Digestion of titanium bearing geologic materials involving microwaves

An environmentally friendly and rapid digestion procedure involving 10 mL of acid mixture (HNO3 : HCl : HF = 2:2:1) for 0.1 g of sample in closed vessel microwave digester following heating program : 250W for 10 min., hold time 2 min., 600 W for 17 min, and Ventilation time 10 min was developed. The operating parameters were varied and optimized by factorial design approach using "Steepest Ascent" method. The validity of the recommended digestion procedure were examined by analyzing several well characterized standard reference materials such as diabase (W2), basalt (BIR-1, JB-3, BHVO-1), granite (G2), gabbro (JGb-1), Mn-nodule (Nod-A-1, Nod-P-1), sediment (STSD-4, LKSD-2), limestone (KH-2), soil (SAu-1), ilmenite (IGS-31), rutile (IGS-32), Zircon (IGS-35) and titanium dioxide (SRM-154b) employing both inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and well known spectrophotometric method. An excellent agreement between the methods and the certified values of standard reference materials suggest that the digestion procedure can be used for quality control and allied purposes.     

Retention of enzymatic activity of alpha-amylase in the reductive synthesis of gold nanoparticles

In this paper, we report the generation of Au nanoparticles (NPs), using a pure enzyme for the reduction of AuCl4(-), with the retention of enzymatic activity in the complex. As a model system, alpha-amylase was used to readily synthesize and stabilize Au NPs in aqueous solution. Although several other enzymes were also pursued for the synthesis, it was interesting to observe that only alpha-amylase and EcoRI could produce Au NPs. Following NP synthesis, the activity of the enzyme was retained in the Au NP-alpha-amylase complex. The presence of Au NPs and alpha-amylase in the complex was established by UV-visible and FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) measurements. Our observations suggest that the presence of free and exposed S-H groups is essential in the reduction of AuCl4(-) to Au NPs. Structural analysis of the enzymes showed that both alpha-amylase and EcoRI enzymes have free and exposed S-H groups in their native form and thus are suitable for the generation of NPs, whereas the other ones used here do not have such groups. Fortuitously, the enzymatic functional group of alpha-amylase is positioned opposite to that of the free and exposed S-H group, which makes it ideal for the production of Au NPs; binding of the enzyme to Au NPs via Au-S bond and also retention of the biological activity of the enzyme.     

Evaporation-induced patterns from droplets containing motile and nonmotile bacteria

In this letter, we report the observations of specific pattern formation from the evaporation of aqueous droplets containing motile and nonmotile bacteria. We found that when motile bacteria were present the droplet evaporated into disclike patterned deposits of bacteria. However, when the bacteria were made nonmotile by treatment with liquid nitrogen, the droplet evaporated into ringlike deposits. We also observed that bacteria with higher motility produced more uniformly deposited disclike patterns. Furthermore, we propose a model with numerical simulations to explain the mechanism of formation of these patterns. The model is based on the advective fluid flow from the center of the droplet toward the edge due to enhanced evaporation from the edge of the pinned droplet in comparison to that from the free surface. For the case of motile bacteria, we have added another velocity parameter toward the axis of the droplet and directed against the fluid flow in order to account for the disclike pattern formation. The numerical simulations match the experimental observations well. The present work, by qualitative and quantitative understanding of the evaporation of bacteria droplets, demonstrates that the inherent bacterial motility is primarily responsible for the formation of these differential patterns.     

Influence of adjacent channel interference on thefrequency-modulated WDM optical communication system

The effect of adjacent channel interference on the frequency modulated wavelength division multiplexing (FM-WDM) optical communication system is analyzed in this paper. This system uses injection-locked optical discriminator at the output for the demodulation of FM channels. Adjacent channel interference results in crosstalk in the FM-WDM communication system which has been calculated. Dependence of crosstalk on the channel spacing, received signal power in a particular channel, and linewidth enhancement factor of the slave laser incorporated in the optical discriminator has been numerically investigated. The injection-locked discriminator has a typical output crosstalk level of -50 dB for a channel spacing of 100 GHz with optical injection level of -30 dB into the slave laser and is a suitable subsystem to be used in FM-WDM communication system     

Transport properties of Ti3Ir compound at low temperature

Electrical resistivity and magnetoresistivity of Ti₃Ir compound have been measured in the temperature range 2.0 K ≤T ≤ 300 K in absence as well as in presence of magnetic field upto 7.7 T. The low temperature resistivity shows aT ² behaviour whereas the high temperature resistivity shows a linear behaviour. The magnetoresistivity is positive and cannot be explained by simple s-d scattering model. The enhancement of the coefficient A of theT ² term and the deviation from the quadratic field dependence of the resistivity may be due to the anisotropy in the compound. This work has been performed under the grant by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India.     

Experimental investigation of heat transfer performance of corrugated tube with spring tape inserts

Turbulent forced convection in a corrugated tube with spring tape is investigated experimentally, for Reynolds numbers from 10,000 to 50,000. The working fluid is air. Experiments are performed for different pitch and spring ratios. Results show that Nusselt numbers can be increased considerably, depending on pitch and spring ratios. An overall assessment, considering the friction losses, is achieved using the thermo-hydraulic performance parameter. The latter is observed to take values larger than unity for all cases, where quite high values around 2.8 occur for cases with smallest pitch and spring ratios. Predictive Nusselt number and friction factor correlations are proposed.     

Investigation of Noise-Induced Escape Rate: A Quantum Mechanical Approach

A quantum system coupled to a heat-bath in non-equilibrium environment is considered to study the problem of noise-induced escape rate from a metastable state in the moderate to strong friction limit (Kramers’ regime). It is known that starting from an initial coherent state representation of bath oscillators, one can derive a c-number generalized quantum Langevin equation where the quantum correction terms appear as a coupled infinite set of hierarchy of equations. For practical purpose, one should truncate these equations after a certain order. In our present development, we calculate the quantum correction terms in a closed analytical form based on a systematic perturbation technique and then derive the lowest order quantum correction factor exactly in the case of an Ohmic dissipative bath. Finally, to demonstrate its applicability, the effective equation of motions has been used to study the barrier crossing dynamics which incorporates the quantum correction factors.     

Polarization-encoded all-optical quaternary multiplexer and demultiplexer - A proposal

Multi-valued logic is positioned as a coming generation technology that can execute arithmetic functions faster and with less interconnect than binary logic. Furthermore, nonbinary data storage would require less physical space than binary data. The application of multi-valued digital signals can provide considerable relief of capacity constraints. In electronics many proposals have already been reported. But, here for the first time we propose an all-optical circuit for designing quaternary (four-valued) multiplexer and demultiplexer with the help of some polarization-encoded basic quaternary logic gates (quaternary min and quaternary delta literal). Nonlinear interferometer-based optical switch can take an important role here. The principles and possibilities of design of all-optical quaternary multi-valued multiplexer and demultiplexer circuits are proposed and described.