New ceramic microfiltration membranes from mineral coal fly ash

This work aims to develop a new mineral porous tubular membrane based on mineral coal fly ash. Finely ground mineral coal powder was calcinated at 700 °C for about 3 h. The elaboration of the mesoporous layer was performed by the slip casting method using a suspension made of the mixture of fly ash powder, water and PVA. The obtained membrane was submitted to a thermal treatment which consists in drying at room temperature for 24 h then a sintering at 800 °C. SEM photographs indicated that the membrane surface was homogeneous and did not present any macro defects (cracks, etc.). The average pore diameter of the active layer was 0.25 μm and the thickness was around 20 μm. The membrane permeability was 475 l/h m² bar.This membrane was applied to the treatment of the dying effluents generated by the washing baths in the textile industry. The performances in term of permeate flux and efficiency were determined and compared to those obtained using a commercial alumina microfiltration membrane. Almost the same stabilised permeate flux was obtained (about 100 l/h m²). The quality of permeate was almost the same with the two membranes: the COD and color removal was 75% and 90%, respectively.     

First steps toward the construction of a hyperphase diagram that covers different classes of short polymer chains

We present the results of a multicanonical Monte Carlo study of flexible and wormlike polymer chains, where we investigate how the polymer structures observed during the simulations, mainly coil, liquid, and crystalline structures, can help to construct a hyperphase diagram that covers different polymer classes according to their thermodynamic behavior.     

Exponential stabilization of a flexible structure with a local interior control and under the presence of a boundary infinite memory

In this paper, we deal with the interior stabilization problem of a flexible structure governed by a hyperbolic partial differential equation coupled to two ordinary differential equations. Contrary to the previous works on the system, the boundary control is subject to the presence of an infinite memory term. In order to deal with such a nonlocal term, the minimal state approach is invoked. Specifically, a localized interior control is proposed in order to compensate the infinite memory effect. Thereafter, reasonable assumptions on the memory kernel are evoked so that the closed-loop system is shown to be well-posed thanks to semigroups theory of linear operators. Furthermore, the resolvent method is used to establish the exponential stability of the system.