Response of portable gamma monitors for dose rate measurements under various radiation conditions

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Responses of the hand-held gamma monitors available for the ambient dose equivalent rate measurements in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...     

A Note on a Generalisation of Eneström–Kakeya Theorem for Quaternionic Polynomials

Mediterranean Journal of Mathematics - In this paper, we introduce the k-generalized Stockwell transform on $${\mathbb {R}}$$ . We investigate for this transform the main theorems of Harmonic...     

Scale-up and Sustainability Evaluation of Biopolymer Production from Citrus Waste Offering Carbon Capture and Utilisation Pathway

Poly(limonene carbonate) (PLC) has been highlighted as an attractive substitute to petroleum derived plastics, due to its utilisation of CO₂ and bio-based limonene as feedstocks, offering an effective carbon capture and utilisation pathway. Our study investigates the techno-economic viability and environmental sustainability of a novel process to produce PLC from citrus waste derived limonene, coupled with an anaerobic digestion process to enable energy cogeneration and waste recovery maximisation. Computational process design was integrated with a life cycle assessment to identify the sustainability improvement opportunities. PLC production was found to be economically viable, assuming sufficient citrus waste is supplied to the process, and environmentally preferable to polystyrene (PS) in various impact categories including climate change. However, it exhibited greater environmental burdens than PS across other impact categories, although the environmental performance could be improved with a waste recovery system, at the cost of a process design shift towards energy generation. Finally, our study quantified the potential contribution of PLC to mitigating the escape of atmospheric CO₂ concentration from the planetary boundary. We emphasise the importance of a holistic approach to process design and highlight the potential impacts of biopolymers, which is instrumental in solving environmental problems facing the plastic industry and building a sustainable circular economy.     

Estimation of background radiation levels and associated health risks in mineral rich district Chiniot,Pakistan

The mineral extraction activities may disturb the natural radioactivity, therefore current study aims to generate baseline data of natural radionuclides and anthropogenic ¹³⁷Cs before the start of industrial activities. Gamma spectrometry and gross alpha and beta counting systems were used for activity measurement in environmental samples. In soil, the mean activity of ²³²Th, ²²⁶Ra, ⁴⁰K and ¹³⁷Cs were determined as 79 (66–117), 47 (34–80), 823 (602–1159) and 1.3 (1.1–4.5) Bq kg^?1, respectively. The average annual effective dose rate (128.7 µSv h^?1) in the study area was twice higher than world’s average value. Indoor hazard index was greater than unity at two places; therefore, proper ventilation is proposed during construction.

     

Thermal management of modern electric vehicle battery systems (MEVBS)

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The operating temperature of Li-ion batteries used in modern electric vehicles should be maintained within an allowable range to avoid thermal runaway...     

Geographical traceability of wheat and its products using multielement light stable isotopes coupled with chemometrics

The present study was aimed to investigate the variation of stable isotopic ratios of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen in wheat kernel along with different processed fractions from three geographical origins across 5 years using isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS). Multiway ANOVA revealed significant differences among region, harvest year, processing, and their interactions for all isotopes. The region contributed the major variability in the δ¹³C ‰, δ²H ‰, δ¹⁵N ‰, and δ¹⁸O‰ values of wheat. Variation of δ¹³C ‰, δ¹⁵N ‰, and δ¹⁸O ‰ between wheat whole kernel and its products (break, reduction, noodles, and cooked noodles) were ?0.7‰, and no significant difference was observed, suggesting the reliability of these isotope fingerprints in geographical traceability of wheat‐processed fractions and foods. A significant influence of wheat processing was observed for δ²H values. By applying linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to the whole dataset, the generated model correctly classified over 91% of the samples according to the geographical origin. The application of these parameters will assist in the development of an analytical control procedure that can be utilized to control the mislabeling regarding geographical origin of wheat kernel and its products.     

Evaluation of solvents’ effect on solubility,intermolecular interaction energies and habit of ascorbic acid crystals

Solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in solvents is very important for drug development and manufacturing. Solubility data may provide further information such as thermochemical properties and intermolecular interactions that may lead to a better understanding of the formation of API crystals. In this study, solubility of ascorbic acid was determined by gravimetric method in four different commonly used polar protic solvents: water, methanol, ethanol and 2-propanol. The solubility of ascorbic acid crystal was also predicted using Conductor-like Screening Model – Realistic Solvent (COSMO-RS) approach. In this computational analysis, the generated ΔG values are based on the solubilities that were experimentally obtained to simulate the intermolecular forces. The intermolecular interaction data from COSMO-RS provide an insight into the relationship between the intermolecular interactions and its crystal habit across four different polar protic solvents. The habit of the crystals was then determined using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy techniques, while the polymorphic form of the crystals was identified by X-ray powder diffraction and single X-ray diffraction techniques. The solubility and characterization data showed that the solvents with high polarity increased the solubility of ascorbic acid. The data also showed that different solvent polarity influenced the crystal habit, but did not change the crystal structure to form a new polymorph.     

Stress Dependency of Permeability Represented by an Elastic Cylindrical Pore-Shell Model: Comment on Zhu et al. (Transp Porous Med (2018) 122:235–252)

Transport in Porous Media - Stress dependency of permeability of porous rocks is described by means of a theoretical elastic cylindrical pore-shell model. This model is developed based on a bundle...