Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Graphene Oxide/Water Nanofluid in a Circular Tube Fitted with Wire Coil Insert

In this work, heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of graphene oxide/water nanofluid flow through a circular tube having a wire coil insert were studied. The required graphene oxide was synthesized via the Hummer method and characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (SRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) methods. Dispersing graphene oxide in the water, nanofluids with 0.02, 0.07, and 0.12% volume fraction were prepared. An experimental set-up was designed and made to investigate the heat transfer performance and pressure loss of nanofluids. All experiments were carried out in the constant heat flux at tube wall conditions. The volumetric flow rates of the nanofluid were adjusted at 6, 8, and 10 L/min. Thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, and viscosity as thermophysical properties of the nanofluid were calculated using graphene oxide and water properties at the average temperature via appropriate relations. These properties were applied to calculate the convective heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, and friction factors for each experiment. Finally, the constant and exponents of Duangthongsuk and Wongwises's correlations for Nusselt number and friction factor were corrected by experimental results. The achieved experimental data have shown good agreement with those predicted. The results have shown that 0.12 vol% of graphene oxide in the water can enhance convective heat transfer coefficient by about 77%. As a result, it can be concluded that the graphene oxide/water can be used in the heat transfer devices to achieve more efficiency.     

Preparation of various xanthene derivatives over sulfonic acid functionalized imidazolium salts (SAFIS) as novel,highly efficient and reusable catalysts

In this work, some novel sulfonic acid functionalized imidazolium salts (SAFIS), as a new category of ionic liquids, are synthesized by eco-friendly and simple procedures, and used as highly efficient and reusable catalysts to promote the following one-pot multicomponent organic transformations under solvent-free conditions: (i) the synthesis of 14-aryl-14H-dibenzo[a,j]xanthenes from β-naphthol (2 eq.) and arylaldehydes (1 eq.), (ii) the preparation of tetrahydrobenzo[a]xanthene-11-ones from β-naphthol, arylaldehydes and dimedone, and (iii) the synthesis of 1,8-dioxo-octahydroxanthenes from dimedone (2 eq.) and aromatic aldehydes (1 eq.). Environmentally benign, simple methodologies, easy workup procedure, clean reaction, short reaction time, high yield and easy preparation of the catalysts are some advantages of this work.     

Explicit and implicit finite difference schemes for fractional Cattaneo equation

In this paper, the numerical solution of fractional (non-integer)-order Cattaneo equation for describing anomalous diffusion has been investigated. Two finite difference schemes namely an explicit predictor–corrector and totally implicit schemes have been developed. In developing each scheme, a separate formulation approach for the governing equations has been considered. The explicit predictor–corrector scheme is the fractional generalization of well-known MacCormack scheme and has been called Generalized MacCormack scheme. This scheme solves two coupled low-order equations and simultaneously computes the flux term with the main variable. Fully implicit scheme however solves a single high-order undecomposed equation. For Generalized MacCormack scheme, stability analysis has been studied through Fourier method. Through a numerical test, the experimental order of convergency of both schemes has been found. Then, the domain of applicability and some numerical properties of each scheme have been discussed.     

Design of a surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on photonic crystal fiber with elliptical holes

In this paper, a photonic-crystal fiber based plasmonic biosensor in which gold is used as the plasmonic material is proposed. The introduced sensor is designed in such a way that the plasmonic metal layer and the sensing layer are placed outside the fiber structure so that the fabrication process and the numerical analysis has become comparatively much easier. The proposed plasmonic biosensor properties are calculated numerically using the finite element method. Amongst the parameters affecting the performance of the biosensor are the thickness of the gold layer and the diameter of the central cavity. By applying the wavelength interrogation method, the maximum sensitivity and the resolution of the proposed biosensor are computed as 5723.5 nm/RIU and 1.74?×?10^?5 RIU, respectively. The proposed structure with the above properties is suitable for detecting biological molecules, organic chemicals and analytes.     

Computational prediction and experimental selectivity coefficients for hydroxyzine and cetirizine molecularly imprinted polymer based potentiometric sensors

In spite of the increasing usages number of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in many scientific applications, the theoretical aspects of participating intra molecular forces are not fully understood. This work investigates effects of the electrostatic force, the Mulliken charge and the role of cavity's backbone atoms on the selectivity of MIPs. Moreover, charge distribution, which is a computational parameter, was proposed for the prediction of the selectivity coefficients of MIP-based sensors. In the computational approaches and experimental study, methacrylic acid (MAA) was chosen as the functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as the cross linker for hydroxyzine and cetirizine imprinted polymers. Ab initio, DFT B3LYP method was carried out on molecular optimization. With regard to results obtained from molecules optimization and hydrogen bonding properties, possible configurations of 1:n (n ≤ 5) template/monomer complexes were designed and optimized. The binding energy for each complex in gas phase was calculated. Depending on the most stable configuration, hydroxyzine and cetirizine imprinted polymer models were designed. The calculations including the porogen were also investigated. The theoretical charge distributions for the template and some potential interfering molecules were calculated. The results showed a correlation between the selectivity coefficients and the theoretical charge distributions. The results surprisingly show that charge distribution based model was able to predict the selectivity coefficients of MIP based potentiometric sensors.     

Survey of segregation alteration of hydrogen-helium mixtures via structure factor

In this study, thermodynamic instabilities in hydrogen-helium fluid mixture have been analyzed. These kinds of investigations are inevitable for indicating hydrodynamic transitions in Hydrogen-Helium fluid mixture. Therefore, first we have derived equation of state of mixture via Barker-Henderson statistical perturbation theory. Moreover, we have used Yiping radial distribution function in calculating perturbed terms. Via equation of state, we have calculated excess Gibbs free energy and the Gibbs free energy in the long wavelength limit. By means of this energy in hand we could estimate degree of hetero-coordination and segregations of this mixture which is a measure for defining thermodynamic instabilities. At last, these measurements have made us capable of anticipating thermodynamic instabilities and coordination of mixture in different concentrations.     

Flame atomic absorption spectrometric determination of μg amounts of Fe (III) ions after solid phase extraction using modified octadecyl silica membrane disks

A simple, rapid and reliable method has been developed to selectively separate and concentrate ultra trace amounts of Fe (III) ions from aqueous samples for the measurement by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). By the passage of aqueous samples through an octadecyl silica membrane disk modified by a recently synthesized Schiff base (Bis-(4-nitro phenyl azo) salisilidine-1,3-diamino propane), Fe(III) ions adsorb quantitatively and most of matrix elements will pass through the disk to drain. The retained iron ions are then stripped from the disk by minimal amount of 0.1 mol l^− 1 sulfuric acid as eluent. Extraction efficiency and the influence of pH, flow rates, amount of ligand, type and least amount of stripping acid as eluent were evaluated. The recovery of the iron from aqueous solution on the membrane disk modified with 3 mg Schiff's base was quantitative over pH 2–4.5.     

Experimental and Theoretical Study of Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of Mg‐Doped ZnO NPs and ZnO/rGO Nanocomposites

A systematic experimental and theoretical study of the origin of the enhanced photocatalytic performance of Mg‐doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) and Mg‐doped ZnO/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites has been performed. In addition to Mg, Cd was chosen as a doping material for the bandgap engineering of ZnO NPs, and its effects were compared with that of Mg in the photocatalytic performance of ZnO nanostructures. The experimental results revealed that Mg, as a doping material, recognizably ameliorates the photocatalytic performance of ZnO NPs and ZnO/graphene nanocomposites. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed that the Mg‐doped and Cd‐doped ZnO NPs had the same size. The optical properties of the samples indicated that Cd narrowed the bandgap, whereas Mg widened the bandgap of the ZnO NPs and the oxygen vacancy concentration was similar for both samples. Based on the experimental results, the narrowing of the bandgap, the particle size, and the oxygen vacancy did not enhance the photocatalytic performance. However, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and Barret–Joyner–Halenda (BJH) models showed that Mg caused increased textural properties of the samples, whereas rGO played an opposite role. A theoretical study, conducted by using DFT methods, showed that the improvement in the photocatalytic performance of Mg‐doped ZnO NPs was due to a higher electron transfer from the Mg‐doped ZnO NPs to the dye molecules compared with pristine ZnO and Cd‐doped ZnO NPs. Moreover, according to the experimental results, along with Mg, graphene also played an important role in the photocatalytic performance of ZnO.     

Solvent-free synthesis of highly functionalized indole-based 4,5-dihydrofurans and evaluation of their antioxidant activity

Facile and efficient diastereoselective synthesis of trans-indolyldihydrofurans by three-component reaction of 3-cyanoacetyl indoles with various aromatic aldehydes and N-phenacylpyridinium bromides in presence of 1,1,3,3-N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylguanidine under solvent-free conditions is described. This ecofriendly protocol offers several advantages such as a cost-effective procedure with excellent yield, short reaction time, ease workup and product isolation, good functional group tolerance, and broad scope of usable substrates. The synthesized compounds were also evaluated for their antioxidant activity by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging assay.