Influence of Support Type and Metal Loading in Methane Decomposition over Iron Catalyst for Hydrogen Production

Natural gas resources, stimulate the method of catalytic methane decomposition. Hydrogen is a superb energy carrier and integral component of the present energy systems, while carbon nanotubes exhibit remarkable chemical and physical properties. The reaction was run at 700 °C in a fixed bed reactor. Catalyst calcination and reduction were done at 500 °C. MgO, TiO₂ and Al₂O₃ supported catalysts were prepared using a co‐precipitation method. Catalysts of different iron loadings were characterized with BET, TGA, XRD, H₂‐TPR and TEM. The catalyst characterization revealed the formation of multi‐walled nanotubes. Alternatively, time on stream tests of supported catalyst at 700 °C revealed the relative profiles of methane conversions increased as the %Fe loading was increased. Higher %Fe loadings decreased surface area of the catalyst. Iron catalyst supported with Al₂O₃ exhibited somewhat higher catalytic activity compared with MgO and TiO₂ supported catalysts when above 35% Fe loading was used. CH₄ conversion of 69% was obtained utilizing 60% Fe/Al₂O₃ catalyst. Alternatively, Fe/MgO catalysts gave the highest initial conversions when iron loading below 30% was employed. Indeed, catalysts with 15% Fe/MgO gave 63% conversion and good stability for 1 h time on stream. Inappropriateness of Fe/TiO₂ catalysts in the catalytic methane decomposition was observed.     

Nonlinear vibration response of shear deformable FGM sandwich toroidal shell segments

Meccanica - The nonlinear vibration investigation of toroidal shell segment (TSS) with an analytical approach is presented in this paper. The TSS is considered as a sandwich structure with FGM core...     

Ultra high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of phenolic constituents in honey from various floral sources using multiwalled carbon nanotubes as extraction sorbents

An ultra high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry method has been developed for the simultaneous separation, identification and determination of 22 phenolic constituents in honey from various floral sources from Yemen. Solid‐phase extraction was used for extraction of the target phenolic constituents from honey samples, while multiwalled carbon nanotubes were used as solid‐phase adsorbent. The chromatographic separation of all phenolic constituents was performed on a BEH C₁₈ column using a linear gradient elution with a binary mobile phase mixture of aqueous 0.1% formic acid and methanol. The quantitation was carried out in selected ion reaction monitoring acquisition mode. The total amount of phenolic acids, flavonoids and other phenols in each analyzed honey was found in the range of 338–3312, 122–5482 and 2.4–1342 μg/100 g of honey, respectively. 4‐Hydroxybenzoic acid was found to be the major phenolic acid. The main detected flavonoid was chrysin, while cinnamic acid was found to be the major other phenol compound. The regeneration of solid phase adsorbent to be reused and recovery results confirm that the proposed method could be potentially used for the routine analysis of phenolic constituents in honey extract.     

Functionalized nanoparticles based solid‐phase membrane micro‐tip extraction and high‐performance liquid chromatography analyses of vitamin B complex in human plasma

Iron nanoparticles were prepared by a green method following functionalization using 1‐butyl‐3‐methylimidazolium bromide. 1‐Butyl‐3‐methylimidazole iron nanoparticles were characterized using FTIR spectroscopy, energy dispersive X‐ray fluorescence, X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The nanoparticles were used in solid‐phase membrane micro‐tip extraction to separate vitamin B complex from plasma before high‐performance liquid chromatography. The optimum conditions obtained were sorbent (15 mg), agitation time (30 min), pH (9.0), desorbing solvent [water (5 mL) + methanol (5 mL) + sodium hydroxide (0.1 N) + acetic acid (d = 1.05 kg/L, pH 5.5), desorbing volume (10 mL) and desorption time (30 min). The percentage recoveries of all the eight vitamin B complex were from 60 to 83%. A high‐performance liquid chromatography method was developed using a PhE column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5.0 μm) and water/acetonitrile (95:5, v/v; pH 4.0 with 0.1% formic acid) mobile phase. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min with detection at 270 and 210 nm. The values of the capacity, separation and resolution factor were 0.57–39.47, 1.12–6.00 and 1.84–26.26, respectively. The developed sample preparation and chromatographic methods were fast, selective, inexpensive, economic and reproducible. The developed method can be applied for analyzing these drugs in biological and environmental matrices.     

An investigation into the noise generation of CPAP devices: Experimental and numerical study

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices are popularly used for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) treatment. However, the noise level emission from these devices has been identified as a potential factor for patient’s discomfort and rejection. There is a need to obtain information on the noise characteristics and source locations in order to tackle the most serious noise source within these devices. A typical CPAP device was used for the investigation and its sound characteristics and sound power levels were determined. The noise generated from a centrifugal fan was also independently investigated to address its contribution to the overall noise of the device. Frequency analysis suggested that the noise generated from both the CPAP device and the fan is broadband in nature with discrete peaks containing rotational and non-rotational components. The broadband components were then studied in detail using numerical simulation approach. Computational aeroacoustics (CAA) method with hybrid approach was used to a three-dimensional (3-D) CPAP fluid model to predict the aerodynamic and aeroacoustics behaviours of the device. This showed a complicated flow structure involving flow separation, rotation, and vortices in several locations which resulted in high level of flow turbulence inside the device. The turbulent components were used to estimate the broadband noise level at source using the broadband noise source (BNS) models. It shows the most critical location is at the fan region and at the fan inlet.     

Chemical Composition of Essential Oils from Hedyosmum orientale

Chemistry of Natural Compounds -     

On the analysis of a kind of nonlinear Sobolev equation through locally applied pseudo‐spectral meshfree radial point interpolation

In this study, we develop an approximate formulation for two‐dimensional nonlinear Sobolev problems by focusing on pseudospectral meshless radial point interpolation (PSMRPI) which is a kind of locally applied radial basis function interpolation and truthfully a meshless approach. In the PSMRPI method, the nodal points do not need to be regularly distributed and can even be quite arbitrary. It is easy to have high order derivatives of unknowns in terms of the values at nodal points by constructing operational matrices. The convergence and stability of the technique in some sense are studied via some examples to show the validity and trustworthiness of the PSMRPI technique.     

On local hierarchical refinement and error estimation for isogeometric analysis

Over the past years a lot of attention was devoted to the investigation of isogeometric analysis, which integrates simulation techniques with computer aided design. In this article we focus on the ingredients for adaptive simulation with isogeometric methods. Local mesh refinement is realized by the usage of hierarchical B-splines, and different error estimation techniques are discussed. Promising numerical examples are shown in the end. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Psoralen and coumarin photochemistry in HSA complexes and DMPC vesicles

The photochemistry and photophysics of several psoralens and coumarins have been examined in human serum albumin (HSA) complexes and dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) vesicles. Fluorescence spectroscopy indicates that there are multiple binding sites with polarities that are intermediate between those of acetonitrile and water for the substrates complexed to HSA. In the case of the 6,7-dimethoxycoumarin-HSA complex, laser flash photolysis experiments provide evidence for the formation of radical cation in addition to triplet. Radical cations are not detected for other coumarin-HSA complexes, either due to a lower yield of formation or to rapid reaction of an initial radical cation with adjacent amino acids. Fluorescence spectra for coumarins indicate that they are primarily solubilized in the polar headgroup region in DMPC vesicles. Consistent with this, radical cations generated by photoionization are detected in transient experiments. For dimethoxycoumarins the radical cation is long-lived, indicating rapid exit from the vesicle and decay in the aqueous phase. However, 4,5',8-trimethylpsoralen and 7-ethoxy-4-hexadecylcoumarin radical cations are much shorter-lived, presumably due to rapid decay by electron recombination in the vesicle. The results for both HSA complexes and vesicles indicate that radical ions may play a role in psoralen and coumarin photochemistry in a cellular environment.