, little experimental work has been proposed to calculate the flow behaviour and heat transfer of nanofluids and the exact mechanism for the increase in effective thermal conductivity in heat exchangers. This study mainly focuses on the development of nanomaterial composites by incorporating copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO) onto the surfaces of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The CNT-CuO nanocomposite was used to prepare water-based heat transfer NFs. The morphological surfaces and loading contents of the CNT-CuO nanocomposite were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) while the physical and thermal properties of the water-based nanofluids were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), the Mathis TCi system and a viscosity meter for measuring the heat capacity, thermal conductivity and viscosity of the synthesized NFs, respectively. The heat transfer and the pressure drop studies of the NFs were conducted by a horizontal steel tube counter-flow heat exchanger under turbulent flow conditions. The experimental results showed that the developed NFs with different concentrations of modified CNTs (0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 wt%) have yielded a significant increase in specific heat capacity (102% higher than pure water) and thermal conductivity (26% higher than pure water) even at low concentration. The results also revealed that the heat rate of the NF was higher than that of the base liquid (water) and increased with increasing the concentration of nanoparticles. Furthermore, no significant effect of the nanoparticles on the pressure drop of the system was observed.
Over the last few years, nanoparticles have been used as thermal enhancement agents in many heat transfer based fluids to improve the thermal conductivity of the fluids.
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Oil sands exploitation in Alberta relies on water-intensive processes that result in large amounts of oil sand process-affected water (OSPW). Tailings ponds are used to store OSPW in accordance with ...government regulations. One of the main challenges of these tailings ponds is the settling of fine particles which, without treatment, would remain suspended for decades. This study introduces a novel application for the oxy-cracking technique to enhance fine particle settling through simultaneous oxidation and cracking reactions: residual bitumen and hydrocarbons are cracked and solubilized in the liquid phase, freeing the fine particles to agglomerate and settle faster. The pathway for this process is determined by the kinetics parameters, and it releases minimal CO2. A full lumped kinetics model study is presented to describe the oxy-cracking reaction. Settling enhancement and dewaterability were studied using the initial settling rate (ISR) and capillary suction time (CST) methods. After oxy-cracking, the mudline was reduced by 65% within 24 h with no settling observed in the original sample. CST experiments resulted in fast and easy dewaterability of the consolidated solids after an oxy-cracking reaction of neat OSPW samples. The oxy-cracking process outperforms other processes reported in the literature for diluted samples treated with large amounts of coagulants. Oxy-cracking and settling enhancement were further confirmed by the characterization techniques of GC–MS, FTIR, XRD, TGA, and TOC analysis. The proposed oxy-cracking technique offers new opportunities for the wastewater treatment of OSPW generated by the oil sands industry.
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