Diesel steam reforming with a nickel-alumina spinel catalyst for solid oxide fuel cell application

Liquid hydrocarbons (LC) are considered as fuel cells feed and, more particularly, as solid oxide fuel cell feed. Cost-effective LC-reforming catalysts are critically needed for the successful commercialization of such technologies. An alternative to noble metal catalysts, proposed by the authors in a previous publication, has been proven efficient for diesel steam reforming (SR). Nickel, less expensive and more readily available than noble metals, was used in a form that prevents deactivation. The catalyst formulation is a Ni-alumina spinel (NiAl₂O₄) supported on alumina (Al₂O₃) and yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ).SR of commercial diesel was undertaken for more than 15 h at high gas hourly space velocities and steam-to-carbon ratios lower than 2. Constant diesel conversion and high hydrogen concentrations were obtained. Ni catalyst characterization revealed no detectable amounts of carbon on the spinel catalyst surface Ni. The effect of catalyst composition (Ni concentration and YSZ presence) was studied to understand and optimize the developed catalyst. Two phenomena were found to be influenced by relative catalyst composition: water-gas-shift vs reforming reaction extent, and concentration of light hydrocarbons in products.     

Effects of halloysite nanotubes on the performance of plasticized poly(lactic acid)‐based composites

The objective of this study is processing and characterization of Halloysite nanotube (HNT)/poly(lactic acid) (PLA) nanocomposites. As HNT filler, a domestic source was used (ESAN HNT). The results obtained from this HNT were compared with a well‐known reference HNT (Nanoclay HNT). To achieve the desired physical properties and clay dispersion, composites were compounded via direct melt mixing in a laboratory twin‐screw compounder. However, the constituents were observed to be incompatible without a compatibilizer. To improve the flexibility of nanocomposites and provide compatibilization between PLA and HNT, two types of blends were prepared: PLA plasticized with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) denoted as P‐PLA and PLA toughened with a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) denoted as T‐PLA. Despite the limited improvement in the P‐PLA blends, TPU addition improved the flexibility of PLA/HNT without deteriorating the tensile strength in a great manner. This was attributed to the relatively better compatibilization effect of TPU and the role of nanotubes acting as bridges between the TPU and PLA phases. POLYM. COMPOS., 37:3134–3148, 2016. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Electrochemically induced redox polymerization of acrylamide

Polymerization of acrylamide (AA) has been studied in aqueous solution in the presence of a Ce(IV) salt–oxalic acid initiator system in an electrochemical cell with and without separation of anolyte and catholyte. For reactions that required the cathode and anode sections to be analyzed individually, a cell whose compartments were divided by a sintered glass disk of the medium porosity was employed. Polymerization was initiated by a free radical that is formed by the fast reaction of oxalic acid and Ce(IV). The electrolysis of the reaction solution results in regeneration of Ce(IV), which can oxidize oxalic acid to produce radicals. The effect of sulfuric acid and cerium (IV) salt concentration and temperature on the yield of electroinitiated polymerization in different cell designs and structural identification of products were performed. Reaction was also followed by cyclic voltametric measurements, and a mechanism was proposed. Results indicated that the electrolysis method with a divided cell (85% conversion) shows advantages, compared with nonelectrolytic (5% conversion) and with undivided electrochemical cell (25% conversion) methods where a high concentration of initiator was used. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 72: 861–869, 1999     

Electroluminescence performance of a series of fluorene/2,5-di(2-thienyl)-1H-pyrrole polymers

In this article, a series of fluorene/2,5-dithenyl-1H-pyrrole-based electroactive polymers (HS-X) with different feed ratio of SC12F/OF were synthesized via Suzuki coupling reactions. Chemical characterization of polymers was elucidated by ¹H NMR and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Electrochemical and electrophysical characterization of the synthesized polymers were investigated by cyclic voltammetry, UV-vis spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Thermal stability of polymers were studied with differential scanning calorimetry and manipulation of the Tg values of HS-X polymers was managed by increasing the numbers of the spiroalkylated fluorene (SAF) moieties incorporated into the polymer backbone. Five different conjugated polymers (HS-1, HS-2, HS-3, HS-4, and HS-5) were used as hole transport layer material in the fabrication of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) devices. The energy levels of the highest occupied molecular orbital as well as the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and photoluminescence intensities were independent of the number of SAF units. OLED devices based on HS-X polymers were fabricated according to ITO/PEDOT:PSS/HS-X/Alq3/LiF:Al device configuration. Their electroluminescence performances were investigated and the best performance were obtained with the polymer containing 20% SC12F (HS-4) in an OLED device with a turn on voltage of 11.8 V, a maximum luminance of 1202 cd/m² and a maximum luminous efficiency of 0.30 cd/A compared to other polymers with different feed ratio.     

Effect of different types of organoclays and compatibilizers on the properties of polystyrene‐based nanocomposites

Polystyrene/organoclay nanocomposites were prepared by melt intercalation in the presence of elastomeric impact modifiers. Three different types of organically modified montmorillonites; Cloisite® 30B, 15A, and 25A, were used as reinforcement, whereas poly [styrene‐b‐(ethylene‐co‐butylene)‐b‐styrene] (SEBS‐g‐MA) and poly(ethylene‐b‐butyl acrylate‐b‐glycidyl methacrylate) (E‐BA‐GMA) elastomeric materials were introduced to act as impact modifier. Owing to its single aliphatic tail on its modifier and absence of hydroxyl groups, Cloisite® 25A displayed the best dispersion in the polystyrene matrix, and mostly delaminated silicate layers were obtained in the presence of SEBS‐g‐MA. This was attributed to the higher viscosity of SEBS‐g‐MA compared with both E‐BA‐GMA and poly(styrene‐co‐vinyloxazolin) (PS). In addition, the compatibility between SEBS‐g‐MA and PS was found to be better in comparison to the compatibility between E‐BA‐GMA and PS owing to the soluble part of SEBS‐g‐MA in PS. The clay particles were observed to be located mostly in the dispersed phase leading to larger elastomeric domains compared with binary PS/elastomer blends. The enlargement of the elastomeric domains resulted in higher impact strength values in the presence of organoclay. Good dispersion of Cloisite® 25A in PS/SEBS‐g‐MA blends enhanced the tensile properties of this nanocomposite produced. It was observed that the change in the strength and stiffness of the ternary nanocomposites mostly depend on the type of the elastomeric material. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Semantics enactment for interoperability assessment in enterprise information systems

The grown complexity of the modern enterprise poses a series of challenges, among them keeping competitiveness in the fast changing environment in which the enterprise evolves. Addressing enterprise integration is considered as a key to achieve the goal of any enterprise either it is a single or a networked enterprise. Enterprise modelling is a prerequisite to enable the common understanding of the enterprises and its various interactions in order to “provide the right information, at the right time, at the right place”. However, problems often emerge from a lack of understanding of the semantics of the elaborated models resulting from various modelling experience based on different methods and tools. This paper describes the challenges associated to semantics enactment in information systems models. To facilitate this enactment, it proposes an approach based on a fact-oriented modelling perspective. Then, it also provides an algorithm to automatically build semantic aggregates that help in highlighting enterprise models core embedded semantics. A case study on the field of B2M interoperability is performed in order to illustrate the application of the presented approach.     

Evaluating solution sets of <Emphasis Type="Italic">a posteriori</Emphasis> solution techniques for bi-criteria combinatorial optimization problems

The quality of an approximate solution for combinatorial optimization problems with a single objective can be evaluated relatively easily. However, this becomes more difficult when there are multiple objectives. One potential approach to solving multiple criteria combinatorial optimization problems when at least one of the single objective problems is NP-complete, is to use an a posteriori method that approximates the efficient frontier. A common difficulty in this type of approach, however, is evaluating the quality of approximate solutions, since sets of multiple solutions should be evaluated and compared. This necessitates the use of a comparison measure that is robust and accurate. Furthermore, a robust measure plays an important role in metaheuristic optimization for tuning various parameters for evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, etc., which are frequently employed for multiple criteria combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper, the performance of a new measure, which we call Integrated Convex Preference (ICP) is compared to that of other measures appearing in the literature through numerical experiments—specifically, we use two a posteriori solution techniques based on genetic algorithms for a bi-criteria parallel machine scheduling problem and evaluate their performance (in terms of solution quality) using different measures. Experimental results show that the ICP measure evaluates the solution quality of approximations robustly (i.e., similar to visual comparison results) while other alternative measures can misjudge the solution quality. We note that the ICP measure can be applied to other non-scheduling multiple objective combinatorial optimization problems, as well.     

A novel EDOT–nonylbithiazole–EDOT based comonomer as an active electrode material for supercapacitor applications

A novel EDOT–nonylbithiazole–EDOT based bis(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene)-(4,4′-dinonyl-2,2′-bithiazole) comonomer was synthesized and was electrochemically deposited onto carbon fiber electrode as an active electrode material. An electrochemical impedance study on the prepared electrodes is reported in this paper. Capacitive behavior of the carbon fiber microelectrode/poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene)-(4,4′-dinonyl-2,2′-bithiazole) system was investigated with cyclic voltammetry (CV) experiments and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Variation of capacitance values by scan rate and specific capacitance values at different potentials are presented. Specific capacitance value for a galvanostatically prepared polymer film with a charge of 5 C cm⁻² was obtained about 340 mF cm⁻². Effect of the solvent and the deposition charge on the capacitive behavior of the film was investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. An equivalent circuit model was proposed and the electrochemical impedance data were fitted to find out numerical values of the proposed components. The galvanostatic charge/discharge characteristic of a film was investigated by chronopotentiometry and the morphology of the films electrodeposited at different deposition charges were monitored using FE-SEM.