Boiling and drying accident of high-level liquid waste in a reprocessing plant: Examination of the NO2 and NO generation using the simulated waste

ABSTRACT

NO₂ and NO generated during a boiling and drying accident, which affects the release of volatilized radioactive Ru into the atmosphere, were examined using various samples including simulated high-level liquid waste and a thermogravimetric analyzer. NO₂ and NO in the gas flowing out of the analyzer were measured separately using a NOx analyzer equipped with NO₂ and NO sensors. The samples were heated to 600°C at constant heating rates of mainly 0.2 and 1°C min^?1 that was adopted taking into account the decay heat of high-level liquid waste. It was found that under 180°C some nitrates in the liquid waste mainly separated their nitrate groups as HNO₃ without generating NOx (a mixture of NO and NO₂) and above 300°C the residual HNO₃ in the waste participated in thermal decomposition generating NOx. The generation rates of NO₂ and NO were obtained as a function of time using Arrhenius type equations, and the O₂ rate was derived from these equations using the stoichiometry of the reactions that generate NO₂, NO, and O₂.     

Enhanced Spin Seebeck Effect in Monolayer Tungsten Diselenide Due to Strong Spin Current Injection at Interface

The spin current is significantly limited by the spin‐orbit interaction strength, material quality, and spin‐mixing conductance at material interfaces. Such limitations lead to spin current decay at the interfaces, which severely hinders potential applications in spin‐current‐generating thermoelectric devices. Thus, methodical studies on the enhancement of spin currents are indispensable. Herein, a novel approach for enhancing the spin current injected into a normal metal, Pt, using interface effects with a ferromagnetic insulator, yttrium iron garnet (YIG), is demonstrated. This is accomplished by inserting atomically thin monolayer (ML), tungsten diselenide (WSe₂) between Pt and YIG layers. A comparative study of longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (LSSE) measurements is conducted. Two types of ML WSe₂ (continuous and large‐area ML WSe₂ and isolated ML WSe₂ flakes) are used as intermediate layers on YIG film. Notably, the insertion of ML WSe₂ between the Pt and YIG layers significantly enhances the thermopower, V_LSSE/ΔT by a factor of approximately 5.6 compared with that of the Pt/YIG reference sample. This enhancement in the measured LSSE voltages in the Pt/ML WSe₂/YIG trilayer can be explained by the increased spin‐to‐charge conversion at the interface owing to the large spin‐orbit coupling and improved spin mixing conductance with the ML WSe₂ intermediate layer.     

Electromagnetic shielding property of laminated carbon fiber tape reinforced thermoplastics

ABSTRACT

Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) has a good electromagnetic shielding property due to its higher conductivity and broad absorption frequency bandwidth while presenting high specific strength and stiffness, their easy process-ability, cost-effectiveness, and recyclability. In the present study, laminated CFRTP made of carbon fiber-polyamide 6 unidirectional tape (UD tape) were fabricated with different laminate configurations and arrangements (unidirectional, bidirectional, and quasi–isotropic) and then were compared with randomly chopped-tape CFRTP. Thereafter, estimated electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI-SE) using Simon formalism and flexural properties of CFRTP were evaluated. The result showed a remarkable total EMI-SE of 31–44 dB in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) range and strongly correlated with the laminate configuration of CFRTP. Whereas, randomly chopped-tape CFRTP has a lower total EMI-SE of 23–27 dB in the same frequency range. In addition, the flexural test result showed the flexural strength and modulus are strongly influenced by the tape layer configuration in the laminated CFRTP. Moreover, microscopy analysis was also conducted to verify the interlaminar structure and fiber-to-fiber contact in the composite. In conclusion, laminated CFRTP made of UD tape can be considered as electromagnetic interference shielding material for both functional and structural applications.     

Improving thermo-responsive hydrogel films by gamma rays and loading of Cu and Ag nanoparticles

This paper presents two modified copolymeric hydrogel films with thermo-responsiveness. The final films are hydrogels containing N-isopropylacrylamide, N-N-dimethylacrylamide, methyl methacrylate, and ethoxyethyl methacrylate. The incorporation of Ag and Cu in the smart hydrogel films endowed them with specific properties that could be useful in developing biological sensors, smart membranes, or flexible electronic components, which are proper for design and improvement on technology and biomedical applications. The films were synthesized in solution by gamma radiation at a dose rate of 10 kGy h⁻¹, and an absorbed dose of 50 kGy. The characterization was realized by different spectroscopic and microscopic techniques as FTIR-ATR, atomic force microscopy, SEM–EDX, TGA, and DSC. The hydrogel films were grafted with glycidyl methacrylate showing high resistance, biocompatibility, adequate adaptability, flexibility, in addition to the capacity of metal doping with silver and copper.     

Pathophysiology of Preeclampsia: The Role of Exosomes

The pathogenesis of preeclampsia begins when a fertilized egg infiltrates the decidua, resulting in implantation failure (e.g., due to extravillous trophoblast infiltration disturbance and abnormal spiral artery remodeling). Thereafter, large amounts of serum factors (e.g., soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 and soluble endoglin) are released into the blood from the hypoplastic placenta, and preeclampsia characterized by multiorgan disorder caused by vascular disorders develops. Successful implantation and placentation require immune tolerance to the fertilized egg as a semi-allograft and the stimulation of extravillous trophoblast infiltration. Recently, exosomes with diameters of 50–100 nm have been recognized to be involved in cell–cell communication. Exosomes affect cell functions in autocrine and paracrine manners via their encapsulating microRNA/DNA and membrane-bound proteins. The microRNA profiles of blood exosomes have been demonstrated to be useful for the evaluation of preeclampsia pathophysiology and prediction of the disease. In addition, exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells have been found to have cancer-suppressing effects. These exosomes may repair the pathophysiology of preeclampsia through the suppression of extravillous trophoblast apoptosis and promotion of these cells’ invasive ability. Exosomes secreted by various cells have received much recent attention and may be involved in the maintenance of pregnancy and pathogenesis of preeclampsia.     

Development of Amphipathic Antimicrobial Peptide Foldamers Based on Magainin 2 Sequence

Magainin 2 ( Mag 2 ), which is isolated from the skin of frogs, is a representative antimicrobial peptide (AMP), exerts its antimicrobial activity via microbial membrane disruption. It has been reported that both the amphipathicity and helical structure of Mag 2 play an important role in its antimicrobial activity. In this study, we revealed that the sequence of 17 amino acid residues in Mag 2 (peptide 7 ) is required to exert sufficient activity. We also designed a set of Mag 2 derivatives, based on enhancement of helicity and/or amphipathicity, by incorporation of α,α-disubstituted amino acid residues into the Mag 2 fragment, and evaluated their preferred secondary structures and their antimicrobial activities against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. As a result, peptide 11 formed a stable helical structure in solution, and possessed potent antimicrobial activities against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria without significant cytotoxicity.     

Blood–Nerve Barrier (BNB) Pathology in Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy and In Vitro Human BNB Model

In diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), metabolic disorder by hyperglycemia progresses in peripheral nerves. In addition to the direct damage to peripheral neural axons, the homeostatic mechanism of peripheral nerves is disrupted by dysfunction of the blood–nerve barrier (BNB) and Schwann cells. The disruption of the BNB, which is a crucial factor in DPN development and exacerbation, causes axonal degeneration via various pathways. Although many reports revealed that hyperglycemia and other important factors, such as dyslipidemia-induced dysfunction of Schwann cells, contributed to DPN, the molecular mechanisms underlying BNB disruption have not been sufficiently elucidated, mainly because of the lack of in vitro studies owing to difficulties in establishing human cell lines from vascular endothelial cells and pericytes that form the BNB. We have developed, for the first time, temperature-sensitive immortalized cell lines of vascular endothelial cells and pericytes originating from the BNB of human sciatic nerves, and we have elucidated the disruption to the BNB mainly in response to advanced glycation end products in DPN. Recently, we succeeded in developing an in vitro BNB model to reflect the anatomical characteristics of the BNB using cell sheet engineering, and we established immortalized cell lines originating from the human BNB. In this article, we review the pathologic evidence of the pathology of DPN in terms of BNB disruption, and we introduce the current in vitro BNB models.     

A bucketing algorithm for the orthogonal segment intersection search problem and its practical efficiency

The orthogonal segment intersection search problem is stated as follows: given a setS ofn orthogonal segments in the plane, report all the segments ofS that intersect a given orthogonal query segment. For this problem, we propose a simple and practical algorithm based on bucketing techniques. It constructs, inO(n) time preprocessing, a search structure of sizeO(n) so that all the segments ofS intersecting a query segment can be reported inO(k) time in the average case, wherek is the number of the reported segments. The proposed algorithm as well as existing algorithms is implemented in FORTRAN, and their practical efficiencies are investigated through computational experiments. It is shown that ourO(k) search time,O(n) space, andO(n) preprocessing time algorithm is in practice the most efficient among the algorithms tested.     

Uptake and recovery of gold by immobilized persimmon tannin

Some attempts were made to recover gold from aqueous systems using immobilized persimmon tannin. This adsorbent adsorbed gold from solutions containing hydrogen tetrachloroaurate(III) with high efficiency, whereas there was minimal adsorption from solutions containing gold(I) sodium thiomalate and sodium dicyanoaurate(I). The adsorption of gold was rapid, and was affected by the pH of the solution, temperature, external gold concentration and amount of adsorbent. Adsorbed gold was easily desorbed with 1 mol dm^?3 thiourea solution, indicating that immobilized persimmon tannin can be repeatedly re-used for the recovery of gold using adsorption-desorption cycles.