Mukhtar Ahmed^1,*, Ahmed M. S. Kheir^2,3, Muhammad Zeeshan Mehmood¹, Shakeel Ahmad⁴, Mirza Hasanuzzaman^5,*

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol.91, No.4, pp. 713-726, 2022, DOI:10.32604/phyton.2022.018552

Abstract Drought is considered one of the leading abiotic constraints to agricultural crop production globally. Present study was conducted to assess the effects of different drought treatments (viz. Control, 10% PEG, and 20% PEG) on seed germination, germination indices, seedling traits, and drought tolerance indices of sesame. Our results showed that maximum reduction in the studied parameters was observed at higher PEG concentration (i.e., 20% PEG). As compared to control, the drought treatments viz. 10% and 20% PEG decreased the values for germination indices, such as germination percentage, coefficient of variation of germination time, germination index, and seedling vigor index. Similarly,… More >

Tianyu Liu¹, Chang Wen^1,2,3,*, Wenyu Wang¹, Kai Yan³, Yongjun Xia⁴, Rui Li³, Juan Liu⁴, Yang Zhang¹

Energy Engineering, Vol.118, No.3, pp. 473-485, 2021, DOI:10.32604/EE.2021.014870

Abstract Pretreatment before biomass combustion is significant for its efficient utilization and that combined water washing and carbonization can be efficient. An agricultural processing residues sesame stalk was selected and carried out two pretreatments separately, i.e., water washing-torrefaction (W-T) and torrefaction-water washing (T-W), to explore the effect on the fuel properties, combustion characteristics and particulate matter (PM) emission. The obtained biochar was also combusted under air and oxy50 (CO₂:O₂ = 50:50) conditions for the sake of investigating the effect of pretreatment and combustion atmosphere. The results indicate that, W-T and T-W both not only have great effect on the improvement of… More >