The effect of cerium pre-treatment on the corrosion resistance of steel sheets

The steel samples have been coated with cerium layer by cathodic electrolytic deposition from the Ce(NO₃)₃·6H₂O solution in aqueous ethyleneglycol in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. The influence of the coating parameters (cathodic current density, pH, cerium concentration, hydrogen peroxide concentration, temperature, and treatment duration) on the surface properties; the optimum conditions of the formation of corrosion preventing coating have been elucidated. Hydrogen peroxide concentration and pH are the major factors influencing the deposition process. The corrosion resistance has been further enhanced after treatment with Na₃PO₄·12H₂O solution. The cerium-coated samples have been subsequently coated by cathodic electrostatic deposition from the colloidal solution of the paint. The coated materials have been subjected to mechanical testing (hardness, impact, cross cut, bending, and cupping tests), and their structure has been visualized by electron microscopy. The cerium coating has been found to improve the steel corrosion resistance by 15%.     

Simply synthesized TiO_2 nanorods as an effective scattering layer for quantum dot sensitized solar cells

TiO2 nanorod layers are synthesized by simple chemical oxidation of Ti substrates. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy measurements show effective light scattering properties originating from nanorods with length scales on the order of one micron. The films are sensitized with CdSe quantum dots （QDs） by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction （SILAR） and integrated as a photoanode in quantum dot sensitized solar cells （QDSCs）. Incorporating nanorods in photoanode structures provided 4- to 8-fold enhancement in light scattering, which leads to a high power conversion efficiency, 3.03% （Voc = 497 mV, Jsc = 11.32 mA/cm2, FF = 0.54）, in optimized structures. High efficiency can he obtained just by tuning the photoanode structure without further treatments, which will make this system a promising nanostructure for efficient quantum dot sensitized solar cells.     

Hypersurfaces with too many rational curves

We study smooth hypersurfaces of degree \(d\ge n+1\) in \(\mathbf{P}^n\) whose spaces of smooth rational curves of low degrees are larger than expected, and show that under certain conditions, the primitive part of the middle cohomology of such hypersurfaces have non-trivial Hodge substructures. As an application, we prove that the space of lines on any smooth Fano hypersurface of degree \(d \le 8\) in \(\mathbf{P}^n\) has the expected dimension \(2n-d-3\) .     

A model to enhance the reliability of the serial parallel systems with component mixing

System reliability, especially for serial parallel systems, has attracted much attention in recent years. Redundancy allocation is a technique to increase the reliability of the serial parallel systems. Supplying redundant components depends on some restrictions such as available budget, weight, space, etc. This paper proposes a new model for redundancy allocation problems (RAPs) by considering discount policy. The proposed model attempts to maximize the reliability of a system by gathering various components where there are some limitations on budgeting. We present two models with different assumptions including all unit discount and incremental discount strategies. The resulted formulations are nonlinear integer models and categorized as NP-hard. Therefore, some heuristics and meta-heuristics are designed to solve the resulted models, efficiently.     

In situ-generated N-thiocyanatosuccinimide (NTS) as a highly efficient reagent for the one-pot thiocyanation or isothiocyanation of alcohols

The first application of in situ-generated N-thiocyanatosuccinimide (NTS) for the thiocyanation of alcohols is described. This method can be easily applied for the facile conversion of primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols into the corresponding alkyl thiocyanates or alkyl isothiocyanates in good to excellent yields.     

Diphenylphosphinite ionic liquid (IL-OPPh2): A solvent and ligand for palladium-catalyzed silylation and dehalogenation reaction of aryl halides with triethylsilane

The use of an imidazolium-based phosphinite ionic liquid (IL-OPPh₂) as both solvent and ligand for Pd offers an efficient catalytic system for silylation of aryl iodides, bromides and also chlorides by triethylsilane in the presence of Cs₂CO₃. In the absence of base, this system is also performed for catalytic dehalogenation of aryl halides. The ionic liquid containing its corresponding Pd(0) complex can be easily recovered and reused in several runs without losing its efficiency.     

Magnetic field control of 90°, 180°, and 360° domain wall resistance

In the present work, we have compared the resistance of the 90°, 180°, and 360° domain walls in the presence of external magnetic field. The calculations are based on the Boltzmann transport equation within the relaxation time approximation. One-dimensional Néel-type domain walls between two domains whose magnetization differs by angle of 90°, 180°, and 360° are considered. The results indicate that the resistance of the 360° DW is more considerable than that of the 90° and 180° DWs. It is also found that the domain wall resistance can be controlled by applying transverse magnetic field. Increasing the strength of the external magnetic field enhances the domain wall resistance. In providing spintronic devices based on magnetic nanomaterials, considering and controlling the effect of domain wall on resistivity are essential.     

Border collision and fold bifurcations in a family of one-dimensional discontinuous piecewise smooth maps: divergence and bounded dynamics

In this work we continue the study of a family of 1D piecewise smooth maps, defined by a linear function and a power function with negative exponent, proposed in engineering studies. The range in which a point on the right side is necessarily mapped to the left side, and chaotic sets can only be unbounded, has been already considered. In this work we are characterizing the remaining ranges, in which more iterations of the right branch are allowed and in which divergent trajectories occur. We prove that in some regions a bounded chaotic repellor always exists, which may be the only non-divergent set, or it may coexist with an attracting cycle. In another range, in which divergence cannot occur, we prove that unbounded chaotic sets always exist. The role of particular codimension-two points is evidenced, associated with fold bifurcations and border collision bifurcations (BCBs), related to cycles having the same symbolic sequences. We prove that they exist related to the border collision of any admissible cycle. We show that each BCB, each fold bifurcation and each homoclinic bifurcation is a limit set of infinite families of other BCBs.     

An efficient synthesis of ferrocenyl imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines

Abstract  

An efficient and simple synthesis of ferrocenyl 3-aminoimidazo[1,2-a]pyridines by the three-component reaction of ferrocenecarboxaldehyde, isocyanides, and 2-aminopyridines in the presence of a catalytic amount of InCl₃ in ethanol at room temperature is reported.