Composite blending of ionic liquid–poly(ether sulfone) polymeric membranes: Green materials with potential for carbon dioxide/methane separation

The incorporation of imidazolium‐based ionic liquids into a poly(ether sulfone) (PES) polymeric membrane resulted in a dense and void‐free polymeric membrane. As determined through the ideal gas permeation test, the carbon dioxide (CO₂) permeation increased about 22% compared to that of the pure PES polymeric membrane whereas the methane (CH₄) permeation decreased tremendously. This made the CO₂/CH₄ ideal separation increase substantially by more than 100%. This study highlighted the utilization of imidazolium‐based ionic liquids in the synthesis of ionic liquid polymeric membranes (ILPMs). Two different ionic liquids were used to compare the CO₂ separation performance through the membranes. The glass‐transition temperatures (T_gs) of ILPMs were found to be lower than the T_g of the pure PES polymeric membranes; this supported the high CO₂ permeation of the ILPMs due to the increase in PES flexibility caused by ionic liquid addition. The results also draw attention to new trends of ionic liquids as a potential green candidates for future membrane synthesis. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43999.     

Electrocardiogram-assisted blood pressure estimation

Accurate automatic noninvasive assessment of blood pressure (BP) presents a challenge due to conditions like arrhythmias, obesity, and postural changes that tend to obfuscate arterial amplitude pulsations sensed by the cuff. Researchers tried to overcome this challenge by analyzing oscillometric pulses with the aid of a higher fidelity signal-the electrocardiogram (ECG). Moreover, pulse transit time (PTT) was employed to provide an additional method for BP estimation. However, these methods were not fully developed, suitably integrated, or tested. To address these issues, we present a novel method whereby ECG-assisted oscillometric and PTT (measured between ECG R-peaks and maximum slope of arterial pulse peaks) analyses are seamlessly integrated into the oscillometric BP measurement paradigm. The method bolsters oscillometric analysis (amplitude modulation) with more reliable ECG R-peaks provides a complementary measure with PTT analysis (temporal modulation) and fuses this information for robust BP estimation. We have integrated this technology into a prototype that comprises a BP cuff with an embedded conductive fabric ECG electrode, associated hardware, and algorithms. A pilot study has been undertaken on ten healthy subjects (150 recordings) to validate the performance of our prototype against United States Food and Drug Administration approved Omron oscillometric monitor (HEM-790IT). Our prototype achieves mean absolute difference of less than 5 mmHg and grade A as per the British Hypertension Society protocol for estimating BP, with the reference Omron monitor.     

Various Techniques for Preparation of Thin‐Film Composite Mixed‐Matrix Membranes for CO2 Separation

The application of thin‐film composite mixed‐matrix membranes (TFC‐MMMs) for gas separation is widely considered as an efficient separation technology. The principal methods for the preparation of TFC‐MMMs are dip‐coating, phase inversion, and interfacial polymerization comprising different types of support layers. These methods influence the CO₂ permeation over the selective and support layers. A comprehensive review is provided for capturing new details of progress achieved in developing TFC‐MMMs with detailed performance of gas separation in the previous few years. Various preparation techniques of TFC‐MMMs and their effect on the gas separation performance of the prepared membranes are described.     

Generating Type 2 Trapezoidal Fuzzy Membership Function Using Genetic Tuning

Fuzzy inference system (FIS) is a process of fuzzy logic reasoning to produce the output based on fuzzified inputs. The system starts with identifying input from data, applying the fuzziness to input using membership functions (MF), generating fuzzy rules for the fuzzy sets and obtaining the output. There are several types of input MFs which can be introduced in FIS, commonly chosen based on the type of real data, sensitivity of certain rule implied and computational limits. This paper focuses on the construction of interval type 2 (IT2) trapezoidal shape MF from fuzzy C Means (FCM) that is used for fuzzification process of mamdani FIS. In the process, upper MF (UMF) and lower MF (LMF) of the MF need to be identified to get the range of the footprint of uncertainty (FOU). This paper proposes Genetic tuning process, which is a part of genetic algorithm (GA), to adjust parameters in order to improve the behavior of existing system, especially to enhance the accuracy of the system model. This novel process is a hybrid approach which produces Genetic Fuzzy System (GFS) that helps to enhance fuzzy classification problems and performance. The approach provides a new method for the construction and tuning process of the IT2 MF, based on the FCM outcomes. The result is compared to Gaussian shape IT2 MF and trapezoid IT2 MF generated by the classic GA method. It is shown that the proposed approach is able to outperform the mentioned benchmarked approaches. The work implies a wider range of IT2 MF types, constructed based on FCM outcomes, and an optimum generation of the FOU so that it can be implemented in practical applications such as prediction, analytics and rule-based solutions.     

Impact of nonlocal thin elastic plates by a cylindrical projectile

This paper is concerned with the analysis of the problem of dynamic impact of an elastic thin plate by a cylindrical projectile. The behavior of the plate material is assumed to be nonlocal elastic, and the effect of the impact is represented by a uniform velocity distribution over a circular region of the plate surface. Assuming the plate is thin, only the contributions of vertical shearing stress are considered, and the expressions of shear stress, axial displacement and the corresponding velocity components are obtained. Finally, the value of the total strain energy—crack initiation energy—for which the plastic flow will start, has been calculated and compared with experiments.     

Synthesis,characterization, and performance evaluation of PES/EDA‐functionalized TiO2 mixed matrix membranes for CO2/CH4 separation

Poor adhesion between hydrophobic polymers and hydrophilic inorganic fillers is a challenge that encumbers a high separation performance of mixed matrix membrane (MMM). In this study, Titanium(IV) oxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles were functionalized using ethylenediamine (EDA) before embedment in poly(ether sulfone) (PES) polymer matrix. MMMs were synthesized through dry phase inversion technique. Membranes morphology and nanoparticles dispersion was drastically enhanced posterior amine modification indicating an improved adhesion between the polymer and filler particles. Membranes thermal stability was likewise improved as higher degradation temperatures were perceived for PES/EDA–TiO₂ MMMs. Gas separation evaluation for pure carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) gases revealed a remarkably enhanced separation performance upon amine‐grafting of TiO₂ as EDA‐TiO₂ MMMs exhibited a higher separation performance as compared to MMMs with pristine TiO₂. The highest ideal separation factor achieved was 41.52 with CO₂ permeability of 10.11 Barrer at an optimum loading of 5% wt of EDA‐TiO₂ which is threefold higher as compared to neat PES membrane and approximately twofold higher than MMMs with pristine TiO₂, respectively, at the same filler loading. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 45346.     

Near‐Unity Emitting Copper‐Doped Colloidal Semiconductor Quantum Wells for Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Doping of bulk semiconductors has revealed widespread success in optoelectronic applications. In the past few decades, substantial effort has been engaged for doping at the nanoscale. Recently, doped colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) have been demonstrated to be promising materials for luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) as they can be engineered for providing highly tunable and Stokes‐shifted emission in the solar spectrum. However, existing doped CQDs that are aimed for full solar spectrum LSCs suffer from moderately low quantum efficiency, intrinsically small absorption cross‐section, and gradually increasing absorption profiles coinciding with the emission spectrum, which together fundamentally limit their effective usage. Here, the authors show the first account of copper doping into atomically flat colloidal quantum wells (CQWs). In addition to Stokes‐shifted and tunable dopant‐induced photoluminescence emission, the copper doping into CQWs enables near‐unity quantum efficiencies (up to ≈97%), accompanied by substantially high absorption cross‐section and inherently step‐like absorption profile, compared to those of the doped CQDs. Based on these exceptional properties, the authors have demonstrated by both experimental analysis and numerical modeling that these newly synthesized doped CQWs are excellent candidates for LSCs. These findings may open new directions for deployment of doped CQWs in LSCs for advanced solar light harvesting technologies.     

Highly Efficient Nonradiative Energy Transfer from Colloidal Semiconductor Quantum Dots to Wells for Sensitive Noncontact Temperature Probing

This study develops and shows highly efficient exciton‐transferring hybrid semiconductor nanocrystal films of mixed dimensionality comprising quasi 0D and 2D colloids. Through a systematic study of time‐resolved and steady‐state photoluminescence spectroscopy as a function of the donor‐to‐acceptor molar concentration ratio and temperature, a high‐efficiency nonradiative energy transfer (NRET) process from CdZnS/ZnS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) directed to atomically flat CdSe nanoplatelets (NPLs) in their solid‐state thin films is uncovered. The exciton funneling in this system reaches transfer efficiency levels as high as 90% at room temperature. In addition, this study finds that with decreasing temperature exciton transfer efficiency is increased to a remarkable maximum level of ≈94%. The enhancement in the dipole–dipole coupling strength with decreasing temperature is well accounted by increasing photoluminescence quantum yield of the donor and growing spectral overlap between the donor and the acceptor. Furthermore, NRET efficiency exhibits a highly linear monotonic response with changing temperature. This makes the proposed QD–NPL composites appealing for noncontact sensitive temperature probing based on NRET efficiencies as a new metric. These findings indicate that combining colloidal nanocrystals of different dimensionality enables efficient means of temperature probing at an unprecedented sensitivity level at nanoscale through almost complete exciton transfer.     

3D electro‐thermal modelling and experimental validation of lithium polymer‐based batteries for automotive applications

This article presents an electro‐thermal model of a stack of three lithium ion batteries for automotive applications. This tool can help to predict thermal behaviour of battery cells inside a stack. The open source software OpenFOAM provides the possibility to add heat generation because of Joule losses in a CFD model. Heat sources are introduced at the connectors and are calculated as a function of battery discharge current and internal resistance. The internal resistance is described in function of temperature. Simulation results are validated against experimental results with regard to cooling air flow field characteristic and thermal behaviour of the cell surface. The validation shows that the simulation is capable to anticipate air flow field characteristics inside the battery box. It also predicts correctly the thermal behaviour of the battery cells for various discharge rates and different cooling system conditions. The simulation supports the observation that batteries have a higher temperature close to the connectors and that the temperature increase depends highly on discharge rate and cooling system conditions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.