Effect of various processing techniques and different levels of antioxidant on stability of rice bran during storage

Rice bran is a major cereal by‐product available for animal feeding in many parts of the world. It has a good balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and minerals. The greatest restriction to the use of rice bran is its instability during storage, leading to rancidity and the presence of heat‐labile antinutritional factors. Rice bran was treated to stabilize it by extrusion cooking, roasting, pelleting and adding antioxidant (125, 250 and 375 ppm). The rice bran so treated was stored for 345 days and analyzed every 15 days for free fatty acid, peroxide and iodine values. Heat treatments were effective in stabilizing rice bran by reducing the rancidity and increasing the storage life. Roasting was effective in stabilizing rice bran for only 180 days of storage. Raw and pelleted rice bran behaved similarly with regard to stability during storage for 345 days. Addition of antioxidant in rice bran was not effective for stabilizing FFA, peroxide and iodine values. There was no difference in dose rates of antioxidant of 125, 250 and 375 ppm. Extrusion cooking proved to be the most effective process for stabilizing rice bran for prolonged storage, and roasting would be the next choice. Addition of antioxidant in rice bran was not effective for stabilizing rice bran during storage. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effect of temperature and thermodynamic quality of solvent over unperturbed chain dimensions of nylon 6

A nylon 6 sample having average molecular mass 4.825 × 10⁵ g mol^?1 was fractionated into five different fractions with respect to molecular mass, which ranged from 3691 to 999,000 g mol^?1. The light scattering and intrinsic viscosity measurements were made in m‐cresol and its mixture with 1,4‐dioxane. The second virial coefficient, radius of gyration and Mark Houwink's constant and unperturbed chain dimensions were determined by light scattering and viscosity measurement. It has been observed that all these parameters are composition of solvent and temperature dependent. The solvent having composition of 97% m‐cresol and 3% dioxane, was best and it deteriorated with the increase/decrease in percentage of 1,4‐dioxane in m‐cresol. However, its thermodynamic quality was enhanced with the temperature. Such variation in quality of solvent was reflected in all the estimated parameters and showed maxima at this composition of solvent. The unperturbed dimensions obtained by different methods though, differed in values but showed same trend and NA‐MKB method gave close results to the one obtained through [η_o]. A new expression has also been proposed relating k_o to solvent quality and temperature and the data obtained by us for nylon‐6 and the one obtained from the literature for dextran obeyed this expression up to large extent irrespective of the solvent composition and temperature. The proposed equations have also been applied to dextran/methoxy ethylene and dextran/ethylene glycol systems and worked well. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011.     

Biomolecular conjugation inside synthetic polymer nanopores via glycoprotein-lectin interactions

We demonstrate the supramolecular bioconjugation of concanavalin A (Con A) protein with glycoenzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP) inside single nanopores, fabricated in heavy ion tracked polymer membranes. Firstly, the HRP-enzyme was covalently immobilized on the inner wall of the pores using carbodiimide coupling chemistry. The immobilized HRP-enzyme molecules bear sugar (mannose) groups available for the binding of Con A protein. Secondly, the bioconjugation of Con A on the pore wall was achieved through its biospecific interactions with the mannose residues of the HRP enzyme. The immobilization of biomolecules inside the nanopore leads to the reduction of the available area for ionic transport, and this blocking effect can be exploited to tune the conductance and selectivity of the nanopore in aqueous solution. Both cylindrical and conical nanopores were used in the experiments. The possibility of obtaining two or more conductance states (output), dictated by the degree of nanopore blocking resulted from the different biomolecules in solution (input), as well as the current rectification properties obtained with the conical nanopore, could also allow implementing information processing at the nanometre scale. Model simulations based on the transport equations further verify the feasibility of the sensing procedure that involves concepts from supramolecular chemistry, molecular imprinting, recognition, and nanotechnology.     

Impact properties of thermoplastic composites

The excellent properties exhibited by thermoplastic composites at much reduced weight have attracted attention in the development of products in different sectors. Thermoplastic (TP) composites, because of their distinctive properties as well as ease of manufacturing, have emerged as a competitor against the conventional thermoset resin-based composites. Depending on the application, these composites may undergo impact events at various velocities and often fail in many complex modes. Hence, the development of TP composites having high energy-dissipation at (the desired) much-reduced weight has become a challenging task, but it is a problem which may be alleviated through the appropriate selection of materials and fabrication processes. Furthermore, fibre surface modification has been shown to increase fibre-matrix interfacial adhesion, which can lead to improved impact resistance. Textile preforms are helpful in acting as a structural backbone in the composites since they offer a relatively free hand to the composite designer to tailor its properties to suit a specific application. Additionally, hybrid textile composite structures may help in achieving the desired properties at much lower weight.

Simulation software can play a significant role in the evaluation of composites without damaging physical samples. Once the simulation result has been validated with actual experimental results, it should be possible to predict the test outcomes for different composites, with different characteristics, at different energy levels without conducting further physical tests. Various numerical models have been developed which have to be incorporated into these software tools for better prediction of the result.

In the current issue of Textile Progress, the effects of various materials and test parameters on impact behaviour are critically analyzed. The effect of incorporating high-performance fibres and natural fibres or their hybrid combination on the impact properties of TP composites are also discussed and the essential properties of TP polymers are briefly explained. The effects of fibre and matrix hybridization, environmental factors, various textile preform structures and fibre surface modification treatments on the impact properties of thermoplastic composites are examined in detail. Various numerical models used for impact analysis are discussed and the potential applications of TP composites in automobile, aerospace and medical sectors are highlighted.     

Strain Improvement Through UV and Chemical Mutagenesis for Enhanced Citric Acid Production in Molasses-Based Solid State Fermentation

Aspergillus niger was subjected to UV radiation and chemical mutagenesis to develop its hyper-producing mutants for enhanced citric acid production. Ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) and Ethidium bromide (EB) were used for chemical mutagenesis of Aspergillus niger. UV, and chemically treated mutants of Aspergillus niger were identified by using 2-deoxy, D-glucose as selective marker. The selected mutants were cultured in solid state fermentation (SSF) of sugarcane molasses medium (10%) using corn cobs, banana stalk, sugarcane bagasse, wheat straw, and wheat bran as carrier substrates. After pH adjustment and sterilization, the triplicate flasks were inoculated with 5 mLof homogenous spore suspensions of selected mutants of A. niger and the flasks were subjected to SSF under still culture conditions. The mutant EB-3 (treated with 1 mg/mL ethidium bromide for 120 min) giving highest citric acid yield (64.2 mg/mL) in 72 h was selected as hyper-producing mutant. Citric acid production process using EB-3 mutant was then optimized to enhance citric acid production by the mutant in SSF. Aspergillus niger EB-3 mutant could produce 67.72 mg/mL citric acid in 72 h using banana stalks as support material under optimum conditions of pH (pH 6), incubation temperature (35°C) and inoculum size (5 mL) in SSF.     

Energy and exergy analysis of a 747-MW combined cycle power plant Guddu

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a detailed study based on the energy and exergy analysis of a combined cycle power plant (CCPP) Guddu having triple pressure heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The energy loss and the energy efficiency of each plant component with HRSG as a whole is calculated. The exergy destruction of these components and the sub-parts of the HRSG are also found out. All the three stages of the steam turbine are analysed individually. The combustion chamber is found to have the maximum share of exergy destruction while the condenser is having a maximum of energy loss. The total net power output, energy and exergy efficiency of the whole plant is calculated as 737.8?MW, 59.12% and 58.24%, respectively. The error in getting the designed power output of 747?MW is 3.16%. The thermal efficiency of the Brayton and Rankine cycle is 62.01% and 56.38%, respectively.     

Influence of absorber doping in a-SiC：H/a-Si：H/a-SiGe：H solar cells

This work deals with the design evaluation and influence of absorber doping for a-Si:H/a-SiC:H/a-SiGe:H based thin-film solar cells using a two-dimensional computer aided design (TCAD) tool. Various physical parameters of the layered structure, such as doping and thickness of the absorber layer, have been studied. For reliable device simulation with realistic predictability, the device performance is evaluated by implementing necessary models (e.g., surface recombinations, thermionic field emission tunneling model for carrier transport at the heterojunction, Schokley-Read Hall recombination model, Auger recombination model, bandgap narrowing effects, doping and temperature dependent mobility model and using Fermi-Dirac statistics). A single absorber with a graded design gives an efficiency of 10.1% for 800 nm thick multiband absorption. Similarly, a tandem design shows an efficiency of 10.4% with a total absorber of thickness of 800 nm at a bandgap of 1.75 eV and 1.0 eV for the top a-Si and bottom a-SiGe component cells. A moderate n-doping in the absorber helps to improve the efficiency while p doping in the absorber degrades efficiency due to a decrease in the V_OC (and fill factor) of the device.     

Crystallization kinetics and structure of poly(trimethylene terepthalate)/monolayer nano-mica nanocomposites

In this work, the structure of poly(trimethylene terepthalate) (PTT)/monolayer nano-mica (MNM) nanocomposites are investigated by wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). In the PTT nanocomposites, the crystallization induces the segregation of MNM in which three morphologies, including interlamellar, interfibrillar, and interspherulitic segregations, are observed with changing the MNM content. Avrami analysis of isothermal crystallization demonstrates that MNM enhances the bulk crystallization rate in the nanocomposites. Moreover, the non-integral values of Avrami exponent n between 2 and 4 with increasing crystallization temperature indicate the mixed growth and nucleation mechanisms. The analysis of secondary nucleation theory for neat PTT and the PTT nanocomposites exhibit the same regime transition of crystallization behaviour in which the classical transition temperatures of regime I to II and regime II to III take place at 488 K and 468 K, respectively. The growth rate of spherulites of the PTT nanocomposites is twofold larger than that of neat PTT in regime III, implying that MNM plays an effective role as a nucleating agent, since the addition of MNM enormously reduces the activation energy of nucleation, folding surface free energy and average work of chain folding for PTT nucleation. However, experimental results show that the MNM content below 1 wt% is the most effective for nucleation of PTT crystallization.     

A meshfree interpolation method for the numerical solution of the coupled nonlinear partial differential equations

This paper formulates a simple classical radial basis functions (RBFs) collocation (Kansa) method for the numerical solution of the coupled Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations, coupled Burgers’ equations, and quasi-nonlinear hyperbolic equations. Contrary to the mesh oriented methods such as the finite-difference and finite element methods, the new technique does not require mesh to discretize the problem domain, and a set of scattered nodes provided by initial data is required for realization of solution of the problem. Accuracy of the method is assessed in terms of the error norms $L_2,L_{\infty }$, number of nodes in the domain of influence, time step length, parameter free and parameter dependent RBFs. Numerical experiments are performed to demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the method for the three classes of partial differential equations (PDEs).     

Bio-based unsaturated polyester/layered silicate nanocomposites: Characterization and thermo-physical properties

Proper stiffness–toughness balance along with enhancement in other thermo-physical properties can be obtained by incorporating layered silicates (nanoclay) in bio-based resins, defined as blends of functionalized vegetable oils and petroleum-based resins. Bio-based polymer nanocomposites with varying clay concentration and varying bio-resin (epoxidized soy bean oil) content in unsaturated polyester resins were manufactured. Thermo-physical properties such as tensile modulus and strength, coefficient of thermal expansion, moisture absorption, toughness, and glass transition temperatures were studied. Fracture surface morphologies and characterization of nanocomposites were performed using electron microscopy. The resulting bio-blend nanocomposites exhibit promising results for use in structural applications.