Synthesis and characterization of the polyols by air oxidation of soybean oil and its effect on the morphology and dynamic mechanical properties of poly(vinyl chloride) blends

The use of natural additives, with low toxicity and good compatibility, for PVC is becoming increasingly attractive. In this study, soybean oil additives were prepared by air oxidation reactions and blending with PVC. The oxidation reaction produced a significant increase in the number of hydroxyl groups in soybean oil; however, this kind of reaction results in the formation of a heterogeneous structure due to free radical reactions in the medium. The oxidized soybean oil improved the compatibility with PVC due to an increase in the number of polar groups, such as hydroxyls, and thus a reduction in the amount of atactic polymer was observed. Furthermore, an increase in the molecular weight of the oxidized oil, as well as large amounts of polar groups contributes to reducing the migration of oil in the PVC. Regarding the crystallinity of PVC, the use of pure and oxidized soybean oil causes small changes in the crystalline phase of the polymer. Oxidized soybean oil has great potential for usage as a secondary plasticizer for PVC. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42102.     

Assessing the Antimicrobial Activity of Polyisoprene Based Surfaces

There has been an intense research effort in the last decades in the field of biofouling prevention as it concerns many aspects of everyday life and causes problems to devices, the environment, and human health. Many different antifouling and antimicrobial materials have been developed to struggle against bacteria and other micro- and macro-organism attachment to different surfaces. However the “miracle solution” has still to be found. The research presented here concerns the synthesis of bio-based polymeric materials and the biological tests that showed their antifouling and, at the same time, antibacterial activity. The raw material used for the coating synthesis was natural rubber. The polyisoprene chains were fragmented to obtain oligomers, which had reactive chemical groups at their chain ends, therefore they could be modified to insert polymerizable and biocidal groups. Films were obtained by radical photopolymerization of the natural rubber derived oligomers and their structure was altered, in order to understand the mechanism of attachment inhibition and to increase the efficiency of the anti-biofouling action. The adhesion of three species of pathogenic bacteria and six strains of marine bacteria was studied. The coatings were able to inhibit bacterial attachment by contact, as it was verified that no detectable leaching of toxic molecules occurred.     

Biomonitoring of the adverse effects induced by the chronic exposure to lead and cadmium on kidney function: usefulness of alpha-glutathione S-transferase

A successful prevention of renal diseases induced by occupational exposure to lead (Pb) and/or cadmium (Cd) largely relies on the capability to detect nephrotoxic effects at a stage when they are still reversible or at least not yet compromising renal function. Hence, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the usefulness of a set of early biological markers of oxidative stress or nephrotoxicity for the biomonitoring of workers occupationally exposed to Pb and/or Cd in a non-ferrous metal smelter, and gender, age, socioeconomic status, smoking habits, and drug use-matched control individuals. In exposed subjects, mean levels of Pb in blood and urine were also 387.1+/-99.1 microg Pb/L (1.868+/-0.478 micromol Pb/L) and 217.7+/-117.7 microg Pb/g creatinine (1.051+/-0.568 micromol Pb/g creatinine), and mean levels of Cd in blood and urine were 3.26+/-2.11 microg Cd/L (0.029+/-0.019 micromol Cd/L) and 2.51+/-1.89 microg Cd/g creatinine (0.022+/-0.017 micromol Cd/g creatinine), suggesting thereby relatively low occupational exposure levels. Statistically significant variations in zinc protoporphyrin, malondialdehyde, retinol binding protein, alpha-glutathione S-transferase, and urinary protein levels were reported between the two groups, and were closely correlated with Pb and/or Cd exposure levels. Variations in alphaGST levels were closely associated with Pb exposure. Taken together, these results suggest the use of alpha-glutathione S-transferase excretion in urine as a hallmark of early changes in the proximal tubular integrity.     

Comparison of methods of differentiating between fresh and frozen–thawed fish or fillets

Freezing is an efficient way of storing fish. Objectively though, it is very hard to determine whether a fish has been previously frozen. Following an appraisal of various methods, we selected a physical determination (torrymeter), a physiological examination (eye lens) and three enzymatic assays (α‐glucosidase, β‐N‐acetylglucosaminidase and β‐hydroxyacyl‐CoA‐dehydrogenase) and applied them to three species: plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), whiting (Merlangus merlangus) and mackerel (Scomber scombrus). We also compared the results obtained following slow and rapid freezing and investigated how spoilage affects the torrymeter measurements and α‐glucosidase assay values. For whole fish the physical method using the torrymeter is a reliable indicator. For fish fillets we recommend the enzymatic method using the α‐glucosidase assay, which should be accompanied by measurement of the freshness to avoid confusing a frozen–thawed fish and a fish in an advanced stage of spoilage. The values noted for fresh and thawed whiting and plaice indicated cut‐off values of 0.15 for whiting and 0.5 for plaice, above which it can be asserted that the sample had been frozen. © 2002 Society of Chemical Industry     

Sooting tendencies of primary reference fuels in atmospheric laminar diffusion flames burning into vitiated air

In this study, the sooting tendencies of primary reference fuels (PRFs) are measured in term of yield sooting indices (YSIs) in methane diffusion flames doped with the vapors of PRFs. The present paper represents an incremental advance complementing the original methodology prescribed by McEnally and Pfefferle. The influence of both PRF formulation and CO₂ dilution of the coflowing air on the YSIs is also assessed. The diffusion flames burning in a coflowing oxidizer stream are established over the Santoro’s burner and vapor of the liquid fuel to be investigated is injected into the fuel stream. Laser extinction measurements are performed to map the two-dimensional field of soot volume fraction in the flame. For the pure liquid hydrocarbons investigated, i.e., n-hexane, n-heptane, isooctane, and benzene, the YSI reported in the original paper by McEnally and Pfefferle quantitatively predict the sooting propensities, measured here at much higher dopant concentrations. The present study therefore extends the consistency of the YSI methodology on the Santoro’s burner. For blends of n-heptane and isooctane, the sooting tendency of doped flames exhibits regular and monotonic trends and decreases with increasing n-heptane mole fraction or CO₂ dilution. Interestingly, the evolution of YSI with the isooctane mole fraction exhibits a strong similarity for varying CO₂ mole fraction. A quadratic least-squares fit is then derived, providing a phenomenological model of YSI as a function of both isooctane mole fraction in the fuel stream and CO₂ mole fraction in the oxidizer. A non-negligible cross effect of PRF formulation and CO₂ dilution on YSI is revealed. The method elaborated within the framework of the present paper could be extended to surrogate fuels. This would help develop a comprehensive database and empirical correlations that could predict the sooting propensities of different surrogate fuels, therefore their potentially mitigationed soot production through control of fuel composition and/or exhaust gas recirculation. This database would also be useful for the validation of CFD simulations incorporating sophisticated model of soot production.     

New insights into the peculiar behavior of laminar burning velocities of hydrogen–air flames according to pressure and equivalence ratio

Hydrogen is a clean and energetic fuel, and its oxidation mechanism is a subset of the oxidation mechanisms of all hydrocarbons. Therefore, the validation of the available kinetic schemes is of great importance. In the current study, experimental measurements of laminar flame speeds and modeling studies were performed for H₂–air premixed flames over a wide range of equivalence ratios (0.5–4.0) and pressures (0.2–3 bar). The large scale in mixture and thermodynamic conditions allows a better understanding of the peculiar behavior of hydrogen flame speeds with pressure. Two very recent detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms for hydrogen combustion were selected. Excellent agreement was observed between calculations and experimental results, confirming the validity of the kinetic schemes selected. The kinetic analyses performed allow proposing an explanation for the nonmonotonic variation of hydrogen/air flame speed with pressure observed in the experiments.     

A flamelet-based a priori analysis on the chemistry tabulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in non-premixed flames

In this paper, the chemical response of different species to turbulent effects is investigated in the context of one-dimensional laminar non-premixed flamelets. Turbulent effects are modeled as abrupt changes in the scalar dissipation rate. One-dimensional unsteady flamelet calculations assuming unity-Lewis number for all species are performed for an ethylene/air configuration. From the time-evolution of the species mass fractions, it is found that transient effects are not substantial for radicals such as OH$\mathrm{OH}$ and H$\mathrm{H}$, and species such as CO,_CO2$\mathrm{CO}\text{,}{\mathrm{CO}}_2$ and _C2H2${\mathrm{C}}_2{\mathrm{H}}_2$, consistent with their small characteristic chemical time scales. The steady state flamelet assumption for these species is well justified and their mass fractions can be pre-tabulated using the steady state flamelet solutions legibly. On the other hand, aromatic species are characterized by relatively slow chemistry, and substantial transient effects are observed for these species. The evolution of their mass fractions and chemical source terms are studied through a reaction flux analysis. Specifically for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), the chemical production terms are found to be linearly proportional to the mass fraction of smaller aromatic species, and the chemical consumption terms are found to be linearly proportional to their own mass fractions. Based on the unsteady flamelet results, the validity of various existing flamelet-based pre-tabulation methods is examined, and a new linear relaxation model is proposed for PAH. The proposed relaxation model is validated through the unsteady flamelet formulation, and results are compared against full chemistry calculations.     

Fuzzy inference systems: An integrated modeling environment for collaboration between expert knowledge and data using FisPro

The present paper aims to demonstrate the interest of fuzzy inference systems in system modeling when human interaction is important. It discusses the originality of FIS and their capability to integrate expertise and rule learning from data into a single framework, analyzing their place relatively to concurrent approaches. An open source software implementation is presented, with a focus on the useful features for modeling. Two real world case studies are presented to illustrate the approach and the software utility.     

Transparent polycrystalline alumina obtained by SPS: Green bodies processing effect

Starting from a commercial slurry of high purity α-Al₂O₃, freeze-dried powders, cast, filter-pressed or cold isostatically pressed samples were produced. Resulting powders or green bodies showing different particles packing were densified by spark plasma sintering (SPS) to obtain transparent polycrystalline α-Al₂O₃. Microstructure and real in-line transmittance (RIT) after SPS were dependent on the particles packing quality. Avoiding large agglomerates, narrowing the pore size distribution, reducing the most-frequent pore size (D_mode) and avoiding macroscopic heterogeneities within the green bodies enabled high RIT values to be achieved in the visible and near-infrared spectrum. However, a limit was achieved in the preparation of green bodies for which reducing the D_mode had no more influence on the optical behaviour of samples sintered by SPS. Finally, pure α-Al₂O₃ samples presenting a high RIT_640 nm value of 53% were produced from all the green bodies obtained by the following techniques: filter-pressing, slip casting and cold isostatic pressing.