Toxic heavy metals, such as lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) are widely used in industry and their accumulation in the living tissues may cause serious health problems and ecological hazards. Twenty four moderately halophilic bacteria isolated from saline environments of Iran were used to study their ability to bioremediation of lead and cadmium. Amongst them, a Gram-negative rod shaped bacterium, de...

C-Phycocyanin is a natural blue dye used in food and pharmaceutical industry. In the present study, a simple and efficient method to extract C-phycocyanin from Spirulina platensis wet biomass is reported. The extractions were carried out using six different methods, including chemical (organic and inorganic acid treatment), physical (freezing and thawing, sonication, homogenization) and enzymat...

Biomass is a possible renewable alternative to fossil carbon sources. Today, many bio-resources can be converted to direct substitutes or suitable alternatives to fossil-based fuels and chemicals. However, catalyst deactivation under the harsh, often liquid-phase reaction conditions required for biomass treatment is a major obstacle to developing processes that can compete with the petrochemica...

Pretreatment is considered to be a central unit process in a biorefinery to convert lignocellulosic biomass into fuels and chemicals, affecting all other operations in the process. A variety of technologies to pretreat lignocellulosic biomass are available today, which encompass a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological based processes. Among these, chemical based pretreatments are con...