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  • PublicationJournal Article
    Cancer and bacterial diseases have been the most incidental diseases to date. According to the World Health Report 2018, at least every family is affected by cancer around the world. In 2012, 14.1 million people were affected by cancer, and that figure is bound to increase to 21.6 million in 2030. Medicine therefore sorts out ways of treatment using conventional methods which have been proven to have many side effects. Researchers developed photothermal and photodynamic methods to treat both cancer and bacterial diseases. These methods pose fewer effects on the biological systems but still no perfect method has been synthesized. The review serves to explore porphyrin and gold nanorods to be used in the treatment of cancer and bacterial diseases: porphyrins as photosensitizers and gold nanorods as delivery agents. In addition, the review delves into ways of incorporating photothermal and photodynamic therapy aimed at producing a less toxic, more efficacious, and specific compound for the treatment.
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  • PublicationJournal Article
    In this study, composite materials from agricultural biomass and polypropylene (PP) thermoplastic were produced by melt compounding using a melt mixer. The chemical interaction of sugarcane bagasse (SCB)-PP and soft wood (SW)-PP composites and corresponding cellulose were verified by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The cellulose composites were more crystalline than PP, trailed by PP/SCB and PP/SW composites. It was found that among composite materials, PP/SCB were least thermally stable compared to PP/SW. The addition of extracted cellulose decreased the thermal stability of PP/SCB composites at higher filler content due to poor interfacial bonding as compared to PP/SW composites. SEM results confirmed a rough morphology and the presence of many voids resulting from fibre pull-out in composites, especially for the ones with higher fibre content. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) of both PP/SCB and PP/SW composites indicated improvement in the storage modulus compared with neat PP.
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