Theoretical stability,thin film synthesis and transport properties of the Mon +1GaCn MAX phase

The phase stability of Mo_{n +1}GaC_n has been investigated using ab‐initio calculations. The results indicate stability for the Mo₂GaC phase only, with a formation enthalpy of –0.4 meV per atom. Subsequent thin film synthesis of Mo₂GaC was performed through magnetron sputtering from elemental targets onto Al₂O₃ [0001], 6H‐SiC [0001] and MgO [111] substrates within the temperature range of 500 °C and 750 °C. High structural quality films were obtained for synthesis on MgO [111] substrates at 590 ºC. Evaluation of transport properties showed a superconducting behavior with a critical temperature of approximately 7 K, reducing upon the application of an external magnetic field. The results point towards the first superconducting MAX phase in thin film form. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

An experimental study on thermal decomposition behavior of magnesite

Thermal decomposition of magnesite is investigated by using a TG–MS. Different kinetic methods including Coats–Redfern, Flynn–Wall–Ozawa, and Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose are used to investigate the thermal decomposition kinetics of magnesite. It was observed that the activation energy values obtained by these methods are similar. The average apparent activation energy is found to be about 203 kJ mol^?1. The raw magnesite and its decomposition products obtained at different temperatures are analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The concentration of functional groups, crystal structure and composition, and apparent morphology of decomposition products were studied in detail. The FTIR, XRD, and SEM analyses showed that magnesite was completely decomposed at 973 K to form MgO.     

Determination of the effective atomic and mass numbers for mixture and compound materials in high energy photon interactions

In consideration the radiological properties of materials and studying the scattering processes in atomic and nuclear physics, the effective atomic and mass numbers is widely employed. These numbers have been calculated for any mixed or composite materials in interaction with high energy photons (Linac in radiation therapy). A pair equation in terms of these numbers is obtained. The first equation has been derived from the conservation of mass energy law and the second by minimizing the binding energy from the semiempirical mass formula (Myers and Swiatecki formula) that gives a relation between atomic and mass numbers for stable nuclei approximately. By these equations one can obtain the effective atomic and mass numbers for any compound or mixed materials uniquely. These numbers are calculated for some materials and compared with the other studies.     

Preparation and application of the titania sol-gel coated anodized aluminum fibers for headspace solid phase microextraction of aromatic hydrocarbons from water samples

A novel titania sol-gel coating, including tetrabutyl orthototitanat (TBOT) as initial alkoxide, triethanolamine (TEA) as stabilizer, nitric acid as acid catalyst, and polyethylene glycol (PEG, 6000) as binder was prepared for the first time on an anodized aluminium wire and subsequently applied to headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) with gas chromatography flame ionization detection (GC-FID). The analytical characteristics of the proposed porous titania sol-gel derived TBOT/PEG/TEA (41.6:16.0:42.4) fiber were comparable with reported fibers. The extraction temperature, extraction time, effect of salt addition, desorption temperature and desorption time were optimized. Under the optimized conditions and for all BTEX components, the linearity was from 20 to 800 μg L⁻¹, the RSD was below 8.2% and limit of detections (LODs) were between 5.4 and 14.8 μg L⁻¹. The recovery values were from 86.7% to 94.2% in water samples. The proposed HS-SPME-GC-FID method was successfully applied for the analysis of BTEX compounds from petrochemical wastewater samples.     

Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-coated magnetite nanoparticles as highly efficient adsorbent for rapid removal of reactive dyes from the textile companies’ wastewaters

The utilization of modified magnetite nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄ NPs) with a cationic surfactant (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)) as an efficient adsorbent was successfully carried out to remove reactive black 5 (RBBA), reactive red 198 (RRR) and reactive blue 21 (RTB) dyes from aqueous solutions. First, a reactor was designed to be simple, repeatable and efficient in its synthesis of Fe₃O₄ NPs via co-precipitation method. Then, an orthogonal array design (OAD), four factor-four level (4⁴) matrix was applied to assign affecting factors on removing of the dyes from aqueous solutions. The obtained results from ANOVA showed that the amount of CTAB and NaCl% significantly affect the adsorption of RBBA, RRR and RTB dyes. The sorption kinetics of the dyes were best described by a second-order kinetic model, suggesting chemisorptions mechanism. Also, dye adsorption equilibrium state data were fitted well to the Langmuir isotherm rather than Freundlich isotherm. Also, the maximum monolayer capacity, q_max, obtained from the Langmuir was 312.5, 163.9 and 556.2 mg g^-1 for RBBA, RRR and RTB, respectively. The obtained results in the present study indicated that the CTAB-coated Fe₃O₄ NPs can be an efficient adsorbent material for removal of reactive dyes form aqueous solutions.     

Note on new solutions of LR fuzzy linear systems using ranking functions and ABS algorithms

Recently, Ghanbari and Mahdavi-Amiri focused on solving LR fuzzy linear systems by use of ranking functions. They applied a ranking function introduced by Cheng, which is based on the centroid point, to illustrate their method. Also, they presented an important lemma using the centroid formulae provided by Cheng, to determine the centroid point for a class of fuzzy numbers. Unfortunately, they didn’t consider that the formulae are incorrect and have led to some misapplications as pointed out by Wang and his colleagues. Therefore, in this paper, we first show that Lemma 19 of Ghanbari and Mahdavi-Amiri’s paper is not true and then correct it using the centroid formulae suggested by Wang. Finally, we correct the results obtained in Ghanbari and Mahdavi-Amiri’s paper for a special example.     

Rapid,green, and catalyst-free one-pot three-component syntheses of 5-substituted 1<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>-tetrazoles in magnetized water

The catalyst-free multi-component reactions of aldehydes, malononitrile, and sodium azide at a relatively low temperature in magnetized water provided 5-substituted 1H-tetrazoles in high-to-excellent yields. This method offers the advantages of short reaction times, low costs, quantitative reaction yields, simple work-up, green, and no need for any organic solvent.     

Polythiophene-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles as a selective adsorbent for magnetic solid-phase extraction of silver(I), gold(III), copper(II) and palladium(II)

We have developed a fast method for sensitive extraction and determination of the metal ions silver(I), gold(III), copper(II) and palladium(II). Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles were modified with polythiophene and used for extraction the metal ions without a chelating agent. Following extraction, the ions were determined by flow injection inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The influence of sample pH, type and volume of eluent, amount of adsorbent, sample volume and time of adsorption and desorption were optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the calibration plots are linear in the 0.75 to 100 μg L^?1 concentration range (R²?>?0.998), limits of detection in the range from 0.2 to 2.0 μg L^?1, and enhancement factors in the range from 70 to 129. Precisions, expressed as relative standard deviations, are lower than 4.2 %. The applicability of the method was demonstrated by the successful analysis of tap water, mineral water, and river water.

Superspin glass state in MnFe2O4 nanoparticles

Nanosized MnFe₂O₄ ferrites were synthesized by a simple method, which is based on the solid state ball-milling and calcinations of nitrate precursors and citric acid. The samples were characterized by using different methods. The results indicate that the products mainly consist of MnFe₂O₄ nanoparticles. The effect of different annealing temperatures on particle sizes and crystallinity of the samples was also studied. By increasing the particle size, the coercivity and magnetization of the samples increase. The increase of magnetization by increasing the crystallite size could be attributed to the lower surface spin canting and surface spin disorder of the larger magnetic nanoparticles. Our analysis of ac susceptibility measurements shows that the interparticle magnetic interaction leads to the superspin glass-like behavior in these nanoparticle samples.