Monitoring the manufacturing process of glass fiber reinforced composites with carbon nanotube buckypaper sensor

Buckypapers are free-standing porous mats of entangled CNT ropes cohesively bounded by van der waals interactions, and can be used to monitor the manufacturing process of glass fiber reinforced composite. In this paper, the buckypaper (BP) was fabricated with monodispersion of multi-wall carbon nanotubes via spray-vacuum filtration, and its morphology and pore size distribution were characterized by scanning electron microscope and nitrogen adsorption/desorption. The resistance of the BP sensor was obtained using a four-point probe method, and the resistance changes could be related to phase changes of the resin matrix,. Experimental results show that the BP sensor embedded in the glass/epoxy composite laminates has indicated a relative resistance change from −2.9% to 226.5% during the manufacturing process. In addition, the temperature sensitivity of a pristine BP sensor and a BP sensor embedded in composite were also characterized. The results demonstrate that the effect of resin phase changes on the resistance changes of a BP sensor is greater than that of the temperature during composite manufacturing.     

Instant Controlled Pressure Drop technology: From a new fundamental approach of instantaneous transitory thermodynamics to large industrial applications on high performance–high controlled quality unit operations

Solvent extraction processes have been largely used in various industries. They recently were improved through new physical concepts such as CO₂ Supercritical Fluid Extraction, Ultrasound assisted process, Microwave-assisted extraction, Instant Controlled Pressure Drop DIC-assisted extraction… Systematically, a pretreatment stage of grinding takes place in order to improve the exchange surface increasing the starting accessibility. Swelling of the material structure implies an increase of the porosity thus leading to higher solvent diffusivity within the solid matrix. A new concept of expanded granule powder has recently been defined using Instant Controlled Pressure Drop DIC technology. Whatever the type of solvent is (even CO₂-SFE), such a swelled structure dramatically intensifies the kinetics through a higher specific exchange surface thanks to the open pores, while improving the solution solvent–solute diffusivity within the solid. Coupled to ultrasound, the internal transfer of solute within the pore solvent can likewise be intensified by replacing molecular diffusion within the pores by an effective convection transfer. In this work, we carried out a first approach of modeling of solvent extraction kinetics of expanded granules involving higher exchange surface and greater internal diffusion process.     

Design,synthesis and evaluation of novel dehydroabietic acid-dithiocarbamate hybrids as potential multi-targeted compounds for tumor cytotoxicity

In the present study, novel representatives of the important group of biologically-active, dehydroabietic acid-bearing dithiocarbamate moiety, were synthesized and characterized by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, HR-MS. The in vitro antiproliferative activity evaluation (MTT) indicated that these compounds exhibited potent inhibitory activities in various cancer cell lines (HepG-2, MCF-7, HeLa, T-24, MGC-803). Particularly, compound III-b possessed extraordinary cytotoxicity with low micromolar IC₅₀ values ranging from 4.07 to 38.84 µM against tested cancer cell lines, while displayed weak cytotoxicity on two normal cell lines (LO-2 and HEK 293 T). Subsequently, the potential mechanisms of representative compound III-b were elementarily investigated by Transwell experiment, which showed III-b can inhibit cancer cells migration. Annexin-V/PI dual staining showed that the compound can induce HepG-2 cells apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Meanwhile this apoptosis may be related to the upregulated protein expression of cleaved-caspase 3, cleaved-caspase 9, Bax and downregulated of Bcl-2 indicated by Western Blot. Later study further confirmed that ROS levels in HepG-2 cells increased significantly with the rise of concentrations. In addition, through the network pharmacology data analyzing, the core targets and signaling pathways of compound III-b for treatment of liver neoplasms were forecasted. Molecular docking model showed that compound III-b had high affinity with hub targets (CASP3, EGFR, HSP90AA1, MAPK1, ERBB2, MDM2), suggesting that compound III-b might target the hub protein to modulate signaling activity. Taken together, these data indicated that dehydroabietic acid structural modification following the “Molecular hybridization” principle is a feasible way to discover the potential multi-targeted antitumor compounds.     

On the existence of ‘glycine barium nitrate potassium nitrate’ crystal

It is proved that a so called novel nonlinear optical glycine barium nitrate potassium nitrate single crystal grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique by Ravishankar et al. (Optik, 2013) is actually the well-known γ-glycine crystal.     

What can statistical process control show us about ionization chamber stability?

PurposeStatistical process control (SPC) has been shown to be a suitable tool for medical physicists to monitor quality and keep variability low and within specifications. We report our findings regarding ionisation chamber stability in our department when using a radioactive stability check device (RSCD) and we compare them with similar previously published records, including calibration results.MethodsWe retrospectively studied the stability of a PPC 40 parallel-plate chamber, and two Farmer chambers (FC65-G and FC65-P) by checking them with dedicated RSCDs. We analysed the data following SPC methodology which includes plotting I-MR control charts, monitoring out-of-control observations, calculating process capability ratios (C_p), and estimating conformance to specifications. We also estimated the C_p and adherence to specifications of previously published data.ResultsThe PPC40 chamber hardly went out of the control limits over the whole six-year period assessed. However, Farmer chamber verifications drifted in opposite directions in phase II, and the deviations observed did not agree with their calibration records, which only increased by a maximum of 0.5%. In phase I the most unstable chamber was the FC65-P with a C_p equal to 0.9 at a specification level of ±1%. The PPC40 chamber was stable to within a maximum C_p of 1.3. Several sets of analysed data, including ours and those from other authors, fitted well within these limits: within ±1.9% and ±1.5% for a C_p of 1.5 and 1.33 respectively.ConclusionsSPC with constant long-term RSCD checking gave us a meaningful plot of the instability of our ionisation chambers. Although a period of two years between calibrations should not be surpassed, in the interim this check can conform to specifications of ±1.5%.     

Electronic transmission and dwell time on a double barrier system with an accelerating quantum well

Resonant tunneling quantum structures consist of asymmetric wells and barriers have been investigated to find their optimized geometrical parameters and potential profile by the numerical calculations. The results show that the widths and the depths of the asymmetric wells have a significant effect on the transmission coefficient and the dwell time. The properties exhibited in this work may establish guidance to the device applications.     

Robustness of SDOF elastoplastic structure subjected to double-impulse input under simultaneous uncertainties of yield deformation and stiffness

A series of impulse-type inputs has been extensively used to evaluate the critical response of an elastoplastic structure subjected to diverse types of pulse-type inputs, including a near-fault ground motion. In this paper, we consider the critical double-impulse input for a single-degree-of-freedom elastic–perfectly plastic structure, and study effects of structural uncertainties. When the natural frequency (or, equivalently, the stiffness) is fixed, the critical response of the structure does not necessarily decrease as the yield deformation (or, equivalently, the yield force) increases. As the first contribution, we give through investigation of this non-monotonicity property. Moreover, we present a systematic method for finding the worst-case scenario when the yield deformation and the stiffness of a structure assumed to be uncertain simultaneously. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate that the robustness of a structure does not necessarily improve when the yield deformation and/or the yield force is increased.     

Enhanced process development using automated continuous reactors by self-optimisation algorithms and statistical empirical modelling

Reaction optimisation and understanding is fundamental for process development and is achieved using a variety of techniques. This paper explores the use of self-optimisation and experimental design as a tandem approach to reaction optimisation. A Claisen-Schmidt condensation was optimised using a branch and fit minimising algorithm, with the resulting data being used to fit a response surface model. The model was then applied to find new responses for different metrics, highlighting the most important for process development purposes.     

Intensification of delignification of Tectona grandis saw dust as sustainable biomass using acoustic cavitational devices

Delignification of sawdust was studied using ultrasound assisted alkali peroxide approach using longitudinal horn for the first time and the efficacy compared with more commonly used configurations of ultrasonic reactors. Comparison with the conventional approach based on stirring has also been presented to establish the process intensification benefits. Effect of different operating parameters such as sodium carbonate concentration (0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25 M), hydrogen peroxide concentration (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1 M) and biomass loading (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 wt%), on the efficacy of lignin extraction has been investigated for different ultrasonic reactors. The optimum conditions for probe type ultrasonic horn were established as 150 W, 50% duty cycle and 80% amplitude with optimum process conditions as Na₂CO₃ concentration as 0.2 M, H₂O₂ concentration as 1 M, biomass loading of 10 wt% and operating time of 70 min. Longitudinal horn resulted in best efficacy (both in terms of yield and energy requirements) followed by ultrasonic horn and ultrasonic bath whereas the conventional approach was least effective. The obtained lignin was also analyzed using different characterization techniques. The presence of peaks at wavelength range of 875–817, 1123–1110, and at 1599 cm⁻¹ for the extracted sample confirmed the presence of lignin. Increase in the crystallinity index of the processed sample (maximum for longitudinal horn) also confirmed the lignin removal as lignin is amorphous in nature. Overall it has been concluded that ultrasound can be effectively used for delignification with longitudinal horn as best configuration.     

Unscaled spatial branging process with interaction: macrospic equation and local equilibrium

For some spatial branching processes with interaction considered as measure–valued processes, convergence to solutions of non–linear macroscopic equation and local equilibrium are proved, without scaling but providing each particle with a small mass ε and assuming convergence of the initial distribution when ε goes to 0