A 67-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department about 5 h after deliberate self-poisoning with 300 mg of Apixaban. The clinical examination did not show any organ dysfunctions or haemorrhagic signs, and the patient's life was not in danger. The first analysis, upon admission, showed a concentration of 2655 μg l-1 of Apixaban. The Cmax was observed 17 h after the intake (3654 μg l-1 ), about four times the classical Tmax value (median [range]: 4 h [2-4]). The Apixaban was then eliminated following a first order elimination with a calculated half-life of 10.8 h. The anti-Xa activity seems to be linearly related to concentration up to 4000 μg l-1 . This report suggests that the use of activated charcoal should be effective up to 17 h after a massive intake.

Activated charcoal decreases gastrointestinal absorption of concomitantly administered drugs. The absorption of amlodipine (AML) was reported as almost completely attenuated by 25 g of activated charcoal under a fasted condition, but not affected by 2 g of activated charcoal under a fed condition. However, it is not clear whether this difference resulted from the food intake or the dose of activated charcoal. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effect of food intake on drug interactions caused by adsorption to activated charcoal in the gastrointestinal tract in rats. The rats were orally administered 0.08 mg/kg of AML, with or without 33 mg/kg of activated charcoal, under the fasted or fed condition and the plasma concentration profiles of AML were monitored. For the fed group, the standard breakfast used in clinical studies was smashed and administered at a dose of 11 g/kg. The AUC value of AML under the fasted condition was significantly decreased to 24.8% by coadministration of activated charcoal. On the other hand, activated charcoal moderately decreased the AUC value of AML to 74.8% under the fed condition. These results suggest that the extent of drug interactions caused by activated charcoal is attenuated by food intake.

The pyroligneous liquor is a product obtained during the production of charcoal, with well-known antimicrobial activity. In this work, we characterized the physical chemistry properties of a formulation composed of distilled pyroligneous liquor (DPL), obtained from Eucalyptus grandis, and chitosan. A good interaction between the polymer and the solvent was observed. Auto-supported films were prepared with these systems and characterized with respect to their structure and photo-protection properties, water vapor permeability, and resistance to water and to thermal degradation. They present a semi-crystalline structure and are hygroscopic, but are stable under immersion for up to 7 days. The swelling degree in water is 300% in weight and the permeability to water vapor was between 30 and 45 g m-1 h-1 (for films with 80 to 10 μm, respectively). The obtained films are able to efficiently block the incident UVB and UVC radiation; the molar absorptivity decreases exponentially with increasing wavelength and is stable up to 300 °C. These properties confer desirable properties to the films, obtained from these precursors of a renewable source, to be used as coatings.

Charcoal briquettes are inexpensive solid fuels made from carbonized biomass. The potential of converting water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) charcoal into briquettes with molasses as binder was investigated in this study. Dried water hyacinth was carbonized at a temperature between 350°C to 500°C in a fabricated fine biomass carbonizer. A solution containing 80% by weight molasses was used in the production of briquettes having different charcoal/molasses ratios of 40:60, 30:70, and 20:80. Each briquette was characterized in terms of bulk density, calorific value, compressive strength, proximate analysis and micro-structure by Scanning Electron Microscopy. Charcoal briquettes were tested for their flammable characteristics through their burning rates and ignition time. Altering the molasses to charcoal ratio affected the quality and characteristics of the briquettes. Volatile combustible matter and fixed carbon increased with increasing amount of binder while ash content decreased. The 30:70 charcoal/molasses ratio produced the highest calorific value (16.6 MJ/kg) and compressive strength (19.1 kg/cm2). The results have shown the potential of converting water hyacinth into an alternative fuel source.

Previous studies of solid fuel emissions in household stoves focused more on emission measurements of the overall combustion process instead of the dynamic burning rate and its connection to the emissions. This study put forward a measurement system to monitor the dynamic fuel burning rate and emission rate directly, and explored their relationships during different combustion phases. Experiments were conducted using two types of wood charcoal consumed in a small open pan (i.e. fire basin) used commonly for space heating in rural China. The measured real-time CO emission rate (ERCO), fuel burning rate (BRF), and calculated carbon burning rate (BRC) all rose and then subsided as the combustion progressed. The relationships between ERCO and BRF and between ERCO and BRC were different for the two charcoals during a phase with rising carbon content in the combusted fuel (Phase I), likely because moisture evaporation and volatile matter release were the dominant processes and the reaction was complex during this phase. ERCO and BRF or BRC had linear relationships during a phase with stable carbon content in the combusted fuel (Phase II) for the two charcoals, which may be generalized to other solid fuels, because this phase is associated to fixed carbon dominating phase which usually exist during solid fuel combustion. The study presented a novel measurement approach to the combustion properties of solid fuels. The results implied that a complex relationship between the combustion and pollutant emissions existed in Phase I, and presented the possibility of estimating the fuel burning rate based on emission measurements in Phase II, or vice versa.

Diarrhea is a major health problem throughout the world and it has become more problematic in developing countries like Ethiopia. People, in several parts of the world, use different traditional medicines for treating diarrhea and it has been reported that the roots, leaves, and flowers of various species are used for the same purpose. In Ethiopia, for instance, Discopodium Penninervum is used for the treatment of diarrhea and also to control infection. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to evaluate the in vivo antidiarrheal and in vitro antimicrobial effect of Discopodium Penninervum in mice. For the antimicrobial activity test, four standard bacteria and disc diffusion method were used, while for antidiarrheal experiment, animals had been used, which were divided into 5 groups. The first group served as negative control and was administered with vehicle (0.2-0.3ml of distilled water). Groups two (D100), three (D200), and four (D400) were administered 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg of the extract, respectively. Group five served as positive control group and was administered with either loperamide (3mg/kg) for castor oil induced diarrhea and castor oil induced enteropooling diarrhea models or atropine (1mg/kg) for charcoal meal test. Safety study was performed using a standard acute toxicity study procedure. The effect of the extract on castor oil induced diarrheal drops, onset of diarrhea, weight of faeces, small intestinal fluid accumulation, and intestinal motility was measured and analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the leaves powder of the plant indicated the presence of various components. Inhibition of castor oil induced diarrhea was observed at all tested doses. It can be concluded that crude extracts of Discopodium Penninervum showed strong activities against diarrhea indicating that it contains some chemical constituents that possibly lead to antidiarrheal drug development.

In the present study, the Allium cepa root chromosomal aberration assay was used to determine the genotoxic effects of copper and cadmium ions solutions before and after sorption processes. The sorption process was carried out using unmodified Dendrocalamus strictus charcoal powder, nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA)-modified D. strictus charcoal powder, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The frequency of total chromosomal aberrations was observed to be 24.30-45.13% for copper and 13.16-45.14% for cadmium at different concentrations (1-500 mg/l) before the sorption process. Both metal ions solutions resulted in significant reduction of chromosomal aberrations after all the modes of the sorption processes. However, the order of reduction of percentage chromosomal aberrations for copper and cadmium solutions was found to be 45.29-70.04% and 47.80-84.57%, respectively (NTA-modified D. strictus charcoal powder); >44.53-54.32% and 37.10-79.40%, respectively (unmodified D. strictus charcoal powder); >15.59-48.51% and 13.63-21.50%, respectively ( S. cerevisiae).