Self-service — but is it good to talk?

Drives to increase the volume of customers who use self-service channels are a common strategic goal. The promise of significant cost reduction is a tempting carrot. Couple this with the vision of customers benefiting from quick, effective and usable contact channels, avoiding human error (except perhaps their own!) or potential frustration at being passed around to an ‘appropriate’ contact centre advisor is a very worthy vision … but is it as simple as this? In this discussion paper the authors speculate that self-service, while potentially being a revenue-saving opportunity, could also erode customer satisfaction and loyalty. Self-service doubtless appeals to some customers, but is it what all customers want? Do organisations understand enough about customer experience to enable them to build successful self-service channels, i.e. those that are useful, usable and used by customers? Do businesses really want to lose the opportunity to actually talk to customers and gain insight and knowledge about them? What impact will increased levels of self-service have on more traditional channels, such as customer contact centres? This paper also discusses evidence that self-service can actually serve to increase communication between organisations and customers across multiple channels. For many organisations, the Internet has actually resulted in more calls to the contact centre, not less. The seductive promise of self-service to cut costs through reducing call volumes may be an empty one.     

The Fe-Ni (iron-nickel) system

The online version of the original article can be found at     

Influence of Alkaline Additives and Buffers on Mineral Trapping of CO2 under Mild Conditions

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas is the main contributor to climate change. CO₂ storage in underground brines and oil‐field brines by mineral trapping has been considered as a promising alternative in order to reduce CO₂ emissions. However, permanent storage of CO₂ in stable carbonate minerals is greatly dependent on brine pH, being favored over an alkaline pH. The effect of alkaline additives (NaOH, KOH, CaO) and buffer solutions (NaHCO₃/NaOH, Na₂HPO₄/NaOH, NH₄Cl/NH₄OH) on the mineral trapping of CO₂ under mild conditions using a synthetic brine is investigated. The results indicate that both NaOH+NH₄Cl/NH₄OH and KOH+NH₄Cl/NH₄OH mixtures promote precipitation mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃).     

Review of quantitative structure‐activity/property relationship studies of dyes: recent advances and perspectives

Dyes have been applied and are playing an increasingly important role in many industries, including the textile, printing, medical and energy industries. Their wide applications imply that specific dyes possessing given properties need to be effectively designed. The present review aims to survey information related to activity/property research of dyes that has been published in the past two decades. Emphasis is laid particularly on studies based on quantitative structure–activity/property relationships that have contributed to the theoretical design and application of dyes. Finally, the perspectives of quantitative structure‐activity/property relationship studies are set out in order to show how this method may be used to design new dyes and to evaluate their different properties. The challenges facing these studies are also outlined.     

Thermodynamic Analyses on Nanoarchitectonics of Perovskite from Lead Iodide: Arrhenius Activation Energy

Amongst the different perovskites being investigated for application in solar cells, one of the most frequently scrutinized is methylammonium lead iodide CH₃NH₃PbI₃ (or MAPbI₃), which is usually obtained by the reaction of lead iodide (PbI₂) with methylammonium iodide (MAI). Although this perovskite has been extensively studied and utilized in the manufacture of high-efficiency solar cells, its formation chemistry is still not well understood. Reliable experimental determination of the activation energy between PbI₂ and MAI has been difficult due to the rapid reaction at room temperature. In this work, we determined the activation energy by adopting the Arrhenius equation. This was possible by controlling the reaction using MAI vapor, instead of liquid solution. This procedure allowed the reaction to be carried out at temperatures of up to 150 °C. The formation of MAPbI₃ films was obtained by a two-step process: deposition of thin PbI₂ film by thermal evaporation and subsequent conversion into perovskite by exposure to MAI vapor. The conversion of PbI₂ to MAPbI₃ as a function of temperature was probed by X-ray diffraction. An activation energy of 0.12?±?0.02 eV was obtained. This low value explains the ease of MAPbI₃ formation at low temperatures, and partially explains its instability in environmental conditions.

     

Fabrication of hollow, 3D,micro-scale metallic structures by micro-powder injection moulding

Architectures of current micro-scale metallic structures are unable to meet some requirements of micro-component designers, particularly when a design calls for truly three-dimensional internal micro-geometries. Such complex geometries are particularly important for emerging microsystem applications such as high-performance microfluidics for analytical applications, or micro-engines for power generation. Here we report on a strategy by which miniaturized metallic structures with 3D cavities can be fabricated. We show results for a particular form of the strategy in which fabrication of sub-millimetre cavities with radii of 150 μm is achieved in 316L stainless steel. Fabrication of the cavities is achieved by a method which uses micro-polymer insert moulding, micro-powder over-moulding, catalytic debinding and sintering. This work establishes for the first time the feasibility of micro-moulding based fabrication routes for the production of 3D internal geometries in miniaturized metallic structures.     

Operational stability of immobilised lipase/acyltransferase during interesterification of fat blends

The lipase/acyltransferase from Candida parapsilosis is an unusual enzyme that preferably catalyses alcoholysis over hydrolysis in biphasic aqueous/organic media. The aim of this study was to evaluate the operational stability of an immobilised form of this enzyme during the interesterification of fat blends containing n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, in solvent‐free media, at 60 °C, carried out continuously and batchwise. When the interesterification was performed in a continuous fluidised‐bed reactor, an operational half‐life of 9 h was estimated. The biocatalyst was also reused in consecutive 23‐h batches, in a total of four batches, either using fresh medium with no water addition or adding water to rehydrate the biocatalyst. When no water and extra water was added to the reaction medium, the obtained half‐lives were 10 and 18 h, respectively. Thus, the loss of activity may be explained by a progressive dehydration occurring along the reaction rather than by product or substrate inhibition effects. The interesterification activity was accompanied by changes in the acylglycerol profile. An increase in compounds of low equivalent carbon number (ECN) and in triacylglycerols (TAG) of ECN 42 and 44 was observed. This increase was accompanied by the consumption of TAG of ECN 46, 48 and 50.     

Sintering-driven effects on the band gap of (Pb,La)(Ti,Ni)O3 photovoltaic ceramics

In this work, the influence of the sintering temperature on the physical properties of (Pb_0.8La_0.2)(Ti_0.9Ni_0.1)O₃ (PLT-Ni) ceramics is reported. The experimental data revealed that the energy band gap of PLT-Ni ceramics could be tailored from approximately 2.7 to 2.0 eV by changing the sintering temperature from 1100°C to 1250°C. It is demonstrated that the simple substitution of Ti⁴⁺ by Ni²⁺ cations is effective to decrease the intrinsic band gap while increasing the tetragonality factor and the spontaneous polarization. However, the additional red-shift observed in the absorption edge of the PLT-Ni with increasing the sintering temperature was associated with a continuous increase in the oxygen vacancies () amount. It is believed that the impact of the creation of these thermally induced is manifold. The presence of and Ni²⁺ ions generate the Ni²⁺- defect-pairs that promoted both a decrease in the intrinsic band gap and an additional increase of the tetragonality factor, consequently, increasing the spontaneous polarization. The creation of Ni²⁺- defects also changed the local symmetry of Ni²⁺ ions from octahedral to a square pyramid, thus lifting the degeneracy of the Ni²⁺ 3d orbitals. With the increase in the sintering temperature, lower-energy absorbing intraband states were also formed due to an excess of , being responsible for an add-on shoulder in the absorption edge, extending the light absorption curve to longer wavelengths and leading to an additional absorption in “all investigated” spectrum as well.