Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania, is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula TiO
2. When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or CI 77891. It is a white solid that is insoluble in water, although mineral forms can appear black. As a pigment, it has a wide range of applications, including paint, sunscreen, and food coloring. When used as a food coloring, it has E number E171. World production in 2014 exceeded 9 million tonnes. It has been estimated that titanium dioxide is used in two-thirds of all pigments, and pigments based on the oxide have been valued at a price of $13.2 billion.
Staining is a technique used to enhance contrast in samples, generally at the microscopic level. Stains and dyes are frequently used in histology, in cytology, and in the medical fields of histopathology, hematology, and cytopathology that focus on the study and diagnoses of diseases at the microscopic level. Stains may be used to define biological tissues, cell populations, or organelles within individual cells.
Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system, living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluents etc., in natural or artificial settings. The natural ability of organisms to adsorb, accumulate, and degrade common and emerging pollutants has attracted the use of biological resources in treatment of contaminated environment. In comparison to conventional physicochemical treatment methods bioremediation may offer considerable advantages as it aims to be sustainable, eco-friendly, cheap, and scalable. Most bioremediation is inadvertent, involving native organisms. Research on bioremediation is heavily focused on stimulating the process by inoculation of a polluted site with organisms or supplying nutrients to promote the growth. In principle, bioremediation could be used to reduce the impact of byproducts created from anthropogenic activities, such as industrialization and agricultural processes. Bioremediation could prove less expensive and more sustainable than other remediation alternatives.
Casuarina equisetifolia, commonly known as coastal she-oak, horsetail she-oak, beach sheoak, beach casuarina or whistling tree is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is native to Australia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia and India. It is a small to medium-sized, monoecious tree with scaly or furrowed bark on older specimens, drooping branchlets, the leaves reduced to scales in whorls of 7 or 8, the fruit 10–24 mm (0.39–0.94 in) long containing winged seeds (samaras) 6–8 mm (0.24–0.31 in) long.
Biological augmentation is the addition of archaea or bacterial cultures required to speed up the rate of degradation of a contaminant. Organisms that originate from contaminated areas may already be able to break down waste, but perhaps inefficiently and slowly.
Crystal violet or gentian violet, also known as methyl violet 10B or hexamethyl pararosaniline chloride, is a triarylmethane dye used as a histological stain and in Gram's method of classifying bacteria. Crystal violet has antibacterial, antifungal, and anthelmintic (vermicide) properties and was formerly important as a topical antiseptic. The medical use of the dye has been largely superseded by more modern drugs, although it is still listed by the World Health Organization.
In chemistry, photocatalysis is the acceleration of a photoreaction in the presence of a photocatalyst, the excited state of which "repeatedly interacts with the reaction partners forming reaction intermediates and regenerates itself after each cycle of such interactions." In many cases, the catalyst is a solid that upon irradiation with UV- or visible light generates electron–hole pairs that generate free radicals. Photocatalysts belong to three main groups; heterogeneous, homogeneous, and plasmonic antenna-reactor catalysts. The use of each catalysts depends on the preferred application and required catalysis reaction.
Mycoremediation is a form of bioremediation in which fungi-based remediation methods are used to decontaminate the environment. Fungi have been proven to be a cheap, effective and environmentally sound way for removing a wide array of contaminants from damaged environments or wastewater. These contaminants include heavy metals, organic pollutants, textile dyes, leather tanning chemicals and wastewater, petroleum fuels, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, pesticides and herbicides in land, fresh water, and marine environments.
Cometabolism is defined as the simultaneous degradation of two compounds, in which the degradation of the second compound depends on the presence of the first compound. This is in contrast to simultaneous catabolism, where each substrate is catabolized concomitantly by different enzymes. Cometabolism occurs when an enzyme produced by an organism to catalyze the degradation of its growth-substrate to derive energy and carbon from it is also capable of degrading additional compounds. The fortuitous degradation of these additional compounds does not support the growth of the bacteria, and some of these compounds can even be toxic in certain concentrations to the bacteria.
Sulfacetamide is a sulfonamide antibiotic.
Phospholipid-derived fatty acids (PLFAs) are widely used in microbial ecology as chemotaxonomic markers of bacteria and other organisms. Phospholipids are the primary lipids composing cellular membranes. Phospholipids can be saponified, which releases the fatty acids contained in their diglyceride tail. Once the phospholipids of an unknown sample are saponified, the composition of the resulting PLFA can be compared to the PLFA of known organisms to determine the identity of the sample organism. PLFA analysis may be combined with other techniques, such as stable isotope probing to determine which microbes are metabolically active in a sample. PLFA analysis was pioneered by D.C. White at the University of Tennessee, in the early to mid 1980s.
Diethyl phthalate (DEP) is a phthalate ester. It occurs as a colourless liquid without significant odour but has a bitter, disagreeable taste. It is more dense than water and insoluble in water; hence, it sinks in water.
Calliandra haematocephala is a species of flowering plants of the genus Calliandra in the family Fabaceae.
Biodegradable additives are additives that enhance the biodegradation of polymers by allowing microorganisms to utilize the carbon within the polymer chain as a source of energy. Biodegradable additives attract microorganisms to the polymer through quorum sensing after biofilm creation on the plastic product. Additives are generally in masterbatch formation that use carrier resins such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
The plastisphere consists of ecosystems that have evolved to live in human-made plastic environments. All plastic accumulated in marine ecosystems serves as a habitat for various types of microorganisms, with the most notable contaminant being microplastics. There are an estimate of about 51 trillion microplastics floating in the oceans. Relating to the plastisphere, over 1,000 different species of microbes are able to inhabit just one of these 5mm pieces of plastic.
Photocatalyst activity indicator ink (paii) is a substance used to identify the presence of an underlying heterogeneous photocatalyst and to measure its activity. Such inks render visible the activity of photocatalytic coatings applied to various "self-cleaning" products. The inks contain a dyestuff that reacts to ultraviolet radiation in the presence of the photocatalytic agent in the coating. They are applied to the coated product and show a color change or disappearance when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. The use of a paii based on the dye resazurin forms the basis of an ISO standard test for photocatalytic activity.
Industrial dye degradation is any of a number of processed by which dyes are broken down, ideally into innocuous products. Many dyes, specifically in the textile industry such as methylene blue or methyl red, are released into ecosystems through water waste. Many of these dyes can be carcinogenic. In paper recycling dyes can be removed from fibres during a deinking stage prior to degradation.
Gordonia sp. nov. Q8 is a bacterium in the phylum of Actinomycetota. It was discovered in 2017 as one of eighteen new species isolated from the Jiangsu Wei5 oilfield in East China with the potential for bioremediation. Strain Q8 is rod-shaped and gram-positive with dimensions 1.0–4.0 μm × 0.5–1.2 μm and an optimal growth temperature of 40 °C. Phylogenetically, it is most closely related to Gordonia paraffinivorans and Gordonia alkaliphila, both of which are known bioremediators. Q8 was assigned as a novel species based on a <70% ratio of DNA homology with other Gordonia bacteria.
Electro-oxidation(EO or EOx), also known as anodic oxidation or electrochemical oxidation (EC), is a technique used for wastewater treatment, mainly for industrial effluents, and is a type of advanced oxidation process (AOP). The most general layout comprises two electrodes, operating as anode and cathode, connected to a power source. When an energy input and sufficient supporting electrolyte are provided to the system, strong oxidizing species are formed, which interact with the contaminants and degrade them. The refractory compounds are thus converted into reaction intermediates and, ultimately, into water and CO2 by complete mineralization.
Hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria are a heterogeneous group of prokaryotes which can degrade and utilize hydrocarbon compounds as source of carbon and energy. Despite being present in most of environments around the world, several of these specialized bacteria live in the sea and have been isolated from polluted seawater.
