Chemical coupling of photocatalysis with flocculation and adsorption in the removal of organic matter

An experimental investigation was made to study the effects of chemical coupling of flocculation and adsorption with photocatalysis in treating persistent organic pollutants in wastewater. The photocatalysis alone showed initial reverse reaction when titanium oxide (TiO(2)) was used in catalysis. The effect of the pretreatment of adsorption with powdered activated carbon (PAC) on photocatalysis was studied. The results showed that PAC adsorption followed by photocatalysis was not effective in alleviating reverse reaction. On the other hand, when PAC and TiO(2) were added simultaneously, the reverse reaction was eliminated. Further, the organic removal was also improved by simultaneous PAC and TiO(2) additions. When flocculation with ferric chloride (FeCl(3)) was used as pretreatment, the organic removal efficiency was superior. The initial reverse reaction was also eliminated/minimized. However, inadequate doses of FeCl(3) (less than 30 mgl(-1)) resulted in initial reverse reaction and inferior DOC removal.     

Comparison of line edge roughness and profile angles of chemical vapor deposited amorphous carbon etched in O2/N2/Ar and H2/N2/Ar inductively coupled plasmas

In this study, we compared the line edge roughnesses (LER) and profile angles of chemical vapor deposited (CVD) amorphous carbon (a-C) patterns etched in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher produced by varying process parameters such as the N₂ gas flow ratio, Q (N₂), and dc self-bias voltage (V_dc) in O₂/N₂/Ar and H₂/N₂/Ar plasmas. The tendencies of the LER and profile angle values of the etched CVD a-C pattern were similar in both plasmas. The LER was smaller in the O₂/N₂/Ar than in the H₂/N₂/Ar plasmas, and the profile angle was larger in the O₂/N₂/Ar than in the H₂/N₂/Ar plasmas under the same processes conditions. The use of O₂/N₂/Ar plasma was more advantageous than the H₂/N₂/Ar plasma for controlling LER and profile angle.     

Consolidation of binderless nanostructured TiC by pulsed current activated sintering and its mechanical properties

A dense nanostructured TiC with a relative density of up to 98% was produced with simultaneous application of 80 MPa pressure and pulsed current of 2800 A using the nanopowder of TiC. The effect of the ball milling times on the sintering behavior, grain size and mechanical properties of binderless TiC was investigated.     

Mass imaging of iron oxide nanoparticles inside cells for in vitro cytotoxicity

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) imaging analysis was performed on murine macrophage cells treated with various concentrations of iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles, which are used as MRI contrast agents. First, murine macrophage cells were seeded on a slide glass for 24 hrs and treated with varying concentrations of Fe3O4 nanoparticles for 24 hrs. To expose a cross section of each cell and obtain a distribution of the nanoparticles inside the cells, the cells were sputtered using Bi ions after which the cross section of each cell was scanned and imaged using the focused cluster ion beam with a spatial resolution of 300 nm. Fe3O4 nanoparticles were found mainly in the cytoplasm region of the cells, not in the nucleus region of cells, suggesting that the uptake of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles were into the cytoplasm of cell, not into the nucleus of cell. Based on these observations, our protocol using mass imaging analysis would be a useful addition to the study of in vitro nanoparticle cytotoxicity.     

A scalable and efficient key escrow model for lawful interception of IDBC‐based secure communication

Key escrowing is one of the core technologies for the lawful interception (LI) of secure communications in the wired and wireless networks. Although many previous studies on the key escrowing have been done before, they are insufficient to be deployed in practical networks due to conflicts with the LI requirements. Moreover, there is lack of consideration on the LI of ID‐based cryptosystem (IDBC)‐based secure communication because the interest of the LI was moved to the industries and IDBC has the inherent key escrowing property. However, the inherent property of IDBC cannot prevent ‘illegal’ eavesdropping of all the communications in the networks from the law enforcement agency with the ‘legally’ obtained key. Thus, we propose a new key escrow model that satisfies the requirements of LI and overcomes the potential threats of IDBC. Our contributions enable the scalable and efficient key escrowing for the LI of secure one‐way and two‐pass communication in the mobile networks. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Galvanic corrosion behaviors of Cu connected to Au on a printed circuit board in ammonia solution

During etching treatments of printed circuit board (PCB) with ammnioa solution, galvanic corrosion occurs between electrically connected gold and copper, and resulting in unexpected over-etching problems. Herein, we determine corrosion of galvanic coupled Cu to Au quantitatively in ammonia solutions, and evaluate factors influencing corrosion of galvanic coupled Cu to Au (i.e., area ratio of anode to cathode and stirring speed). The difference of the corrosion rate (Δi = i_{couple, (Cu-Au)}–i_{corr, Cu}) of Cu connected to Au (117 μA/cm²) and of single Cu (86 μA/cm²) infers the amount of over-etching of Cu resulting from galvanic corrosion in ammonia solution (Δi = 0.31 μA/cm²). As the stirring speed increases from 0 to 400 rpm, the corrosion rate of galvanic coupled Cu to Au increases from 36 to 191 μA/cm². Furthermore, we confirm that an increase in the area ratio (Au/Cu) from 0.5 to 25 results in a higher rate of corrosion of Cu connected to Au. The corrosion rate of galvanic coupled Cu to Au is approximately 20 times higher when the area ratio of Au to Cu is 25 (1360 μA/cm²) than when the ratio is 0.5 (67 μA/cm²).