Enhanced Solubility of Paracetamol by Various Hydrotropic Agents

The increase in the aqueous solubility of paracetamol by the use of various hydro tropes was studied.

These agents were sodium glycinate, sodium gentisate, sodium salicylate and nicotinamide. All of these agents increased the aqueous solubility to varying degrees, with nicotinamide and sodium salicylate being the most efficient solubilizers.

A conductance parameter was investigated as a mean of aiding interpretation of the solubility data. Dielectric constants could only be determined in the nicotinamide systems.

Ultra-violet spectral analysis, TLC, infra-red, and NMR techniques were utilized in order to elucidate the solubility mechanism. These tests indicate that no special bonding or complex formation exists for the sodium salt hydrotropes in these preliminary work. There is some evidence from UV & TLC analysis that nicotinamide and paracetamol enter into complex formation.

The other hydrotropic agents, in this study indicate the mechanism of solubilization is one of “salting - in” by causing miscibility of two formally immiscible liquid phases of ternary systems.     

New separation method of metal/plastic micronized particles using travelling wave conveyors

The paper reports an experimental investigation for studying the movement dynamics and the separation of micronized particles on a poly-phase travelling wave conveyor (TWC). A digital balance and a sensitive electrometer controlled by Labview software were used to analyse the velocity and the material flow rate on a three-phase conveyor with respect to the variation of both the amplitude and the frequency of the applied voltage. It was found that about 80% of the particles mass move together in one single wave and that the electric charge gained by the particles increases with the intensity of the electric field. Moreover, preliminary experiments showed that it is possible to separate a granular mixture of plastic and copper micronized particles using a TWC. Successful experiments were carried out on micronized samples of both electric cable and electronic card wastes. High purity metal was recovered.     

Preparation of epoxy composites with CTAB‐modified BN and MWCNTs

In this study, multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and boron nitride (BN) were functionalized with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) at both pH 5.5 and pH 11. These MWCNT‐CTAB and BN‐CTAB particles used to prepare the composites were dispersed in a bisphenol A (DGEBA)‐type epoxy resin (ER) system at room temperature. The TGA analysis showed that the BN composite can significantly improve the thermal stability of neat ER at temperatures above 400 °C. The curing degrees of the nanocomposites were calculated to be approximately the same values as neat ER using the Beer–Lambert law from FTIR spectra. The best electrical conductivity of the composites obtained was 3.10 × 10⁻³ S/cm for ER/MWCNT‐CTAB (pH 5.5). The surface hardness, Young's modulus, and tensile strength of the composites were examined. The surface hardness values of the ER/MWCNT‐CTAB composites were higher than those of the other composites. The composite morphology was characterized using X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). POLYM. COMPOS., 37:3423–3432, 2016. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers     

On the design of multi-wavelength copy interconnects with reduced complexity

A multi-wavelength copy interconnect is a switching network capable of replicating a signal arriving at the input on a specific wavelength to one or more outputs possibly on different wavelengths. Such an interconnect can be useful in building optical multicast switches for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks. In this article, we investigate, for the first time, the problem of designing copy networks that can simultaneously multicast input signals to a set of outputs while changing the wavelength of the replica according to the required routing pattern. We propose a novel multi-wavelength crossbar (MWX) switch that can switch an input signal on a specific wavelength to two different output wavelengths. The proposed MWX is used as a building block to construct two classes of multi-log_2N copy networks, namely, baseline and Bene? interconnects. The design space of the proposed interconnect classes is characterized and their hardware complexity is analyzed. We show that the proposed interconnects are transparent to existing multicast routing algorithms, and present simple routing algorithms for routing of multicast requests over the proposed designs. Comparisons with existing designs confirm that the proposed interconnects require a smaller number of space switches and wavelength conversion processes as compared to most conventional copy networks. In particular, for a large number of wavelengths and for any number of fibers the proposed design requires 50% less switching elements as compared to best available designs.     

Physical and chemical characterization of adsorbed protein onto gold electrode functionalized with Tunisian coral and nacre

Bone substitutes are more and more used in bone surgery because of their biologic safety, clinic efficiency and facility to synthesize. Bone substitutes with active osteogenic properties, associating biomaterials with organic macromolecule components of the extracellular matrix (protein, GAG) are recommended. Nevertheless, we should have a simple technique to control interactions between proteins and the material. Natural coral and nacre have been found to be impressive bone graft substitutes. In this work, we characterize nacre and coral powder using energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). We used electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to evaluate bovine serum albumin (BSA) as model protein, adsorbed to these biomaterial surfaces. In order to understand the nacre/coral-protein interfacial compatibility, it is necessary to investigate the wettability.     

Energy conservation regulations: Impacts on design and procurement of low energy buildings

To reduce the substantial contribution of the built environment to energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, the new ‘Part L: Conservation of Fuel and Power’ of the Building Regulations for England and Wales came into force in April, 2006. As a result, the design of all new-build and refurbished buildings must comply with ‘Target Carbon Emissions Rates’. Apart from the purely practical implications of compliance, the new Part L has prompted interesting questions concerning procurement and the impact on design and construction teams.     

The pKa values of phosphonates and their influence on dyeing wool with Alizarine Sky Blue BLW

Phosphonates when adsorbed by wool fibres prior to dyeing with Alizarine Sky Blue BLW cause a marked increase in rate of dyeing. This increase is parallel to the pK_a values of the phosphonates.     

Sensitive magnetic field sensor using 2D magnetic photonic crystal slab waveguide based on BIG/GGG structure

A kind of magnetic field sensor (MFS) using a two-dimensional (2D) magnetic photonic crystal (MPC) slab waveguide as the sensing structure is proposed and investigated numerically. The slab structure is based on bismuth iron garnet (BIG), a well-known magnetic material with effective magnetooptical (MO) properties, sandwiched with gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) as substrate. The complete photonic bandgap (PBG) of the 2D MPC is simulated and optimized for realization of polarization-independent waveguides. The simulation results show that the width and position of the complete PBG depend on the thickness of the BIG slab and the radius of the air holes used in the design. By reducing the lightwave propagation losses and enhancing the mode conversion ratio, increased sensitivity is obtained. Based on the Faraday effect, a good linear relationship is observed between the normalized output light intensity and the magnetic field strength as the gyrotropy parameter g is varied from 0.13 to 0.19, a g-range used as the sensor dynamic range. The remarkable enhancement in sensing performance due to the MO effect makes the designed device suitable for magnetic field sensing. The results are discussed to provide a basis for investigation of 2D MPC slab waveguides based on the same structure, which are of particular interest for development of highly sensitive MFSs.     

A constraint consensus memetic algorithm for solving constrained optimization problems

Constraint handling is an important aspect of evolutionary constrained optimization. Currently, the mechanism used for constraint handling with evolutionary algorithms mainly assists the selection process, but not the actual search process. In this article, first a genetic algorithm is combined with a class of search methods, known as constraint consensus methods, that assist infeasible individuals to move towards the feasible region. This approach is also integrated with a memetic algorithm. The proposed algorithm is tested and analysed by solving two sets of standard benchmark problems, and the results are compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms. The comparisons show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other similar algorithms. The algorithm has also been applied to solve a practical economic load dispatch problem, where it also shows superior performance over other algorithms.     

Removal of cyanide in aqueous solution by oxidation with hydrogen peroxide in presence of copper-impregnated activated carbon

This work is devoted to the removal of free cyanide from aqueous solution by oxidation with hydrogen peroxide H₂O₂ catalyzed by copper-impregnated activated carbon. Effects of initial molar ratio [H₂O₂]₀/[CN⁻]₀, copper-impregnated activated carbon amount, pH and the temperature on cyanide removal have been investigated.The presence of copper-impregnated activated carbon has increased the reaction rate showing thus a catalytic activity. The rate of cyanides removal increases with the raise of the initial molar ratio [H₂O₂]₀/[CN⁻]0 and decreases with the increase in the pH from 8 to 12. The increase in the copper-impregnated activated carbon amount from 1.5 to 10 g/L in reaction solution has a beneficial effect. Beyond this value, the impact of activated carbon amount is not anymore significant. The temperature does not have a significant effect between 20 and 35 °C. The four successive times re-use of catalyst shows a good stability. The kinetics of cyanide removal has been found to be of pseudo-second-order with respect to cyanide and the rate constants have been determined. This process seems very interesting because the rate of cyanides removal is very fast, the reaction does not use soluble metal catalyst and it consumes only hydrogen peroxide as chemical product.