Organically modified montmorillonite and chitosan–phosphotungstic acid complex nanocomposites as high performance membranes for fuel cell applications

Nanocomposite membranes based on polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) of chitosan/phosphotungstic acid (PWA) and different types of montmorillonite (MMT) were prepared as alternative membranes to Nafion for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) applications. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed an electrostatically fixed PWA within the PEC membranes, which avoids a decrease in proton conductivity at practical condition. Various amounts of pristine as well as organically modified MMT (OMMT) (MMT: Cloisite Na, OMMT: Cloisite 15A, and Cloisite 30B) were introduced to the PEC membranes to decrease in methanol permeability and, thus, enhance efficiency and power density of the cells. X-ray diffraction patterns of the nanocomposite membranes proved that MMT (or OMMT) layers were exfoliated in the membranes at loading weights of lower than 3 wt.%. Moreover, the proton conductivity and the methanol permeability as well as the water uptake behavior of the manufactured nanocomposite membranes were studied. According to the selectivity parameter, ratio of proton conductivity to methanol permeability, the PEC/2 wt.% MMT 30B was identified as the optimum composition. The DMFC performance tests were carried out at 70 °C and 5 M methanol feed and the optimum membrane showed higher maximum power density as well as acceptable durability compared to Nafion 117. The obtained results indicated that owing to the relatively high selectivity and power density, the optimum nanocomposite membrane could be considered as a promising polyelectrolyte membrane (PEM) for DMFC applications.     

MgCl2/Et3N Base System as a New Catalyst for the Synthesis of α‐Hydroxyphosphonate

An efficient and simple synthesis of α‐hydroxyphosphonates via reaction of aldehydes and ketones with dimethylphosphite in the presence of MgCl₂/Et₃N base system is reported. The use of readily available and easy to handle reagent MgCl₂/Et₃N makes this method simple, convenient, and practical.     

Evaluating perturbation contributions in SAFT models by comparing to molecular simulation of n-alkanes

SAFT models are generally written as a perturbation series of the Helmholtz energy with reciprocal temperature as the argument. The perturbation coefficients are then functions of density and molecular size. The variation of the perturbation coefficients with molecular size is given primarily by Wertheim's theory [6], [7], [8] and [9], but there may be additional variations as in the PC-SAFT model. In the present work, we compare the characterization of perturbation coefficients inferred from PC-SAFT to those derived from molecular simulations.The molecular simulations are based on Discontinuous Molecular Dynamics (DMD) and second order Thermodynamic Perturbation Theory (TPT). DMD simulation is applied to the repulsive part of the potential model with molecular details like fused hard spheres for the interaction sites and 110° bond angles. The thermodynamic effects of disperse attractions are treated by rigorous application of TPT. The present work re-examines the related work of Elliott and Gray [35] in the low density and critical regions, focusing on n-alkanes with carbon numbers ranging from 3 to 80.We find that SAFT theory overestimates the repulsive contribution (A₀) and underestimates the first order contribution (A₁) of Helmholtz energy relative to simulation. Nevertheless, the correlations are qualitatively reasonable. Significant inconsistencies arise when considering the second order contribution (A₂). For example, the PC-SAFT characterization of A₂ becomes larger than A₁ in the low density, long chain limit, raising concerns about the convergence of the series. Furthermore, fluctuations are underestimated in the critical region and overestimated in the liquid region. In each case, we can suggest improved characterizations. Altogether, these results suggest ways to modify the SAFT formalism to achieve greater consistency between atomistic and coarse-grained models.     

On the α-amenability of hypergroups

Let UC(K) denote the Banach space of all bounded uniformly continuous functions on a hypergroup K. The main results of this article concern the α-amenability of UC(K) and quotient and product of hypergroups. It is also shown that a Sturm-Liouville hypergroup with a positive index is α-amenable if and only if α = 1. Author’s address: Dietlinden Stra?e 16, 80802 München, Germany     

Stochastic optimization of an urban rail timetable under time‐dependent and uncertain demand

Urban rail planning is extremely complex, mainly because it is a decision problem under different uncertainties. In practice, travel demand is generally uncertain, and therefore, the timetabling decisions must be based on accurate estimation. This research addresses the optimization of train timetable at public transit terminals of an urban rail in a stochastic setting. To cope with stochastic fluctuation of arrival rates, a two‐stage stochastic programming model is developed. The objective is to construct a daily train schedule that minimizes the expected waiting time of passengers. Due to the high computational cost of evaluating the expected value objective, the sample average approximation method is applied. The method provided statistical estimations of the optimality gap as well as lower and upper bounds and the associated confidence intervals. Numerical experiments are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and the solution method.