The presence of heavy metals in water makes water unfit for use and causes various hazardous health problems. This research investigates the physical and chemical properties of the collected industrial effluent samples of different industries and the use of burnt potato peels (BPP) as adsorbents to remove heavy metal ions from industrial effluents. Various parameters such as pH, adsorbent volume, and contact time were investigated. The concentration of heavy metal ions was accurately quantified using complexometric titration and atomic absorption spectroscopic analyses. Various heavy metals such as Co+, Mg+, Fe+, Pb+, and Cd+ were found in the samples with varying concentrations. The burnt potato peels showed the maximum adsorption of about 61% at pH 9, 60 min contact time, 0.5 g of burnt potato peels, and 10 mg/L of sample concentration.

A simple, rapid and selective complexometric method is proposed for the determination of mercury(II). Mercury(II) and other related metal ions are first complexed with an excess of EDTA and the surplus EDTA is back-titrated with a standard lead nitrate solution at pH 5.0-6.0 (hexamine buffer) using xylenol orange as an indicator. A 0.2% solution of 2-thiazolinethiol in acetone is then added to displace EDTA from the Hg(II)-EDTA complex. The released EDTA is titrated with a standard lead nitrate solution as before. Reproducible and accurate results are obtained in the range of 0.8 g l-1-15.8 g l-1 of mercury with a relative error less than ±0.25% and a coefficient of variation (n = 6) not higher than 0.28%. The interference of various ions was studied and the method was employed for the analysis of mercury in its synthetic alloy mixtures and in complexes.

During the past decade, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) has developed from a specialist method to a major, commercially available tool in the arsenal directed at understanding molecular interactions. At present, ITC is used to study all types of binding reactions, including protein-protein, protein-ligand, DNA-drug, DNA-protein, receptor-target, and enzyme kinetics, and it is becoming the method of choice for the determination of the thermodynamic parameters associated with the structure transformation of one molecule or non-covalent interaction of two (or more) molecules. Here, the new applications of ITC in protein folding/unfolding and misfolding, as well as its traditional application in molecular interaction/recognition are reviewed, providing an overview of what can be achieved in these fields using this method and what  developments are likely to occur in the near future.      

Thermodynamics of biomacromolecule ligand interaction is very important to understand the structure function relationship in proteins. One of the most powerful techniques useful to obtain additional information about the structure of proteins in biophysical chemistry field is isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). An ITC experiment is a titration of a biomacromolecule solution by a solution containing a reactant (ligand) at constant temperature to obtain the exchanged heat of the reaction.  The total concentration of ligand is the independent variable under experimental control. There are many reports on data analysis for ITC to find the number of binding sites (g), the equilibrium constant (K), the Gibbs free energy of binding process (DG), the enthalpy of  binding (DH) and the entropy of binding (DS). Moreover, ITC gives information about the type of reaction, electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions, including determination of cooperativity characterization in binding process by calculating the Hill coefficient (n). A double reciprocal plot and a graphical fitting method are two simple methods used in the enzyme inhibition and metal binding to a protein. Determination of a binding isotherm needs more ITC experiments and more complex data analysis. Protein denaturation by ligand includes two processes of binding and denaturation so that ITC data analysis are more complex. However, the enthalpy of denaturation process obtained by ITC help to understand the fine structure of a protein.