Two-phase simulation of nanofluid flow in a heat exchanger with grooved wall

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The aim of this paper is to achieve a smaller and cheaper heat exchanger with similar performance. To fulfill this demand, ANSYS-Fluent software and...     

Graphene oxides/multi-walled carbon nanotubes hybrid-modified carbon electrodes for fast and sensitive voltammetric determination of the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil in spiked human plasma samples

The electrochemical oxidation of anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) at graphene oxides (GOs)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanohybrid-modified screen-printed carbon and glassy carbon electrodes was studied by voltammetric techniques. The modified electrodes showed better performance toward the electro-oxidation and determination of 5-FU compared to CNTs-modified or GOs-modified electrodes. The oxidation peak current obtained at about + 1.156 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) from square wave voltammetry was linearly dependent on the 5-FU concentration in the ranges of 0.05–5 and 5–1200 µM in phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.0. The developed method was applied successfully to the electrochemical sensing of 5-FU in human plasma samples at micro-molar concentration levels with satisfactory results. It is hopeful that the developed method in the future can be used for the simple and fast determination of 5-FU in clinical test and pharmacokinetics.     

1H NMR‐based metabolomics exploring urinary biomarkers correlated with proteinuria in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis: a pilot study

Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a common glomerulonephritis, and its rates of occurrence are increasing worldwide. Proteinuria is a clinical defining feature of FSGS which correlates with the severity of podocyte injury in patients with nephrotic‐range protein excretion. Metabolite biomarkers corresponding with the level of proteinuria could be considered as non‐invasive complementary prognostic factors to proteinuria. The urine samples of 15 patients (n = 6 women and n = 9 men) with biopsy‐proven FSGS were collected and subjected to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis for metabolite profiling. Multivariate statistical analyses, including principal component analysis and orthogonal projection to latent structure discriminant analysis, were applied to construct a predictive model based on patients with proteinuria >3000 mg/day and <3000 mg/day. In addition, random forest was performed to predict differential metabolites, and pathway analysis was performed to find the defective pathways responsible for proteinuria. Ten metabolites, significant in both statistical methods (orthogonal projection to latent structure discriminant analysis and random forest), were considered as prognostic biomarkers for FSGS: citrulline, dimethylamine, proline, acetoacetate, alpha‐ketoisovaleric acid, valine, isobutyrate, D‐Palmitylcarnitine, histidine, and N‐methylnicotinamide. Pathway analysis revealed impairment of the branched‐chain amino acid degradation pathways in patients with massive proteinuria. This study shows that metabolomics can reveal the molecular changes corresponding with disease progression in patients with FSGS and provide a new insight for pathogenic pathways. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impedance simulation of a solid oxide fuel cell anode in time domain

The purpose of the current study is to simulate the behavior of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) anode under sinusoidal excitation. The obtained harmonic response is used as a base for electrochemical impedance spectra simulation. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a powerful non-destructive tool for SOFC researches. In order to evaluate the EIS experimental results, efforts are devoted to develop EIS numerical simulation tools. In this study, a planar SOFC is modeled, and the steady state behavior and frequency response, as well as the electrochemical spectra of the anode, are obtained. The developed model couples the electrochemical kinetics with mass transport. The Butler–Volmer equation is used for the anode electrochemistry, and the species equations are used for gas transport in the anode channel. In order to solve the system of the nonlinear equations, an in-house code based on finite difference method is developed and utilized. A parametric study is also carried out, and the results are discussed. The simulation results are in good agreement with published data. Results show a capacitive semicircle in the Nyquist plot, which is identical to the gas diffusion impedance as reported in literatures.