Ignition and burning behaviors of automobile oil in engine compartment

Accidental leakage of automobile oils is of great inclination to initiate pool fires in engine compartment, with threats to induce the flashover of other components and flame penetration into the passenger compartment. This paper presents experimental results of the ignition and burning behaviors of a kind of automobile oils (automatic transmission oil) using a cone calorimeter. Measurements of oil temperature, ignition time, mass loss and heat release rate are performed at different external heat fluxes and initial fuel depths. The comparison between experimental and numerical oil temperature evolutions shows that the variations of the ignition time at different experimental conditions depend on the heat dissipation process inside the liquid phase. The steady mass burning rate is nearly independent of initial fuel depth and has a linear relation with external heat fluxes. In addition, the results indicate an increase in peak heat release rate by a large margin initially, followed by a relatively small margin under thicker initial fuel depths, while its variations are proportional to external heat fluxes. Correlations are also developed to determine the peak heat release rate as a function of the initial fuel depth.

     

Computational Studies on the Sc<Subscript>n</Subscript>N<Subscript>m</Subscript> (n + m=10) Clusters: Structure,Electronic and Vibrational Properties

Besides the size and structure, compositions also dramatically affect the properties of clusters. In fact, the increased degree of freedom poses much more challenges to determine the global minimum structure of multi-component clusters. In this thesis, based on the CALYPSO structure searching method, the global minimum structures are obtained for Sc_nN_m (n + m=10) clusters at PW91/6-311+G(d) level. The growth behavior indicates that the cage unit tends to arrange into the compact configurations, and the occupied positions of N atoms shift from the surface towards the center of coordination site with the increasing number of Sc atoms. The relative stabilities have been discussed by analyzing the average binding energies and HOMO–LUMO gaps. In addition, the molecular orbitals, dipole moments, polarizability, hyperpolarizabilities, natural population, natural electron configuration, and Infared and Raman spectra calculations allow complete characterization of the electronic and vibrational properties for the global minimum structural clusters.     

Eu3+-site occupation in CaTiO3 perovskite material at low temperature

In order to clarify the site occupancy of rare-earth ions in rare-earth doped perovskite materials, the un-doped pure CaTiO₃ and Eu³⁺-doped CaTiO₃ samples with a series of Ca/Ti ratio were synthesized via high-temperature solid-state reaction method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) powder patterns confirm that the crystal structure keeps invariant at various Ca/Ti ratios. Measurement results of unit-cell parameters and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicate that Eu³⁺ ions enter into the Ca²⁺ site. The high-resolution photoluminescence spectra of Eu³⁺ ions at 20 K in all samples did not witness a significant change under the excitation at different wavelength, implying that Eu³⁺ ions occupy only one type of site. Considering the small spectral splitting range of ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₂ transition and the large intensity ratio of ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₂/⁵D₀ → ⁷F₁, it can be concluded that Eu³⁺ occupies Ca²⁺ site with larger coordinate numbers rather than Ti⁴⁺ site.     

还原氧化石墨烯@泡沫镍载CoO纳米花电极制备及催化CO2性能

本文以氧化石墨烯包覆泡沫镍电极(GO@NF)作为基底,采用水热法在GO@NF基底上原位生长CoO纳米花,同时GO在水热过程中被同步热还原为还原氧化石墨烯(RGO),从而一步制得还原氧化石墨烯包覆泡沫镍负载CoO纳米花电极(CoO/RGO@NF)。使用XRD和SEM对CoO/RGO@NF电极进行表征,发现CoO纳米花均匀生长在泡沫镍三维网络结构上,CoO纳米花为大量针状纳米棒围绕一个中心而成的花状结构,纳米棒的长度约为10 ~ 15 μm,直径约为100 ~ 200 nm。使用循环伏安和线性扫描法测试了CoO/RGO@NF电极电催化CO₂的还原性能,在-0.76 V（vs. SHE）电位下,CoO/RGO@NF电极电催化CO₂还原的电流效率达到70.9%,产甲酸法拉第效率达到65.2%,甲酸产率为59.8 μmol·h^-1·cm^-2,且电极可持续稳定电催化还原CO₂ 4 h,表明CoO/RGO@NF电极对CO₂电还原有着优良的催化活性、选择性和稳定性。     

Biomimetic design of amphiphilic polycations and surface grafting onto polycarbonate urethane film as effective antibacterial agents with controlled hemocompatibility

The synthetic polycations are ideal candidates as antimicrobial agents, because they resemble natural antimicrobial peptides, but to render hemocompatibility to these materials is a great challenge. Herein, we used 2‐(tert‐butyl‐aminoethyl) methacrylate (TBAEMA), to synthesize its homopolymer and pegylated random and diblock copolymers with polyethyleneglycol methacrylate (PEGMA, M_n = 360 Da) by single‐electron transfer–living radical polymerization (SET‐LRP). In the second step, the secondary amino groups in the precursor polymers were quaternized with iodomethane and bromohexane, to obtain three series of quaternized polymers. The antimicrobial properties of these quaternized polymers were evaluated against Escherichia coli (E. coli), by studying the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) which ranged between 32 and 200 mg L^?1 and showed higher values for the quaternized random than the diblock copolymers. In addition to, we have also demonstrated the grafting of these polycations onto polycarbonate urethane film surfaces, which showed good killing efficacy against E. coli. Furthermore, the hemolysis of these materials was investigated against human red blood cells, which indicated that except the quaternized homopolymers that showed highest hemolysis, all other amphiphilic polycations exhibited very low hemolytic activity. Therefore, our designed materials with controlled structures and functionality, synthesized from cheaply available resources could serve as useful agents in the field of biomedicines and implantable materials. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2013, 51, 3166–3176