Synergistic extraction of Eu(III) and Nd(III) from aqueous medium using a mixture of sulfasalazine and 1,10-phenanthroline

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Solvent extraction of Eu(III) and Nd(III) from aqueous medium was investigated by sulfasalazine in benzoyl alcohol as single extractant and then...     

Self‐Healing Shape Memory PUPCL Copolymer with High Cycle Life

New polyurethane‐based polycaprolactone copolymer networks, with shape recovery properties, are presented here. Once deformed at ambient temperature, they show 100% shape fixation until heated above the melting point, where they recover the initial shape within 22 s. In contrast to current shape memory materials, the new materials do not require deformation at elevated temperature. The stable polymer structure of polyurethane yields a copolymer network that has strength of 10 MPa with an elongation at break of 35%. The copolymer networks are self‐healing at a slightly elevated temperature (70 °C) without any external force, which is required for existing self‐healing materials. This allows for the new materials to have a long life of repeated healing cycles. The presented copolymers show features that are promising for applications as temperature sensors and activating elements.     

Study on phase stabilization and electrical performance of BICO0.20−xNIxVOX solid electrolyte

BICO_0.20?xNI_xVOX solid electrolyte in the composition range 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.20 was synthesized by standard solid-state reactions. The influence of Ni substitution for Co on the relationship between the phase stabilization and electrical performance was investigated by means of X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), differential thermal analysis (DTA) and AC impedance spectroscopy. The highly conductive γ′-phase was effectively stabilized at room temperature for compositions with x ≥ 0.13 whose thermal stability increases with Ni content. On the other hand, complex plane plots of impedance suggested a major contribution of polycrystalline grain interiors to the overall electrical conductivity and the fastest oxygen-vacancy diffusion in the perovskite vanadate layers at x = 0.13. The dielectric permittivity measurements revealed the fact that suppression of the ferroelectric transition is compositionally dependent. However, a maximum ionic conductivity at lower temperatures (～2.56 × 10^?4 S cm^?1 at 300 °C) was observed for the composition with x = 0.13.     

Trust-Based Routing Mechanism in MANET: Design and Implementation

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a self-organizing wireless network for mobile devices. It does not require any fixed infrastructure to be configured which makes it more suitable to be used in environments that require on-the-fly setup. This paper discusses the challenging issues in MANET routing security. It presents FrAODV, a trust-based scheme for securing AODV routing protocol in MANET using the friendship mechanism. The nodes can evaluate the routing paths according to some selected features (such as node reputation and identity information) before forwarding the data through these routes. We have used two types of implementation in our scheme, simulation (using NS2) and real test-bed (using JADHOC). This scheme is believed to provide a robust environment where MANET nodes can trust each other in a secure community.     

Intelligent beaconless geographical forwarding for urban vehicular environments

A Vehicular Ad hoc Network is a type of wireless ad hoc network that facilitates ubiquitous connectivity between vehicles in the absence of fixed infrastructure. Source based geographical routing has been proven to perform well in unstable vehicular networks. However, these routing protocols leverage beacon messages to update the positional information of all direct neighbour nodes. As a result, high channel congestion or problems with outdated neighbour lists may occur. To this end, we propose a street-aware, Intelligent Beaconless (IB) geographical forwarding protocol based on modified 802.11 Request To Send (RTS)/ Clear To Send frames, for urban vehicular networks. That is, at the intersection, each candidate junction node leverage digital road maps as well as distance to destination, power signal strength of the RTS frame and direction routing metrics to determine if it should elect itself as a next relay node. For packet forwarding between Intersections, on the other hand, the candidate node considers the relative direction to the packet carrier node and power signal strength of the RTS frame as routing metrics to elect itself based on intelligently combined metrics. After designing the IB protocol, we implemented it and compared it with standard protocols. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol can improve average delay and successful packet delivery ratio in realistic wireless channel conditions and urban vehicular scenarios.     

Large‐Area Bilayer ReS2 Film/Multilayer ReS2 Flakes Synthesized by Chemical Vapor Deposition for High Performance Photodetectors

Rhenium disulfide (ReS₂) is attracting more and more attention for its thickness‐depended direct band gap. As a new appearing 2D transition metal dichalcogenide, the studies on synthesis method via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is still rare. Here a systematically study on the CVD growth of continuous bilayer ReS₂ film and single crystalline hexagonal ReS₂ flake, as well as their corresponding optoelectronic properties is reported. Moreover, the growth mechanism has been proposed, accompanied with simulation study. High‐performance photodetector based on ReS₂ flake shows a high responsivity of 604 A·W^?1, high external quantum efficiency of 1.50 × 10⁵ %, and fast response time of 2 ms. ReS₂ film‐based photodetector exhibits weaker performance than the flake one; however, it still demonstrates a much faster response time (≈10³ ms) than other reported CVD‐grown ReS₂‐based photodetector (≈10⁴–10⁵ ms). Such good properties of ReS₂ render it a promising future in 2D optoelectronics.     

A fuzzy logic approach to beaconing for vehicular ad hoc networks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is an emerging field of technology that allows vehicles to communicate together in the absence of fixed infrastructure. The basic premise of VANET is that in order for a vehicle detect other vehicles in the vicinity. This cognizance, awareness of other vehicles, can be achieved through beaconing. In the near future, many VANET applications will rely on beaconing to enhance information sharing. Further, the uneven distribution of vehicles, ranging from dense rush hour traffic to sparse late night volumes creates a pressing need for an adaptive beaconing rate control mechanism to enable a compromise between network load and precise awareness between vehicles. To this end, we propose an intelligent Adaptive Beaconing Rate (ABR) approach based on fuzzy logic to control the frequency of beaconing by taking traffic characteristics into consideration. The proposed ABR considers the percentage of vehicles traveling in the same direction, and status of vehicles as inputs of the fuzzy decision making system, in order to tune the beaconing rate according to the vehicular traffic characteristics. To achieve a fair comparison with fixed beaconing schemes, we have implemented ABR approach in JIST/SWANs. Our simulation shows that the proposed ABR approach is able to improve channel load due to beaconing, improve cooperative awareness between vehicles and reduce average packet delay in lossy/lossless urban vehicular scenarios.     

Influence of residence time and catalyst regeneration on the pyrolysis–zeolite catalysis of oil shale

Oil shale from the Kark region of Pakistan has been pyrolysed in a fixed bed batch reactor and the properties of the derived shale oil determined. The reactor system was then modified to incorporate a second reactor where the derived vapours from oil shale pyrolysis were passed directly to the second reactor containing zeolite ZSM-5 catalyst. The influence of the process parameters of vapour residence time (VRT) over the catalyst and the regeneration of the catalyst were examined. The yield and composition of the derived gases before and after catalysis were determined. In addition, the yield and composition of the derived oil in terms of total nitrogen and sulphur content and the content of aromatic hydrocarbons in the oils was investigated. The results showed that the yield of oil after catalysis was reduced with a consequent higher yield of gases and formation of coke on the catalyst. The main gases from the pyrolysis of oil shales were CO₂, CO, H₂, CH₄, C₂H₄, C₂H₆ and C₃H₆, C₃H₈ and minor concentrations of other hydrocarbon gases. The main role of catalysis was to convert the long chain alkanes and alkenes in the oil to lower molecular weight, short chain, alkyl substituted and iso species and high concentrations of aromatic hydrocarbons. Total nitrogen and sulphur contents in the oils were markedly reduced after catalysis. This reduction was reflected in the reduced concentration of nitrogen and sulphur containing aromatic hydrocarbons. The influence of longer VRTs was to increase the formation of aromatic hydrocarbons, reduce the nitrogen, and sulphur compounds in the oils. The influence of catalyst regeneration, involving five regenerations was not significant on the yield and composition of the derived catalytically upgraded oils.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of nanoscale surface diffusion of heterogeneous adatoms clusters

Molecular dynamics simulation employing the embedded atom method potential is utilized to investigate nanoscale surface diffusion mechanisms of binary heterogeneous adatoms clusters at 300 K, 500 K, and 700 K. Surface diffusion of heterogeneous adatoms clusters can be vital for the binary island growth on the surface and can be useful for the formation of alloy-based thin film surface through atomic exchange process. The results of the diffusion process show that at 300 K, the diffusion of small adatoms clusters shows hopping, sliding, and shear motion; whereas for large adatoms clusters(hexamer and above), the diffusion is negligible. At 500 K, small adatoms clusters, i.e., dimer, show almost all possible diffusion mechanisms including the atomic exchange process; however no such exchange is observed for adatoms clusters greater than dimer. At 700 K, the exchange mechanism dominates for all types of clusters, where Zr adatoms show maximum tendency and Ag adatoms show minimum or no tendency toward the exchange process. Separation and recombination of one or more adatoms are also observed at 500 K and 700 K. The Ag adatoms also occupy pop-up positions over the adatoms clusters for short intervals. At 700 K, the vacancies are also generated in the vicinity of the adatoms cluster,vacancy formation, filling, and shifting can be observed from the results.     

The evolution of a rotational motion of an elastic- rigid body about a fixed point in a gravitational field

The rotational motion of a rigid dynamical system including a three dimensional elastic part about a fixed point is studied. The system is under the action of a general gravitational field. The stability anlysis is carried out by expanding the displacement of the deformable part in terms of orthonormalized functions with the independent coefficients. Results are obtained easily based on Routh's equation and Andoyer variables. The system is found to be stable provided that the dissipation energy is minimum corresponds to the case of axially symmetric deformation. On the other hand, the system is unstable, when the angular momentum vector is parallel to the equatorial plane.