Recycling poly(ethylene terephtalate) wastes: Properties of poly(ethylene terephtalate)/polycarbonate blends and the effect of a transesterification catalyst

The article addresses the issue of recycling of poly(ethylene terephtalate) (PET) by melt blending with polycarbonate (PC). PET/PC blends containing various amounts of the immiscible polymers were prepared in a twin‐screw extruder. Selected compositions were also prepared in the presence of an Sn‐based catalyst to assess the influence of transesterification during melt mixing. The degree of miscibility in the blends was studied using differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscopy, and mechanical testing. PET/PC blends exhibit enhanced tensile properties in comparison to neat components for compositions of PET higher than 50% and these properties are improved by the addition of a transesterification catalyst. The PET/PC blend containing 20 wt% of PC, prepared with stannous octoate, shows the smallest size of the dispersed phase because of transesterification reactions that generate copolymer molecules at the interface between the immiscible polymers. The melting temperature of PET is decreased with the increase of the PC content in blends extruded in the presence of the catalyst. Also, the temperatures of the cold crystallization of PET are higher than those of similar blends without added catalyst. Both features give rise to better molding properties because of a shortening of the cooling time in the range of 50–90 wt% of PET. POLYM. ENG. SCI. 46:1378–1386, 2006. © 2006 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Compact Bat Algorithm with Deep Learning Model for Biomedical EEG EyeState Classification

Electroencephalography (EEG) eye state classification becomes an essential tool to identify the cognitive state of humans. It can be used in several fields such as motor imagery recognition, drug effect detection, emotion categorization, seizure detection, etc. With the latest advances in deep learning (DL) models, it is possible to design an accurate and prompt EEG EyeState classification problem. In this view, this study presents a novel compact bat algorithm with deep learning model for biomedical EEG EyeState classification (CBADL-BEESC) model. The major intention of the CBADL-BEESC technique aims to categorize the presence of EEG EyeState. The CBADL-BEESC model performs feature extraction using the ALexNet model which helps to produce useful feature vectors. In addition, extreme learning machine autoencoder (ELM-AE) model is applied to classify the EEG signals and the parameter tuning of the ELM-AE model is performed using CBA. The experimental result analysis of the CBADL-BEESC model is carried out on benchmark results and the comparative outcome reported the supremacy of the CBADL-BEESC model over the recent methods.     

The Potential Use of Phosphatic Limestone Wastes in the Passive Treatment of AMD: A Laboratory Study

In Morocco, there are many sedimentary phosphate mines that produce large quantities of phosphatic limestone wastes (PLW) that contain calcite (46 wt%) and dolomite (16 wt%). These mines are located near contaminated sites, such as the abandoned Kettara pyrrhotite mine. The surface drainage water at the Kettara mine site has a pH of 2.9–4.2 and elevated concentrations of SO₄ (from 47 to 5,000 mg/L) and Fe (from 1 to 1,200 mg/L). The efficiency of PLW was assessed in the laboratory as an alternative alkaline material for passive acidic mine drainage (AMD) treatment. A series of experiments were carried out using a synthetic AMD (pH 3) containing Fe (500 mg/L), SO₄ (3.4 g/L), Ca (220 mg/L), Al (160 mg/L), Mn (20 mg/L), Zn (15 mg/L), Cu (23 mg/L), and trace amounts of Co, Cr, and Ni. Experiments were done in both anoxic and oxic conditions, in batch and column tests, with hydraulic retention times of 24 and 15 h, respectively. The PLW efficiently increased the alkalinity and pH, inducing precipitation of most metals. The neutralizing capacity of PLW prepared at different particle sizes (0.8 mm–0.5 cm, 0.5–1, 1–2, and 2–3 cm) was found to be similar in batch tests. The initial AMD value increased from 3 to 5–6.5 during the batch tests and 6.5–8 in the columns. In batch tests under anoxic and oxic conditions, there was a significant decrease in concentrations of Fe (500–120 mg/L), Al (160–1.7 mg/L), and Cu (23–0.002 mg/L). In the column tests, Al and Cu decreased (177–2.5 and 26–0.002 mg/L, respectively), while Fe decreased less significantly (618–300 mg/L). The availability and low cost of the PLW make its use in passive AMD treatment potentially feasible.     

Diffusion of jojoba oil microencapsulated and impregnated onto compressive garment through a pig skin

Scientific developments are in progress in order to create compressive fabric in the medical field. This study focused on the development of a compressive garment in polyamide designated for severe burns in terms of pressure and hydration release. The fabric was then enhanced by adding a moisturizing treatment. The improvement consisted of the impregnation of ethylcellulose microcapsules containing jojoba oil on the textile surface of compressive garment. The kinetic of release of this active ingredient from the microcapsules, as well as its diffusion through the skin, were assessed using the in vitro Franz diffusion cell system. The results showed a controlled release of jojoba oil over time. The amount of oil released during the experiments (168?h) and that which penetrated through the pig skin did not exceed 1% of the total amount of jojoba oil microencapsulated and impregnated on the surface of a compression garment. This study permitted to obtain a compressive garment which presents hydration properties.     

Efficient Enantioselective Syntheses of Sertraline, 2‐Epicatalponol and Catalponol from Tetralin‐1,4‐dione

Tetralin‐1,4‐dione, the stable tautomer of dihydroxynaphthalene, was reduced with catecholborane in the presence of 3,3‐diphenyl‐1‐butyltetrahydro‐3H‐pyrrolo[1,2‐c][1,3,2]oxazaborole as catalyst to give enantiomerically highly enriched 4‐hydroxy‐1‐tetralone (99% ee) in an efficient one‐pot procedure. The R‐enantiomer provided a rapid access to sertraline while the S‐enantiomer was converted into 2‐epicatalponol and catalponol. A more selective enantioselective route to the antithermitic catalponol made use of the planar chiral tricarbonylchromium complex of hydroxytetralone. Its precursor chromium(tricarbonyl)[η⁶‐(1‐4,4a,8a)‐tetralin‐5,8‐dione] was obtained via direct complexation of 1,4‐dihydroxynaphthalene using chromium(tricarbonyl)‐ tris(ammonia) and boron trifluoride etherate as source of the chromium(tricarbonyl) fragment. Enolate prenylation was best carried out in the presence of a tetraamine ligand. Complete inversion of the stereogenic center bearing the prenyl group of the initially obtained tetralone complex was achieved via enolate formation followed by protonation.     

Thermodynamic Modeling of the Use of Alkane Mixtures as Working Fluids in Absorption Cycles

The main objective is to show the effect of the choice of the most adequate combination of activity‐fugacity coefficient models on the vapor‐liquid phase equilibrium (VLE) data quality and on the calculation of the enthalpies of the different vapor and liquid streams in a refrigeration absorption machine. Six alkane binary mixtures, i.e. propane or n‐butane as refrigerants and n‐heptane, n‐octane, or n‐decane as absorbents, were considered as working fluids for their proven positive characteristics. Two activity coefficient models, UNIFAC and NRTL, and two equations of state, virial and Peng‐Robinson (PR), were tested. The obtained results showed that the UNIFAC‐PR combination reproduced the VLE data reasonably well; hence, it should be recommended for this type of refrigeration systems operating with alkanes.     

Influence of some factors affecting antibacterial activity of PVA/Chitosan based hydrogels synthesized by gamma irradiation

Poly (vinyl alcohol) hydrogels containing different concentrations of chitosan with molecular weight of 471 and 101 kDa were crosslinked by gamma irradiation at a dose of 25 kGy. The swelling behavior, gel content and morphological structure of the blend were investigated. The antibacterial effect, as a function of chitosan content and molecular weight in the hydrogel, was investigated against Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. With increasing chitosan content the equilibrium degree of swelling of the blend increased and the gel fraction decreased. Results of antibacterial activity of chitosan revealed that chitosan was more effective in inhibiting growth of gram positive bacteria than that of gram negative ones. It was observed that, the chitosan content as well as its molecular weight has a direct influence on bacteria growth inhibition. The higher the chitosan content in the blend and the higher its initial molecular weight, the larger was the inhibition zone diameter. The bacteria growth inhibition was attributed to the diffusion of entrapped chitosan from the hydrogel blend to the culture medium.     

Recursive algorithm based on fuzzy 2-partition entropy for 2-level image thresholding

The fuzzy c-partition entropy approach for threshold selection behaves well in segmenting images. But the size of search space increases very rapidly when the number of parameters needed to determine the membership function increases. The computation complexity of the fuzzy 2-partition entropy approach is bounded by O(L³). In this paper, a recursive scheme which decreases the computation complexity of the basic algorithm to O(L²) is proposed. The approach does not need the calculation of the membership function. The processing time of each image is reduced from more than 5 min to less than 20 s.