Ultrasonic degradation of solutions of poly(vinyl acetate) in dioxan: The effects of the temperature and polymer concentration

The ultrasonic degradation of poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) solutions was carried out in dioxan at 25, 30, 35, 40, and 45 °C to investigate the effects of the temperature and solution concentration on the rate of degradation. The kinetics of degradation were studied by viscometry. The calculated rate constants indicated that the degradation rate of the PVAc solutions decreased as the temperature and solution concentration increased. The calculated rate constants were correlated in terms of the concentration, temperature, vapor pressure of dioxan, and relative viscosity of the PVAc solutions. This degradation behavior was interpreted in terms of the vapor pressure of dioxan, the viscosity, and the concentration of the polymer solutions. With increasing temperature, the vapor pressure of the solvent increased, and so the vapor entered the cavitation bubbles during their growth. This caused a reduction in collapsing shock because of a cushioning effect; therefore, the rate of degradation decreased. As the solution concentration increased, the viscosity increased and caused a reduction in the cavitation efficiency, and so the rate of degradation decreased. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 445–451, 2004     

Cheese whey tangential filtration using tubular mineral membranes

Membrane separation techniques are extensively used in dairy industry both for milk and cheese whey processing. However, cheese whey might still be considered as a problematic waste despite its high content of many valuable substances, such as proteins, lactose or minerals, which can be further used, e.g. in human nutrition, pharmacy or biotechnologies. Another problem, which food technologists have to face, is variable quality, composition and properties of food materials bringing high demands on manufacturing industry. In this paper, filtration kinetics and separation efficiency during purification and fractionation of cheese whey (sweet and salty) from Czech dairies by pilot-plant filtration (Bollene, France) was studied using tubular membranes (Membralox, USA). Various mineral membranes’ cut-offs were tested and all experiments ran in the retentate recycling mode. The obtained mass concentration factors were between 1.9 and 16.5. Steady state fluxes were calculated from the experimental data using a mathematical model. Fine ultrafiltration on a 5 kDa membrane gave steady state fluxes of 14–19 L m^?2 h^?1. The coarse pre-filtration on 100 nm, 200 nm or 500 nm membranes showed various permeate fluxes between 22 L m^?2 h^?1 and 153 L m^?2 h^?1. Despite the high pore sizes of the used membranes, lactose was partially rejected by all membranes tested.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Stachys lavandulifolia</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Lathyrus</Emphasis> sp. Mediated for Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles and Evaluation Its Antifungal Activity Against <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dothiorella sarmentorum</Emphasis>

In this study, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were biosynthesized using Stachys lavandulifolia and Lathyrus sp. The first sign of the reduction of silver ions to AgNPs was the change in color of S. lavandulifolia and Lathyrus sp. extracts changed into dark brown and auburn after treating with silver nitrate, respectively. The UV–Vis spectroscopy of reaction mixture (extract+silver nitrate) produced by S. lavandulifolia and Lathyrus sp. showed the strong adsorption peaks at ?440 and 420 nm, respectively. The transmission electron microscope images showed the synthesis of AgNPs using S. lavandulifolia and Lathyrus sp. with an average size of 7 and 11 nm, respectively. The result of X-ray diffraction pattern showed four diffraction peaks at 38°, 44°, 64°, and 77° for both types of biosynthesized AgNPs. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed the possible role of involved proteins and polyhydroxyl functional groups in the synthesis process of AgNPs. Inductively coupled plasma analysis determined the conversion rate (percentage) of silver ions to silver nanoparticles in reaction mixtures of S. lavandulifolia and Lathyrus sp. 99.73 and 99.67 %, respectively. In addition, antifungal effect of AgNPs, synthesized by both extracts, was studied separately on mycelial growth of Dothiorella sarmentorum, in a completely randomized design on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium. The inhibition rate of mycelial growth was strongly depended on the density of AgNPs and it strongly increased with increasing the density of AgNPs in the PDA medium. AgNPs more than 90 % of them inhibited from the mycelia growth of the fungus at the concentration of 40 µg/mL and higher.     

Deactivation studies of bifunctional Fe-HZSM5 catalyst in Fischer-Tropsch process

A physical mixture of alkali-promoted iron catalyst with binder based on Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and an acidic co-catalyst （HZSM5） for syngas conversion to hydrocarbons was studied in a fixed bed micro reactor. Deactivation data were obtained during the synthesis over a 1400 h period. The deactivation studies on iron catalyst showed that this trend followed the phase transformation Fe2.2C （ ε′） → Fe5C2 （χ） → Fe3C （θ）, and the final predominant phase of the catalyst was Fe3C （θ）. Deactivation of zeolite component in bifunctional catalyst may be caused by coking over the zeolitic component, dealumination of zeolite crystals, and migration of alkali promoters from iron catalyst under synthesis conditions. The deactivation rate of iron catalyst was also obtained.     

The effect of modulated electric field on characteristic of SDBD-like plasma jet for surface modification

In this paper, the dynamics and flow behaviour of an atmospheric argon plasma jet was studied in the new nozzle structure similar to the surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) using the Schlieren imaging method. The effect of plasma jet driven by repetitive high-voltage microsecond pulses with low-frequency sinusoidal bias was measured qualitatively in a single mirror Schlieren optical system. The enhancement of plasma jet length and cross-section of plasma jet with surface in this condition is due to highly turbulent flow of argon plasma jet in this structure. This study revealed the important role of SDBD structure and modulated electric field on the behaviour of plasma jet in a high diameter nozzle. In practice, this technique allows us to increase the jet length of the nozzle output to 5 cm and under these conditions, the diameter of the plasma jet cross-section is increased to 8 mm, without increasing the electrical power consumption. Eventually, the hydrophilicity of the surface is also measured by the contact angle of a water droplet that decreases from 78° to 8° after surface treatment, implying we were able to reach a super-hydrophilic surface with this plasma jet structure.     

Stability and torsional vibration analysis of a micro-shaft subjected to an electrostatic parametric excitation using variational iteration method

In this article stability and parametrically excited oscillations of a two stage micro-shaft located in a Newtonian fluid with arrayed electrostatic actuation system is investigated. The static stability of the system is studied and the fixed points of the micro-shaft are determined and the global stability of the fixed points is studied by plotting the micro-shaft phase diagrams for different initial conditions. Subsequently the governing equation of motion is linearized about static equilibrium situation using calculus of variation theory and discretized using the Galerkin’s method. Then the system is modeled as a single-degree-of-freedom model and a Mathieu type equation is obtained. The Variational Iteration Method (VIM) is used as an asymptotic analytical method to obtain approximate solutions for parametric equation and the stable and unstable regions are evaluated. The results show that using a parametric excitation with an appropriate frequency and amplitude the system can be stabilized in the vicinity of the pitch fork bifurcation point. The time history and phase diagrams of the system are plotted for certain values of initial conditions and parameter values. Asymptotic analytically obtained results are verified by using direct numerical integration method.     

Studies on product distribution of alkali promoted iron catalyst in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

The dependencies of hydrocarbon product distributions of alkali promoted iron catalyst in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis have been studied. The concept of two superimposed Anderson-Schulz-Flory distributions has been applied for the representation of the effects of Mg, La and Ca promoters on product distributions. The FTS performance of the catalysts was tested in a fixed bed reactor under the conditions 563 K, 1.7 MPa, H2/CO = 1 and space velocities 4.86 and 13.28 nl h-1 gFe-1 . The results indicate that approp...     

Preparation and binding study of solid-phase microextraction fiber on the basis of ametryn-imprinted polymer: Application to the selective extraction of persistent triazine herbicides in tap water,rice, maize and onion

A monolithic ametryn molecular-imprinted polymer based on a simple polymerization method was fabricated for use as new solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber, which can be coupled with GC and GC/MS for selective extraction and analysis of triazine herbicides. Methacrylic acid (MAA), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EDMA) and ametryn bear role of functional monomer, cross-linker and template, respectively. In the optimized conditions the fabricated fiber showed better molecular recognition abilities for methylthiotriazine herbicides than chloro-triazine herbicides. By use of bi-Langmuir isotherm model the evaluated equilibrium constants for ametryn were 0.01 and 890.69 μM⁻¹, and the numbers of binding sites were 129.98 and 5.82 nmol g⁻¹, respectively. The high extraction efficiency was obtained for ametryn, prometryn, terbutryn, atrazine, simazine, propazine, and cyanazine, yielding the detection limits of 14, 28, 45, 56, 85, 95 and 74 ng mL⁻¹, respectively by GC with flame ionization detection. The reliability of the prepared fiber for extraction of ametryn and other analogues in real samples has been investigated and proved by using spiked samples such as tap water, rice, maize, and onion.     

Pressure–voltage oscillations as a diagnostic tool for PEFC cathodes

In this work, pressure-induced voltage oscillations are explored as a novel diagnostic tool for PEFC cathodes. In this method, a small signal oscillation is imposed on the cathode outlet pressure. As a response to this pressure perturbation, the fuel cell voltage exhibits oscillations with the same frequency. The amplitude ratio and phase difference between the voltage and pressure oscillations embody diagnostic information about the operating conditions and processes in the PEFC cathode.