Owing to its unique surface-active properties, an exogenous pulmonary surfactant may become a promising drug delivery agent, in particular, acting as a vehicle for antibiotics in topical treatment of pneumonia. The purpose of this study was to assess a mutual influence of natural surfactant preparation and three antibiotics (amikacin, cefepime, and colistimethate sodium) in vitro and to identif...

Reflectance spectra of carbonate minerals in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) wavelength regions contain a number of diagnostic absorption features. The shape of these features depends on various physical and chemical parameters. To accurately identify carbonate minerals or rocks in pure and mixed form, it is necessary to analyze the effects of the parameters on spectral...

Application of surfactants to increase the mobility of hydrophobic contaminants in soils will create a secondary aqueous waste stream containing mobilized contaminant and surfactant that may be biodegraded. Previous research on surfactant biodegradation focused on low surfactant concentrations, typically less than 0.01 % (weightlweight). The goal of this project was to investigate the effect of...

wetability of biocompatible polymers can be improved by plasma surface modification. the purpose of this study was to surface modify an experimental poly (dimethylsiloxane) rubber (pdms) material in order to improve its wetability and biocompatibility. surface properties of the pdms were characterized using contact angles measurement for wetability analysis. samples of experimental silicone rub...

Abstract—Surface characteristics of Bacillus megaterium strain were investigated; zeta potential, FTIR and contact angle were measured. Surface energy components including Lifshitz-van der Waals, Hamaker constant, and acid/base components (Lewis acid/Lewis base) were calculated from the contact angle data. The results showed that the microbial cells were negatively charged over all pH regions w...

Principal component regression (PCR) was used to develop calibration and prediction models for determination of mineral content of complex mineral mixtures by utilizing attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectra. The typical constituents of oil shale such as dawsonite, nahcolite, quartz, dolomite, illite, albite, analcime, and kerogen were used to prepare samples...

The paper reports on a current research on fluidised bed gasification of biomass and coals. The focus is on the bed material agglomeration and fragmentation phenomena that are well known to affect the reliability and the efficiency of fluidized bed combustion processes. Preliminary results of dedicated tests at high temperature are reported and discussed in the paper. On the whole, agglomeratio...

Terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy probes the optical properties of naturally occurring solid aggregates of minerals, or stones, in the THz frequency range. Refractive index and extinction coefficient measurement reveals that most natural stones, including mudstone, sandstone, granite, tuff, gneiss, diorite, slate, marble, and dolomite, are fairly transparent for THz frequency waves. Dolo...

      Wetability of biocompatible polymers can be improved by plasma surface modification. The purpose of this study was to surface modify an experimental poly (dimethylsiloxane) rubber (PDMS) material in order to improve its wetability and biocompatibility. Surface properties of the PDMS were characterized using contact angles measurement for wetability analysis. Samples of experimental silico...