SEM analysis and gas permeability test to characterize polysulfone membrane prepared with polyethylene glycol as additive

Phase inversion method is applied to prepare flat sheet asymmetric polymeric membranes from homogeneous solution of 12 wt% polysulfone (PSf) with two different solvents--N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and dimethyl acetamide (DMAc). 5.0 wt% polyethylene glycol (PEG) of three different molecular weight (400, 6000, and 20,000 Da) is used as the polymeric additives in the casting solution. Membranes are characterized by two different techniques viz. scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and gas permeation tests. Finally, the results of both the techniques are compared with those calculated from pure water permeation tests using Hagen-Poiseuille equation. It is found that though the values obtained from all the techniques vary from each other, their trend with increase in molecular weight of PEG seems to be the same. It is seen that when molecular weight of PEG increases from 400 to 20,000 Da, the mean pore size of the prepared membranes decreases, while the porosity and pore density show an increasing trend; the pressure normalized gas flux rises significantly and the thickness of the top layer of the prepared membrane sheet increases.     

Comparative studies on performance of radiation-induced and thermal cross-linked ion-exchange membrane for water electrolysis

Radiation-induced and thermal cross-linked sulfonated poly(ether sulfone) (SPS)–sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPK) composite ion-exchange membranes (SPS/SPK(γ) and SPS/SPK(T), respectively) were prepared. Their performances for water electrolysis were comparatively assessed. Thermal cross-linked membrane (SPS/SPK(T)) showed cross-linking of part functional groups (–SO₃H) and thus deterioration in membrane conductivity. While, radiation-induced cross-linked membrane (SPS/SPK(γ)) avoided any cross-linking between functional groups and thus conductivity. Electrolysis performances of these membranes were evaluated in comparison with Nafion117 membrane. Relatively low current efficiency (CE) for SPS/SPK and SPS/SPK(T) membranes was due to their high mass transfer (water) via electro-osmotic drag, which was negligible for SPS/SPK(γ) membrane. SPS/SPK(γ) membrane exhibited comparable stabilities and water splitting performance with Nafion117 membrane, which revealed its suitability as substitute for electrochemical applications.     

Electrical capacitance of dielectric coated metallic parallelepiped and closed cylinder isolated in free space

This paper presents a method for the evaluation of the capacitance and the charge distribution of a dielectric coated metallic parallelepiped and a dielectric coated metallic hollow cylinder with the top and bottom cover plates using the method of moments (MoM) based on the pulse basis function and the point matching. Boundary conditions for the potential on the conductor surfaces and continuity of the normal component of the displacement density at the dielectric-free space interface is used to generate two integral equations. Two sets of simultaneous equations are formed from the two integral equations using the MoM. The total charge on the conductor surface is found from the solution for the set of simultaneous equations. The validity of the analysis has been justified by comparing the data on the capacitance available in the literature for metallic cube and hollow cylinder with top and bottom cover plates with the data on capacitance, computed by the present method for similar structures considering a very low dielectric constant as well as a very thin dielectric coating.     

Group-Theoretic Dimension of Stationary Symmetric α-Stable Random Fields

The growth rate of the partial maximum of a stationary stable process was first studied in the works of Samorodnitsky (Ann. Probab. 32:1438–1468, 2004; Adv. Appl. Probab. 36:805–823, 2004), where it was established, based on the seminal works of Rosiński (Ann. Probab. 23:1163–1187, 1995; 28:1797–1813, 2000), that the growth rate is connected to the ergodic-theoretic properties of the flow that generates the process. The results were generalized to the case of stable random fields indexed by ? ^d in Roy and Samorodnitsky (J. Theor. Probab. 21:212–233, 2008), where properties of the group of nonsingular transformations generating the stable process were studied as an attempt to understand the growth rate of the partial maximum process. This work generalizes this connection between stable random fields and group theory to the continuous parameter case, that is, to fields indexed by ? ^d .     

Effect of truncation on large deviations for heavy-tailed random vectors

This paper studies the effect of truncation on the large deviations behavior of the partial sum of a triangular array coming from a truncated power law model. Each row of the triangular array consists of i.i.d. random vectors, whose distribution matches a power law on a ball of radius going to infinity, and outside that it has a light-tailed modification. The random vectors are assumed to be R^d-valued. It turns out that there are two regimes depending on the growth rate of the truncating threshold, so that in one regime, much of the heavy tailedness is retained, while in the other regime, the same is lost.     

Relativistic quark model with quantum chromodynamics, P-states of quarkonia and scalar-vector confinement

In this paper we try to understand several phenomenological issues related to the mass spectra of P-states quarkonia in a relativistic quark model. We give particular emphasis on understanding the most recent experimental data within a relativized scalar-vector confining potential. In this paper we extend the previous works on the studies of quark confinement in non-relativistic QCD, using a formalism which uses a covariant Hamiltonian in the centre of mass frame. The spin-structure of the potential is obtained from the reduction of Bethe-Salpeter equation into Breit-interaction. Printed as S Chakrabarty in several papers published earlier e.g. References [1,11] etc. of this paper.     

A mild and expedient one-pot synthesis of substituted benzimidazoles in water using a phase-transfer catalyst

Abstract  1-Alkyl/phenyl-2-arylbenzimidazoles have been synthesized in very good to excellent yields by a one-pot condensation of N-alkyl/phenyl-o-phenylenediamines with aryl aldehydes in water at room temperature using cetylpyridinium bromide as a cheap and eco-friendly catalyst. Graphical abstract        

Extraction and recovery of lignosulfonate from its aqueous solution using bulk liquid membrane

The paper presents an experimental study on the coupled transport of lignosulfonate (LS) through bulk liquid membrane (BLM) and thereby to identify the best set of solvent, operating conditions and mode of transport that would yield optimum performance of the BLM. Trioctylamine (TOA) is used as carrier. Among various solvents, tested for the above purpose, dichloroethane is found to be the best. The effects of operating condition, viz. pH, temperature, and carrier concentration, on the equilibrium distribution of LS are investigated. The effects of temperature, stirring of aqueous and organic phases, stirring speed, carrier concentration, initial feed and strip phase concentration on the separation of LS using BLM are also studied. It is observed that transport of LS can be enhanced by increasing the temperature and stirring speed of feed phase. Stirring of strip phase has no appreciable effects on the transport of LS. With increase in initial feed concentration the initial rate of the transport of LS is higher but continues for a longer time. Recovery of LS is much higher in co-transport mode in comparison to counter transport mode. Application of 1.25 M NaOH as stripping solution gives high recovery (70%) and high strip flux (70% of feed flux).     

Two Party Non-Local Games

In this work we have introduced two party games with respective winning conditions. One cannot win these games deterministically in the classical world if they are not allowed to communicate at any stage of the game. Interestingly we find out that in quantum world, these winning conditions can be achieved if the players share an entangled state. We also introduced a game which is impossible to win if the players are not allowed to communicate in classical world (both probabilistically and deterministically), yet there exists a perfect quantum strategy by following which, one can attain the winning condition of the game.