Ethanol ignition in a high-pressure shock tube: Ignition delay time and high-repetition-rate imaging measurements

Ethanol is known to be prone to pre-ignition in internal combustion engines under high-load conditions and its ignition shows large deviations from ideal, spatially, and temporally-homogeneous ignition in shock tubes at moderate temperatures (800–950 K). In this context, the ignition of stoichiometric ethanol/O₂ mixtures with various levels of inert gas dilution was investigated in a high-pressure shock tube at ?20 bar between 800 and 1250 K. Ignition delay times were determined from spatially integral detection of chemiluminescence emission. Additionally, high-repetition-rate color imaging enabled the differentiation of the luminescence in time, space, and spectral range between various ignition modes. In the low-temperature range (800–860 K), different inhomogeneous ignition modes were identified. The addition of small amounts of helium into the undiluted fuel/air mixture was found to be efficient to mitigate pre-ignition, attributed to a variation in heat transfer and thus suppression of the build-up of local temperature inhomogeneities. The experiments in case of spatially homogeneous ignition show very good agreement with the predictions based on three detailed kinetics mechanisms (Zhang et al., CNF 190 (2018) 74, Frassoldati et al., CNF 159 (2012) 2295, and Zhou et al. CNF 197 (2018) 423), inhomogeneities, however, resulted in a shortening of the ignition delay times up to a factor of 2.6.     

Valorization of Moroccan Bentonite Deposits: “Purification and Treatment of Margin by the Adsorption Process”

The main objective of this work was to contribute to the reduction in the contamination of phenolic compounds contained in margin by an adsorption process on two types of raw bentonite. The margin used in the studies was collected from a semi-modern oil mill located in the Nador–Morocco region. The results of the physico-chemical analyses showed that the effluents of the oil mills showed that they are highly polluted, particularly in terms of the total suspended solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and iron content of around 154.82 (mg/L), and copper content of 31.72 (mg/L). The mineralogy of bentonites studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) reveals the existence of two types of montmorillonite; theoretically, the diffraction peak (001) of the montmorillonite appears at 15 Å, with a basal spacing that corresponds to a calcium pole, and the diffraction peak (001) appears at 12Å, with a basal spacing that corresponds to a sodium pole. The specific surface area of the bentonite used is characterized by a large specific surface area, varying between 127.62 m²·g⁻¹ and 693.04 m²·g⁻¹, which is due to the presence of hydrated interleaved cations. This surface is likely to increase in aqueous solution depending on the solid/liquid ratio that modulates the degree of hydration. With a high cation exchange capacity (CEC) (146.54 meq/100 g), samples of margin mixed with raw bentonites at different percentages vary between 5% and 100%. The potential of Moroccan bentonite for the phenol adsorption of 9.17 (g/L) from aqueous solutions was investigated. Adsorption tests have confirmed the effectiveness of these natural minerals in reducing phenolic compounds ranging from 8.72% to 76.23% contained in the margin and the efficiency of heavy metal retention through microelements on raw bentonites. The very encouraging results obtained in this work could aid in the application of adsorption for the treatment of margin.     

Model phase diagrams of binary nematic mixtures. A comparative study between linear and crosslinked polymers

Model calculations of phase diagrams of side chain liquid crystal polymers (SCLCP) and low molecular weight liquid crystals (LMWLC) are presented. The polymer is assumed to have grafted side chain units characterized by a nematic‐isotropic transition temperature T_{NI 2}, and the LMWLC presents also a similar transition at a temperature T_{NI 1} . The model calculations can accommodate for the cases where the latter two temperatures are comparable or widely different. For the sake of illustration, the case T_{NI 1} = 60°C and T_{NI 2} = 80°C is adopted here. The main point of interest here is to perform a comparative study of the equilibrium phase diagrams of SCLCP made either of linear free chains or crosslinked chains forming a single network. To our knowledge this is the first comparative study of the phase behavior of binary nematic mixtures involving linear and crosslinked polymer matrices which permits to clearly identify the effects of crosslinks present in the polymer matrix. The crosslinks attribute elasticity to the polymer constituent which induces important distortions in the phase diagram. To highlight these distortions, examples of hypothetical binary nematic mixtures are chosen involving both linear and crosslinked polymers with side chain mesogen units. The quadrupole interaction parameter between the two nematogens is related to individual parameters via a geometric average ν²₁₂ = κν₁₁ν₂₂ with a coupling parameter κ. Different values of this parameter are considered and the impact of coupling strength on the phase diagram is discussed for crosslinked and linear polymers.     

Theoretical Phase Behavior of Crosslinked Polymers and Liquid Crystals

Equilibrium phase properties of mixtures of crosslinked polymers and nematic liquid crystals (LCs) are investigated. Effects of the volume fraction of polymer at crosslinking φ₀ , the number of monomers between consecutive crosslinks N_c and the Flory‐Huggins interaction parameter χ on these properties are discussed. Two models for the elastic free energy are used to describe the effects of φ₀ Three cases are considered depending upon polymer volume fraction at crosslinking. If crosslinking takes place in the bulk, the elastic free energy is the same and the two models are identical. Otherwise, either φ₀ is constant or equal to φ₂ , the two models may lead to completely different results depending upon crosslinking density. Strong correlations are found between the effects of φ₀ and N_c on the phase behavior of crosslinked polymers and nematic liquid crystal mixtures. These diagrams are also strongly dependent upon the Flory‐Huggins interaction parameter for isotropic mixing χ. This dependence is illustrated through three models for the variation of χ with temperature and composition.     

Static and dynamic scattering from cyclic diblock copolymer chains in solution

This work discusses the static and dynamic scattering properties of (A-B)_r ring diblock copolymer chains in the semi-dilute solutions. The case of a symmetric diblock is considered in details. The results show substantial differences with respect to linear diblock copolymers. This is mainly due to the effect of connectivity of the chain extremities A and B leading to different conformations for both types of architectures. The additional entropic interaction in cyclic chains induces a decrease of the elastic scattering intensity and a shift of the location of its maximum to a higher q value. As for the dynamics, the fact that the two extremities are connected speeds up the frequency of the interdiffusion mode and shifts its minimum to higher q value. A discussion of hydrodynamic interactions is also included.     

On the interface boundary conditions between two interacting incompressible viscous fluid flows

We consider two incompressible viscous fluid flows interacting through thin non-Newtonian boundary layers of higher Reynolds? number. We study the asymptotic behaviour of the problem, with respect to the vanishing thickness of the layers, using Γ-convergence methods. We derive general interfacial boundary conditions between the two fluid flows. These boundary conditions are specified for some particular cases including periodic or fractal structures of layers.     

Spectral Analysis and Generation Results for Streaming Operators with Multiplying Boundary Conditions

This paper deals with the spectral theory of streaming equations for smooth or partly smooth boundary operators. Generation results for muliplying boundary operators in L₁-spaces are also given.     

Browder-type Theorems and SVEP

We study the new properties (b) and (gb), which we had introduced in [13], for an operator having the SVEP on the complement of distinguished parts of its spectrum. Classes of operators are considered as illustrating examples.