Synthesis of SiC ceramics from processed cellulosic bio-precursor

Synthesis of SiC ceramic from processed cellulosic bio-precursor was investigated. Bamboo (Bambusa tulda Roxb.) plants abundantly available in the Jorhat district of Assam, India, were selected for extraction of fibers following Kraft pulping method and bleached bamboo pulp fibers were suitably cast in the form of rectangular boards. Coir fibers available in the Alleppy district of Kerala, India, were initially digested with dilute alkali, mixed with cellulose acetate solution, air dried and then hot-pressed at 140 ± 5 °C under 2.0–2.5 MPa pressure to make rectangular boards. Well-characterized processed bio-precursors were pyrolysed at ～800 °C under flowing N₂ atmosphere to prepare the bio-carbonaceous preforms (carbon templates) which showed nearly uniform shrinkages in all directions. Coir fiber composite board carbon showed lower pyrolytic weight loss (～66%), higher density (0.49 g cm^?3), lower porosity (～58%) and narrower pore diameter (10 μm) compared to the cast bamboo pulp fiber board carbon. The carbon samples showed perfect retention of fibrous morphological features of hierarchically grown bio-structures. Ceramization of carbon templates could be done by reactive melt silicon infiltration into porous channels at ～1600 °C under vacuum. The final ceramics were adequately dense (%theoretical density > 99%), showed negligible linear dimensional changes (indicating net-dimension formation capability), presence of crystalline Si and SiC phases and duplex microstructure with complete preservation of fibrous architecture of plant bio-structure. The Si/SiC ceramic composite synthesized from coir fiber board gave room temperature 3-point flexural strength and Young's modulus values of 121 MPa and 276 GPa, respectively. Both the ceramic composites showed adequate oxidation resistance during heating at 1300 °C for 7 h in air.     

Process optimization for high electron mobility in nMOSFETs with aggressively scaled HfO/sub 2//metal stacks

The performance of aggressively scaled (1.4nm相似文献   

Study of saw-tooth chip in machining of Inconel 718 by metallographic technique

The present research work aims to understand the chip formation mechanisms in Inconel 718 machining through metallographic technique. The influence of machining speed on shear band and chip shape have been analyzed. Characterization of the shear band has been conducted by analyzing the shear band thickness, strain, strain rate, stress and micro-hardness. Additionally, chip reduction coefficient parameters and chip segmentation ratio parameters have been analyzed to understand the type of chip formation at various machining speeds. The observations and analysis of the same indicated that the formation of the saw-tooth chip is due to high-strain localization within the chip and crack initiation at the free surface of the chip. Thinner shear bands are observed at higher machining speed (120 m/min), and thicker shear bands are observed at lower machining speed (40 m/min). The magnitude of chip segmentation parameters indicates that crack generation increases with increase in machining speed.     

Adsorption of beta blockers to environmental surfaces

Beta-adrenergic blocking agents (beta blockers) are widely used pharmaceuticals which have been detected in the environment. Predicting the transport and ultimate fate of beta blockers in the environment requires understanding their adsorption to soils and sediments, something for which little information is currently available. The objective of this work was to examine the adsorption of three beta blockers, propranolol, metoprolol and nadolol, to a natural alluvial material, as well as to six minerals present as components of the alluvial material. Batch adsorption experiments indicate that, for most of the minerals studied, compound hydrophobicity is an important predictor of adsorption, with propranolol,the most hydrophobic compound studied, adsorbing to the greatest extent. Results further suggest that, for the minerals studied, electrostatic effects are not a good predictor of adsorption; adsorption extent was not well-predicted by either surface zeta potential or by the difference between experiment pH and point of zero charge, despite the cationic nature af the three beta blockers at experiment pH values. Experiments were conducted to examine the effect of an anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS), on adsorption. Results indicate that SDBS significantly increases the adsorption of propranolol to two different sorbents. This result is potentially important because surfactants such as SDBS are likely to be present in wastewater effluents with beta blockers and could influence their mobility in the environment.     

Influence of sludge disintegration by high pressure homogenizer on microbial growth in sewage sludge: an approach for excess sludge reduction

Excess sludge treatment and disposal is currently a challenge in wastewater treatment plant due to socio-economic and environmental regulation factors. Therefore, it is necessary to explore and develop technology for reduction of excess sludge in wastewater treatment plants rather than treating the generated sludge. This paper discusses technologies for excess sludge growth reduction using high pressure homogenizer treatment which causes cell lysis. The cell lysis and the microbial cellular maintenance energy requirement increases as a result of applied stress. This causes the energy required for non-growth reactions to increase with simultaneous increase in substrate conversion into carbon dioxide rather than microbial cell multiplication.     

A frequency‐constrained geometric Pontryagin maximum principle on matrix Lie groups

We present a geometric discrete‐time Pontryagin maximum principle (PMP) on matrix Lie groups that incorporates frequency constraints on the control trajectories in addition to pointwise constraints on the states and control actions directly at the stage of the problem formulation. This PMP gives first‐order necessary conditions for optimality and leads to two‐point boundary value problems that may be solved by numerical techniques to arrive at optimal trajectories. We demonstrate our theoretical results with numerical simulations on the optimal trajectory generation of a wheeled inverted pendulum and an attitude control problem of a spacecraft on the Lie group SO(3).     

A review on devolatilization of coal in fluidized bed

Devolatilization is an important step in fluidized bed combustion and gasification of coal. ‘Devolatilization’ is a general term that signifies the removal of volatile matters from the coal matrix. It is an extremely important step because the combustion of volatile matter can account for 50% of the specific energy of fluidized bed combustion of a high‐volatile coal. Significant insights into the complex physicochemical phenomena that occur during devolatilization have been obtained in the recent years. This review focuses on the devolatilization of coal in an inert gas, air, and oxygen‐enriched air, with emphasis on the effects of the operating parameters (e.g. temperature, heating rate, pressure, and gas velocity) on the yield of volatile matter. Particle size, oxygen content of the fluidizing gas, volatile content of coal and specific heat are some of the other important parameters for the devolatilization of coal. This review also explains the development and application of structural and empirical models. The structural models (e.g. FG‐DVC and CPD models) are fairly complex. However, they can accurately predict the yields of gas and tar. It is observed from the review of the literature that the mechanism of coal devolatilization needs further study. Although the shrinking‐core model can describe the devolatilization in the beginning and toward the end of the process, major deviations are often observed. The economic studies reveal that the capital cost of fluidized bed combustion reduces upon doubling the capacity. Some problems associated with bubbling fluidized bed combustion (e.g. the increase in freeboard temperature) have been explained with the present knowledge of devolatilization. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast autonomous system traceback

Service-oriented computing (SOC) due to their distributed and lose coupled nature are very vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. IP spoofing makes it difficult for the victim to determine the packet's origin. There is a need for a mechanism that could enable real-time traceback of the origins of the attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol, fast autonomous system traceback (FAST) to traceback to the attack originating autonomous systems (AS). The multifold advantages of FAST include reconstruction requires just around 5–10 packets and reconstruction takes just a few seconds. We validate the performance through extensive simulations over the datasets obtained from traceroute.     

Influence of ultrasound on diffusion through skin/leather matrix

Leather is a unique porous material, which is composed of a three-dimensional weave of tanned collagen fibre bundles. Collagen is a fibrous protein well organized in the formation of skin as building block. This paper studies the use of ultrasound in improving the diffusion process through porous skin/leather matrix. A diffusion model for leather processing has been proposed taking into account of pore characteristics in leather. Dye diffusion experiments have been carried out with leather and powdered leather to show the influence of ultrasound under two different diffusion conditions. Apparent diffusion coefficient (D) of dye through leather matrix has been calculated from the experimental dye uptake data. The results indicate that the use of ultrasound could achieve, 16.2 and 8.56 times improvement in D value for leather at 50 °C and 30 °C, respectively as compared to 2.99 and 1.55 times for powdered leather. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of leather has also been performed which shows that fibre structure and morphology are not affected by the use of ultrasound. This study throws some light on enhanced transport through porous materials of complex nature such as skin/leather using ultrasound.     

Chemical composition, nutritional and toxicological evaluation of rice (Oryza sativa) grown in fly ash amended soils

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate nutritional and toxicological aspects of rice grown in fly ash amended soils. Rice was grown on soils with fly ash (200 t ha^?1) and without fly ash at two different geographical locations of India. RESULTS: One kilogram each of 36 samples randomly collected from three replicates of rice grown with and without fly ash was subjected to various analytical techniques to determine the nutrient composition, mineral and heavy metal content. Moisture, protein and ash content of the rice samples showed no difference between fly ash treated and controls. Similar observations were also made on trace and heavy elements. Further, the rice grown on soils treated with fly ash was incorporated in the diet at 90% level and was fed to Wistar/NIN rats for 26 weeks for carrying out protein and toxicological evaluation. CONCLUSION: Results indicated that there is no difference between rice samples grown in soils with or without fly ash. Studies also clearly indicated that there were no adverse effects on hematological, biochemical or histopathological parameters when rice was fed to rats for 6 months. This indicates that rice grown on fly ash treated soils may be safe for human consumption. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry