Recovery and reuse of Ni(II) from rinsewater of electroplating industries

Discharge of nickel compounds, which may occur in both liquid and solid phases, can cause severe environmental problems. In this work, 'point of source' treatment strategy is followed and reduced the nickel content of rinsewater to about less than 1 mg L(-1) by ion-exchange method using a packed column involving batch recirculation mode of operation and to recovered Ni(II) content by desorption. The treated water could be recycled for rinsing operation. The nickel from resin is first precipitated as nickel hydroxide to synthesize positive active material and that was used in Nickel/Metal hydride cell. The performances in terms of electrochemical utilization of nickel hydroxide, specific capacity as a function of discharge current density and cycle life were examined and the nickel hydroxide electrode with 5% CaCO(3) addition, having 200 mAh g(-1) specific capacity, could be subjected to charge/discharge cycles at C/5 rate for more than 200 cycles without the capacity fading.     

Superconducting Properties of Zn-Doped Cu0.5Tl0.5Ba2Ca2Cu3?yZnyO10?δ Superconductors

A reproducible synthesis and characterization of Zn-doped Cu_0.5Tl_0.5Ba₂Ca₂Cu_3−y Zn _y O_12−δ (y=0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5) superconductors at a relatively lower synthesis temperature of 840°C are studied by using X-ray diffraction, resistivity, ac-susceptibility and FTIR absorption measurements. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies of these samples have shown a tetragonal structure in which the c-axis length has been found to decrease with increased Zn doping. The critical temperature and magnitude of diamagnetism have not been significantly affected with the doping of Zn at this synthesis temperature. The magnitude of diamagnetism in the as-prepared undoped samples is decreased, whereas it remains stable (unchanged) in oxygen post-annealed samples. The apical oxygen phonon’s modes of type Tl–O_A–M(2) and Cu(1)–O_A–M(2) {where M=Cu/Zn} and the planar oxygen phonon modes of type M(2)–O_P–M(2) are also softened with the increase of Zn doping. We interpreted the softening of these oxygen related phonon modes linked with the decreased c-axis length, reduced John–Teller distortions and increased mass of Zn (65.38 amu) as compared to that of Cu (63.54 amu) (Kaplan et al., Phys. Rev. B 65, 214509, 2002).     

Modeling of the melting characteristics of commercial paraffin wax in an inverted equilateral triangular enclosure: Effect of convective heat transfer boundary conditions

A horizontal double-pipe heat exchanger with an inverted outer equilateral triangular tube is modeled to numerically investigate the low-temperature thermal energy storage capability of an impure phase change material (PCM). The energy source fluid (hot water) flows through the inner tube and transfers heat to the PCM (heat sink) residing in the annular gap. The results show that the inlet temperature of the heat transfer fluid (HTF) has a significant effect on the melting process compared with the mass flow rate (MFR). The configuration, as well the concentricity/eccentricity of the inner tube has a great influence on the energy storage.     

Purulent pericarditis and pericardiac tamponade in a pregnant hemodialysis patient: A case report

Bacterial pericarditis is rare in chronic hemodialysis and has poor prognosis. In this case, we report a pregnant hemodialysis patient who developed purulent bacterial pericarditis and pericardiac tamponade in the 28th week of her pregnancy, and who had delivered a healthy living baby.     

Detection of hepatitis B surface antigen in pregnant women attending a public hospital for delivery: implication for vaccination strategy in Bangladesh

Routine antenatal hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) screening and immunization of risk babies is very effective in preventing perinatal transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV). We studied 1,800 parturients attending a public hospital to assess the rationale for such vaccination in Bangladesh. In one in every 29 deliveries (63 of 1,800 or 3.5%), the mother was found to be HBsAg positive. All were asymptomatic and many (41 of 63 or 65%) without risk factors would remain undetected if HBsAg screening were performed on selected groups. Most of the HBsAg-positive mothers (54 of 63 or 85.7%) were found to be chronic carriers and 30.2% (19 of 63) were also hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positive, indicating high infectivity. Although 23 cord blood were positive for HBsAg or HBeAg, none were positive for IgM antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (IgM anti-HBc), suggesting transplacental transmission of the antigens rather than intrauterine infection. These findings are discussed in relation to the cost-effectiveness of routine prenatal screening and immunization of risk babies compared with universal infant immunization.     

A simple void node and loop‐free three‐dimensional routing protocol for multi‐hop wireless networks

Wireless networks are now very essential part for modern ubiquitous communication systems. The design of efficient routing and scheduling techniques for such networks have gained importance to ensure reliable communication. Most of the currently proposed geographic routing protocols are designed for 2D spatial distribution of user nodes, although in many practical scenarios user nodes may be deployed in 3D space also. In this paper, we propose 3D routing protocols for multihop wireless networks that may be implemented in two different ways depending on how the routing paths are computed. When the routing paths to different user nodes from the base station in the wireless network are computed by the base station, we call it centralized protocol (3DMA‐CS). A distributed routing (3DMA‐DS) protocol is implemented when respective routing path of each user node to the base station is computed by the user node. In both of these protocols, the user (base station) selects the relay node to forward packets in the direction of destination, from the set of its neighbours, which makes minimum angle with the reference line drawn from user (base station) to the base station (user), within its transmission range. The proposed protocols are free from looping problem and can solve the void node problem (VNP) of multihop wireless networks. Performance analysis of the proposed protocol is shown by calculating end‐to‐end throughput, average path length, end‐to‐end delay, and energy consumption of each routing path through extensive simulation under different network densities and transmission ranges.