Integrated LaB6/g-C3N4 solar absorber for solving dye accumulation during solar steam generation

Solar steam generation has attracted considerable interest due to its easy accessibility and sustainability. However, dye molecules were gradually concentrated on bulk water or the surface of solar absorbers during the disposal of dye wastewater. Herein, LaB₆/g-C₃N₄ composites were immobilized on porous cotton cloth, served as a solar absorber resistant to dye clogging. The optimal solar absorber possessed solar harvesting of 92.3% and showed great application potential in the field of the treatment of dye wastewater. This study presented a new approach for the treatment of dye wastewater.     

Nano fibrillated cellulose-based foam by Pickering emulsion: Preparation,characterizations, and application as dye adsorbent

An ecofriendly and biodegradable porous structure was prepared from drying aqueous foams based on nano fibrillated cellulose (NFC), extracted from softwood pulp by subcritical water/CO₂ treatment (SC-NFC). The primary aim of this work was to use the modified SC-NFC as stabilizer for a water-based Pickering emulsion which upon drying, yielded porous cellulosic materials, a good dye adsorbent. In order to exploit the carboxymethylated SC-NFC (CMSC-NFC, with a degree of substitution of 0.35 and a charge density of 649 μeqv/g) as a stabilizer for water-based Pickering emulsion in subsequent step, an optimized quantity of octyl amine (30 mg/g of SC-NFC) was added to make them partially hydrophobic. A series of dry foam structures were prepared by varying the concentrations of treated CMSC-NFCs and 4 wt% was found to be the optimum concentration to yield foam with high porosity (99%) and low density (0.038 g/cc) along with high compression strength (0.24 MPa), superior to the conventionally extracted NFC. The foams were applied to capture as high as 98% of methylene blue dyes, making them a potential green candidate for treating industrial effluent. In addition, the dye adsorption kinetics and isotherms were found to be well suited with second order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm models.     

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.     

Carbon-based TiO2-x heterostructure nanocomposites for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of dye molecules

Application of brown titanium dioxide (TiO_2-x) and its modified composite forms in the photocatalytic decomposition of organic pollutants in the environment is a promising way to provide solutions for environmental redemption. Herein, we report the synthesis of effective and stable TiO_2-x nanoparticles with g-C₃N₄, RGO, and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using a simple hydrothermal method. Among all the as-synthesized samples, excellent photocatalytic degradation activity was observed for RGO-TiO_2-x nanocomposite with high rate constants of 0.075 min^?1_, 0.083 min^?1 and 0.093 min^?1 for methylene blue, rhodamine-B, and rosebengal dyes under UV–Visible light irradiation, respectively. The altered bandgap (1.8 eV) and the large surface area of RGO-TiO_2-x nanocomposite impacts on both absorption of visible light and efficiency of photogenerated charge electron (e^?)/hole (h⁺) pair separation. This resulted in enhanced photocatalytic property of carbon-based TiO_2-x nanocomposites. A systematic study on the influence of different carbon nanostructures on the photocatalytic activity of brown TiO_2-x is carried out.     

An E-Business Event Stream Mechanism for Improving User Tracing Processes

With the rapid development in business transactions, especially in recent years, it has become necessary to develop different mechanisms to trace business user records in web server log in an efficient way. Online business transactions have increased, especially when the user or customer cannot obtain the required service. For example, with the spread of the epidemic Coronavirus (COVID-19) throughout the world, there is a dire need to rely more on online business processes. In order to improve the efficiency and performance of E-business structure, a web server log must be well utilized to have the ability to trace and record infinite user transactions. This paper proposes an event stream mechanism based on formula patterns to enhance business processes and record all user activities in a structured log file. Each user activity is recorded with a set of tracing parameters that can predict the behavior of the user in business operations. The experimental results are conducted by applying clustering-based classification algorithms on two different datasets; namely, Online Shoppers Purchasing Intention and Instacart Market Basket Analysis. The clustering process is used to group related objects into the same cluster, then the classification process measures the predicted classes of clustered objects. The experimental results record provable accuracy in predicting user preferences on both datasets.     

Mg0.5NixZn0.5-xFe2O4 spinel as a sustainable magnetic nano-photocatalyst with dopant driven band shifting and reduced recombination for visible and solar degradation of Reactive Blue-19

Focussing on visible light active ferrites for high performance removal of noxious pollutants, we report the synthesis of Mg_0.5Ni_xZn_0.5-xFe₂O₄ (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, & 0.5) ferrite nanoparticle for degradation of reactive blue-19 (RB-19). Lattice parameters calculated using intense X-ray diffraction (XRD) peaks and Nelson-Riley plots (N-R plot) are in well agreement with each other. The sample Mg_0.5Ni_0.4Zn_0.1Fe₂O₄ (M5N4) exhibits best performance with 99.5% RB-19 degradation in 90 min under visible light. Photoluminescence (PL) results confirm that recombination of charge carriers is highly reduced in the photocatalyst. Scavenging experiments suggest that O₂⁻ radicals were the dominant species responsible for photocatalytic performance. The photocatalytic mechanism was explained in terms of dopant driven shifting of conduction bands and valence bands (calculated by Mott-Schottky plots). The thermodynamic probability of radical generation along with role of redox cycles of metal ions has been discussed in the mechanism. The dye degradation was ascertained by detection of intermediates via mass spectrometry analysis and a possible degradation route was also predicted. The findings in this work provide intriguing opportunities to modify the electronic band structure of spinel ferrites for visible and solar light photocatalytic activity for environmental detoxification.     

Epidemic contact tracing with smartphone sensors

ABSTRACT

Contact tracing is widely considered as an effective procedure in the fight against epidemic diseases. However, one of the challenges for technology based contact tracing is the high number of false positives, questioning its trust-worthiness and efficiency amongst the wider population for mass adoption. To this end, this paper proposes a novel, yet practical smartphone-based contact tracing approach, employing WiFi and acoustic sound for relative distance estimate, in addition to the air pressure and the magnetic field for ambient environment matching. We present a model combining six smartphone sensors, prioritising some of them when certain conditions are met. We empirically verified our approach in various realistic environments to demonstrate an achievement of up to 95% fewer false positives, and 62% more accurate than Bluetooth-only system. To the best of our knowledge, this paper was one of the first work to propose a combination of smartphone sensors for contact tracing.     

Influence of doped platinum nanoparticles on photocatalytic performance of CuO–SiO2 for degradation of Acridine orange dye

Preparation of cupric oxide-silicon dioxide nanoparticles was carried out using a sol-gel method. Cupric oxide-silicon dioxide nanoparticles were decorated by different weight percent of platinum (0.5, 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 wt %) using method of photoassisted deposition. XRD remarks revealed that XRD patterns for all samples are composed of cupric oxide. Therefore, silicon dioxide is amorphous and decoration of cupric oxide-silicon dioxide nanoparticles by platinum has no effect on the formed phase. Also, due to low percent of platinum there are no peaks for platinum oxide or platinum. Cupric oxide has bandgap energy absorb in visible region but has high e-h recombination rate. Decoration of cupric oxide-silicon dioxide nanoparticles by platinum was decreased bandgap energy from 2.38 to 1.91 eV and also decrease rate of e-h recombination rate. The photocatalytic activity of platinum decorated cupric oxide-silicon dioxide nanoparticles was measured under visible light for Acridine orange dye degradation. 100% of Acridine orange dye can be degraded using 3.0 wt % of platinum decorated cupric oxide-silicon dioxide photocatalyst, 1.2 g/L dose of platinum decorated cupric oxide-silicon dioxide photocatalyst and 30 min reaction time. 3.0 wt % of platinum decorated cupric oxide-silicon dioxide photocatalyst has photocatalytic stability for five times.     

Prism coupling method to evaluate the light extraction efficiency of outcoupling substrates

One of the key challenges in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) for lighting applications is efficient light extraction from the planar, multi-layered OLED stack. Several different light extraction approaches are being explored currently by researchers, however characterizing light extraction films after fabricating OLEDs is not a viable approach when the outcoupling films have large surface roughness and is time consuming as well. Here we apply prism coupling method (PCM), a simple and elegant tool, to characterize outcoupling films. We show the effectiveness of PCM in estimating light extraction efficiency of outcoupling films. PCM can expedite selection and optimization of various light extraction approaches without the need to build OLEDs. The experimental results are corroborated by the optical simulations done using ray tracing method taking into account Mie scattering from wavelength sized spherical inclusions in an outcoupling film.