Synthesis and characterization of silver-polypyrrole film composite

In this work, we report the chemical polymerization of pyrrole to obtain thin film of polypyrrole (PPy) hydrochloride deposited onto the electrode of the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The film in the base form was exposed to a solution of AgNO₃. Electroless reduction for silver ions by the PPy film took place and silver particles were adsorbed onto the film surface. The silver particles content at the PPy films were analyzed by QCM and the results showed that the concentrations of silver uptakes increase as the original AgNO₃ solution increases. The morphology of the surface of the PPy film and the silver-PPy film composite were studied by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). They showed that the obtained silver particles have spherical, cubic and tetrahedral structures. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transformed infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to characterize the structure of the powder composite. This work reveals the capability of PPy film coating on QCM in sensing and removing silver from several environmental samples.     

Microdetermination of phenols, carboxylic acids and phenolic acids by potentiometric and visual titrations in dimethylformamide

Potentiometric titration of phenols with sodium methoxide in dimethylformamide, with a glass-calomel electrode system, is limited to monohydric phenols substituted with electron-attracting groups and dihydric phenols in which the two -OH groups are substituted in isolated benzene rings. Brilliant Orange has proved to be a suitable indicator in the titration of all types of mono- and dihydric phenols. Titan Yellow is recommended as indicator for the titration of carboxylic acids. Simultaneous visual titration of -OH and -COOH groups is also described. A detailed study with 62 structurally different compounds covering the various groups is reported, and a suitable procedure for the microdetermination of each class of these compounds with an error of +/- 0.2% absolute or less is presented.     

Direct Amination and Synthesis of Fused N‐Substituted Isothiochromene Derivatives

Isothiochromene[3,4‐d] pyrimidine derivatives 2 , 3 , and 4a , b were synthesized from the reaction of 3‐amino‐1‐(pyridin‐4‐yl)‐5‐(pyridin‐4‐ylmethylene)‐5,6,7,8‐tetrahydro‐1H‐isothiochromene‐4‐carbonitrile 1 with acetic anhydride, formamide, urea, or thiourea in appropriate experimental conditions. Combination of 1 with carbon acid derivatives afforded isothiochromene [3,4‐b]pyridine 6 – 8 in good yield. A simple approach for N‐substituted fused isothiochromene derivatives has been explored. A POCl₃‐mediated direct amination of isothiochromene amide 2 with NH₂‐heterocycles, secondary amines, and carbohydrazides is described and compared with classical method, yielding 10 – 14 . The structures of the newly synthesized compounds were elucidated on the basis of elemental analysis, and spectral data.     

A Semi-Supervised Learning Algorithm for Growing Neural Gas in Face Recognition

In many classification applications and face recognition tasks, there exist unlabelled data available for training along with labelled samples. The use of unlabelled data can improve the performance of a classifier. In this paper, a semi-supervised growing neural gas is proposed for learning with such partly labelled datasets in face recognition applications. The classifier is first trained on the labelled data and then gradually unlabelled data is classified and added to the training data. The classifier is retrained; and so on. The proposed iterative algorithm conforms to the EM framework and is demonstrated, on both artificial and real datasets, to significantly boost the classification rate with the use of unlabelled data. The improvement is particularly great when the labelled dataset is small. Comparison with support vector machine classifiers is also given. The algorithm is computationally efficient and easy to implement.     

Efficient way for detection of alcohols using hollow core photonic crystal fiber sensor

Optical Review - In this study, a simple hollow core hexagonal structured photonic crystal fiber is offered and analyzed to discern commonly used different type of alcohols in our daily life. The...     

Kinetics of formation of barium tungstate in equimolar powder mixture of BaCO<Subscript>3</Subscript> and WO<Subscript>3</Subscript>

The formation of Barium monotungstate (BaWO₄) particles in equimolar powder mixtures of BaCO₃ and WO₃ was examined under isothermal and non-isothermal conditions upon heating in air at 25–1200 °C, using thermogravimetry. Concurrence of the observed mass loss (due to the release of CO₂) to the occurrence of the formation reaction was evidenced. Accordingly, the extent of reaction (x) was determined as a function of time (t) or temperature (T). The x–t and x–T data thus obtained were processed using well established mathematical apparatus and methods, in order to characterize nature of reaction rate-determining step, and derive isothermal and non-isothermal kinetic parameters. Moreover, the reaction mixture quenched at various temperatures (600–1,000 °C) in the reaction course was analyzed by various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, for material characterization. The results obtained indicated that the reaction rate may be controlled by unidirectional diffusion of WO₃ species across the product layer (BaWO₄), which was implied to form on the barium carbonate particles. The isothermally determined activation energy (118–125 kJ/mol) was found to be more credible than that (245 kJ/mol) determined non-isothermally.     

A nonlinear PSE method for two-fluid shear flows with complex interfacial topology

A nonlinear stability method is developed for laminar two-fluid shear flows which undergo changes in the interface topology. The method is based on the nonlinear parabolized stability equations (PSE) and incorporates a scalar-based interface capturing (IC) scheme in order to track complex deformations of the fluid interface. In doing so, the formulation retains the flexibility and physical insight of instability-wave based methods, while providing hydrodynamic modeling capabilities similar to direct numerical calculations: the new formulation, referred to as the IC-PSE, can capture the nonlinear physical mechanisms responsible for generating large-scale, two-fluid structures, without incurring heavy computational costs. This approach is valid for spatially developing, laminar two-fluid shear flows which are convectively unstable, and can naturally account for the growth of finite amplitude interfacial waves, along with changes to the interfacial topology. We demonstrate the accuracy of the IC-PSE against direct Navier–Stokes calculations for two-fluid mixing layers with density and viscosity stratification. The comparisons show that the IC-PSE can predict the dynamics of the instability waves and capture the formation of Kelvin–Helmholtz vortex rolls and large scale liquid structures, at an order of magnitude less computational cost than direct calculations. The role of surface tension in the IC-PSE formulation is shown to be valid for flows in which Re/We ? 1, and the method accurately predicts the formation and non-linear evolution of flow structures in this limit. This is demonstrated for spatially developing mixing layers which lead to vortex roll-up and ligaments, prior to droplet formation. The pinch-off process itself is a high surface tension phenomenon and in not considered herein. The method also accurately captures the effect of interfacial waves on the mean flow, and the topology changes during the non-linear evolution of the two-fluid structures.     

Spectral studies of Co substituted Ni-Zn ferrites

The spinel ferrites Zn_0.35Ni_0.65−xCo_xFe₂O₄, 0≤x≤1, have been prepared using the standard ceramic technique. Room temperature Mössbauer, X-ray and infrared IR spectra were used for carrying out this study. X-ray patterns reveal that all the samples have single-phase cubic spinel structure. The Mössbauer spectra of the samples show a paramagnetic phase for x=0 and a six-line magnetic pattern and a central paramagnetic phase for x≥0.1. They are analyzed and attributed to two magnetic subpatterns and two quadrupole doublets due to Fe³⁺ ions at the tetrahedral A-sites and octahedral B-sites. Four absorption bands are observed in IR spectra. They confirm the spinel structure of the samples and existence of Fe³⁺ ions in the sample sublattices. The deduced hyperfine interactions, lattice parameters, absorption band positions and intensities and force constant are found to be dependent on the substitution factor x, where the cation distribution is estimated. The hyperfine magnetic fields, magnetization and lattice resonant frequency are found to be dependent on the interionic distance.