Stabilizing silica nanoparticles in high saline water by using polyvinylpyrrolidone for reduction of asphaltene precipitation damage under dynamic condition

In this study, the performance of stable nanofluid containing SiO_2 nanoparticles dispersed and stabilized in high salinity brine for asphaltene inhibition in dynamic condition is evaluated. In the first stage of this work, the stability of silica nanoparticles in different range of water salinity(0–100000 mg·L~(-1)) is investigated. Next, stable nanofluid containing highest salinity is selected as asphaltene inhibitor agent to inject into the damaged core sample. The estimated values of oil recovery for base case, after damage process and after inhibition of asphaltene precipitation using nanofluid are 51.6%, 36.1% and 46.7%, respectively. The results showed the reduction in core damage after using nanofluid. In addition, the relative permeability curves are plotted for the base case, after damage process and also after inhibition of asphaltene precipitation using nanofluid. Comparison of relative permeability curves shows, relative permeability of oil phase decreased after damage process as compared with the base case. But after using nanofluid the oil relative permeability curve has shifted to the right and effective permeability of oil phase has been improved.     

The effect of nanoparticles on wettability alteration for enhanced oil recovery: micromodel experimental studies and CFD simulation

The applications of nanotechnology in oilfields have attracted the attention of researchers to nanofluid injection as a novel approach for enhanced oil recovery. To better understand the prevailing mechanisms in such new displacement scenarios, micromodel experiments provide powerful tools to visually observe the way that nanoparticles may mobilize the trapped oil. In this work, the effect of silicon oxide nanoparticles on the alteration of wettability of glass micromodels was investigated in both experimental and numerical simulation approaches. The displacement experiments were performed on the original water-wet and imposed oil-wet (after aging in stearic acid/n-heptane solution) glass micromodels. The results of injection of nanofluids into the oil-saturated micromodels were then compared with those of the water injection scenarios. The flooding scenarios in the micromodels were also simulated numerically with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. A good agreement between the experimental and simulation results was observed. An increase of 9% and 13% in the oil recovery was obtained by nanofluid flooding in experimental tests and CFD calculations, respectively.     

Experimental investigation into Fe3O4/SiO2 nanoparticle performance and comparison with other nanofluids in enhanced oil recovery

Nanofluids because of their surface characteristics improve the oil production from reservoirs by enabling different enhanced recovery mechanisms such as wettability alteration, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, oil viscosity reduction, formation and stabilization of colloidal systems and the decrease in the asphaltene precipitation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the synthesis of a new nanocomposite has been studied in this paper for the first time. It consists of nanoparticles of both SiO₂ and Fe₃O₄. Each nanoparticle has its individual surface property and has its distinct effect on the oil production of reservoirs. According to the previous studies, Fe₃O₄ has been used in the prevention or reduction of asphaltene precipitation and SiO₂ has been considered for wettability alteration and/or reducing IFTs in enhanced oil recovery. According to the experimental results, the novel synthesized nanoparticles have increased the oil recovery by the synergistic effects of the formed particles markedly by activating the various mechanisms relative to the use of each of the nanoparticles in the micromodel individually. According to the results obtained for the use of this nanocomposite, understanding reservoir conditions plays an important role in the ultimate goal of enhancing oil recovery and the formation of stable emulsions plays an important role in oil recovery using this method.     

Gaussian orthogonal matrix transform approach for PAPR reduction of optical OFDM signals

Optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) has been widely adopted as a high-speed data transmission technique in visible light communication systems. This technique usually suffers from high peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR). In this paper, a new PAPR reduction technique is proposed for O-OFDM signals. At the transmitter, a matrix transformation with the Gaussian elements is applied to the time-domain O-OFDM signal and at the receiver, the inverse matrix is used to recover the original signal. We show that the Gaussian orthogonal matrices can reconstruct the original signals without degrading the bit error rate (BER) performance. Gram-Schmidt technique is used to orthogonalize the Gaussian matrices. Computer simulations are conducted for 16-QAM baseband modulated symbols and about 3 dB PAPR reduction gain is achieved by the proposed approach compared with conventional O-OFDM.     

A journey across the solid state polymerization to assess the role of critical factors influencing the molecular weight of polylactic acid

Solid state polymerization (SSP) offers an effective route for synthesizing green polymers with variable molecular weights depending on polymerization condition. In this work, critical factors governing the molecular weight of polylactic acid (PLA) in the course of SSP are manipulated systematically and their contributions to the efficiency of SSP process are discussed. The initial molecular weight of the prepolymer formed, the degree of crystallinity of prepolymer, and the SSP time are changed and analyzed for their effects through different analyses including differential scanning calorimetry, gel permeation chromatography, and Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy techniques. It was observed that PLA having highest molecular weight would be the result of formation of a prepolymer having low‐molecular weight, as detected by the analysis of functional group concentration. For the optimized sample, the rate of mass loss in SSP was 12,263 g/mol.day and a crystallinity drop over the hydrolysis process was 3.14 per day. The crystallinity of prepolymers was optimized at ca. 26% in regard with the PLA showing the highest molecular weight. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 25:165–171, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers     

All two-input logic gates by a single-stage single electron box

In this paper, the design of all two-input logic gates is presented by only a single-stage single electron box (SEB) for the first time. All gates are constructed based on a same circuit. We have used unique periodic characteristics of SEB to design these gates and present all two-input logic gates (monotonic/non-monotonic, symmetric/non-symmetric) by a single-stage design. In conventional monotonic devices, such as MOSFETs, implementing non-monotonic logic gates such as XOR and XNOR is impossible by only a single-stage design, and a multistage design is required which leads to more complexity, higher power consumption and less speed of the gates. We present qualitative design at first and then detailed designs are investigated and optimised by using our previous works. All designs are verified by a single electron simulator which shows correct operation of the gates.     

Implication of palynological techniques for the authentication of adulterated drugs traded with the same name in different herbal markets of district Lahore,Pakistan

Adulteration in traded medicinal plants is a significant issue nowadays and use of these adulterated medicinal plants can impose harmful impact to end user. However, this problem can be overcome by ensuring the identification of traded medicinal plants which are used in making different herbal medicines. In this regard, palynological markers are considered to be an important taxonomic tool in the identification of original medicinal plant from its adulterant. Hence this study attempted to provide particular reliable palynological markers for distinguishing selected medicinal plants from their adulterants, that is, Cinnamomum verum versus Canella winterana, Cinnamomum tamala versus Cinnamomum obtusifolium, Gymnema sylvestre versus Gymnema lactiferum, Artemisia maritima versus Artemisia absinthium, Achillea millefolium versus Adhatoda vasaka, Sphaeranthus indicus versus Sphaeranthus africanus, Averrhoa carambola versus Butea monosperma, and Morus nigra versus Morus alba. Results demonstrated great variations in multiple palynological characters between original medicinal plant and its adulterant such as in pollen size, shape, colpi length, exine, intine thickness, and fertility. In equatorial view, circular to spheroidal shape of pollen was found in A. millefolium while oblate shape was observed in A. vasaka. Similarly B. monosperma pollen was 34 μm, whereas pollen of its adulterant A. carambola was 21 μm. Moreover, colpi length of A. maritima was 11.8 μm, whereas 4.5 μm in A. absinthium. Hence it can be concluded that palynological characters are commendably helpful in identification of genuine medicinal plant from its adulterant.     

Anti‐Oxygen Leaking LiCoO2

LiCoO₂ is a prime example of widely used cathodes that suffer from the structural/thermal instability issues that lead to the release of their lattice oxygen under nonequilibrium conditions and safety concerns in Li‐ion batteries. Here, it is shown that an atomically thin layer of reduced graphene oxide can suppress oxygen release from Li_xCoO₂ particles and improve their structural stability. Electrochemical cycling, differential electrochemical mass spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and in situ heating transmission electron microscopy are performed to characterize the effectiveness of the graphene‐coating on the abusive tolerance of Li_xCoO₂. Electrochemical cycling mass spectroscopy results suggest that oxygen release is hindered at high cutoff voltage cycling when the cathode is coated with reduced graphene oxide. Thermal analysis, in situ heating transmission electron microscopy, and electron energy loss spectroscopy results show that the reduction of Co species from the graphene‐coated samples is delayed when compared with bare cathodes. Finally, density functional theory and ab initio molecular dynamics calculations show that the rGO layers could suppress O₂ formation more effectively due to the strong C? O_cathode bond formation at the interface of rGO/LCO where low coordination oxygens exist. This investigation uncovers a reliable approach for hindering the oxygen release reaction and improving the thermal stability of battery cathodes.     

A new post-coding approach for PAPR reduction in DC-biased optical OFDM systems

The high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is one of the main drawbacks in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems, which also exists in the optical OFDM (O-OFDM) systems. In this letter, a new approach based on the discrete Hartley transform (DHT) post-coding technique is proposed to reduce PAPR of an O-OFDM signal in visible light communication systems. The proposed method is compared with Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) techniques in terms of PAPR reduction and bit error rate (BER) performance. Experimental results indicate that the proposed DHT post-coding method remarkably reduces the PAPR of an OFDM signal for optical intensity modulated direct detection systems without any corruption in the BER performance.