Tailoring a robust Al-MOF for trapping C2H6 and C2H2 towards efficient C2H4 purification from quaternary mixtures

Light hydrocarbon separation is considered one of the most industrially challenging and desired chemical separation processes and is highly essential in polymer and chemical industries. Among them, separating ethylene (C₂H₄) from C2 hydrocarbon mixtures such as ethane (C₂H₆), acetylene (C₂H₂), and other natural gas elements (CO₂, CH₄) is of paramount importance and poses significant difficulty. We demonstrate such separations using an Al-MOF synthesised earlier as a non-porous material, but herein endowed with hierarchical porosity created under microwave conditions in an equimolar water/ethanol solution. The material possessing a large surface area (793 m² g⁻¹) exhibits an excellent uptake capacity for major industrial hydrocarbons in the order of C₂H₂ > C₂H₆ > CO₂ > C₂H₄ > CH₄ under ambient conditions. It shows an outstanding dynamic breakthrough separation of ethylene (C₂H₄) not only for a binary mixture (C₂H₆/C₂H₄) but also for a quaternary combination (C₂H₄/C₂H₆/C₂H₂/CO₂ and C₂H₄/C₂H₆/C₂H₂/CH₄) of varying concentrations. The detailed separation/purification mechanism was unveiled by gas adsorption isotherms, mixed-gas adsorption calculations, selectivity estimations, advanced computer simulations such as density functional theory (DFT), grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD), and stepwise multicomponent dynamic breakthrough experiments.

Industrially important C₂H₄ purification from multi-component hydrocarbon mixtures.     

Computation of pressure drop for dilute gas-solid suspension across thin and thick orifices

The present work deals with the computation of the gas-solid two-phase flow pressure drop across thin and thick orifices for a vertically downward flow configuration at the higher limits of a dilute phase flow situation(0.01≤αs,in≤0.10).The Eulerian-Eulerian(two-fluid)model has been used in conjunction with the kinetic theory of granular flow with a four-way coupling approach.The validation of the solution process has been performed by comparing the computational result with the existing experimental data.It is observed that the two-phase flow pressure drop across the orifice increases with an increase in the thickness of the orifice,and the effect is more prominent at higher solid loading.The pressure drop is found to increase with an increase in the solid volume fraction.An increase in the Reynolds number or the area ratio increases the pressure drop.An increase in the size of the particles reduces the pressure drop across the orifice at both small and relatively large solid volume fractions.Finally,a two-phase multiplier has been proposed in terms of the relevant parameters,which can be useful to evaluate the gas-solid two-phase flow pressure drop across the orifice and can subsequently help to improve the system performance.     

An account of the strategies to enhance the water splitting efficiency of noble-metal-free electrocatalysts

The electrolysis of water for hydrogen generation has shown immense promise as an energy conversion technology for the green energy economy.Two concurrently occ...     

MOVPE growth and characterization of a ‐plane AlGaN over the entire composition range

We report the metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth and characterization of non‐polar (11 0) a ‐plane Al_x Ga_1–xN on (1 02) r ‐plane sapphire substrates over the entire composition range. Al_x Ga_1–xN samples with ～0.8 μm thick layers and with x = 0, 0.18, 0.38, 0.46, 0.66, and 1.0 have been grown on r ‐plane sapphire substrates. The layer quality can be improved by using a 3‐stage AlN nucleation layer and appropriate V/III ratio switching following nucleation. All a ‐plane AlGaN epilayers show an anisotropic in‐plane mosaicity, strongly influenced by Al incorporation and growth conditions. Careful lattice parameter measurements show anisotropic in‐plane strain that results in an orthorhombic distortion of the hexagonal unit cell, making Al composition determination from X‐ray diffraction difficult. In general lower Al incorporation is seen in a ‐plane epilayers compared to c ‐plane samples grown under the same conditions. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

An ab-initio Investigation: The Physical Properties of ScIr2 Superconductor

Physics of the Solid State - Using ab initio technique the physical properties of ScIr2 superconductor have been investigated with Tc 1.03 K with a MgCu2-type structure. We have carried out the...     

A facile strategy for the fabrication of uniform CdS nanowires with high yield and its controlled morphological growth with the assistance of PEG in hydrothermal route

A series of novel wurtzite cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanowires with uniform diameter were synthesized by using a rapid and simple solvothermal route. CdS nano structures with certain morphology could be selectively produced by only varying the concentration of poly ethylene glycol (PEG) as a surfactant in the reaction system with cadmium acetate, sulphur powder and ethelynediamine (EDA). We extensively studied UV-vis absorption spectra, photoluminescence spectra after confirming CdS nanowires with diameter 24-25 nm and length ranging up to several nano meters by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Therefore we may definitely propose a new formation mechanism of CdS nanowires assisted by PEG with its illustrating optical properties.     

Use of threshold activation technique in estimating energy distributions of accelerator produced neutrons

A study of effective implementation of threshold activation technique for neutron spectral analysis in the environment of an alpha-cyclotron target is presented. The activation data are analysed using LOUHI-82 code. Optimal choices of the regularization parameters of the code are studied and discussed. Energy distribution of neutrons emitted from thick targets of Be, C and Ta irradiated by 40–45 MeV alphas is discussed.     

Synthesis and characterization of β-Ga2O3 nanostructures grown on GaAs substrates

β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures including nanowires, nanoribbons and nanosheets were synthesized via thermal annealing of gold coated GaAs substrates in N₂ ambient. GaAs substrates with different dopants were taken as the starting material to study the effect of doping on the growth and photoluminescence properties of β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures. The nanostructures were investigated by Grazing Incident X-ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy, room temperature photoluminescence and optical absorbance. The selected area electron diffraction and High resolution-TEM observations suggest that both nanowires and nanobelts are single crystalline. Different growth directions were observed for nanowires and nanoribbons, indicating the different growth patterns of these nanostructures. The PL spectra of β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures exhibit a strong UV-blue emission band centered at 410 nm, 415 nm and 450 nm for differently doped GaAs substrates respectively. A weak red luminescence peak at 710 nm was also observed in all the samples. The optical absorbance spectrum showed intense absorption features in the UV spectral region. The growth and luminescence mechanism in β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures are also discussed.     

Synthesis,characterization, and in vitro biological evaluation of highly stable diversely functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles

In this article, we report the design and synthesis of a series of well-dispersed superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) using chitosan as a surface modifying agent to develop a potential T ₂ contrast probe for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The amine, carboxyl, hydroxyl, and thiol functionalities were introduced on chitosan-coated magnetic probe via simple reactions with small reactive organic molecules to afford a series of biofunctionalized nanoparticles. Physico-chemical characterizations of these functionalized nanoparticles were performed by TEM, XRD, DLS, FTIR, and VSM. The colloidal stability of these functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles was investigated in presence of phosphate buffer saline, high salt concentrations and different cell media for 1 week. MRI analysis of human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cell lines treated with nanoparticles elucidated that the amine-functionalized nanoparticles exhibited higher amount of signal darkening and lower T ₂ relaxation in comparison to the others. The cellular internalization efficacy of these functionalized SPIONs was also investigated with HeLa cancer cell line by magnetically activated cell sorting (MACS) and fluorescence microscopy and results established selectively higher internalization efficacy of amine-functionalized nanoparticles to cancer cells. These positive attributes demonstrated that these nanoconjugates can be used as a promising platform for further in vitro and in vivo biological evaluations.     

Observing spin polarization of individual magnetic adatoms

We have used spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy to observe the spin polarization state of individual Fe and Cr atoms adsorbed onto Co nanoislands. These magnetic adatoms exhibit stationary out-of-plane spin polarization, but have opposite sign of the exchange coupling between electron states of the adatom and the Co island surface state: Fe adatoms exhibit parallel spin polarization to the Co surface state while Cr adatoms exhibit antiparallel spin polarization. First-principles calculations predict ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic alignment of the spin moment for individual Fe and Cr adatoms on a Co film, respectively, implying negative spin polarization for Fe and Cr adatoms over the energy range of the Co surface state.