Highly purified hydrogen production from ammonia for PEM fuel cell

Liquid ammonia is an attractive hydrogen carrier because of high storage capacity. According to ISO14687-2, an acceptable ammonia concentration in hydrogen for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell vehicles is 0.1 ppm. When ammonia is used as the hydrogen carrier, about 1000 ppm of ammonia included in gas generated by ammonia decomposition at 773–823 K and 0.1 MPa has to be reduced to less than 0.1 ppm. Although several types of ammonia absorption materials are investigated as ammonia remover, the target value cannot be achieved by static adsorption methods. However, we have succeeded in that the ammonia concentration is reduced down to 0.01–0.02 ppm by using Li-exchange X-type zeolite (Li-X) as the absorbent and dynamic adsorption methods. Furthermore, Li-X is simply recycled by heating at 673 K. Therefore, Li-X is a durable and recyclable ammonia removal material for the highly purified hydrogen production from ammonia for PEM fuel cells.     

Physical and mechanical properties of municipal solid waste incineration residues with cement and coal fly ash using X-ray Computed Tomography scanners

A significant volume of Municipal Solid Waste incineration bottom ash and fly ash (i.e., incineration residues) are commonly disposed as landfill. Meanwhile, reclamation of landfill sites to create a new land space after their closure becomes an important goal in the current fewer and fewer land availability scenario in many narrow countries. The objective of this study is to reclaim incineration residue materials in the landfill site by using cement and coal fly ash as stabilizers aiming at performing quality check as new developed materials before future construction. Indeed, physical and mechanical properties of these new materials should be initially examined at the micro scale, which is the primary fundamental for construction at larger scale. This research examines quantitative influences of using the combination of cement and coal fly ash at different ratio on the internal structure and ability of strength enhancement of incineration residues when suffering from loading. Couple of industrial and micro-focus X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanners combined with an image analysis technique were utilized to characterize and visualize the behavior and internal structure of the incineration residues-cement-coal fly ash mixture under the series of unconfined compression test and curing period effect. Nine types of cement solidified incineration residues in term of different curing period (i.e., 7, 14, 28 days) and coal fly ash addition content (i.e., 0%, 9%, 18%) were scanned before and after unconfined compression tests. It was shown that incineration residues solidified by cement and coal fly ash showed an increase in compression strength and deformation modulus with curing time and coal fly ash content. Three-dimension computed tomography images observation and analysis confirmed that solidified incineration residues including incineration bottom and fly ash as well as cement and coal fly ash have the deliquescent materials. Then, it was studied that stabilized parts play a more important role than spatial void distribution in increment or reduction of compression strength.     

Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes on Fly Ashes by Chemical Vapor Deposition Processing

Fly ashes are the waste product following the combustion of coal. Disposal of fly ashes is a serious environmental problem; therefore, finding a new utilization of fly ashes is highly demanded. Carbon nano-structures have been widely studied as key materials in a wide range of applications, including sensing, saturable absorber, and so on, because of its optical and electromagnetic absorption property. Adding the property of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to fly ashes expands applications of fly ashes. In this paper, we present the fabrication of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on fly ashes by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process, which result in simple, low-cost, large-amount production of MWCNTs. Copyright © 2009 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Inhibition of RuBisCO cloned from Thermosynechococcus vulcanus and expressed in Escherichia coli with compounds predicted by Molecular Operation Environment (MOE)

Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) of a thermophilic cyanobacterium, Thermosynechococcus vulcanus, was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified enzyme had higher thermostability than RuBisCOs isolated from mesophilic cyanobacteria. Prediction of the tertiary structure was performed using the software Molecular Operating Environment (MOE). The predicted structure did not give any clue about the basis of thermostability. Then, the molecular docking of substrates and inhibitors in the catalytic site were carried out to test analogs for consistency of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate, a RuBisCO substrate. The analogs were searched in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and 99 compounds were selected for the docking. The mol files from LIGAND Database in KEGG were changed to a three dimensional (3D) structure for use in docking simulation. The docking simulation was performed on ASEDock of MOE, and the SiteFinder command suggested about 20 candidates for the docking site of the compounds. Based on the homology of these candidate sites with the xylulose 1,5-bisphosphate (XBP)-binding site of RuBisCO isolated from Synechococcus PCC 6301, one site was selected for the docking simulation. The 40 compounds with the highest docking energies included synthetic organic substances that had never been demonstrated to be inhibitors of RuBisCO. The total docking energies were -102 kcal/mol, -104 kcal/mol, -94.0 kcal/mol, and -57.7 kcal/mol for ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP), etidronate, risedronate, and citrate respectively. Kinetic analysis of RuBisCO revealed a K(m) value of 315 microM for RuBP, and K(i) values of 1.70, 0.93, and 2.04 mM for etidronate, risedronate, and citrate respectively. From these values, the binding energies were estimated to be -4.85, -3.84, -4.20, and -3.73 kcal/mol for RuBP, etidronate, risedronate, and citrate respectively. The differences between the values estimated from experimental data and by simulation may mainly depend on the dissimilarity of the environment for the protein and ligands between the experiments and the simulation. The results obtained here suggested a few new inhibitors, which might be useful as tools for studying the relationship between the structure and the function of RuBisCO.     

Preferential adsorption followed by spontaneous desorption of 1-octadecanol at a solution/graphite interface

The dynamical behavior of adsorption/desorption of 1-octadecanol on graphite was investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy under the existence of 3-imino-4,5,6,7-tetrachloroisoindolin-1-one (ITCII) in a 1-phenyloctane solution. The monolayer of 1-octadecanol was first formed preferentially, as it was the rich component, with many domains at the solution/graphite interface. The molecules at the domain boundaries were then spontaneously replaced by the ITCII molecules, keeping the hydrogen bonding of the OH head groups of 1-octadecanol. The driving force of this replacement can be explained by the difference in heats of adsorption per unit area between those two molecules.     

Transport Properties of Two-dimensional Snowballs Below the Surface of 4He-II Under Rotation

Kelvin-waves play an important role for the dissipation of quantum turbulence at low temperatures. Here the plasma resonance of two-dimensional (2D) snowballs trapped below the surface of rotating superfluid ⁴He are measured for the first time in order to examine whether 2D snowballs could be a new probe for study of vortex dynamics. Below 200 mK, a positive shift of the resonant frequency f ₁ and linewidth broadening are observed as small variations in the absorption spectra under rotation. Both f ₁ and the linewidth Δf increase linearly with the rotation speed, and the slopes of f ₁ and Δf against the rotation speed have no temperature dependence. The increase of Δf suggests that an additional dissipation is caused by the coupling between the snowballs and vortices. We provide a qualitative explanation for the linear increase of Δf in the context of Kelvin-waves excited by the motion of snowballs.     

Effect of contact pad rigidity and fretting fatigue design curve

In fretting fatigue the nucleation and early propagation of fatigue crack depends on the state of stress near the contact edge. Contact pad rigidity is one of the factors that influence the stress state near the contact edge, there by influencing fretting fatigue strength. In the present study the effect of contact pad rigidity on fretting fatigue strength of turbine steels (Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel specimen with 12 Cr steel contact pads) were investigated. To study the effect of contact pad rigidity, contact pads with different pad foot height were used. FEA was performed to evaluate the stress distribution near the contact edge. The results showed that with increase in contact pad rigidity the fretting fatigue strength decreased. The results obtained were explained based on the stress distribution near the contact edge evaluated by using FEA. By combining the experimental results and FEA, fretting fatigue design curves were proposed.     

Japan's sewerage system

This paper traces the history of sewer construction in Japan. The first sewers were built for flood control, and as late as the end of the Second World War there were only six cities enjoying sewer systems with treatment facilities. Rapid industrialization increased pollution problems and led to accelerated sewer development. Advances in the technology of sewage treatment are outlined. Today 30% of Japan's population is served by sewer systems, and identifying cost‐effective means of increasing that proportion is a major priority. The Experimental Sewer System, developed in Tokyo, is described. Finally, a new method for the estimation of peak flow in sewer pipes, entitled grid analysis, is presented.