Optimization of a novel method for determination of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes in hair and waste water samples by carbon nanotubes reinforced sol-gel based hollow fiber solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography using factorial experimental design

A novel design of solid phase microextraction fiber containing carbon nanotube reinforced sol-gel which was protected by polypropylene hollow fiber (HF-SPME) was developed for pre-concentration and determination of BTEX in environmental waste water and human hair samples. The method validation was included and satisfying results with high pre-concentration factors were obtained. In the present study orthogonal array experimental design (OAD) procedure with OA(16) (4(4)) matrix was applied to study the effect of four factors influencing the HF-SPME method efficiency: stirring speed, volume of adsorption organic solvent, extraction and desorption time of the sample solution, by which the effect of each factor was estimated using individual contributions as response functions in the screening process. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed for estimating the main significant factors and their percentage contributions in extraction. Calibration curves were plotted using ten spiking levels of BTEX in the concentration ranges of 0.02-30,000ng/mL with correlation coefficients (r) 0.989-0.9991 for analytes. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the method showed good linearity (0.3-20,000ng/L), repeatability, low limits of detections (0.49-0.7ng/L) and excellent pre-concentration factors (185-1872). The best conditions which were estimated then applied for the analysis of BTEX compounds in the real samples.     

Monophosphoramide derivatives: synthesis and crystal structure,theoretical and experimental studies of their biological effects

Molecular Diversity - Synthesizing new chemical compounds and studying their biological applications have been important issues in scientific research. In this investigation, we synthesized and...     

Magnetic properties of iron-based soft magnetic composites with MgO coating obtained by sol-gel method

Soft magnetic composites with a thin MgO insulating layer were produced by a sol-gel method. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, density measurement and compositional maps confirmed that thin layers of MgO covered the iron powders. Coercivity measurement showed that the stress relaxation and reduction of hysteresis loss efficiently occurred at 600 °C. At this temperature, the phosphate insulation of commercial SOMALOY^TM samples degrade and their electrical resistivity, magnetic permeability and operating frequency decreases noticeably. The results show that the MgO insulation has a greater heat resistance than conventional phosphate insulation, which enables stress-relief at higher temperatures (600 °C) without a large increase in eddy current loss. The results of annealing at 600 °C show that the electrical resistivity and ferromagnetic resonance frequency increased from 11 μΩ m and 1 kHz for SOMALOY^TM samples to 145 μΩ m and 100 kHz for the MgO insulated composites produced in this work.     

Wave propagation in embedded inhomogeneous nanoscale plates incorporating thermal effects

In this article, an analytical approach is developed to study the effects of thermal loading on the wave propagation characteristics of an embedded functionally graded (FG) nanoplate based on refined four-variable plate theory. The heat conduction equation is solved to derive the nonlinear temperature distribution across the thickness. Temperature-dependent material properties of nanoplate are graded using Mori–Tanaka model. The nonlocal elasticity theory of Eringen is introduced to consider small-scale effects. The governing equations are derived by the means of Hamilton’s principle. Obtained frequencies are validated with those of previously published works. Effects of different parameters such as temperature distribution, foundation parameters, nonlocal parameter, and gradient index on the wave propagation response of size-dependent FG nanoplates have been investigated.     

Pure axial flow of viscoelastic fluids in rectangular microchannels under combined effects of electro-osmosis and hydrodynamics

This paper presents an analysis of the combined electro-osmotic and pressure-driven axial flows of viscoelastic fluids in a rectangular microchannel with arbitrary aspect ratios. The rheological behavior of the fluid is described by the complete form of Phan-Thien–Tanner (PTT) model with the Gordon–Schowalter convected derivative which covers the upper convected Maxwell, Johnson–Segalman and FENE-P models. Our numerical simulation is based on the computation of 2D Poisson–Boltzmann, Cauchy momentum and PTT constitutive equations. The solution of these governing nonlinear coupled set of equations is obtained by using the second-order central finite difference method in a non-uniform grid system and is verified against 1D analytical solution of the velocity profile with less than 0.06% relative error. Also, a parametric study is carried out to investigate the effect of channel aspect ratio (width to height), wall zeta potential and the Debye–Hückel parameter on 2D velocity profile, volumetric flow rate and the Poiseuille number in the mixed EO/PD flows of viscoelastic fluids with different Weissenberg numbers. Our results show that, for low channel aspect ratios, the previous 1D analytical models underestimate the velocity profile at the channel half-width centerline in the case of favorable pressure gradients and overestimate it in the case of adverse pressure gradients. The results reveal that the inapplicability of the Debye–Hückel approximation at high zeta potentials is more significant for higher Weissenberg number fluids. Also, it is found that, under the specified values of electrokinetic parameters, there is a threshold for velocity scale ratio in which the Poiseuille number is approximately independent of channel aspect ratio.     

Investigation of the effective parameters on the synthesis of Ni-ferrite nanocrystalline powders by coprecipitation method

In this work, synthesis of nanostructured NiFe₂O₄ powders by coprecipitation method using novel precursors, followed by calcination was investigated for the first time. The synthesis was started by dissolving Fe and Ni chlorides and ammonium ferrous sulfate in deionized water. After stirring, the precipitating agent of NaOH was added to the solution and after 1 h aging, the resultant precipitates were washed with deionized water and acetone. Then the powder was characterized and the effects of different parameters such as molarity of precipitant, calcination temperature and the molar ratio of Ni²⁺ ion to the total iron ions were studied. It is concluded that an increase in molarity of precipitant can decrease the calcination temperature. The best conditions giving a single phase Ni-ferrite were using of 2.2 molar NaOH, calcination temperature of 900 °C and the molar ratio of nickel to iron as 0.5. The crystallite size of resulting ferrites was below 50 nm.     

Design and optimization of thin film polarizer at the wavelength of 1540 nm using differential evolution algorithm

In this paper, a thin film polarizer at the wavelength of 1540 nm in infrared region was designed and optimized using differential evolution method. It is shown how the algorithm’s parameters can change the output result to obtain the best consequence of optimization. This polarizer consists of a few pairs of high and low refractive index dielectric materials, titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide, respectively, with \(BK_{7}\) glass substrate and the angle of incident light was supposed 56° that is the Brewster angle for \(BK_{7}\) glass. Our final optimized polarizer has 91.20 and 0.336% transmittance for P and S polarization, respectively, and a 271 ratio of \(\frac{{T_{P} }}{{T_{S} }}\) which has high significance for this polarizer. It consists of eight pairs of layers with low and high refractive index materials and 3369.1 nm physical thickness which is used to separate S and P polarized light for Q-switching process.     

Distinguished Connections on Finsler Algebroids

Considering the prolongation of a Lie algebroid,the authors introduce Finsler algebroids and present important geometric objects on these spaces.Important endomorphisms like conservative and Barthel,Cartan tensor and some distinguished connections like Berwald,Cartan,Chern-Rund and Hashiguchi are introduced and studied.     

Introduction of a new dichlorophen electrochemical sensor relying on the modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with carboxyl-functionalized graphene oxide/poly (L-arginine)

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Dichlorophen (Dcp), a harmful environmental pollutant, is broadly utilized in veterinary medications, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, cosmetics, and...