Ligandless dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the separation of trace amounts of silver ions in water samples and flame atomic absorption spectrometry determination

In this article, a new ligandless dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction method has been developed for preconcentration of trace quantities of silver as a prior step to its determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. In the proposed approach, carbon tetrachloride and ethanol were used as extraction and dispersive solvents. Several factors that may be affected on the extraction process, like, extraction solvent, disperser solvent, the volume of extraction and disperser solvent, pH of the aqueous solution and extraction time were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, the calibration curve was linear in the range of 5.0 ng mL⁻¹ to 2.0 μg mL⁻¹ of silver with R² = 0.9995 (n = 9) and detection limit based on three times the standard deviation of the blank (3S_b) was 1.2 ng mL⁻¹ in original solution. The relative standard deviation for eight replicate determination of 0.5 μg mL⁻¹ silver was ±1.5%. The high efficiency of dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction to carry out the determination of silver in complex matrices was demonstrated. The proposed method has been applied for determination of trace amount of silver in standard and water samples with satisfactory results.     

Use of adsorptive square-wave anodic stripping voltammetry at carbon paste electrode for the determination of amlodipine besylate in pharmaceutical preparations

The antihypertensive drug amlodipine has been characterized voltammetrically in a carbon paste electrode by means of anodic stripping voltammetry. An adsorptive stripping method in a carbon paste electrode for trace determination of amlodipine has been described. Cyclic voltammetric studies indicated the oxidation of amlodipine besylate at the electrode surface through a single two-electron irreversible step fundamentally controlled by adsorption. A study of the variation in the peak current with solution variables such as pH, ionic strength, concentration of amlodipine, possible interference, and instrumental variables, such as preconcentration time and accumulation potential, has resulted in the optimization of the oxidation signal for analytical purposes. By anodic adsorptive anodic stripping voltammetry, the calibration plot was linear in the range 9.9 × 10^?9 ? 1.4 × 10^?7 M with a detection limit of 2 × 10^?10 M in a carbon paste electrode at pH 11.0. The procedure was successfully applied to the assay of amlodipine besylate in some commercial products in the market (Amlopres®, Amlodipine, and Norvasc®). The percentage recoveries were in agreement with those obtained by the reference method.     

Two-Dimensional Legendre Wavelets for Solving Time-Fractional Telegraph Equation

In this paper, we develop an accurate and efficient Legendre wavelets method for numerical solution of the well known time-fractional telegraph equation. In the proposed method we have employed both of the operational matrices of fractional integration and differentiation to get numerical solution of the time-telegraph equation. The power of this manageable method is confirmed. Moreover, the use of Legendre wavelet is found to be accurate, simple and fast.     

Size-dependent dynamic pull-in instability of hydrostatically and electrostatically actuated circular microplates

In the present study, the dynamic pull-in instability and free vibration of circular microplates subjected to combined hydrostatic and electrostatic forces are investigated. To take size effects into account, the strain gradient elasticity theory is incorporated into the Kirchhoff plate theory to develop a nonclassical plate model including three internal material length scale parameters. By using Hamilton’s principle, the higher-order governing equation and the corresponding boundary conditions are obtained. Afterward, a generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method is employed to discritize the governing differential equations along with simply supported and clamped edge supports. To evaluate the pull-in voltage and vibration frequencies of actuated microplates, the hydrostatic-electrostatic actuation is assumed to be calculated by neglecting the fringing field effects and utilizing the parallel plate approximation. Also, a comparison between the pull-in voltages predicted by the strain gradient theory and the degenerated ones is presented. It is revealed that increasing the dimensionless internal length scale parameter or decreasing the applied hydrostatic pressures leads to higher values of the pull-in voltage. Moreover, it is found that the value of pull-in hydrostatic pressure decreases corresponding to higher dimensionless internal length scale parameters and applied voltages.     

Numerical simulation of fluid flow of two rotating side-by-side circular cylinders by Lattice Boltzmann method

A numerical investigation of the two-dimensional laminar flow around side-by-side rotating circular cylinders using Lattice Boltzmann method is conducted. The effects of variation of rotational speed ratio β and different gap spacings g* at Reynolds number of 100 are studied. A various range of rotational speed ratio 0 ≤ β ≤ 2 for four different gap spacings of 3, 1.5, 0.7 and 0.2 are investigated. Flow conditions and its characteristics, such as lift and drag coefficients and Strouhal number, is studied. The results indicated that as β increases, the flow changes its condition from periodic to steady after a critical rotational speed. Results also indicated that variation of the gap spacing and rotational speed has significant effect on wake pattern. Wake pattern in turn has significant effect on the Strouhal number. Finally, the result is compared with experimental and other numerical data.     

Analytical Solution for Isothermal Flow in a Shock Tube Containing Rigid Granular Material

Analytical solution of shock wave propagation in pure gas in a shock tube is usually addressed in gas dynamics. However, such a solution for granular media is complex due to the inclusion of parameters relating to particles configuration within the medium, which affect the balance equations. In this article, an analytical solution for isothermal shock wave propagation in an isotropic homogenous rigid granular material is presented, and a closed-form solution is obtained for the case of weak shock waves. Fluid mass and momentum equations are first written in wave and (mathematical) non-conservation forms. Afterwards by redefining the sound speed of the gas flowing inside the pores, an analytical solution is obtained using the classical method of characteristics, followed by Taylor’s series expansion based on the assumption of weak flow which finally led to explicit functions for velocity, density and pressure. The solution enables plotting gas velocity, density and pressure variations in the porous medium, which is of high interest in the design of granular shock isolators.     

Characterizing the Role of Shale Geometry and Connate Water Saturation on Performance of Polymer Flooding in Heavy Oil Reservoirs: Experimental Observations and Numerical Simulations

Many heavy oil reservoirs contain discontinuous shales which act as barriers or baffles to flow. However, there is a lack of fundamental understanding about how the shale geometrical characteristics affect the reservoir performance, especially during polymer flooding of heavy oils. In this study, a series of polymer injection processes have been performed on five-spot glass micromodels with different shale geometrical characteristics that are initially saturated with the heavy oil. The available geological characteristics from one of the Iranian oilfields were considered for the construction of the flow patterns by using a controlled-laser technology. Oil recoveries as a function of pore volumes of injected fluid were determined from analysis of continuously recorded images during the experiments. We observed a clear bypassing of displacing fluid which results in premature breakthrough of injected fluid due to the shale streaks. Moreover, the results showed a decrease of oil recovery when shales’ orientation, length, spacing, distance of the shale from production well, and density of shales increased. In contrast, an increase of shale discontinuity or distance of the shale streak from the injection well increased oil recovery. The obtained experimental data have also been used for developing and validating a numerical model where good matching performance has been observed between our experimental observations and simulation results. Finally, the role of connate water saturation during polymer flooding in systems containing flow barriers has been illustrated using pore level visualizations. The microscopic observations confirmed that besides the effect of shale streaks as heterogeneity in porous medium, when connate water is present, the trapped water demonstrates another source of disturbance and causes additional perturbations to the displacement interface leading to more irregular fingering patterns especially behind the shale streaks and also causes a reduction of ultimate oil recovery. This study reveals the application of glass micromodel experiments for studying the effects of barriers on oil recovery and flow patterns during EOR processes and also may provide a set of benchmark data for recovery of oil by immiscible polymer flood around discontinuous shales.     

The electronic transport properties of defected bilayer sliding armchair graphene nanoribbons

By applying non-equilibrium Green's functions (NEGF) in combination with tight-binding (TB) model, we investigate and compare the electronic transport properties of perfect and defected bilayer armchair graphene nanoribbons (BAGNRs) under finite bias. Two typical defects which are placed in the middle of top layer (i.e. single vacancy (SV) and stone wale (SW) defects) are examined. The results reveal that in both perfect and defected bilayers, the maximum current refers to β-AB, AA and α-AB stacking orders, respectively, since the intermolecular interactions are stronger in them. Moreover it is observed that a SV decreases the current in all stacking orders, but the effects of a SW defect is nearly unpredictable. Besides, we introduced a sequential switching behavior and the effects of defects on the switching performance is studied as well. We found that a SW defect can significantly improve the switching behavior of a bilayer system. Transmission spectrum, band structure, molecular energy spectrum and molecular projected self-consistent Hamiltonian (MPSH) are analyzed subsequently to understand the electronic transport properties of these bilayer devices which can be used in developing nano-scale bilayer systems.     

Synthesis of some new triamide derivatives via Ugi five-component reaction in aqueous solution

Triamide derivatives have been synthesized in good yields in a novel, one-pot, five-component, and efficient process by the reaction of Z-oxazolone, water, primary amines, aldehydes, isocyanides, in the presence of catalytic amount of KAl(SO₄)₂·12H₂O (alum) as a non-toxic, reusable, inexpensive, and easily available reagent via Ugi reaction in aqueous solution.     

One-dimensional backreacting holographic <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-wave superconductors

We analytically and numerically study the properties of one-dimensional holographic p-wave superconductors in the presence of backreaction. We employ the Sturm–Liouville eigenvalue problem for the analytical calculation and the shooting method for the numerical investigations. We apply the \(\hbox {AdS}_{{3}}\)/\(\hbox {CFT}_{{2}}\) correspondence and determine the relation between the critical temperature \(T_{c}\) and the chemical potential \(\mu \) for different values of the mass m of a charged spin-1 field \(\rho _{\mu }\) and backreacting parameters. We observe that the data of both analytical and numerical studies are in good agreement. We find that increasing the backreaction and the mass parameter causes the greater values for \({T_{c}}/{\mu }\). Thus, it makes the condensation harder to form. In addition, the analytical and numerical approaches show that the value of the critical exponent \( \beta \) is 1 / 2, which is the same as in the mean field theory. Moreover, both methods confirm the existence of a second order phase transition.