Microwave Plasmas at Atmospheric Pressure

Microwave plasmas at atmospheric pressure are used for surface treatments like for example cleaning, sterilization or decontamination purposes, for a pre‐treatment to increase the adhesion of lacquer, paint, or glue, and for the deposition of different kind of layers and coatings. Micro plasma jets can also be applied for biomedical applications and for treatment of small and complex geometries like for example the inside of capillaries. Larger plasma torches which exhibit higher gas temperatures can also be used for chemical syntheses like waste gas decomposition, methane pyrolysis, or carbon dioxide dissociation and for plasma spraying purposes. In the present publication an overview on the development and the investigation of the operating principle of two atmospheric pressure microwave plasma torches at frequencies of 2.45 GHz and 915 MHz will be presented. The plasma sources are based on a cylindrical resonator combined with coaxial structures. To explain how these plasma sources work, simulations of the electric field distribution will be discussed. Furthermore, some physical characteristics of an air and an Ar/H2 atmospheric plasma like gas temperatures, excitation temperatures and densities as well as the heating of the plasma by the microwave will be investigated. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Ion-isotopic exchange reaction kinetics using Duolite ARA-9366B and Indion-AGR resins

Radiotracer isotopic technique as an effective analytical tool was used to study the kinetics of ion-isotopic exchange reactions in the nuclear- and nonnuclear-grade anion exchange resins Duolite ARA-9366B and Indion-AGR. On the basis of kinetic data, specific reaction rate (per minute), amount of ion exchanged (millimoles), initial rate of iodide ion exchange (millimoles per minute), and log K _d values were calculated for the two resins. It was observed that under identical experimental conditions of 35.0 °C, 1.000 g of ion exchange resins, and 0.002 mol/L of labeled iodide ion solution, the values calculated were 0.200 min^?1, 0.278 mmol, 0.056 mmol/min, and 9.6, respectively, for Duolite ARA-9366B resin, which were higher than 0.102 min^?1, 0.216 mmol, 0.022 mmol/min, and 5.7, respectively, for Indion-AGR resins. An identical trend was observed for the two resins during bromide ion-isotopic exchange reaction. The overall results indicate that under identical experimental conditions, Duolite ARA-9366B resins show superior performance than Indion-AGR resins. The results of the present experimental work have demonstrated that the radioanalytical technique used here can be successfully applied for the characterization of different ion exchange resins so as to evaluate their performance under various process parameters.     

Asymptotic properties of nonparametric curve estimates

We consider a class of nonparametric estimators for the regression functionm(t) in the model:y _i =m(t _i ) + _i , 1 i n, t _i [0, 1], which are linear in the observationsy _i . Several limit theorems concerning local and global stochastic and a.s. convergence and limit distributions are given.     

Existence of optimal controls for a class of systems governed by differential inclusions on a Banach space

Using Cesari's approach, we prove the existence of optimal controls for a class of systems governed by differential inclusions on a Banach space having the Radon-Nikodym property. Theorem 3.1 gives the existence result for optimal relaxed controls under fairly general assumptions on the system and the admissible controls. This result depends on a fundamental result (Theorem 2.1) that proves the existence of mild solutions of differential inclusions on a Banach space, which has also independent interest. Further, the preparatory results, such as Lemma 3.1 and Lemma 3.2, are also useful in the study of time-optimal and terminal control problems.For illustration of the results, we present two examples, one on distributed controls for a class of systems governed by nonlinear parabolic equations and the other on boundary controls with discontinuous boundary operator.This work is supported in part by the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada under Grant No. 7109.     

X-ray difffraction studies on samarium up to one megabar pressure

Abstract

High—pressure crystal structure studies have been performed on Sm up to 100 GPa using synchrotron x-radiation and a diamond anvil cell. The structural sequence Sm-dhcp-fcc-dist.fcc has been confirmed. There is no evidence of any volume collapse. The bulk modulus and its pressure derivative have been determined (B₀ = 30.7 GPa, B₀’ = 2.5).     

Conformally Flat Hypersurfaces of E4

We consider 3-dimensional conformally flat hypersurfaces of E ⁴ with 2 different principal curvatures such that the coordinate directions are principal directions. We describe explicitly those which allow an immersion with constant mean curvature. They are shown to be in close correspondence with solutions of the nonlinear integrable sine-Gordon and sinh-Gordon equations. Conversely, this provides a geometrical characterization for this particular class of conformally flat hypersurfaces of E ⁴.     

Singularities of Euler Flow? Not Out of the Blue!

Does three-dimensional incompressible Euler flow with smooth initial conditions develop a singularity with infinite vorticity after a finite time? This blowup problem is still open. After briefly reviewing what is known and pointing out some of the difficulties, we propose to tackle this issue for the class of flows having analytic initial data for which hypothetical real singularities are preceded by singularities at complex locations. We present some results concerning the nature of complex space singularities in two dimensions and propose a new strategy for the numerical investigation of blowup.     

Towards molecular-scale electronics and biomolecular self-assembly

This paper provides an overview of recent research developments in the field of nanoelectronics with organic materials such as carbon nanotubes and DNA-templated nanowires. Carbon nanotubes and gold electrodes are chemically functionalized in order to contact carbon nanotubes by self-assembly. The transport properties of these nanotubes are dominated by charging effects and display clear Coulomb blockade behaviour. A different approach towards nanoscale electronics is based on the molecular recognition properties of biomolecules such as DNA. As an example, DNA is stretched between electrodes using a molecular combing technique. A two-step metallization procedure leads to the formation of highly conductive gold nanowires.     

Non-parametric identification of non-linear oscillating systems

The problem of system identification from a time series of measurements is solved by using non-parametric additive models. Having only few structural information about the system, a non-parametric approach may be more appropriate than a parametric one for which detailed prior knowledge is needed. Based on non-parametric regression, the functions in the additive models are estimated by a penalized least-squares approach using backfitting. The optimal smoothing parameters are determined via generalized cross-validation, making this approach completely adaptive to the data. The procedure is applied to identify the non-linear restoring force of vibrationally excited helical wire rope isolators.