Abdurahman H. Nour

Review on the Fundamental Aspects of Petroleum Oil Emulsions and Techniques of Demulsification

This review is aimed to introduce a comprehensive survey on the most prominent and sustainable techniques and methods that could abate the environmental worries as well as financial insecurities in treating petroleum emulsions, since the existence of water is not desired because of the paramount troubles it may cause on the processing streamlines, as well as financial cost associated with transporting water mixed with petroleum. Currently, the most commonly used method for treating petroleum emulsion is the application of chemical additives, known as demulsifiers. Althogh, there are many other methods that are claimed to be more favorable from economic and environmental perspectives, yet, have not being fully put into real life practice, because of the drawbacks and disadvantages. In this review, several techniques have been surveyed including, chemical, electrical, membrane, centrifuge, bacteria, air floatation, ultrasonic, and microwave. Based on this Theoretical survey, silcone based demulsifiers were reported to be very effective and environmental friendly, but expensive. Also microwave and ultrasonics were reported to be very effective in treating petroleum emulsion and could be recommended as future ulternatives for treating petroleum emulsions.

A Comparative Study of Lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus) Essential Oil Extracted by Microwave-Assisted Hydrodistillation (MAHD) and Conventional Hydrodistillation (HD) Method

The demand of essential oil in current industry has increased due to its bioactive compound that shows various therapeutic effects. Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MAHD) is an advanced hydrodistillation (HD) technique, in which a microwave oven is used as the heating source. MAHD extraction of essential oil from Lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus) was studied. The effect of different parameters, such as water to plant material ratio (6:1, 8:1,10:1), microwave power (200 W,250W) and extraction time (30min,60min, 90min,120min) on the extraction yield and its major constituents were investigated and the results were compared with those of conventional HD. These essential oils were further analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometric (GC-MS) to evaluate the effect of extraction method on the content of its main constituents which were neral, geranial and myrcene and some minor compounds such as linalool, geranic acid and citronellol. The optimum parameters were found at water to plant material ratio of 8:1, microwave power of 250W and 90 minutes of extraction and the yield obtained under this condition was 1.46%. GC-MS analysis has proved that the use of microwave irradiation did not adversely influence the composition of essential oils as the main constituents found through both methods were almost similar in term of quality and quantity. The results obtained indicate that MAHD method provided a good alternative for the extraction of essential oil from Lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus). I. INTRODUCTION Essential oils are botanical extracts of various plant materials, and do not only originate from flowers, but from herbs, trees and various other plant material. It is estimated that the global number of plants is of the order of 300,000 and about 10% of these contains essential oils and could be used as a source for their production (1).Their extracts are formed by combination of diverse and complex volatile mixtures of chemical compounds, with predominance of terpene associated to aldehydes, alcohols, and ketones which were accumulated in various structure of the plant (2). In industry, the essential oils are typically extracted from fresh or partially dried leaves using various method of extraction and the most common will be hydrodistillation. The use of medicinal plants extracts is part of a competitive market, which includes pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, and perfumery markets, mainly to use their active substance. The Asian continent with its diversity of climates appears to be the most vital producer of essential oils. China and India play a major role followed by Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam

Fatty Acid Composition and Antibacterial Activity of Neem (Azadirachta indica) Seed Oil

Pneumonia and skin diseases are some types of severe infections occur worldwide due to pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). These bacterias do contribute towards other infections in human and thus lead towards unhealthy life. The aim of this study was to determine the fatty acid composition and to investigate the toxic effect of seed oil of Neem, genus Azadirachta of Azadirachta indica (Family: Meliaceae) against two multi-drug resistant bacteria, namely; E. coli and S. aureus. The oil was extracted for 6 h through soxhlet method using hexane as solvent. The fatty acid composition was analyzed via Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The composition resulted in detection of 8 fatty acids, whereby the dominant compound is linoleic acid of 34.69% and followed by oleic-, stearic-, palmitic-, arachidic-, behenic-, lignoceric-, and palmiticoleic acid at the percentage of 20.46, 20.42, 18.66, 3.59, 0.80, 0.55, and 0.17%, respectively. The bioassays were conducted through in vitro activity via disc diffusion method with five (5, 20, 50, 80, and 100 mg/mL) different concentrations. Streptomycin and 1% Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were used as positive and negative controls respectively. The bioassay provided inhibition zone that lies between 8.7 to 11.7 mm and 8.7 to 13.0 mm for E. coli and S. aureus respectively at the concentration of 5 to 100 mg/mL. The antibacterial activity of Neem (A indica) seed oil against these bacteria depends on the correlation of its concentration and thus isolation of bioactive components should be conducted.

Production of Biogas and Performance Evaluation of Ultrasonic Membrane Anaerobic System (UMAS) for Palm Oil Mill Effluent Treatment (POME)

This study proposes a new approach for integrated technology of ultrasonic and membrane for a palm oil mill effluent treatment.This study evaluated the performance of the new design of ultrasonic membrane anaerobic system (UMAS) when a palm oil mill effluent (POME)introduces this approach. To fit kinetic study, six steady states were investigated and the results have shown that the mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSSs) range from 10,400 to 17,350 mg/l while the mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSSs) range from 13,800 to 22,600 mg/l. Three kinetic models of Monod, Contois, and Chen and Hashimoto were used to evaluate the integrated system at organic loading rates ranging from 1 to 15 kg COD/m/day. The percentage efficiency of COD removal was from 92.8 to 98.3%, and hydraulic retention time (HRT) was from 500.8 to 8.6 days. The influent COD concentrations of the POME ranged from 70,400 to 90,200 mg/l.The integrated technology of UMAS is a more attractive one as it avoids membrane fouling problems.