CdO/Cu2O solar cells by chemical deposition

CdO and Cu₂O thin films have been grown on glass substrates by chemical deposition method. Optical transmittances of the CdO and Cu₂O thin films have been measured as 60–70% and 3–8%, respectively in 400–900 nm range at room temperature. Bandgaps of the CdO and Cu₂O thin films were calculated as 2.3 and 2.1 eV respectively from the optical transmission curves. The X-ray diffraction spectra showed that films are polycrystalline. Their resistivity, as measured by Van der Pauw method yielded 10⁻²–10⁻³ Ω cm for CdO and approximately 10³ Ω cm for Cu₂O. CdO/Cu₂O solar cells were made by using CdO and Cu₂O thin films. Open circuit voltages and short circuit currents of these solar cells were measured by silver paste contacts and were found to be between 1–8 mV and 1–4 μA.     

Optimum tilt angle and orientation for solar collector in Brunei Darussalam

One of the important parameters that affects the performance of a solar collector is its tilt angle with the horizontal. This is due to the fact that the variation of tilt angle changes the amount of solar radiation reaching the collector surface. A mathematical model was used for estimating the total (global) solar radiation on a tilted surface, and to determine the optimum tilt angle and orientation (surface azimuth angle) for the solar collector in Brunei Darussalam on a daily basis, as well as for a specific period. The optimum angle was computed by searching for the values for which the total radiation on the collector surface is a maximum for a particular day or a specific period. The results reveal that changing the tilt angle 12 times in a year (i.e. using the monthly-averaged optimum tilt angle) maintains approximately the total amount of solar radiation near the maximum value that is found by changing the tilt angle daily to its optimum value. This achieves a yearly gain in solar radiation of 5% more than the case of a solar collector fixed on a horizontal surface.     

Immobilization of glucoamylase on the plain and on the spacer arm‐attached poly(HEMA‐EGDMA) microspheres

Immobilization glucoamylase onto plain and a six‐carbon spacer arm (i.e., hexamethylene diamine, HMDA) attached poly(2‐hydroxyethylmethacrylate‐ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate) [poly(HEMA‐EGDMA] microspheres was studied. The microspheres were prepared by suspension polymerization and the spacer arm was attached covalently by the reaction of carbonyl groups of poly(HEMA‐EGDMA). Glucoamylase was then covalently immobilized either on the plain of microspheres via CNBr activation or on the spacer arm‐attached microspheres via CNBr activation and/or using carbodiimide (CDI) as a coupling agent. Incorporation of the spacer arm resulted an increase in the apparent activity of the immobilized enzyme with respect to enzyme immobilized on the plain of the microspheres. The activity yield of the immobilized glucoamylase on the spacer arm‐attached poly(HEMA‐EGDMA) microspheres was 63% for CDI coupling and 82% for CNBr coupling. This was 44% for the enzyme, which was immobilized on the plain of the unmodified poly(HEMA‐EGDMA) microspheres via CNBr coupling. The K_m values for the immobilized glucoamylase preparations (on the spacer arm‐attached microspheres) via CDI coupling 0.9% dextrin (w/v) and CNBr coupling 0.6% dextrin (w/v) were higher than that of the free enzyme 0.2% dextrin (w/v).The temperature profiles were broader for both immobilized preparations than that of the free enzyme. The operational inactivation rate constants (k_iop) of immobilized enzymes were found to be 1.42 × 10^?5 min^?1 for CNBr coupled and 3.23 × 10^?5 min^?1 for CDI coupled glucoamylase. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 2702–2710, 2001     

Performance characteristics of a low heat rejection diesel engine operating with biodiesel

Vegetable oils are a promising alternative among the different diesel fuel alternatives. However, the high viscosity, poor volatility and cold flow characteristics of vegetable oils can cause some problems such as injector coking, severe engine deposits, filter gumming, piston ring sticking and thickening of lubrication oil from long-term use in diesel engines. These problems can be eliminated or minimized by transesterification of the vegetable oils to form monoesters. These monoesters are known as biodiesel. The important advantages of biodiesel are lower exhaust gas emissions and its biodegradability and renewability compared with petroleum-based diesel fuel. Although the transesterification improves the fuel properties of vegetable oil, the viscosity and volatility of biodiesel are still worse than that of petroleum diesel fuel. The energy of the biodiesel can be released more efficiently with the concept of low heat rejection (LHR) engine. The aim of this study is to apply LHR engine for improving engine performance when biodiesel is used as an alternative fuel. For this purpose, a turbocharged direct injection (DI) diesel engine was converted to a LHR engine and the effects of biodiesel (produced from sunflower oil) usage in the LHR engine on its performance characteristics have been investigated experimentally. The results showed that specific fuel consumption and the brake thermal efficiency were improved and exhaust gas temperature before the turbine inlet was increased for both fuels in the LHR engine.     

Chaotic dynamics of the fractional order nonlinear system with time delay

This paper presents the fractional order model of a nonlinear autonomous continuous-time difference-differential equation with only one variable. Numerical simulation results of the fractional order model demonstrate the existence of chaos when system order $q\ge 0.2$ . Values of the delay time $\tau $ in which chaotic behavior is observed at system order $q$ are quantitatively defined using the largest Lyapunov exponents obtained from the output time series.     

A new facial expression recognition based on curvelet transform and online sequential extreme learning machine initialized with spherical clustering

In this paper, a novel algorithm is proposed for facial expression recognition by integrating curvelet transform and online sequential extreme learning machine (OSELM) with radial basis function (RBF) hidden node having optimal network architecture. In the proposed algorithm, the curvelet transform is firstly applied to each region of the face image divided into local regions instead of whole face image to reduce the curvelet coefficients too huge to classify. Feature set is then generated by calculating the entropy, the standard deviation and the mean of curvelet coefficients of each region. Finally, spherical clustering (SC) method is employed to the feature set to automatically determine the optimal hidden node number and RBF hidden node parameters of OSELM by aim of increasing classification accuracy and reducing the required time to select the hidden node number. So, the learning machine is called as OSELM-SC. It is constructed two groups of experiments: The aim of the first one is to evaluate the classification performance of OSELM-SC on the benchmark datasets, i.e., image segment, satellite image and DNA. The second one is to test the performance of the proposed facial expression recognition algorithm on the Japanese Female Facial Expression database and the Cohn-Kanade database. The obtained experimental results are compared against the state-of-the-art methods. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can produce effective facial expression features and exhibit good recognition accuracy and robustness.     

Immobilization of polyphenol oxidase on carboxymethylcellulose hydrogel beads: preparation and characterization

Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) beads were prepared by a liquid curing method in the presence of trivalent ferric ions, and epicholorohydrin was covalently attached to the CMC beads. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was then covalently immobilized onto CMC beads. The enzyme loading was 603 µg g⁻¹ bead and the retained activity of the immobilized enzyme was found to be 44%. The K_m values were 0.65 and 0.87 mM for the free and the immobilized enzyme, and the V_max values were found to be 1890 and 760 U mg⁻¹ for the free and the immobilized enzyme, respectively. The optimum pH was 6.5 for the free and 7.0 for the immobilized enzyme. The optimum reaction temperature for the free enzyme was 40 °C and for the immobilized enzyme was 45 °C. Immobilization onto CMC hydrogel beads made PPO more stable to heat and storage, implying that the covalent immobilization imparted higher conformational stability to the enzyme. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry     

Invertase immobilized on spacer‐arm attached poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) membrane: Preparation and properties

Microporous poly(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA) membrane was prepared by UV‐initiated photopolymerization. The spacer arm (i.e., hexamethylene diamine) was attached covalently and then invertase was immobilized by the condensation reaction of the amino groups of the spacer arm with carboxyl groups of the enzyme in the presence of carbodiimides. The values of the Michael's constant K_m of invertase were significantly larger (ca. 2.5 times) upon immobilization, indicating decreased affinity by the enzyme for its substrate, whereas V_max was smaller for the immobilized invertase. Immobilization improved the pH stability of the enzyme as well as its temperature stability. Thermal stability was found to increase with immobilization and at 70°C the half times for the activity decay were 12 min for the free enzyme and 41 min for the immobilized enzyme. The immobilized enzyme activity was found to be quite stable in repeated experiments. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 75: 1685–1692, 2000