Assessment of operating parameters for photocatalytic degradation of a textile dye by Fe<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript>/TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript>/clinoptilolite nanocatalyst using Taguchi experimental design

In the current study, a nanophotocatalyst doped with of TiO₂ and Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles supported on Iranian clinoptilolite was synthesized and characterized by XRD, XRF, SEM, and EDX analyses. The results suggested the successful loading of TiO₂ and Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles onto the surface of clinoptilolite. The SEM images confirmed the average size of nanoparticles deposited on zeolite, which was about 20–40 nm. Furthermore, application of the synthesized photocatalyst in photocatalytic degradation of Acid Black 172 dye was studied using the Taguchi method and the chosen parameters were as follows: pH (2–7), dye concentration (50–200 mg/l), irradiation time (30–120 min), and catalyst dosage (0.5–1.5 g/l). The results indicate that dye concentration, pH, and irradiation time are respectively the most effective factors in these experiments while with the minimum dosage of the catalyst (0.5 g/l), up to 90 % removal efficiency could be achieved. The optimum value for each parameter was pH = 2, dye concentration = 50 mg/l, catalyst dosage = 1 g/l and irradiation time = 60 min, and the dye removal efficiency reached up to 100 % at these optimal conditions. Furthermore, after five-times recycling and reusing the catalyst, the efficiency of the photocatalytic degradation was reduced from 91.5 to 65.9 %, which is still an acceptable value.     

Effect of nano‐modified SiO2/Al2O3 mixed‐matrix micro‐composite fillers on thermal,mechanical, and tribological properties of epoxy polymers

Thermo‐mechanically durable industrial polymer nanocomposites have great demand as structural components. In this work, highly competent filler design is processed via nano‐modified of micronic SiO₂/Al₂O₃ particulate ceramics and studied its influence on the rheology, glass transition temperature, composite microstructure, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, micro hardness, and tribology properties. Composites were fabricated with different proportions of nano‐modified micro‐composite fillers in epoxy matrix at as much possible filler loadings. Results revealed that nano‐modified SiO₂/Al₂O₃ micro‐composite fillers enhanced inter‐particle network and offer benefits like homogeneous microstructures and increased thermal conductivity. Epoxy composites attained thermal conductivity of 0.8 W/mK at 46% filler loading. Mechanical strength and bulk hardness were reached to higher values on the incorporation of nano‐modified fillers. Tribology study revealed an increased specific wear rate and decreased friction coefficient in such fillers. The study is significant in a way that the design of nano‐modified mixed‐matrix micro‐composite fillers are effective where a high loading is much easier, which is critical for achieving desired thermal and mechanical properties for any engineering applications. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental study and nuclear model calculation for 65Zn production

Excitation functions and theoretical yields via charge particle induced reactions were evaluated using EMPIRE-3.2.2 and ALICE/ASH codes and the obtained results have been discussed and compared with the available reported experimental data. It has been verified that ^natCu(p,n)⁶⁵Zn reaction is the optimum ⁶⁵Zn production route. The ⁶⁵Zn was produced using ^natCu(p,xn) ⁶⁵Zn reaction in the energy range of 16.8 → 12.2 MeV with the thick target yield of 0.15 ± 0.005 MBq/μA h. The ⁶⁵Zn radionuclide was purified by anion exchange chromatography.

     

On the convergence of alternating minimization methods in variational PGD

The approximation of solutions to partial differential equations by tensorial separated representations is one of the most efficient numerical treatment of high dimensional problems. The key step of such methods is the computation of an optimal low-rank tensor to enrich the obtained iterative tensorial approximation. In variational problems, this step can be carried out by alternating minimization (AM) technics, but the convergence of such methods presents a real challenge. In the present work, the convergence of rank-one AM algorithms for a class of variational linear elliptic equations is studied. More precisely, we show that rank-one AM-sequences are in general bounded in the ambient Hilbert tensor space and are compact if a uniform non-orthogonality condition between iterates and the reaction term is fulfilled. In particular, if a rank-one AM-sequence is weakly convergent then it converges strongly and the common limit is a solution of the rank-one optimization problem.     

Ionic behavior modification of cation exchange ED membranes by using CMC-co-Fe<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript> nanoparticles for heavy metals removal from water

A new mixed matrix polyvinyl chloride-based heterogeneous cation exchange membrane was prepared by incorporation of carboxy methyl cellulose-co-Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles through solution casting technique. The effect of simultaneous using of carboxy methyl cellulose and iron oxide nanoparticles in the casting solution on the physicochemical properties of membranes was studied. SOM images showed uniform particles distribution and uniform surfaces for the membranes relatively. The SEM images exhibited regular direction/spatial orientation for the CMC-co-Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in the membrane matrix. XRD patterns showed that membrane heterogeneity was enhanced by using of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles. Membrane ion exchange capacity, membrane surface hydrophilicity, membrane potential, surface charge density, transport number, selectivity, and ionic flux were increased by using CMC/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in membrane matrix. Results showed that membrane areal electrical resistance was declined up to 3.8 Ω cm² by utilizing CMC/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in the casting solution. Also PVC/CMC-co-Fe₃O₄ membrane showed higher transport number, selectivity, flux, and electrical conductivity compared to PVC/CMC membrane and unmodified ones. Electrodialysis experiment in laboratory scale showed higher dialytic rate in lead ions removal for PVC/CMC-co-Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle-mixed matrix ion exchange membrane compared to PVC/CMC membrane and pristine one.     

Liquid-phase microextraction of biomarkers: A review on current methods

The detection and quantification of biomarkers have gained more attention in the medical discipline to evaluating disease progression to manage medical treatment. Biomarkers range from gases to biological macromolecules. Because of the nanomolar range levels of typical biomarkers in plasma, blood, urine, exhalation samples, and other biological fluids as well as complex matrix of biological media, adequate sample preparation methods should be used for quantification of biomarkers. Biomarkers are discussed here generally classified mainly into two subgroups which arisen from disease or exposure compounds. The analytical method is critical for the validity/reliability of a biomarker. Accuracy, precision, reproducibility, recovery, sensitivity, and specificity all have high influence to the consistency with the limit and reference values concerned. In this paper, developments in well-established liquid-phase microextraction techniques for the clinical analysis of biological samples will be reviewed and discussed. This article presents an overview of microextraction methods for biological samples, focusing especially on biomarkers.     

Particle swarm optimization and its application to the design of diffraction grating filters

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is an evolutionary, easy-to-implement technique to design optical diffraction gratings. Design of reflection and transmission guided-mode resonance (GMR) grating filters using PSO is reported. The spectra of the designed filters are in good agreement with the design targets in a reasonable computation time. Also, filters are designed with a genetic algorithm (GA) and the results obtained by the GA and PSO are compared.