Mössbauer effect studies and X-ray diffraction analysis of cobalt ferrite prepared in powder form by thermal decomposition method

Cobalt ferrite (Co_xFe_3?xO₄) is prepared in powder form by thermal decomposition of iron and cobalt salts and is analysed by X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopic techniques. The variation of Mössbauer parameters, lattice parameters and crystallite size of the products formed with variation in the composition of Fe and Co ratios are studied. The studies confirm the formation of nano-size cobalt ferrite particles with defect structure and it is found to be maximum for the Fe : Co = 60 : 40 ratio of the initial precursor oxides.     

A reactive molecular dynamics model of thermal decomposition in polymers: I. Poly(methyl methacrylate)

The theory and implementation of reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) are presented. The capabilities of RMD and its potential use as a tool for investigating the mechanisms of thermal transformations in materials are demonstrated by presenting results from simulations of the thermal degradation of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). While it is known that depolymerization must be the major decomposition channel for PMMA, there are unanswered questions about the nature of the initiation reaction and the relative reactivities of the tertiary and primary radicals formed in the degradation process. The results of our RMD simulations, performed directly in the condensed phase, are consistent with available experimental information. They also provide new insights into the mechanism of the thermally induced conversion of this polymer into its constituent monomers.     

Application of the blind source separation method to feature extraction of machine sound signals

As the result of vibration emission in air, a machine sound signal carries important information about the working condition of machinery. But in practice, the sound signal is typically received with a very low signal-to-noise ratio. To obtain features of the original sound signal, uncorrelated sound signals must be removed and the wavelet coefficients related to fault condition must be retrieved. In this paper, the blind source separation technique is used to recover the wavelet coefficients of a monitored source from complex observed signals. Since in the proposed blind source separation (BSS) algorithms it is generally assumed that the number of sources is known, the Gerschgorin disk estimator method is introduced to determine the number of sound sources before applying the BSS method. This method can estimate the number of sound sources under non-Gaussian and non-white noise conditions. Then, the partial singular value analysis method is used to select these significant observations for BSS analysis. This method ensures that signals are separated with the smallest distortion. Afterwards, the time-frequency separation algorithm, converted to a suitable BSS algorithm for the separation of a non-stationary signal, is introduced. The transfer channel between observations and sources and the wavelet coefficients of the source signals can be blindly identified via this algorithm. The reconstructed wavelet coefficients can be used for diagnosis. Finally, the separation results obtained from the observed signals recorded in a semi-anechoic chamber demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented methods .     

Numerical simulation of substrate effects on spinodal decomposition in polymer binary mixture: Effects of the surface potential

The surface-directed spinodal decomposition (SDSD) of polymer binary mixture with different values of surface potential is numerically simulated in three-dimension (3D) by cell dynamic systems (CDS). Furthermore, the growth laws of the wetting layer are theoretically analyzed by the current equation and the dynamical scaling. The results show that the thickness of the wetting layer increases with the increasing surface potential. The crossover, which is later for larger values of surface potential, appears in the evolution curve of the wetting layer. Before the crossover, the growth law is the surface potential dependant growth law. Subsequently, the growth law is the typical Lifshitz-Slyozov (LS) growth law. The results indicate that the surface potential can result in the mutual transformation between completely wetting and partially wetting for the substrate interface. It can be found that the higher surface potential leads to the faster and stronger transmission of the effect of the substrate on the spinodal decomposition in the bulk.     

On transitive orientations with restricted covering graphs

We consider the problem of finding a transitive orientation of a comparability graph, such that the edge set of its covering graph contains a given subset of edges. We propose a solution which employs the classical technique of modular tree decomposition. The method leads to a polynomial time algorithm to construct such an orientation or report that it does not exist.     

Restricted overlapping balancing domain decomposition methods and restricted coarse problems for the Helmholtz problem

Overlapping balancing domain decomposition methods and their combination with restricted additive Schwarz methods are proposed for the Helmholtz equation. These new methods also extend previous work on non-overlapping balancing domain decomposition methods toward simplifying their coarse problems and local solvers. They also extend restricted Schwarz methods, originally designed to overlapping domain decomposition and Dirichlet local solvers, to the case of non-overlapping domain decomposition and/or Neumann and Sommerfeld local solvers. Finally, we introduce coarse spaces based on partitions of unity and planes waves, and show how oblique projection coarse problems can be designed from restricted additive Schwarz methods. Numerical tests are presented.     

ΝΗ<Subscript>3</Subscript> decomposition in a proton conducting solid electrolyte cell

The reaction of NH₃ decomposition was studied on Ag in a proton conducting double chamber cell-reactor. The proton conductor was a strontia-ceria-ytterbia (SCY) perovskite of the form SrCe_0.95Yb_0.05O_3−α. The reaction was studied at 350–700 °C and atmospheric total pressure. The proton transference number (PTN) was calculated by simultaneous measurement of the imposed current and the proton flux and it was found to vary between 0.5 and 0.7. The effects of imposed current, temperature and inlet gas composition on the reaction rate and the PTN, were examined. Although the faradaic efficiency (Λ) remained near unity in all experiments, reaction rate enhancements (ρ) as high as 57 were achieved. An up to 90% decrease in the activation energy of the reaction was observed when protons were electrochemically “pumped” away from the catalyst.     

聚合物包覆热分解法制备纳米氧化锌的工艺研究

采用聚合物包覆热分解法化学工艺制备了纳米氧化锌，对其工艺进行系统的比较研究，对所得粉体进行XRD与SEM表征。发现利用该工艺所得粉体为六方晶系纤锌矿结构（空间群为P63mc）的纳米氧化锌。该方法制备的氧化锌衍射峰尖锐，表明此种方法合成的氧化锌结晶程度高。所得的氧化锌粉体XRD图谱中没有杂质衍射峰，说明产物纯度都很高。产品SEM表征结果显示了此工艺产物在形貌方面的高度一致性——为菊花状氧化锌纳米杆团簇，对产物形貌形成的原因做了探讨。     

Characterization of supported Pd-Pt catalysts by chemical probes

The temperature programmed (palladium) hydride decomposition appeared very effective method for diagnosing the extent of alloying in Pd-Pt/SiO₂ catalysts. Introduction of Pt to Pd catalysts moves the TPHD peak gradually towards lower temperatures and the shift in hydride decomposition peak is accompanied by a decrease in the amount of released hydrogen. The catalysts prepared the direct redox method showed much better alloy homogeneity than the samples prepared by coimpregnation. The results of probing with other techniques, i.e. catalytic probing with hydrodechlorination of CCl₂F₂ and XRD, were in line with TPHD data. The catalytic probing showed the presence of synergistic effect, a clear indication of Pd-Pt mixing. XRD data of post-reaction samples showed carbon incorporation into Pd-rich phase, whereas separate Pt-rich phase did not experience any bulk carbiding.     

热分解法制备钛酸铅镧薄膜及其电性能研究

本文研究了用金属有机物热发解法制备ＰＬＴ８薄膜的工艺过程和基片对薄膜结构的影响，并且给出了铁电性能的测量结果。