Antiviral Properties of Pennisetum purpureum Extract against Coronaviruses and Enteroviruses.

Many severe epidemics are caused by enteroviruses (EVs) and coronaviruses (CoVs), including feline coronavirus (FCoV) in cats, epidemic diarrhea disease virus (PEDV) in pigs, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in chickens, and EV71 in human. Vaccines and antiviral drugs are used to prevent and treat the infection of EVs and CoVs, but the effectiveness is affected due to rapidly changing RNA viruses. Many plant extracts have been proven to have antiviral properties despite the continuous mutations of viruses. Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) has high phenolic content and has been used as healthy food materials, livestock feed, biofuels, and more. This study tested the antiviral properties of P. purpureum extract against FCoV, PEDV, IBV, and EV71 by in vitro cytotoxicity assay, TCID50 virus infection assay, and chicken embryo infection assay. The findings showed that P. purpureum extract has the potential of being disinfectant to limit the spread of CoVs and EVs because the extract can inhibit the infection of EV71, FCoV, and PEDV in cells, and significantly reduce the severity of symptoms caused by IBV in chicken embryos.

Adsorption behavior of pesticide methomyl on activated carbon in a high gravity rotating packed bed reactor.

High gravity rotating packed bed (HGRPB) reactor possesses the property of high mass transfer rate, which is expected to promote the adsorption rate for the process. In this study, HGRPB has been applied on adsorption removal of methomyl from solution, adopting the adsorbent of activated carbon F400. The influence of operating parameters of HGRPB on mass transfer such as the rotating speed (N(R)), the flow rate of solution (F(L)) and initial concentration of methomyl (C(b0)) were examined. The traditionally internal mass transfer models combined with Freundlich isotherm were used to predict the surface and effective diffusion coefficients. In addition, the results have also been compared with those obtained from the traditional basket stirred batch reactor (BBR). The results showed that the larger values of N(R) and F(L) enhanced the effective intraparticle diffusion and provided more accessible adsorption sites so as to result in lower equilibrium concentration in HGRPB system when compared to SBR system. The results of adsorption kinetics demonstrated that surface and effective diffusions were both significantly greater in HGRPB system instead of BBR system. Furthermore, the values of Bi(S) also manifested less internal mass transfer resistance in HGRPB system. The contribution ratio (R(F)) of the surface to pore diffusion mass transport showed that the larger contribution resulted from the surface diffusion in HGRPB system. Therefore, the results reasonably led to the conclusion that when the HGRPB system applied on the adsorption of methomyl on F400, the lower equilibrium concentration and faster internal mass transfer can be obtained so as to highly possess great potential to match the gradually stricter environmental standard.

Adsorptive removal of the pesticide methomyl using hypercrosslinked polymers.

The hypercrosslinked polymers Macronet MN-150 and MN-500 (denoted as MN-150 and MN-500) were investigated to remove the pesticide methomyl from aqueous solutions via adsorption. Furthermore, the effect of humid acid (used as background organic compound) on the adsorption capacity of methomyl for MN-150 was examined. The equilibria and kinetics of the adsorption of methomyl onto MN-150 and MN-500 can be well correlated with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, and conventional kinetic models (e.g., surface and pore diffusion models), respectively. The polymer MN-150 possesses a high potential to be applied as adsorbent for the removal of methomyl from aqueous solution when compared with MN-500. Furthermore, the competitive effect of humic acid on adsorption of methomyl on MN-150 can be ignored at low equilibrium concentrations. The transport of methomyl from solution into the polymer adsorbents is controlled by both, external and internal mass transfer mechanisms with film-surface diffusion model offering the better description. The surface mobility and flux of surface diffusion increase as the initial concentration increases.