Effect of phosphotungstic acid blending on properties of sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone)–poly(ethylene glycol) crosslinked membranes

This study shows the effect of phosphotungstic acid (PWA) blended into a sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) crosslinked membrane on the membrane's electrochemical and mechanical properties. The PWA weight percentage was varied from 0 to 50%. All of the membranes were equilibrated with water at room temperature (27 °C) and elevated temperature (60 °C), and their properties were investigated. A scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X‐ray was used to ascertain the tungsten concentration remaining in the membrane after water treatment. A systematic decrease in tungsten concentration was seen with the increase in the initial PWA percentage. The membrane blended with 10% PWA showed the best properties, having the highest conductivity (0.11 S cm^?1), mechanical strength, and chemical stability. Membranes with 10% PWA and without PWA were studied in a H₂/O₂ fuel cell. The membrane blended with 10% PWA gave 33% more power density than the membrane without PWA. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46667.     

Phenolic Content and Antioxidant Activity of Germinated and Cooked Pulses

Five commonly consumed pulses, Mah (Vigna mungo), Green mung (Vigna radiata), Arhar (Cajanas cajan), Masur (Lens esculantus), and Moth (Vigna aconitifolia), were studied for their total phenolic content and antioxidant activity after germination (12 and 24 h) and pressure cooking. Arhar had the highest total phenolic content (6.71 mg ferulic acid/g flour) whereas Moth had the least (1.54 mg/g). All pulses, except Moth, showed a significant decrease in total phenolic content after germination. The antioxidant activity of the pulses varied from 10.61 to 36.38% (DPPH radical scavenging activity), which significantly decreased with germination in all pulses except Moth. The total phenolic content highly correlated with the antioxidant activity in the pulses. Cooking lowered the total phenolic content by 10–45% and antioxidant activity by 27–68% in the control and germinated pulses.     

Studies of extraction of methylene blue from synthetic waste water using liquid emulsion membrane technology

A comprehensive study pertaining to liquid emulsion membrane (LEM) extraction process of methylene blue from wastewater is presented. The liquid membrane is made of an emulsifying agent (Monumal 80) with various organic diluents. Surfactant (5 wt%) (Monumal 80) and kerosene gave good extraction. Important variables affecting LEM permeation process include stability of membrane, contact time of extraction, strip phase concentration, treat ratio (strip phase: organic phase), stirring speed, feed phase concentration were systematically studied for percentage of extraction by LEM. Kerosene as diluent gave 99.57% extraction with NaOH as strip phase. © 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering     

Phase equilibria calculations of Al---Sb, Al---Ga and Al---Ga---Sb systems

A quasi sub-subregular solution model is used to describe thermodynamic properties of the liquid phases in Al-Sb, Al-Ga and Al-Ga-Sb systems. An essentially stoichiometeric compound, AlSb, in the Al-Sb binary system is considered as a line compound and the ternary compound, (Al_yGa_1−y)Sb, in Al-Ga-Sb system is described as a regular solution of stoichiometeric compounds, AlSb and GaSb. The model parameters for different phases are obtained by simultaneous optimization with respect to the available thermodynarnic and phase equilibria data of these systems. Phase diagrams and thermodynamic data are, then, calculated by using the optimised model parameters and compared with the experimental data.     

Structural and dielectric relaxor properties of Ba1-xMgxTiO3 ceramics prepared through a hydrothermal route

ABSTRACT

Polycrystalline samples of lead-free Ba_1-xMg_xTiO₃ (where x?=?0.05, 0.10, 0.15) have been fabricated by a hydrothermal method. Single-phase perovskite-type X-ray diffraction patterns were observed and samples have a phase with a tetragonal structure at room temperature for all compositions. The SEM image of the powder shows the agglomeration with increment of Mg concentrations. Small grains with average grain sizes of ～20?±?5?nm are uniformly distributed over the mesocrystals. TEM specimens show well-dispersed spherical barium magnesium titanate nanoparticles and diameter of these particles is around 270–300?nm. A dielectric study of Ba_1-xMg_xTiO₃ ceramics as a function of temperature suggested that with increasing substitution concentration the dielectric constant decreased and the Curie temperature shifted towards the lower temperature side. The dielectric diffusivity (γ) was found to be maximum (1.86) for substitution of x?=?0.10 in Ba_1-xMg_xTiO₃ compounds. The activation energy (Ea) was found to increases with increasing substitution concentration in BMT compounds.     

D2D-based Survival on Sharing for critical communications

Wireless Networks - Wireless industry, driven by manifold increase in data and devices, is attracting the attention of public safety services for critical communications under disaster scenarios...     

A pre-processing based optimized edge weighting method for colour constancy

An improvement in the existing weighted grey-edge (GE) framework for colour constancy is proposed. The acquired images are denoised by vector filtering and then, a two-step colour correction process is performed. In the first step, the GE method is used for estimating the global illuminant and perform the initial level of colour correction. The computed illuminant as well as the initial corrected image are used in the second step, which employs the weighted GE method to iteratively compute the final illuminant for obtaining the final colour corrected image. One hundred sixty-five standard test images from a publicly available colour constancy dataset were used to study the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. The results obtained indicate a significant improvement in the colour correction process as compared to the state-of-the-art colour constancy methods. The proposed algorithm reduced the mean angular error by approximately 67.85% compared to the existing weighted GE method.