Ghasem Najafpour

Babol Noshirvani University of Technology | NIT · Department of Chemical Engineering

This study optimized the extraction conditions to maximize the recovery yields of quercetin and total flavonoids from red onion skin waste using sequential microwave/ultrasound-assisted extraction. Five effective factors of quercetin extraction yield were investigated using response surface methodology. The method was successfully performed under o...

In this research, we examined the production of hyaluronic acid (HA) by Streptococcus zooepidemicus strain MW26985 using different substrates and potato peel waste (PPW) as an affordable substrate. First, culture medium components, including carbon and nitrogen sources, were optimized for bacterial HA production. Five different carbon sources (gluc...

Trigonella foenum-graecum, known as fenugreek, belongs to the leguminous family of wild growth in Western Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean, and Asia; its ripe seeds contain a pool of bioactive substances with great potential in the food industry and medicine. In this study, fenugreek seed mucilage (FSM) was extracted and characterized in its structu...

Antibiotic overuse and environmental disregard result in water supply contamination, causing antibiotic resistance. Given the global health concern, developing a sensitive, simple, and low-cost antibiotic sensor is critical. In this study, graphene oxide was incorporated with MnFe2O4 to modify the carbon paste electrode (CPE) as a new electrochemic...

The precise detection of lysozyme plays a crucial role in early diagnosis of kidney failure in leukemia patients. Herein, we designed an electrochemical aptasensor to detect lysozyme using a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets decorated with chitosan (Ch) and gold nanoparticles (Au). In the next steps...

A novel and first electrochemical biosensor based on Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a biological component to measure an antimigraine drug, rizatriptan benzoate (RZB) for patients under treatment in biological samples was developed. A carbon paste electrode (CPE) was modified by calf thymus (CT) double-stranded (ds)-DNA, nickel ferrite magnetic nan...

The use of low-cost carbon substrates such as agricultural residues can drastically lower the cost of biosurfactant production. In this study, rice bran oil extracted from agricultural waste was used as a renewable carbon source for biosurfactant production using Pseudomonas aeruginosa PTCC 1340. The biosurfactant was characterized as a glycolipid...

This study investigates the fabrication of edible coating based on Plantago ovata seed mucilage (POSM). The films were prepared from POSM (1 %, w/v), glycerol (75 %, based on POSM mass), and xanthan gum (XG: 20, 30 and 40 %, based on POSM mass) by a casting method, and their physicochemical, mechanical, thermal, morphological, and barrier propertie...

A myriad of therapeutic agents and drug delivery systems are available to the surgeons for treating orthopedic implant-associated infections (OIAI), but only very few have demonstrated their effectiveness in preventing bacteria colonization and biofilm formation due to challenges in the local and sustainable therapeutic release. To address this iss...

Ginger is one of the commonly used spices that has been exhibited to have pharmaceutical activities. These therapeutic properties are mainly attribute to gingerols and shogaols. In this study, the bioactive compounds of ginger rhizome were extracted. Silica gel column chromatography was employed to isolate gingerol. Gingerol obtained with acceptabl...

Recently, the use of biosurfactants has been suggested for oil spill clean-up from seawater, but the major challenge in biosurfactant production is the high cost of large-scale production. The lack of appropriate criteria to scale-up properly for biosurfactants production has led to the failure of commercial production. This research focuses on str...

The antioxidant activity of parsley extract obtained by ultrasonic-assisted extraction method was evaluated using DPPH radical scavenging method. A high content of total polyphenols (50.82±1.8mg gallic acid equivalent) GAE(/g dried parsley powder), total flavonoids (42.6±1.2 mg quercetin/g dried parsley powder), apigenin (9.48±0.11 mg/g dried parsl...

A novel hyper-branched alumoxane with dendritic structure (Alu-Den) was prepared via a polycondensation reaction between hydroxyl groups of boehmite and carboxylic groups of gallic acid for use as an adsorbent for elimination of cationic Methylene blue from aqueous media. The successful formation of tree-like structure of Alu-Den was confirmed by s...

Alkaline proteases are widely used in industrial processes due to their high pH tolerance and thermal stability. In present work, the protease producing ability of Bacillus strains (Bacillus subtilis PTCC 1254, B. subtilis PTCC 1156 and B. subtilis PTCC 1715) was studied. B. subtilis PTCC 1254 showed the highest proteolytic activity and therefore,...

Quince seed mucilage has been traditionally used as a cough remedy, but little has been reported about its extraction and biological activities. This study investigated the extraction of mucilage from quince seed through various methods. Single-step aqueous maceration, ultrasonic pretreatment followed by aqueous maceration, and microwave pretreatme...

In this work, a novel, sensitive, and rapid electrochemical biosensor was employed to detect lysozyme (Lys) using a double receptor of molecular imprinted polymer (MIP)-aptamer. First, a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified with a nanocomposite consisting of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs), an...

Present study focused on improvement of the formulation of conventional hard gelatin capsules using gastric acid-resistant polymers. We have utilized the same approach of making conventional drug capsules to develop novel capsules with delayed release properties. For this purpose, delayed-release capsules were produced by improving the formulation...

The long process time and low product quality are major challenges in the composting process. To overcome the above challenges, the effects of produced biosurfactants on composting were investigated as a biological model. Pseudomonas aeruginosa IBRC-M 11180 inoculum and its supernatant were used as in-situ and ex-situ treatments in the composting p...

The spread of antibiotic resistant genes has become a serious global concern. Thus, the development of efficient antibiotic monitoring systems to reduce their environmental risks is of great importance. Here, a potent electrochemical sensor was fabricated to detect metronidazole (MNZ) on the basis of green synthesis of Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) usi...

Curcumin, as a bioactive compound, has shown promising activity in cancer treatment, although having poor water solubility and bioavailability. Here, gliadin was extracted from wheat gluten and combined with pectin to encapsulate curcumin through an antisolvent precipitation method to enhance its bioavailability. The curcumin-gliadin-pectin (Cur-G-...

Background and aims: Microalgae are known as a promising source for food, pharmaceutical, and biofuel production while providing environmental advantages. The present study evaluates some newly isolated microalgal strains from north and southwest of Iran as a potential source for high-value products. Methods: Primitive screening was carried out...

Backgrounds: Uropathogenic Escherichia coli is one of the most important etiological agents of UTI. The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) on aminoglycoside-resistant E. coli isolates from patients with UTI. Materials & Methods: After identifying E. coli strains in 100 out of 250 urin...

Backgrounds: Uropathogenic Escherichia coli is one of the most important etiological agents of UTI. The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) on aminoglycoside-resistant E. coli isolates from patients with UTI. Materials & Methods: After identifying E. coli strains in 100 out of 250 urin...

The bacterium Pantoea sp. BCCS 001 GH produces an exopolysaccharide (EPS) named Pantoan through using sugar beet molasses (SBM) as an inexpensive and widely available carbon source. This study aims to investigate the kinetics and optimization of the Pantoan biosynthesis using Pantoea sp. BCCS 001 GH in submerged culture. During kinetics studies, th...

Despite the availability of various nanostructure for cancer cells therapeutic, caring hydrophobic drugs to the target site is still one of the great challenges in chemotherapy. In this study, quercetin (QC), a poorly water-soluble natural anticancer agent, was used as a model drug to evaluate the efficiency of mesoporous magnetic MnFe2O4 core-shel...

The broad effects of ursolic acid (UA) on tumor cells have been demonstrated; however, due to its ineffective targeting properties and low level of water solubility, its clinical use is restricted. In this study, a novel drug carrier composed of β-cyclodextrin, UA, folate, and magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles (UA-β-CD-Fe3O4-FA-NPs) was prepared. TEM im...

In recent times, there has been special attention to the antidiabetic properties of herbal medicine like cinnamon, because of its major compounds such as cinnamic acid and cinnamaldehyde. This study optimizes an effective technique for the extraction of cinnamic acid and cinnamaldehyde from cinnamon bark. The effective parameters of both microwave...

Lipase immobilization was performed via physical adsorption on a novel metal-chelating nanostructure consisted of (S)-N-(5-Amino-1-carboxypentyl) iminodiacetic acid (NTA), as a tetra-dentate chelating agent, grafted onto MnFe2O4 nanoparticles coated with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) for Co²⁺-chelated affinity lipase adsorption. The influential imm...

Protease enzyme production by Bacillus licheniformis bacteria was investigated. Various agricultural wastes as substrate such as wheat bran, rice bran, and sugarcane bagasse were considered. The most important effective parameters on enzyme production, like incubation time, various substrates and solid substrate particle size, media pH, different n...

In order to overcome the problems caused by the release of toxic biocidal agents, both thyme and garlic as herbal antibacterial extracts were applied for the preparation of two novel chitosan-based membranes (TE-CS/PES and GE-CS/PES) by the surface modification of polyethersulfone (PES) membranes. Several analyses such as FESEM, contact angle, AFM,...

Diazinon has been widely applied in the agricultural sector as an organophosphorus insecticide because of its toxicity, while it is a serious threat to the biodiversity of the environment. A yeast strain being capable of biodegrading diazinon was isolated from pesticide-contaminated agricultural soil. Analysis of sequences spanning the Intergenic S...

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The present study aimed to synthesize ursolic acid-loaded chitosan nanoparticles (UA-Ch-NPs) as an antiinfective agent against 21 Staphylococcus aureus isolates. The UA-Ch-NPs were synthesized by a simple method and then characterized by TEM, FTIR, DLS-zeta potential, and XRD analyses. According to the characterization results, highly dispersed sph...

The objective of this research was to estimate the effect of operational parameters on the performance of a bio-anode single-chamber microbial electrolysis cell (BSMEC) in degradation of bisphenol A (BPA) and simultaneous production of methane. To achieve this purpose, the influence of various parameters such as hydraulic retention time (HRT), appl...

Manganese ferrite (MnFe2O4) nanoparticle, a spinel ferrite nanomaterial, is one of the important magnetic metal oxide nanoparticles with distinctive physical and chemical properties. This nanoparticle can be easily synthesized through various methods with controllable size and desired morphology. MnFe2O4 is an efficient candidate for various applic...

Piperine (PIP), the most pungent component of black pepper, is known to have several outstanding therapeutic properties. However, the biological applications of PIP are limited due to its low bioavailability, caused by its low water solubility. The objective of this study was to engineer a biocompatible nanocarrier for enhancing the bioavailability...

Damage to DNA by environmental pollutants mostly result in several chronic diseases. Bisphenol A (BPA), an environmental oestrogen inducing weak estrogenic activity, has raised concerns due to its carcinogenic and DNA damaging potential. On account of developing a feasible and reliable methodology for high performance dsDNA damage indirect monitori...

Naproxen (NP) is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used for the treatment of acute to chronic pain. The aim of this work was to develop a new, simple spectrophotometric method for determining the concentration of naproxen in pharmaceutical formulations by chitosan capped silver nanoparticles. The morphology and structure o...

Accumulation of oily sludge in the petroleum industry causes various environmental problems. In this research, a biosurfactant obtained by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PTCC 1340 was characterized. The biosurfactant can reduce the surface tension and promote the formation of oil/water emulsions facilitating oily sludge removal. For biosurfactant productio...

Apigenin, as a bioactive compound, exhibits a wide range of health beneficial properties; however, its therapeutic application is limited because of its poor water-solubility and low bioavailability. In the present study, apigenin was isolated and purified from parsley leaves and to enhance its bioavailability, it was loaded on the zein-lecithin na...

This study aimed to optimize the extraction conditions in order to maximize the recovery yields of quercetin and total flavonoids from red onion skin wastes using sequential microwave-ultrasound-assisted extraction. Five effective factors on quercetin extraction yield were investigated using response surface methodology. The method was successfully...

Obesity is known as a chronic metabolic disease that can be controlled by inhibition activities of the digestive enzymes like pancreatic lipase (PL). Trigonella foenumgraceum L. named commonly as fenugreek is widely used in traditional therapies owing to its abundant health benefits. The current study aimed to characterize the phytochemical compone...

The expression and dissemination of β-lactamase enzymes is the most frequently used antibiotic resistance mechanism in bacteria. The synthesis and characterization of a new nanocomposite particle was performed to inhibit serine β-lactamase activities. The nanostructure based on an ultra-small iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanocore, is in-situ coated with a hy...

PAMAM grafted chitosan as biocompatible adsorbent was synthesized through Michael addition of methyl acrylate followed by amidation of ethylenediamine on the chitosan backbone. Then, the adsorption capacity of bioadsorbents were assessed by employing two anionic dyes. The adsorption experiments were carried out using a batch adsorption system. The...

Cobalamins are one of the most complicated cofactors produced by the microorganisms. Propionibacterium freudenreichii has to follow the anaerobic and aerobic conditions respectively during a course of batch fermentation, for the production of the biologically active form of cobalamins. Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles can modify gas-liquid volumetri...

For the first time in this work, computational investigations using density functional theory (DFT) were employed to figure out the interaction of the Poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) monomer with Carbon nanotube (CNT) and SiO2 nanotube (SiO2NT). The DFT method was used to calculate the binding energy between the PLGA monomer and these nanotubes...

Alkaline proteases are the most important groups of commercial enzymes, which have been broadly used in industrial processes. In this study, Bacillus sp. PTCC 1538 was selected as a biological agent to produce alkaline protease. Enzyme production under submerge fermentation using industrial waste effluent was investigated. Since the costs of the ra...

In this study, a novel integrated Hybrid Airlift Membrane Bioreactor (HAMBR) composed of oxic, anoxic and anaerobic zones was developed to simultaneously remove organic matter and nitrogen from real paper-recycling wastewater. The removal efficiencies of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), ammonium, nitrite, nitrate and Total Nitrogen (TN) for permeate a...

Increasing soil stabilization with traditional additives such as cement, which release a high quantity of greenhouse gases during the production, raises environmental concerns. Thus, as a promising alternative for replacing traditional additives, biological processes are emerging as desired green technologies for soil improvement. In this study, a...

Emerging β-lactam antibiotic resistance necessitates the development of new therapeutic approaches. One approach to counteract this issue is the use of nanoparticles (NPs) for antimicrobial agent delivery. In this work, superparamagnetic MnFe2O4 NPs were synthesized via a simple co-precipitation method followed by coating with a SiO2 shell using te...

Cobalt oxide nanoparticles (Co3O4 NPs) were successfully synthesized using ethanolic extract of Trigonella foenumgraceum L. (fenugreek) leaves as a green, potentially low cost, and easily biosynthesized method. The organic bioactive compounds present in fenugreek leaves extract acted as both reducing agents and stabilizing agents for synthesizing m...

In the present work, theoretical studies based on density functional theory (DFT) have performed to comprehend the interaction between the Chitosan (CS) monomer and three types of nanotubes, namely TiO2 nanotube (TiO2NT), SiO2 nanotube (SiO2NT) and Carbon nanotube (CNT). First, the geometry of nanotubes and CS monomer and various configuration of t...

Clean fuels are the critical requirement for industrialized world to combat emission of greenhouse gas. Hydrogen is one of the cleanest fuels that generates water as a result of combustion. Production of hydrogen from renewable and nonpolluting resources is an imperative task for sustainable clean fuel production. Biological processes provide an op...

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) offers significant advantages for effluent quality, footprint, sludge production, and operation. In this study, the performance of an MBR was evaluated in a hybrid airlift membrane bioreactor (HAMBR) operating under various hydraulic retention times (HRTs). Results demonstrated that HAMBR could effectively remove organic a...

Apigenin is the bioactive component of parsley (Petroselinum crispum L.) with numerous therapeutic properties. In this study, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) and ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) methods were used for the isolation of apigenin from parsley leaves. The effect of several factors on the extraction yield of apigenin was investig...

Nickel-ferrite nanoparticles (NiFe2O4) were synthesized by a hydrothermal method. They were used to modify a carbon paste electrode (CPE) and to prepare an electrochemical sensor for simultaneous determination of rizatriptan benzoate (RZB) and acetaminophen (AC). The structure and morphology of the bare CPE and modified CPE were studied using field...

Frequency of seizures is often managed by a wide group of antiepileptic drugs. Regarding the pharmacokinetic variability, narrow targeted range, and difficulty of detecting signs of toxicity based on laboratory responses, therapeutic monitoring of antiepileptic drugs can play a pivotal role in optimizing the drug dosage. Electrochemical sensors and...

The petrochemical industry, including petrochemical processing, oil refining, and natural gas production, generates large amounts of wastewater. Thus, the petrochemical industry produces a large amount of wastewater containing a variety of pollutants. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the treatment and simultaneous producti...

Fibrous biomaterials have received much attention in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their morphology, resembling extracellular matrix. In comparison to synthetic fibers, cellulose based fibers have interesting properties for cellular applications such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, simple preparation and their potential...

Fibrous biomaterials have received much attention in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their morphologically resembling to extracellular matrix. In comparison to synthetic fibers, cellulose based fibers have interesting properties for cellular applications such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, simple preparation and their po...

Microalgae are biological sources with an extensive range of biotechnological applications, e.g., for bioremediation of industrial and municipal wastes. Microalgae are used to monitor environmental toxicants like pesticides, heavy metals, and pharmaceuticals and in the final stage of wastewater treatment when organic pollution should be removed. CO...

In this work, the effects of various factors, including the ultrasonic duty cycle and intensity of ultrasonic irradiation, ultrasonication and clove oil content in production of clove oil nanoemulsion were investigated. In preparation of nanoemulsion Tween®80/Span®80 as non-ionic surfactants via ultrasonic emulsification method was used. The averag...

Environmental xenoestrogen, Bisphenol A (BPA), is a vitally important industrial raw chemical which can bring about a wide variety of adverse impacts on our health and environment. Therefore, it is imperative to develop efficacious systems to measure BPA and improve the life quality. Herein, a mixture of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2NPs) and...

In this work, nanochitosan (NC) was prepared through ionic gelation using low molecular weight chitosan and maleic acid (MA). The synthesized NC was characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). During preparation, the particle size of the material depended on...