Synthesis of yttria precursor nano-powders using a symmetrical alternating current assisted precipitation method

Symmetrical alternating current (SAC) was applied during yttria precursor nano-powder precipitation. The effects of SAC on the morphology and grain size of the yttria precursor were investigated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found the precursor to be transformed from irregular platelets/spheres to uniform spheres due to the SAC vibration effect. High frequency and density of SAC exerted greater influence on the morphology and grain size of the yttria precursor than weaker one.     

CO2 biofixation by Synechococcus elongatus from the power plant flue gas under various light–dark cycles

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Carbon dioxide emission, which acts as one of the major agents of greenhouse gases (GHG), has significant effects on global warming. Nowadays, there is...     

Green synthesis of dysprosium stannate nanoparticles using Ficus carica extract as photocatalyst for the degradation of organic pollutants under visible irradiation

This paper describes a simple and environmentally friendly route to develop Dy₂Sn₂O₇ nanostructures with the aid of Ficus carica extract as naturally available fuel, for the first time. In this investigation, we found that shape, purity and dimension of Dy₂Sn₂O₇ could be controlled with varying the determinative factors, the quantity of Ficus carica extract and temperature. The varied techniques have been employed to denote the production of Dy₂Sn₂O₇ and examine its features. We applied diverse structures of Dy₂Sn₂O₇ (fabricated with Ficus carica extract) as visible-light-sensitive photocatalyst for destruction of Acid Violet 7 and crystal violet, for the first time. The fabricated Dy₂Sn₂O₇ with the aid of 2 ml of Ficus carica extract was capable of illustrating a great efficiency to destruct target pollutants. Our findings offer that the as-fabricated Dy₂Sn₂O₇ can be beneficially applied as novel kind of visible-light-sensitive photocatalyst for efficient removal and destruction of organic contaminants in water.     

Protocol encompassing ultrasound/Fe3O4 nanoparticles/persulfate for the removal of tetracycline antibiotics from aqueous environments

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - The presence of residual antibiotics in the environment is one of the major global concerns, and it is imperative to control their discharge in water...     

Non-Newtonian behaviour of the gyroid mesophase: A lattice-Boltzmann study

We use a lattice-Boltzmann (LB) kinetic scheme for modelling amphiphilic mixtures to impose Couette flow on self-assembled gyroid mesophase. We report evidence of non-Newtonian behaviour (“shear thinning”) and we show that the particular lack of inversion symmetry which characterizes the gyroid unit cell does not quantitatively affect the flow dynamics beyond a certain predictable shear velocity threshold. This purely kinetic approach is of general importance for the modelling and simulation of complex fluid flows in situations when rheological properties cannot be predicted a priori.     

Differential evolution and quantum-inquired differential evolution for evolving Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy models

The differential evolution (DE) is a global optimization algorithm to solve numerical optimization problems. Recently the quantum-inquired differential evolution (QDE) has been proposed for binary optimization. This paper proposes DE/QDE to learn the Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy model. DE/QDE can simultaneously optimize the structure and the parameters of the model. Moreover a new encoding scheme is given to allow DE/QDE to be easily performed. The two benchmark problems are used to validate the performance of DE/QDE. Compared to some existing methods, DE/QDE shows the competitive performance in terms of accuracy.     

Combining spectral signals and spatial patterns using multiple Hough transforms: An application for detection of natural gas seepages

Object detection in remote sensing studies can be improved by incorporating spatial knowledge of an object in an image processing algorithm. This paper presents an algorithm based on sequential Hough transforms, which aims to detect botanical and mineralogical alterations that result from natural seepage of carbon dioxide and light hydrocarbons. As the observed alterations are not unique for gas seepages, these halos can only be distinguished from the background by their specific spatial pattern: the alterations are present as halos that line up along geological lineaments in the shallow subsurface. The algorithm is deployed in three phases: a prior spectral classification followed by two serialized Hough transforms. The first Hough transform fits circles through spectrally optimal matching pixels. Next, the centers of the detected circles are piped into the second Hough transform that detects points that are located on a line. Results show that our algorithm is successful in detecting the alteration halos. The number of false anomalies is sufficiently reduced to allow an objective detection based on field observations and spectral measurements.