Nanocellulose characteristics from the inner and outer layer of banana pseudo-stem prepared by TEMPO-mediated oxidation

Many tonnes of agricultural wastes are generated annually, which contains a relatively high amount of cellulose; banana pseudo-stem is one waste type that is a promising material for nanocellulose production. This research characterised nanocellulose from inner and outer layers of banana pseudo-stem as a preliminary research strategy for designing biodegradable packaging material from banana pseudo-stem nanocellulose. Nanocellulose was successfully prepared through TEMPO (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl)-mediated oxidation. The extracted nanocellulose from both the inner and outer layers had observed widths of approximately 7–35 nm and long fibrillated fibre. They had high negative zeta potential (lower than ?33.6) that provided good colloidal stability. The purity of the nanocellulose was high as demonstrated by ¹³C solid-state NMR and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Nanocellulose from both layers was significantly more crystalline than the raw materials. Thermal stability of nanocellulose sourced from inner and outer layers was relatively similar, with degradation temperature of approximately 220 °C, which was slightly lower than the degradation temperature of its native form (232 °C for inner layer and 261 °C for outer layer).     

Electrospun PVDF/Cloisite-30B and PVDF/BaTio3/graphene nanofiber mats for development of nanogenerators

The research work mainly focusses on the preparation of nanogenerators based on PVDF/Cloisite-30B and PVDF/BaTiO₃/Graphene polymer nano composites using electrospinning technique. The process parameters were designed and optimized by applying Taguchi's Design of Experiments with L₄ array. Morphology of the polymer composites were studied using Scanning Electron Microscopic images. β-phase Crystallinity of PVDF/Cloisite-30B and PVDF/BaTiO₃/Graphene was 85% and 80% respectively when it is estimated using FTIIR spectroscopic technique. The nanogenerator with PVDF/BaTiO₃/Graphene produced 3.65 V and the same was 3.5 V in case of PVDF/Cloisite-30B nano composites. Better crystallinity was observed in PVDF/Cloisite-30B fiber mats but improved sensitivity of PVDF/BaTiO₃/Graphene resulted in slight enhancement of output voltage. The result indicates the ability of polymer composites as nanogenerator for development of wearable self-powered electronic devices for smart sensing applications.     

Modification of Kagan's amide for improved activity as Chiral Solvating Agent in enantiodiscrimination during NMR analysis

A modification is proposed in Kagan's amide in order to improve its ability to offer stronger hydrogen bonding and hence better ability to bind with substrates. Introduction of chlorine in the amide aromatic ring along with the two nitro groups, increases the acidic character of amide hydrogen and makes the hydrogen bond stronger, the concept is tested by making three derivatives of Kagan's amide and the effect is confirmed by nmr analysis. The modified chlorinated Kagan's amides were then tested as chiral solvating agents for detection of optical purity of several types of substrates where the supramolecular recognition is measured by in situ nmr analysis. Several guest molecules such as amide, sulfoxide, epoxy-keto, hydroxy acid, diacid and phosphoric acid were scanned for this study and its efficiency is further established by comparison with samples of known optical purity.     

A sustainable approach to Gilloy-shoot extract-mediated synthesis of magnetite nanoparticles: isotherm and kinetic study of U(VI) removal

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Magnetically modified nanoparticles have been demonstrated to be quite successful at re-mediating wastewater in recent experiments. The current...     

Characterization of the interactions between synthetic nematic LCs and model cell membranes

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to characterize interactions of synthetic LCs, 4‐pentyl‐4′‐cyanobiphenyl (5CB) and TL205 (a mixture of cyclohexane‐fluorinated biphenyls and fluorinated terphenyls) with simple mimics of cell membranes. The investigation was motivated by reports that living cells can be placed into contact with TL205 without apparent toxicity, whereas contact of cells with 5CB leads to cell death. The tendency was examined for 5CB and TL205 to spontaneously partition into and influence the organization for model cell membranes composed of phospholipids. Upon contact of an aqueous dispersion of DPPC liposomes with neat LC for 4 h, 5CB partitioned into the liposomes at a weight ratio of 5:1 DPPC:5CB, whereas TL205 partitioned at a ratio of 310:1 DPPC:TL205. DSC endotherms indicated that the 5CB spontaneously partitioned into the liposomes was far more perturbing than TL205. DSC endotherms of DPPC bilayers containing the same concentration of either 5CB or TL205 also revealed 5CB to be more perturbing than TL205. The effect of up to 7.8 wt % of TL205 was small, resulting in a shift in the melting transition from 41.4°C to 40.1°C and a minor change in peak width, indicating only minor effects on the organization of the bilayer. These effects are similar to those caused by cholesterol in DPPC bilayers. In contrast, 5CB shifted the DPPC melting transition from 41.4°C to ～36°C and increased the width of the transition peak by a factor of ten, indicating a destabilization of the ordered phase in the bilayer and a disruption of the cooperative nature of the gel‐to‐LC transition of the phospholipid bilayer. Taken together, the results demonstrate that 5CB and TL205 differ significantly in their interactions with model cell membranes, which suggests one possible origin of their different toxicities toward cells.     

Simulations of filamentary structure in an edge-localized mode burst on EAST using BOUT++ code

In this paper, simulation on the filamentary structure for the low-hybrid wave heating H-mode on experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) is carried out for the first time using BOUT++, and the speed and width of edge localized mode (ELM) filaments have been evaluated during the simulation. The evolutions of the ELM filaments are illustrated temporally and spatially. Then the results are compared with the experimental observations. It is found that at the peak gradient region in the outer midplane, the radial speed of the filaments is changed frequently and varied from 0.016 to 0.38 km/s. For the contrast, the poloidal speed oscillates in a narrower range of 0.68–0.88 km/s. The calculation results show the width of ELM filaments oscillates during the simulation, the minimum width is around 8.3 mm, and the maximum value is 41.24 mm. The distributions of the ELM filament widths with the radial position indicate the width is decreased with the radial position. Furthermore, by tracing one single filament, the radial width is decreased gradually when the filament is moving outward, which is also consistent with experiment conclusion. The consistencies also indicate the availability and practicability of the six-field two-fluid model of BOUT++ on the study of ELMs.     

Vibrational dynamics of Fe-based glassy alloys

The well recognized model potential is used to investigate the vibrational properties of four Fe-based binary glassy alloys viz. Fe₉₀Zr₁₀, Fe₈₀B₂₀, Fe₈₃B₁₇ and Fe₈₀P₂₀. The thermodynamic and elastic properties are also computed from the elastic limits of the phonon dispersion curves (PDC). Three theoretical approaches given by Hubbard-Beeby (HB), Takeno-Goda (TG) and Bhatia-Singh (BS) are used in the present study to compute the PDC. Six local field correction functions proposed by Hartree (H), Taylor (T), Ichimaru-Utsumi (IU), Farid et al. (F) and Sarkar et al. (S) and Sarkar et al.’s local field factor (SLFF) based excgange and correlation function are employed to see the effect of exchange and correlation in the aforesaid properties.     

Numerical analysis of a mathematical model for propagation of an electrical pulse in a neuron

This article is devoted to the study of a mathematical model arising in the mathematical modeling of pulse propagation in nerve fibers. A widely accepted model of nerve conduction is based on nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations. When considered as part of a particular initial boundary value problem the equation models the electrical activity in a neuron. A small perturbation parameter ε is introduced to the highest order derivative term. The parameter if decreased, speeds up the fast variables of the model equations whereas it does not affect the slow variables. In order to formally reduce the problem to a discussion of the moment of fronts and backs we take the limit ε → 0. This limit is singular and is therefore the solution tends to a slowly moving solution of the limiting equation. This leads to the boundary layers located in the neighborhoods of the boundary of the domain where the solution has very steep gradient. Most of the classical methods are incapable of providing helpful information about this limiting solution. To this effort a parameter robust numerical method is constructed on a piecewise uniform fitted mesh. The method consists of standard upwind finite difference operator. A rigorous analysis is carried out to obtain priori estimates on the solution of the problem and its derivatives. A parameter uniform error estimate for the numerical scheme so constructed is established in the maximum norm. It is then proven that the numerical method is unconditionally stable and provides a solution that converges to the solution of the differential equation. A set of numerical experiment is carried out in support of the predicted theory, which validates computationally the theoretical results. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2008