The purpose of this study was to reuse cassava wastewater (CW) for scaled-up production, via the fermentation of prodigiosin (PG), and to conduct an evaluation of its bioactivities. PG was produced at the yield of high 6150 mg/L in a 14 L-bioreactor system, when the designed novel medium (7 L), containing CW and supplemented with 0.25% casein, 0.05% MgSO4, and 0.1% K2HPO4, was fermented with Serratia marcescens TNU01 at 28 °C in 8 h. The PG produced and purified in this study was assayed for some medical effects and showed moderate antioxidant, high anti-NO (anti-nitric oxide), and potential α-glucosidase inhibitory activities. Notably, PG was first reported as a novel effective α-glucosidase inhibitor with a low IC50 value of 0.0183 µg/mL. The commercial anti-diabetic drug acarbose was tested for comparison and had a lesser effect with a high IC50 value of 328.4 µg/mL, respectively. In a docking study, the cation form of PG (cation-PG) was found to bind to the enzyme α-glucosidase by interacting with two prominent amino acids, ASP568 and PHE601, at the binding site on the target enzyme, creating six linkages and showing a better binding energy score (−14.6 kcal/mol) than acarbose (−10.5 kcal/mol). The results of this work suggest that cassava wastewater can serve as a low-cost raw material for the effective production of PG, a potential antidiabetic drug candidate.

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Membrane distillation (MD) has great potential for the treatment of hyper saline waters, including liquid desiccant solutions used in air-conditioning systems. Previous experimental investigations have demonstrated the technical feasibility of MD for regeneration of liquid desiccant solutions. In this study, a direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process of the LiCl liquid desiccant solution was simulated using MATLAB software. The simulation was first validated using data obtained from experimental tests. Then, it was used to elucidate the water temperatures, LiCl concentration, and water flux profiles along the membrane leaf inside the DCMD membrane module. Finally, with the help of the simulation, the effects of membrane properties and process operating conditions on the DCMD process performance were systematically examined. The results obtained from this simulation enrich the knowledge and hence facilitate the realization of MD for the liquid desiccant solution regeneration application.

Membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a promising technology for seawater desalination to provide drinking water. The most considerable advantage of MD is the capacity to utilize thermal energy to reduce the energy cost of the solar-driven MD seawater desalination systems. However, limited thermal efficiency is one of the key challenges that prevent the wide application of MD for seawater desalination. Due to low thermal efficiency, most solar-driven MD systems require large and complex arrays of solar thermal collectors, leading to the significantly high investment costs of the MD systems. MD membranes coated with solar radiation absorbing materials have been proposed for the solar-driven MD process to obviate the need for large arrays of solar thermal collectors. In this study, we synthesized a novel black spinel-carbon nanocomposite for MD membrane coating to improve the solar radiation absorbance of the membrane, thus enhancing thermal efficiency of the MD system. The preliminary experimental results demonstrated that the black spinel-carbon nanocomposite could absorb light at a wider wavelength range from visible to far-red; therefore, they exhibited increased solar radiation absorbance and hence heating efficiency compared with single materials.