Ethylene glycol biodegradation in microbial fuel cell

Ethylene glycol is an environmental pollutant, which exists in airport runoff and industrial waste. In this article, biodegradation of ethylene glycol in a two-chamber, batch-mode microbial fuel cell was investigated. Glucose and ethylene glycol at different concentrations were used as carbon and energy sources. Chemical oxygen demand removal in the range of 92–98% indicated that microbial fuel cell can be used for biodegradation of ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol also improved power generation and the maximum power density was 5.72 mW/m² (137.32 mW/m³), with respect to the same glucose and ethylene glycol concentrations (500 ppm).     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Temperature Effect on Thickness Distribution in Warm Hydroforming of Aluminum Tubes

Reduction of weight and increase of corrosion resistance are among the advantageous applications of aluminum alloys in automotive industry. Producing complicated components with several parts as a uniform part not only increases their strength but also decreases the production sequences and costs. However, achieving this purpose requires sufficient formability of the material. Tube hydroforming is an alternative process to produce complex products. In this process, the higher the material formability the more uniform will be the thickness distribution. In this research, tube hydroforming of aluminum alloy (AA1050) at various temperatures has been investigated numerically to study temperature effect on thickness distribution of final product. Also a warm hydroforming set-up has been designed and manufactured to evaluate numerical results. According to numerical and experimental results in the case of free bulging, unlike the constrained bulging, increase of the process temperature causes more uniform thickness distribution and therefore increases the material formability.     

Networked control of industrial automation systems—a new predictive method

A new method for real-time prediction of uncertain network transmission time delays and a method for closed-loop control of manufacturing and industrial plants through networks are introduced. The proposed delay prediction method is based on the multilayer perceptron neural model. In order to minimize the number of neurons in the first layer of the network and hence reducing the computational burden in a real-time implementation, a method for determination of the Markov order of the time delay sequence is presented. Using the predicted delay, and a zero-order hold equivalent discrete-time model of the plant, a time varying state feedback control algorithm with a real-time gain updating strategy is proposed. A sufficient condition for closed-loop stability is also derived using the switching theorem for linear systems. The proposed method is shown, through two industrial networked case studies, namely, a DC motor driving a transportation roller for paper sheets and a milling machine. Simulation studies depict the efficacy of the proposed method in controlling such challenging problems.     

Analysis and design of an isolated single-phase power factor corrector with a fast regulation

This paper presents an analysis and a modeling approach to obtain a small-signal model design and the digital implementation of a linear control technique for single-phase boost power factor correctors (PFC). Such converters present nonlinear characteristics and approximations of them are used to drive the models. The proposed circuit significantly improves the dynamic response of the converter to load steps without the need of a high crossover frequency of the voltage loop by adding low-pass filter. So, a low distortion of the input current is easily achieved. This controller has been verified via simulation in Simulink using a continuous time plant model and a discrete time controller. Real-time implementation is performed on an experimental test bench utilizing a rapid prototyping tool. The controller is experimentally confirmed for steady-state performance and transient response.     

Sensitive DNA impedance biosensor for detection of cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, based on gold nanoparticles/gold modified electrode

A simple and sensitive DNA impedance sensor was prepared for the detection of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The DNA electrochemical biosensor is worked based on the electrochemical impedance spectroscopic (EIS) detection of the sequence-specific DNA related to chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The ssDNA probe was immobilized on the surface of the gold nanoparticles. Compared to the bare gold electrode, the gold nanoparticles-modified electrode could improve the density of the probe DNA attachment and hence the sensitivity of the DNA sensor greatly. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were performed in a solution containing 1.0 mmol L⁻¹ K₃[Fe(CN)₆]/K₄[Fe(CN)₆] and 50 mmol L⁻¹ phosphate buffer saline pH 6.87 plus 50 mmol L⁻¹ KCl. In the CV studied, the potential was cycled from 0.0 to +0.65 V with a scan rate of 50 mV s⁻¹. Using EIS, the difference of the electron transfer resistance (ΔR_et) was linear with the logarithm of the complementary oligonucleotides sequence concentrations in the range of 7.0 × 10⁻¹²–2.0 × 10⁻⁷ mol L⁻¹, with a detection limit of 1.0 × 10⁻¹² mol L⁻¹. In addition, the DNA sensor showed a good reproducibility and stability during repeated regeneration and hybridization cycles.     

Regioselective and green synthesis of nitro aromatic compounds using polymer‐supported sodium nitrite/KHSO4

Polymer supported reagents have become the subject of considerable and increasing interest as insoluble materials in the organic synthesis. Use of polymeric reagents simplifies routine nitration of aromatic compounds because it eliminates traditional purification. In this article, the use of readily available cross‐linked poly(4‐vinylpyridine) supported sodium nitrite, [P₄‐Me] NO₂, as an efficient polymeric nitrating agent in the presence of KHSO₄ is described. A good range of available aromatic compounds were also subjected to nitration in the presence of [P₄‐Me] NO₂/KHSO₄. This reagent is regioselective and chemoselective nitrating polymeric reagent for activated aromatic rings. In this procedure, the work‐up is easy, and the spent polymeric reagent is easily regenerated and reused. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

An efficient method for nitration of aromatic compounds over solid acid and polymer‐supported sodium nitrite

A variety of aromatic compounds are nitrated under heterogeneous conditions using a polymer‐supported hydrochloric acid, [P₄‐(VP)]HCl, with a polymer‐supported sodium nitrite, [P₄‐VP]NO₂, or sodium nitrite in ethanol at room temperature with high yields. This methodology is useful for nitration of activated aromatic compounds. In this procedure, the work‐up is very easy, and the spent polymeric reagent can be regenerated and reused. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Control for PWM ac chopper feeding nonlinear loads

This paper presents a novel robust control technique for PWM ac choppers with the ability to generate high quality sinusoidal waveforms with adjustable amplitudes over a wide range control. For this purpose a deadbeat-based digital controller has been developed to perform tight closed-loop control of the ac chopper. This controller is based on a generalized predictive control (GPC) approach. A dedicated control algorithm has been developed and implemented. The proposed controller presents the advantages of allowing a very fast transient response and compensating effectively for load disturbance and the effects of nonlinear loads. Computer simulations are performed to investigate the proposed controller performance. The simulation results show that the designed controller has a good dynamic behaviour, a good rejection of impact load disturbance, and is ;very robust. To evaluate the proposed approach an experimental prototype has been constructed. Experimental results under various loading conditions have demonstrated that the system performs well.     

Partial Virtual Channel Sharing: A Generic Methodology to Enhance Resource Management and Fault Tolerance in Networks-on-Chip

We present a novel Partial Virtual channel Sharing (PVS) NoC architecture which reduces the impact of faults on performance and also tolerates faults within the routing logic. Without PVS, failure of a component impairs the fault-free connected components, which leads to considerable performance degradation. Improving resource utilization is key in enhancing or sustaining performance with minimal overhead when faults or overload occurs. In the proposed architecture, autonomic virtual-channel buffer sharing is implemented with a novel algorithm that determines the sharing of buffers among a set of ports. The runtime allocation of the buffers depends on incoming load and fault occurrence. In addition, we propose an efficient technique for maintaining the accessibility of a processing element (PE) to the network even if its router is faulty. Our techniques can be used in any NoC topology and for both, 2D and 3D NoCs. The synthesis results for an integrated video conference application demonstrate 22 % reduction in average packet latency compared to state-of-the-art virtual channel (VC) based NoC architecture. Extensive quantitative simulation has been carried out with synthetic benchmarks. Simulation results reveal that the PVS architecture improves the performance significantly in presence of faults, compared to other VC-based NoC architectures.