Water desalination across functionalized silicon carbide nanosheet membranes: insights from molecular simulations

Desalination of seawater can be an effective way to access drinking water. In this study, the performance of functionalized silicon carbide nanosheet (SiCNS) membranes for water desalination was investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. For this purpose, four types of membranes with various functionalized pores were considered to investigate their capabilities in water desalination. The chemical functions of fluorine (–F) (system S1), hydrogen (–H) (systems S2 and S3), and hydrogen (–H) and hydroxyl (–OH) (system S4) were bonded to the pore edge of the SiCNS membranes. Also, the effect of the number of pores in the membrane on the water permeability was studied between systems S2 and S3. The SiCNS membrane was placed at the center of the simulation box and the external pressure was applied to the system in the range of 10–100 MPa. The water permeability, salt rejection, potential of mean force of ions, water density, water density map, and radial distribution function (RDF) of water molecules were calculated in this work. The results demonstrated that the water permeability increases by adding hydrophilic chemical functions such as –F and –OH on the pore edge.

     

Synthesis,characterization, crystal structure determination,catalytic activity and thermal study of a new oxidovanadium(IV) Schiff base complex: production of V2O5 nano-particles

A new oxidovanadium(IV) Schiff base complex, VOL₂ (1), containing furfuryl pendant group was synthesized by the reaction of the related bidentate O, N-type Schiff base ligand and VO(acac)₂ in the ratio of 2:1 in methanol in the reflux conditions. The Schiff base ligand and its vanadyl complex were characterized by ¹H-NMR and FT-IR spectra and elemental analysis. The crystal structure of 1 was also determined the single-crystal X-ray analysis. It showed that the metal center located in a distorted tetragonal pyramidal (N₂O₃) geometry in which the two bidentate Schiff base ligands were coordinated to the vanadium(IV) ion in four equatorial positions, and one oxygen atom in its axial position. The catalytic activity of the vanadyl Schiff base complex was elucidated in the epoxidation of cyclooctene as a model substrate. Different reaction parameters were investigated in this reaction and the results showed that it was an effective and selective catalyst in these optimal conditions. Thermogravimetric analysis of 1 showed that it was decomposed in two stages by losing two methoxy groups and other organic residuals, respectively, in the temperature range of 253–532 °C. In addition, the vanadyl Schiff base complex (1) was thermally decomposed in air at 660 °C and the XRD pattern of the obtained solid showed the formation of the V₂O₅ nano-particles with the average size of 52 nm.     

Theoretical Study of Light Propagation in an Open Four-Level Quantum System

International Journal of Theoretical Physics - In this paper, theoretically the light propagation and dynamical control of weak probe pulse in an open four-level N-type atomic medium are...     

Error propagation model for microscopic magnetic resonance elastography shear-wave images

Microscopic magnetic resonance elastography is a high-resolution method for visualizing shear waves and assessing the biomechanical viscoelastic properties of small biological samples. In this work, we used error propagation to develop a simple analytical model that relates the signal-to-noise ratio of MR magnitude images to the variance in shear-wave maps collected using gradient-echo and spin-echo phase-contrast pulse sequences. Our model predicts results for shear-wave images in phantoms, which match the experimentally observed phase variance within 8%. This model can be used to optimize MR pulse sequences for elastography studies, as well as other phase-difference techniques in MRI.     

Rough intuitionistic fuzzy information systems

In this paper, we consider the notion of rough intuitionistic fuzzy sets and study their properties. We present an extension of rough set theory with the concept of intuitionistic fuzzy sets with several properties given. Moreover, we discuss the knowledge reduction of the classical Pawlak information systems and the intuitionistic fuzzy information systems, respectively.     

Semi-quantitative trace analysis of nuclear fast red by surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering

The dye nuclear fast red has been detected and determined semi-quantitatively by means of surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), using laser exciting wavelengths of 514.5 and 632.8 nm, respectively, by employing a citrate-reduced silver colloid. A good linear correlation is observed for the dependence of the intensities of the SERRS bands at 989 cm⁻¹ (R=0.9897) and 1278 cm⁻¹ (R=0.9872) on dye concentration over the range 10⁻⁹ to 10⁻⁷ M, when using an exciting wavelength of 514.5 nm. At dye concentrations above 10⁻⁷ M, the concentration dependence of the SERRS signals is non-linear. This is almost certainly due to the coverage of the colloidal silver particles being in excess of a full monolayer of the dye. A linear correlation is also observed for the dependence of the intensities of the SERS bands at 989 cm⁻¹ (R=0.9739) and 1278 cm⁻¹ (R=0.9838) on the dye concentration over the range 10⁻⁸ to 10⁻⁶ M when using an exciting wavelength of 632.8 nm. Strong fluorescence prevented collection of resonance Raman scattering (RRS) spectra from powdered samples or aqueous solutions of the dye using an exciting wavelength of 514.5 nm, but weak bands were observed in the spectra obtained from both powdered and aqueous samples of the dye using an exciting wavelength of 632.8 nm. A study of the pH dependence of SERRS/SERS and UV–VIS absorption spectra revealed the presence of different ionisation states of the dye. The limits of detection for nuclear fast red by SERRS (514.5 nm), SERS (632.8 nm) and visible spectroscopy (535 nm) are 9, 89 and 1000 ng ml⁻¹, respectively.     

Alum (KAl(SO4)2 · 12H2O) Catalyzed One-Pot Synthesis of Coumarins under Solvent-Free Conditions

Alum (KAl(SO₄)₂ · 12H₂O) is used as an efficient catalyst in the Pechmann condensation of phenol derivatives with β-keto esters leading to the formation of coumarins in excellent yields under solvent-free conditions. This methodology offers significant improvements for the synthesis of coumarins with regard to the yield of products, simplicity in operation, and green aspects by avoiding toxic catalysts and solvents.     

3,5,7,9-Substituted hexaazaacridines: toward structures with nearly degenerate singlet-triplet energy separations

Toward the goal of preparing stable, neutral open-shell systems, we synthesized a novel series of p-phenyl-substituted 3,5,7,9-hexaazaacridine and 3,5,7,9-hexaazaanthracene derivatives. The effects of substitution on the molecular electronic properties were probed both experimentally and computationally [B3LYP/6-311G(d,p)//B3LYP/6-31G(d,p)]. While the experimentally prepared structures already have small (20-25 kcal/mol) singlet-triplet energy gaps, systems with even smaller (<9 kcal/mol) singlet-triplet energy separations can be realized through systematic variation of the substituent numbers, types, and patterns. Hexaazaanthracenes show generally smaller singlet-triplet energy gaps than hexaazaacridines. Nitrogen-bonded sigma- and pi-acceptor substituents that cause positive inductive and mesomeric effects as well as carbon-bonded sigma-donor substituents make substituted hexaazaanthracenes promising candidates for purely organic high-spin systems.     

The impact of customer behavior models on revenue management systems

Computational Management Science - Revenue management (RM) can be considered an application of operations research in the transportation industry. For these service companies, it is a difficult...     

A Lorentz-covariant interacting electron–photon system in one space dimension

Letters in Mathematical Physics - A Lorentz-covariant system of wave equations is formulated for a quantum-mechanical two-body system in one space dimension, comprised of one electron and one...