Conventional processes and membrane technology for carbon dioxide removal from natural gas:A review

Membrane technology is becoming more important for CO 2 separation from natural gas in the new era due to its process simplicity,relative ease of operation and control,compact,and easy to scale up as compared with conventional processes.Conventional processes such as absorption and adsorption for CO 2 separation from natural gas are generally more energy demanding and costly for both operation and maintenance.Polymeric membranes are the current commercial membranes used for CO 2 separation from natural gas.However,polymeric membranes possess drawbacks such as low permeability and selectivity,plasticization at high temperatures,as well as insufficient thermal and chemical stability.The shortcomings of commercial polymeric membranes have motivated researchers to opt for other alternatives,especially inorganic membranes due to their higher thermal stability,good chemical resistance to solvents,high mechanical strength and long lifetime.Surface modifications can be utilized in inorganic membranes to further enhance the selectivity,permeability or catalytic activities of the membrane.This paper is to provide a comprehensive review on gas separation,comparing membrane technology with other conventional methods of recovering CO 2 from natural gas,challenges of current commercial polymeric membranes and inorganic membranes for CO 2 removal and membrane surface modification for improved selectivity.     

Silver(I)‐N‐heterocyclic carbene complexes of bis‐imidazol‐2‐ylidenes having different aromatic‐spacers: synthesis,crystal structure,and in vitro antimicrobial and anticancer studies

A series of Ag(I) complexes ( 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ) derived from imidazol‐2‐ylidenes was synthesized by reacting Ag₂O with an o‐, m‐, p‐xylyl or 1,3,5‐triazine‐linked imidazolium salts ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) and then characterizing these using various spectro‐analytical techniques. Additionally, triazine‐linked bis‐imidazolium salt 5 was characterized using the single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction method. Complexes 6–9 were formed from the N‐heterocyclic carbene ligand precursors 1–3 as PF₆^‐ salts in good yields. Conversely, salt 5 does not form Ag(I) complex even under various reaction conditions. Using ampicillin as a standard, complexes 6–9 were tested against bacteria strains Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus as Gram‐negative and Gram‐positive bacteria, respectively, showing potent antimicrobial activities against the tested bacteria even at minimum inhibition concentration and bacterial concentration levels. Furthermore, the potential anticancer activities of the reported complexes were evaluated against the human colorectal cancer (HCT 116) cell lines, using 5‐fluorouracil as a standard drug. The highest anticancer activities were observed for complex 8 with an IC₅₀ value of 3.4 μm , whereas the lowest was observed for complex 9 with an IC₅₀ value of 18.1 μm . Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic simulation of Pi-cell liquid crystal displays

The dynamics of π-cell liquid crystal displays was studied by detailed computer simulation. The time evolution of the director configuration and the velocity of flow reveals the mechanism of the fast response of π-cells. The effect of pretilt angle on the dynamics of π-cells was also studied.     

Novel test method to estimate bound rubber formation of silica-filled solution styrene-butadiene rubber compounds

Bound rubber formation was investigated in detail by applying various extraction temperatures (at room temperature, 90°C, and 180°C) and novel treatment methods (ammonia bubbling and sonication). Bound rubbers could be divided into three major components of core shell, primary layer including tightly primary layer and occluded rubber, and secondary layer including connecting filament. Bound rubber content of the core shell was measured by four successive procedures of extraction at room temperature, ammonia bubbling, extraction at 180°C and sonication. Bound rubber content of the tightly primary layer was measured by three successive procedures of extraction at 90°C, ammonia bubbling and sonication. Bound rubber content of the primary layer was measured by two successive procedures of extraction at 90°C and sonication.     

Taguchi orthogonal design assisted immobilization of Candida rugosa lipase onto nanocellulose-silica reinforced polyethersulfone membrane: physicochemical characterization and operational stability

Cellulose - A greener processing route to replace the current environmentally-unfriendly esterification technique to produce biofuels such as pentyl valerate (PeVa) was explored. This study...     

Comparison of cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) filler on chemical,mechanical, and corrosion properties of epoxy-Zn protective coatings for mild steel in 3.5% NaCl solution

Cellulose - This present work evaluated the influence of oil palm frond cellulose nanocrystal (OPF-CNC) as a nanofiller to improve the barrier protection of the epoxy-Zn coating to lessen the...     

Fabrication and characterization of zinc oxide anti-reflective coating on flexible thin film microcrystalline silicon solar cell

This paper studies the fabrication and characterization of 80 nm zinc oxide anti-reflective coating (ARC) on flexible 1.3 μm thin film microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si) solar cell. High resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) shows a c-axis oriented ZnO (0 0 2) peak (hexagonal crystal structure) at 34.3° with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 0.3936°. Atomic force microscope (AFM) measures high surface roughness root-mean-square (RMS) of the layer (50.76 nm) which suggests scattering of the incident light at the front surface of the solar cell. UV–vis spectrophotometer illustrates that ZnO ARC has optical transmittance of more than 80% in the visible and infra-red (IR) regions and corresponds to band gap (E_g) of 3.3 eV as derived from Tauc equation. Inclusion of ZnO ARC successfully suppresses surface reflectance from the cell to 2% (at 600 nm) due to refractive index grading between the Si and the ZnO besides quarter-wavelength (λ/4) destructive interference effect. The reduced reflectance and effective scattering effect of the incident light at the front side of the cell are believed to be the reasons why short-circuit current (I_sc) and efficiency (η) of the cell improve.     

Effects of quantum confined stark effect and well thickness on optical properties of double quantum wells violet InGaN laser diodes

The effects of quantum confined stark effect (QCSE) and quantum well (QW) thickness on the optical properties of violet InGaN laser diodes (LDs) have numerically been investigated. The simulation results indicated that the QCSE greatly effects the optical properties of LDs, where QCSE relates to the QW thickness and it increases when the QW thickness is wider which leads to deteriorating of the optical proprieties of the violet InGaN LD. The polarization in the active region of the InGaN LD has been estimated by the blue shift of the wavelength and it is found that the blue shift of the wavelength depends on the QW thickness. The major simulation result has shown that the best properties of violet InGaN LD can be obtained with smaller QW thickness, where more carriers can be restricted, stayed and overlapped inside the QW which leads to a larger stimulated recombination rate and optical material gain which in turn increase the output power of the LD; while decreasing the threshold current of the LD.