Acta Chemica Malaysia

Journal: Acta Chemica Malaysia (ACMY)
Author: Amina Nalweyiso, Noble Banadda, Ephraim Nuwamanya, John Baptist Kirabira, Arnold Katungisa
ISSN: 2576-6732
e-ISSN: 2576-6724

This is an open access journal distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

DOI: 10.26480/acmy.02.2022.48.55

Bio energy is the predominant renewable energy source in most low-income countries though mostly with inefficient production and utilization technologies. The versatility and flexibility of bioenergy offers a variety of clean energy options. Bioethanol and biodiesel have received the most attention as alternative cooking and vehicle biofuels. Research on the production of bioethanol from the non-food parts of cassava including the leaves, stems and peelings has yielded promising results. However, the energy balance, material balance and cost benefit analysis usually lack in these studies. It is against this background that this study compared the dynamics of energy and material balance and their effect on the cost of bioethanol production from both cassava roots (without peelings) and non-food parts. A bitter variety and sweet variety were used. Bioethanol was produced from leaves, peelings, stems and roots by Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation followed by a two-step distillation and dehydration using zeolite. On average, the roots required 500 ml of distilled water per 50 g of a sample to produce 39.7 ml of 96% bioethanol, 464.8 ml of waste water and 17.4g of solid waste. The leaves, peelings and stems required 250 ml of D.H20 per 50 g of a sample to produce 80.9 ml of 95.3% bioethanol, 506.3 ml of waste water and 56.5g of solid waste. A negative energy balance and cost benefit ratio greater than one were obtained.

Journal: Acta Chemica Malaysia (ACMY)
Author: Kamruzzaman, Roushown Ali and Tariqul Hasan
ISSN: 2576-6732
e-ISSN: 2576-6724

This is an open access journal distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

DOI: 10.26480/acmy.01.2022.26.30

Substitutent on the mesogen plays a crucial role in determining the shape and mesogenic properties of liquid crystals. In order to evaluate the influence of terminal chloro and nitro substitutions on the structural shape and mesogenic properties, two azobenzene 1-(4-X-phenyl)-2-(4-(hexayloxy)phenyl)diazene (X is Cl or NO₂) liquid crystals have been synthesized by diazotization followed by etherification with hexyl bromide. The structural characterizations of the compound have been performed by spectroscopic methods and studied the mesogenic property by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarizing optical microscope (POM). Rod-shaped liquid crystals and mesophase formation were obtained by the terminal chloro and nitro substituents of the azobenzene. The textures obtained with polarizing optical microscope (POM) analysis showed enantiotropic smectic A (SmA) mesophase for chloro and nematic mesophase for nitro substituted azobenzene. Differential scanning calorimetry confirmed two Cr-SmA and SmA-I phase transitions both on heating and cooling.

Journal: Acta Chemica Malaysia (ACMY)
Author: Abayomi Bamisaye, Catherine Oluyemisi Eromosele, Enock Olugbenga Dare, Sivakumar Manickam, Oluseyi Adeboye Akinloye, Mopelola A. Idowu, Ige A. Raphael
ISSN: 2576-6732
e-ISSN: 2576-6724

This is an open access journal distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

DOI: 10.26480/acmy.01.2022.20.25

The challenges associated with effective drug delivery necessitates the development and adoption of modern approach. This research aims to improve the bio-potency of ofloxacin (OF) against drug resistant strains of microorganism using nanoemulsion. The emulsification was achieved by mechanochemical process. The morphological characterization of emulsion was carried out using Cryogenic-TEM (Cryo-TEM). The electro-kinetic properties and emulsion size was done using Zetasizer and Photon Correlation Photo-spectrometer (PCS). Drug-emulsion interaction study using FTIR. The antimicrobial studies of Ofloxacin (OF), non-drug loaded emulsion (COAB), drug-loaded emulsion (COAB+OF) was carried out on P. aeruginosa and pharmacokinetics were established using HPLC. Cryo-TEM micrograph showed spherical morphology with mean particle size of 166.8 and 177.5 nm for COAB and COAB+OF respectively. While PCS and Zetasizer recorded a mean value of 0.156 and -26.1 mV for COAB and 0.341, and -2.72 mV for COAB+OF respectively. This shows that the colloids are nano-sized, charged and metastable. FTIR results shows O-H absorption at 3570 – 3200 cm^-1, likewise CH₃ and CH₂ at 3050-2895 cm^-1 for OF, COAB and COAB+OF respectively. This suggests encapsulation and wholeness with no drug-excipient interactions. The antimicrobial study shows COAB+OF to me more bio-potent that OF with zone of inhibition value of 12.8±0.3 mm compared to 8.0±0.2 mm in OF at 62.50 mg/ml. HPLC showed a maximum OF concentration (C_max) of 2.27 μg/mL at 150 min which is the drug release maxima. This study showed that encapsulating ofloxacin in castor oil based nanoemulsion system improves its bio-potency.