Fabrication and NO2 gas sensing performance of TeO2-core/CuO-shell heterostructure nanorod sensors

TeO₂-nanostructured sensors are seldom reported compared to other metal oxide semiconductor materials such as ZnO, In₂O₃, TiO₂, Ga₂O₃, etc. TeO₂/CuO core-shell nanorods were fabricated by thermal evaporation of Te powder followed by sputter deposition of CuO. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction showed that each nanorod consisted of a single crystal TeO₂ core and a polycrystalline CuO shell with a thickness of approximately 7 nm. The TeO₂/CuO core-shell one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures exhibited a bamboo leaf-like morphology. The core-shell nanorods were 100 to 300 nm in diameter and up to 30 μm in length. The multiple networked TeO₂/CuO core-shell nanorod sensor showed responses of 142% to 425% to 0.5- to 10-ppm NO₂ at 150°C. These responses were stronger than or comparable to those of many other metal oxide nanostructures, suggesting that TeO₂ is also a promising sensor material. The responses of the core-shell nanorods were 1.2 to 2.1 times higher than those of pristine TeO₂ nanorods over the same NO₂ concentration range. The underlying mechanism for the enhanced NO₂ sensing properties of the core-shell nanorod sensor can be explained by the potential barrier-controlled carrier transport mechanism.

PACS

61.46. + w; 07.07.Df; 73.22.-f     

Fabrication and electrical properties of polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) thin films for high-temperature heat flux sensors

In this paper, we describe the fabrication of ceramic thin films for high-temperature heat flux sensors. The polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) thin films are prepared by using soft lithography on pre-ceramic polymer precursors followed by pyrolysis and heat treatment. Processing routes have been developed which lead to thin film resistance-thermal detectors (RTD) that have sufficient mechanical strength for handling and for use in thermal sensing. The effect of annealing temperatures on the electric resistivity of the PDC sensors was investigated. The electrical resistivity of the sensors was measured at different temperatures.     

Hydrogen production and metabolic flux analysis of metabolically engineered Escherichia coli strains

Escherichia coli can produce H₂ from glucose via formate hydrogen lyase (FHL). In order to improve the H₂ production rate and yield, metabolically engineered E. coli strains, which included pathway alterations in their H₂ production and central carbon metabolism, were developed and characterized by batch experiments and metabolic flux analysis. Deletion of hycA, a negative regulator for FHL, resulted in twofold increase of FHL activity. Deletion of two uptake hydrogenases (1 (hya) and hydrogenase 2 (hyb)) increased H₂ production yield from 1.20 mol/mol glucose to 1.48 mol/mol glucose. Deletion of lactate dehydrogenase (ldhA) and fumarate reductase (frdAB) further improved the H₂ yield; 1.80 mol/mol glucose under high H₂ pressure or 2.11 mol/mol glucose under reduced H₂ pressure. Several batch experiments at varying concentrations of glucose (2.5–10 g/L) and yeast extract (0.3 or 3.0 g/L) were conducted for the strain containing all these genetic alternations, and their carbon and energy balances were analyzed. The metabolic flux analysis revealed that deletion of ldhA and frdABdirected most of the carbons from glucose to the glycolytic pathway leading to H₂ production by FHL, not to the pentose phosphate pathway.     

Development of a Data‐Driven Framework for Real‐Time Travel Time Prediction

Travel time prediction is one of the most important components in Intelligent Transportation Systems implementation. Various related techniques have been developed, but the efforts for improving the applicability of long‐term prediction in a real‐time manner have been lacking. Existing methods do not fully utilize the advantages of the state‐of‐the‐art cloud system and large amount of data due to computation issues. We propose a new prediction framework for real‐time travel time services in the cloud system. A distinctive feature is that the prediction is done with the entire data of a road section to stably and accurately produce the long‐term (at least 6‐hour prediction horizon) predicted value. Another distinctive feature is that the framework uses a hierarchical pattern matching called Multilevel k‐nearest neighbor (Mk‐NN) method which is compared with the conventional k‐NN method and Nearest Historical average method. The results show that the method can more accurately and robustly predict the long‐term travel time with shorter computation time.     

Purification and separation of carbon nanocapsules as a magnetic carrier for drug delivery systems

Nanoparticles of iron carbides wrapped in multilayered graphitic sheets (carbon nanocapsules) were synthesized by electric plasma discharge in an ultrasonic cavitation field in liquid ethanol. The as-prepared material contained carbon nanocapsules but also included impurities such as amorphous carbon, graphite balls and flakes. These impurities must be removed to allow the development of applications for the carbon nanocapsules and, it is necessary to develop a suitable purification method to obtain samples of monodispersed carbon nanocapsules. Two purification methods were used. The first used a hydrogen peroxide solution and acid etching to remove the amorphous carbon and iron particles. These impurities were easily oxidized and dissolved in the solution and the graphite layers of the carbon nanocapsules were not damaged. The second used magnetic separation using permanent magnets to remove the graphite balls and flakes. Here, centrifugation was applied to separate the purified carbon nanocapsules around 100–200 nm in size.     

Effect of thermal ageing on mechanical properties of a high-strength ODS alloy

A new high-strength ODS alloy, ARROS, was recently developed for the application as the cladding material of a Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). To assess the long-term integrity under thermal ageing, ARROS was thermally aged in air at 650°C for 1000 h. The degree of thermal ageing was assessed by mechanical tests such as uniaxial tensile, hardness, and small punch tests at from room temperature to 650°C. Tensile strength was slightly decreased but elongation, hardness, and small punch energy were hardly changed at all test temperatures for the specimen aged at 650°C for 1000 h. However, the variation in mechanical properties such as hardness and small punch energy increased after thermal ageing. Using the test results, the correlation between tensile strength and maximum small punch load was established.