Evaluation of Non-Ambiguous Critical Micelle Concentration of Surfactants in Relation to Solution Behaviors of Pure and Mixed Surfactant Systems: A Physicochemical Documentary and Analysis

Critical micelle concentration (CMC) is a fundamental physical parameter of surfactant aggregation in solution. The CMC is determined by different methods, tensiometry, conductometry, microcalorimetry, fluorimetry, and so on. However, it is known that though CMC is reported as a single value, in reality, micelle formation occurs over a narrow range of concentration for different experimental procedures produce different results. We shall discuss about a unique procedure of measuring correct CMC applicable to all potential methods used in practice. This is essential for the evaluation of thermodynamic properties of the micelle forming process in pure and mixed states in terms of solution theories. As we in this short documentary want to deal with various aspects of Milton Rosen's research—wherein we have also worked—a few other facets of surfactant chemistry research, besides the micelle formation, are also briefly discussed. In mixed surfactant systems, synergistic effects in various surfactant properties like detergency, foaming, solubilization, and so on are found whereas in some others non-synergistic effects are observed. Dehydration of micelles with an increase in temperature or by the addition of hydrophilic substances may cause clouding to the system. Soluble amphiphilic systems produce Gibbs monolayer at the air/water interface; insoluble amphiphiles form Langmuir monolayers. A documentary of the above aspects will be herein presented and discussed. We mention that this article is neither an original research article nor a review article. This is a mixture of the two: a documentary of both original research and some review of our works presented in memory of Prof. Milton Rosen.     

超高层楼房雨水资源水力发电系统设计研究

为了改善城市生态环境,提高城市自然资源利用率,首先提出了超高层建筑雨水资源利用水力发电的总体架构设计(包括管路设计和涡轮机选型);其次基于流体力学基本方程,构建了涡轮机水流模型,分别应用流体力学模拟、试验和数值解的方法研究了涡轮机出力情况及其设计实体模型的数值解问题;最后选择我国南方某城市的一座50层210m高的楼房为例,对雨水资源利用发电出力进行了研究。结果表明,利用高层楼房雨水水力发电可行,年降水量在1 600mm的条件下,平均1.0×104 m2的超高层楼房雨水蓄积可实现年发电量为271.3×104 kW·h。     

陕西省宝鸡市日月耦合降水随机序列模拟

为了生成可同时保持日、月尺度的关键统计特性的降水序列,提出一种日、月尺度耦合方法使模拟序列可在日、月尺度上均保持实测序列均值、方差和变差系数,该方法利用一阶马尔科夫链模拟干湿期,以两参数Gamma分布模拟降水量,并使用比例调整算法。对陕西省宝鸡市降水序列模拟的结果表明,耦合方法较好地保留了日、月尺度上原有的统计特性,且比例调整算法对日序列的调整较小。同时,耦合方法简单、适用性强,可用于其他尺度间的尺度耦合。     

The control of paracetamol particle size and surface morphology through crystallisation in a spray dryer

The parameters governing the crystallisation of paracetamol using various conventional techniques has been extensively studied, however the factors influencing the drug crystallisation using spray drying is not as well understood. The aim of this work was to investigate the crystallisation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient through evaporative crystallisation using a spray dryer to study the physicochemical properties of the drug and to use semi-empirical equations to gain insight into the morphology and particle size of the dried powder. Paracetamol solutions were spray dried at various inlet temperatures ranging from 60 °C to 120 °C and also from a series of inlet feed solvent compositions ranging from 50/50% v/v ethanol/water to 100% ethanol and solid-state characterisation was done. The size and morphology of the dried materials were altered with a change in spray drying parameters, with an increase in inlet temperature leading to an increase in particle Sauter mean diameter (from 3.0 to 4.4 µm) and a decrease in the particle size with an increase in ethanol concentration in the feed (from 4.6 to 4.4 µm) as a result of changes in particle density and atomised droplet size. The morphology of the dried particles consisted of agglomerates of individual crystallites bound together into larger semi-spherical agglomerates with a higher tendency for particles having crystalline ridges to form at higher ethanol concentrations of the feed.     

Study on the long-term behaviour of glass fibre in the tensile stress field

Glass fibre is a random network structure composed of [SiO₄] tetrahedra. The structure contains a large number of defects, which act as crack initiation points. Under tensile stress, cracks undergo crack initiation, stable propagation, failure propagation, and fracture, and the stress that begins after unstable propagation is called the critical fracture stress. When the stress is less than the critical value, the crack is subject to the force of chemical bonds during the crack propagation process, and crack arrest occurs. When the stress is greater than the critical value, the glass fibre will undergo destructive fracture. In this paper, long-term tensile tests were carried out on glass fibre and a glass fibre composite under different constant tensile stress conditions. The fracture times of the glass fibre and glass fibre composite under different tensile stresses were obtained, the critical fracture stress of glass fibre was inferred, and the fracture mechanism was explained.     

Prediction of mode I fracture toughness of rock using linear multiple regression and gene expression programming

Prediction of mode I fracture toughness (K_IC) of rock is of significant importance in rock engineering analyses. In this study, linear multiple regression (LMR) and gene expression programming (GEP) methods were used to provide a reliable relationship to determine mode I fracture toughness of rock. The presented model was developed based on 60 datasets taken from the previous literature. To predict fracture parameters, three mechanical parameters of rock mass including uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), Brazilian tensile strength (BTS), and elastic modulus (E) have been selected as the input parameters. A cluster of data was collected and divided into two random groups of training and testing datasets. Then, different statistical linear and artificial intelligence based nonlinear analyses were conducted on the training data to provide a reliable prediction model of K_IC. These two predictive methods were then evaluated based on the testing data. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed models for predicting the mode I fracture toughness of rock, various statistical indices including coefficient of determination (R²), root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) were utilized herein. In the case of testing datasets, the values of R², RMSE, and MAE for the GEP model were 0.87, 0.188, and 0.156, respectively, while they were 0.74, 0.473, and 0.223, respectively, for the LMR model. The results indicated that the selected GEP model delivered superior performance with a higher R² value and lower errors.     

Life-cycle assessment of hydrogen technologies with the focus on EU critical raw materials and end-of-life strategies

We present the results of a life-cycle assessment (LCA) for the manufacturing and end-of-life (EoL) phases of the following fuel-cell and hydrogen (FCH) technologies: alkaline water electrolyser (AWE), polymer-electrolyte-membrane water electrolyser (PEMWE), high-temperature (HT) and low-temperature (LT) polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), together with the balance-of-plant components. New life-cycle inventories (LCIs), i.e., material inputs for the AWE, PEMWE and HT PEMFC are developed, whereas the existing LCI for the LT PEMFC is adopted from a previous EU-funded project. The LCA models for all four FCH technologies are created by modelling the manufacturing phase, followed by defining the EoL strategies and processes used and finally by assessing the effects of the EoL approach using environmental indicators. The effects are analysed with a stepwise approach, where the CML2001 assessment method is used to evaluate the environmental impacts. The results show that the environmental impacts of the manufacturing phase can be substantially reduced by using the proposed EoL strategies (i.e., recycled materials being used in the manufacturing phase and replacing some of the virgin materials). To point out the importance of critical materials (in this case, the platinum-group metals or PGMs) and their recycling strategies, further analyses were made. By comparing the EoL phase with and without the recycling of PGMs, an increase in the environmental impacts is observed, which is much greater in the case of both fuel-cell systems, because they contain a larger quantity of PGMs.