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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Comparative study of flocculation and adsorption behaviour of water treatment proteins from Moringa peregrina and Moringa oleifera seeds
- 2019
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Trees of Moringa oleifera are the most widely exploited species of Moringa and proteins extracted from its seeds have been identified as the most efficient natural coagulant for water purification. Largely for climatic reasons, other Moringa species are more accessible in some regions and this paper presents a comparative study of the adsorption to different materials of the proteins extracted from seeds of Moringa peregrina and Moringa oleifera to explore their use as flocculating agents in regions where each is more readily accessible. Results showed that Moringa peregrina seed proteins had higher adsorption to alumina compared to silica, in contrast to opposite behavior for Moringa oleifera. Both species provide cationic proteins that can act as effective coagulants for the various impurities with different surface potential. Despite the considerable similarity of the amino acid composition, the seed proteins have significantly different adsorption and this presents the opportunity to improve processes by choosing the optimal species or combination of species depending on the type of impurity or possible development of separation processes.
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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Distortion of surfactant lamellar phases induced by surface roughness
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Self-assembly is a characteristic property of soft matter and understanding the factors which assist or perturb this process is of a great importance in many biological and industrial processes. Amphiphiles self-assemble and order into a variety of structures including well-ordered lamellar phases. The present work uses neutron reflectometry to explore the effects of both interface roughness and temperature on the lamellar-phase structure of a non-ionic surfactant at a solid/liquid interface. The structure of concentrated solutions of tetraethyleneglycol dodecyl ether has been compared against a smooth surface and one with a roughness of the order of the lamellar spacing. The results showed that the surfactant forms a well-order and aligned structure at smooth surface that extends to a depth of micrometers from the interface. Increasing the temperature of the sample and subsequent cooling helped the alignment and increased the number of oriented layers at the surface. The same sample formed a significantly less aligned structure at a rough surface that did not align to same extent after heating. The perturbation of the structure caused by thermal fluctuations was found to be much less than that imposed by a small surface roughness. Keywords
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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Distortion of surfactant lamellar phases induced by surface roughness star
- 2020
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Ingår i: The European Physical Journal Special Topics. - : SPRINGER HEIDELBERG. - 1951-6355 .- 1951-6401. ; 229:17-18, s. 2807-2823
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Self-assembly is a characteristic property of soft matter. Understanding the factors which assist or perturb this process is of great importance in many biological and industrial processes. Amphiphiles self-assemble and order into a variety of structures including well-ordered lamellar phases. The present work uses neutron reflectometry and neutron scattering to explore the effects of both interface roughness and temperature on the lamellar-phase structure of a non-ionic surfactant at a solid/liquid interface. The structure of concentrated solutions of tetraethyleneglycol dodecyl ether has been compared against a smooth surface and one with a roughness of the order of the lamellar spacing. This has been done in order to investigate the role perturbations have on the overall lamellar order, when these have length scales of the order of the interactions between neighboring lamellae. The results showed that the surfactant forms a well-ordered and aligned structure at a smooth surface, extending to a depth of several micrometers from the interface. Increasing the temperature of the sample and subsequent cooling promotes alignment and increases the number of oriented layers at the surface. The same sample forms a significantly less aligned structure against a rough surface that does not align to the same extent, even after heating. The perturbation of the structure caused by thermal fluctuations was found to be much less than that imposed by a small surface roughness.
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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Grazing-Incidence Small Angle Neutron Scattering from Structures below an Interface
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of applied crystallography. - 0021-8898 .- 1600-5767. ; 50:4, s. 1066-1074
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Changes of scattering are observed as the grazing angle of incidence of an incoming beam increases and probes different depths in samples. A model has been developed to describe the observed intensity in grazing incidence small angle neutron scattering (GISANS) experiments. This includes the significant effects of instrument resolution, the sample transmission, which depends on both absorption and scattering, as well as the sample structure. The calculations are tested with self-organised structures of two colloidal samples with different size particles that were measured on two different instruments. The model allows calculations for various instruments with defined resolution and can be used to design future improved experiments. The possibilities and limits of GISANS for different studies are discussed using the model calculations.
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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Interactions of perfluoroalkyl substances with a phospholipid bilayer studied by neutron reflectometry
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. - : Elsevier. - 0021-9797 .- 1095-7103. ; 511, s. 474-481
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The interactions between perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and a phospholipid bilayer (1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine) were investigated at the molecular level using neutron reflectometry. Representative PFASs with different chain length and functional groups were selected in this study including: perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS), perfluorohexanoate (PFHxA), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), perfluorononanoate (PFNA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), and perfluorooctane sulfonamide (FOSA). All PFASs were found to interact with the bilayer by incorporation, indicating PFAS ability to accumulate once ingested or taken up by organisms. The interactions were observed to increase with chain length and vary with the functional group as SO2NH2" role="presentation">(FOSA) > SO2O−" role="presentation">(PFOS) > COO−(PFNA). The PFAS hydrophobicity, which is strongly correlated with perfluorocarbon chain length, was found to strongly influence the interactions. Longer chain PFASs showed higher tendency to penetrate into the bilayer compared to the short-chain compounds. The incorporated PFASs could for all substances but one (PFNA) be removed from the lipid membrane by gentle rinsing with water (2 mL min−1). Although short-chain PFASs have been suggested to be the potentially less bioaccumulative alternative, we found that in high enough concentrations they can also disturb the bilayer. The roughness and disorder of the bilayer was observed to increase as the concentration of PFASs increased (in particular for the high concentrations of short-chain substances i.e. PFHxA and PFBS), which can be an indication of aggregation of PFASs in the bilayer.
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- Nouhi, Shirin, et al.
(författare)
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Sticking particles to solid surfaces using Moringa oleifera proteins as a glue
- 2018
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Ingår i: Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-7765 .- 1873-4367. ; 168, s. 68-75
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Experimental studies have been made to test the idea that seed proteins from Moringa oleifera which are novel, natural flocculating agents for many particles could be used to promote adhesion at planar interfaces and hence provide routes to useful nanostructures. The proteins bind irreversibly to silica interfaces. Surfaces that had been exposed to protein solutions and rinsed were then exposed to dispersions of sulfonated polystyrene latex. Atomic force microscopy was used to count particle density and identified that the sticking probability was close to 1. Measurements with a quartz crystal microbalance confirmed the adhesion and indicated that repeated exposures to solutions of Moringa seed protein and particles increased the coverage. Neutron reflectivity and scattering experiments indicate that particles bind as a monolayer. The various results show that the 2S albumin seed protein can be used to fix particles at interfaces and suggest routes for future developments in making active filters or improved interfaces for photonic devices.
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- Nouhi, Shirin, 1987-
(författare)
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Structure formation at solid/liquid interfaces : Understanding self-assembly and environmental challenges
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The work described in the present dissertation has explored the structure of particles and molecules at solid/liquid interfaces, aiming to understand the physics of self-organizing systems and use this knowledge to address some environmental issues. Surface-sensitive neutron scattering techniques, such as reflectometry and grazing incidence small angle scattering, have been used as the primary tool to investigate structures in proximity to an interface. Some of the challenges in the interpretation of neutron scattering data are discussed, and new methods for analyzing the signal have been proposed.It was shown that charged stabilized colloidal particles can self-assemble and form large areas (20 cm2) of crystalline structures, close to a smooth solid surface extending to depths of several micrometers, while orienting themselves into smaller crystallites in the bulk of the suspension. The adsorption of proteins from the seeds of different species of Moringa trees on alumina, silica and polystyrene surfaces was studied, as a means for using proteins from different sources and with different properties, for the water clarification step in the purification process. The seed proteins also showed to enable locking the structure of colloidal particles at the solid/liquid interface, acting as a molecular glue.Perfluorinated surfactants (PFASs), widely used in industrial, pharmaceutical and food packing products, have been identified as emerging pollutants, raising a global concern for the environment and wildlife. The present study has shown how PFASs molecules of different fluorocarbon chain length and with different functional groups, create defects in model membranes by partitioning and removing phospholipids from the bilayer, making the bilayer thin and less dense.The effect of interface roughness was studied on the lamellar structure of a non-ionic surfactant. Concentrated solutions of the surfactant have been shown to form well-ordered and well-aligned structures at a smooth interface, which could be modified further by simply heating the sample. However it was found that even small roughness, of the same order as the bilayer thickness, can distort the structure to a depth of several micrometers from the interface. Heating the sample could improve the alignment but not as much as that formed at a smooth surface.
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