Experimental investigation of mechanical properties and multi-objective optimization of electronic, glass, and ceramic waste-mixed concrete.

The utilization of waste from various sources plays an important role in minimizing environmental pollution and civil construction costs. In this research, the mechanical properties of concrete were studied by mixing electronic waste (EW), glass powder (GW), and ceramic tile waste (CW). The effects of weight percentages of EW, GW, and CW are considered to investigate improvements in mechanical properties such as compressive strength (CS), split tensile strength (STS), and flexural strength (FS) of concrete. Taguchi analysis has been applied to predict the optimum composition of waste mixing percentages. The Multi-Objective Optimization Ratio Analysis (MOORA) techniques are applied to estimate the optimum composition of mixing wastes for maximizing the CS, STS, and FS of concrete. It was observed that 10 wt.% of EW, 15 wt.% of GW, and 30 wt.% of CW are predicted as the optimal mixing combinations to obtain a maximum compressive strength of 48.763 MPa, a split tensile strength of 4.178 MPa, and a flexural strength of 7.737 MPa, respectively. Finally, the predicted optimum waste-mixed weight percentages were used to examine the microstructure and various elements in the concrete using SEM and XRD analysis. When compared to conventional concrete, the optimum waste-mixed concrete has improved its compressive strength (38.453%), split tensile strength (41.149%), and flexural strength (36.215%).

Synthesis of different metallochlorophyllins and quantification in food samples by reversed phase - high performance liquid chromatography.

The complex formation between metals (Ni, Co, Zn, Fe, Pb, Sn and Ag) and natural chlorophyll extracted from green leaves was monitored in the present study. The respective metallochlorophyllin was prepared by the reaction of metal chloride or nitrate (1M) to chlorophyll extracted from Ficus leaves extract. All synthesized metallochlorophyllins were stable and Na-Cu-chlorohyllin (E141) which is permitted to add in food and are listed in European Directive 94/36/EC on food colouring materials, was identified in commercially available food commodities (candies). In this study different synthesized metallochlorophyllins were characterised by using UV-Vis, FT-IR, HPLC, AAS and HR-MS techniques. Many food commodities (i.e. candy, chips, drink, and cream biscuits) were monitored for metallochlorophyllins and Na-Cu-Chlorophyllin was detected only in real candy samples.

Determination of synthetic and natural colorants in selected green colored foodstuffs through reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography.

The current study performed simultaneous identification of semisynthetic chlorophyllin (Cu-Chl) and synthetic food colorants in food matrices. The quantitative assessment of these synthetic and semisynthetic colorants was determined by using analytical method based on reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) equipped with UV-visible detection. The concentration of Cu-Chl in hard candy was 3.334 mg/kg and 4.489 mg/kg in the soft candy, while contents of other colorants i.e. Tartrazine and Brilliant Blue were within 4.74-140.284 mg/kg. The extraction of Cu-Chl and synthetic colorants from different food matrixes was performed with a recovery range of 90-97% and RSD of 1-9%. Overall, the current developed RP-HPLC method could detect both green coloured synthetic and semisynthetic food colorants by a single run and could be used for monitoring different colorants in other complex matrices. This is the first report in India to determine Cu-Chl in foodstuffs and beverages by using RP-HPLC with UV-vis detector.