Antibacterial Activity of Clay Soils against Food-Borne Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus

Natural clays have recently been proven to possess antibacterial properties. Effective natural antimicrobial agents are needed to combat bacterial contamination on food contact surfaces, which are increasingly more prevalent in the food chain. This study sought to determine the antibacterial activity of clays against the food-borne pathogens Salmonella typhimurium ATCC 14028 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 13565. Soils were processed to yield leachates and suspensions from untreated and treated clays. Soil particle size, pH, cation-exchange capacity, metal composition and mineralogy were characterized. Antibacterial screening was performed on six Malaysian soils via the disc diffusion method. In addition, a time-kill assay was conducted on selected antibacterial clays after 6 h of exposure. The screening revealed that Munchong and Carey clays significantly inhibit Salmonella typhimurium (11.00 ± 0.71 mm) and S. aureus (7.63 ± 0.48 mm), respectively. Treated Carey clay leachate and suspension completely kill Salmonella typhimurium, while S. aureus viability is reduced (2 to 3 log₁₀). The untreated Carey and all Munchong clays proved ineffective as antibacterials. XRD analysis confirmed the presence of pyrite and magnetite. Treated Carey clays had a higher soluble metal content compared to Munchong; namely Al (92.63 ± 2.18 mg/L), Fe (65.69 ± 3.09 mg/L) and Mg (88.48 ± 2.29 mg/L). Our results suggest that metal ion toxicity is responsible for the antibacterial activity of these clays.     

表面活性剂对TiO2水悬浮体稳定及流变性质的影响

在陶瓷的制备过程中,通常需将陶瓷粉末分散于水中形成陶瓷浆后再浇铸成型.研究表明[1],陶瓷浆的分散、稳定及流变性质直接影响到成品的性能.因此,研究分散稳定剂对该浆料性质的影响有着重要意义.本文利用电泳和流变学方法研究了TiO2在表面活性剂的水溶液中浓浆体的分散稳定性及流变性质.     

First seconds in a building's life-in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction study of cement hydration on the millisecond timescale

Setting cement: highly dynamic hydration processes that occur during the first seconds of cement hydration were studied by time-resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction. Polycarboxylate ether additives were found to influence the formation of the initial crystalline hydration products on a molecular level.     

稀土掺杂聚苯撑ER流体的研究

选用CeCl4和FeCl3等对自制的对苯撑进行掺杂,将制得的高介电聚苯撑粉末加入到硅油中得到电流变体流体,测量了在电场作用下粘度和漏电流密度,以及相关的物理常数。讨论了电场强度、粒子浓度与粘度和漏电流密度的关系,粘度变化的响应速度和恢复时间,并探讨了其相关机制。     

Effects of the degree of surface modification on the rheological responses of precipitated silica suspensions in benzyl alcohol

Two types of precipitated silica powders modified by poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) were suspended in benzyl alcohol and their rheological properties were investigated as a function of silica volume fraction, φ. The suspensions were classified into sol, pre-gel, and gel states based on the increase in φ. An increase in the degree of surface modification by PDMS caused gelation at higher φ. Plots of apparent shear viscosity against shear rate in the sol and pre-gel states of highly modified silica suspensions showed weak shear thickening behavior, while the same plots for silica suspensions with a low modification level exhibited shear thinning behavior. The dynamic moduli of hydrophobic suspensions in the pre-gel and gel states were dependent on the surface modification: the storage modulus G′ was larger than the loss modulus G″ in the linear region and these moduli increased with increasing φ, irrespective of the silica powder. The linear region of the φ range for the precipitated silica suspensions was wider than that for the fumed silica powders modified by PDMS suspended in benzyl alcohol, while the G′ value in the linear region for the precipitated silica suspensions was less than those for the fumed silica suspensions.     

Corner flow of a suspension of rigid rods

Stress singularities in the neighbourhood of sharp corners can be a source of severe problems in the numerical simulation of non-Newtonian flows leading to loss of convergence with grid refinement (G.G. Lipscombe, R. Kennings and M.M. Denn, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech., 24 (1987) 85 [1]). For Newtonian flows the nature of this singularity is given by the analysis of Dean and Montagnon (W.R. Dean and P.E. Montagnon, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. A., 308 (1949) 199 [2]) in terms of similarity solutions. In this paper we extend this similarity analysis to a suspension of rigid rods. In the limit of nearly full extension the FENE constitutive model has the same behaviour as such a suspension. Our analysis predicts the possibility of lip vortices but their behaviour is somewhat inconsistent with those observed experimentally.     

Field dependence of the response of a magnetorheological suspension under steady shear flow and squeezing flow

A comparison was made of the behaviour of a magnetorheological suspension under steady shear flow and constant velocity squeezing flow. The strain rates and sample dimensions were chosen to be comparable in the two deformation modes, and the dependence of the mechanical properties on the magnetic flux density B was investigated. The measurements found that the mechanical response under squeezing flow scaled as B^0.91, whereas the response under shearing scaled as B^1.4, close to theoretical predictions. This difference of the field dependence between the shearing and squeezing flows was possibly due to the different microstructural rearrangement processes which occur in the two deformation modes.     

纸浆纤维悬浮液物性参数对流动特性的影响

分析了纸浆的物性参数对两相流动模拟的影响,这些物性参数主要包括浆流种类、纤维的尺寸等参数,通过Phoen—ics软件的模拟得出结论,对于同类型的纸浆而言,随着浓度的增大,流体的速度梯度增大,剪切应力增大,径向浓度差增大;对于不同类型的纸浆,木浆的剪切应力大于同样浓度草浆的剪切应力;管道中浓度分布呈中心高,壁面低的单调递减趋势,很不均匀;对于不同类型的纸浆,草浆的径向浓度差小于木浆的径向浓度差．     

α-Fe粉体浓悬浮体系的制备及磁流变效应

报道使用价格低廉的还原铁粉制备磁性粒子浓悬浮体系,对体系磁流变效应进行研究,并研究了磁性颗粒尺寸和氧化物对悬浮体系力学性质及沉降稳定性的影响.     

Crystallization and characterization of crystallites in charge stabilized suspensions

For three different types of polymer latex particles with widely different particle charges the structure of suspensions before and after crystallization is investigated. A liquid-like ordered state was achieved by shear melting crystal-like ordered samples. The structure factors S(Q) of the liquid-like suspensions are analyzed in terms of the resealed mean spherical approximation (RMSA) of Hansen and Hayter. The Bragg diffraction pattern of the crystallized samples shows that the structure is b.c.c. It is found that the particle number concentration n and the distance of nearest neighbours in corresponding liquid- and crystal-like states differ by less than 4 %.

In the second part of the paper, Bragg diffraction was used to determine the crystallite size distribution in samples of different particle concentration.