Creating a low-cost, ultra-clean environment

This paper describes a way to create a cleanroom environment with a limited budget, which may be useful to organizations requiring small amounts of very high quality surface processing. After a brief review of some general principles, it discusses the design, including practical constraints, and installation of a small facility in the University of Warwick. Based around standard bought-in items, it achieves cleanroom Class 10 000 (ISO Class 7) with local enclosures of better than Class 10 (ISO Class 4) air quality.     

Preoccupations for wind energy conversion

The paper refers to the concerns that have existed ever since 1982 in the Institute of Scientific Research and Technological Engineering for Power Equipment (ICSITEE)-Bucharest to utilize power units to convert wind energy into electric power (WEU).

The paper describes test patterns and industrial pilots for WEU of 10, 30, 50 and 300 kW achieved by the Center of Scientific Research and Technological Engineering for Hydropower Equipment (CCSITEH) Re i a-Timi oara Division.     

Plasticized poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) with improved melt processing and balanced properties

The widespread application of poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) in the food packaging and biomedical fields has been hindered by its high brittleness, slow crystallization, poor thermal stability, and narrow processing window. To overcome these limitations, a mixture of biodegradable and biocompatible plasticizers was used to modify PHB. Epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), acetyl tributyl citrate, poly(ethylene glycol) 4000 (PEG4000), and poly(ethylene glycol) 6000 (PEG6000) were tested to improve PHB melt processing and to achieve balanced thermal and mechanical properties. These plasticizers increased the flexibility and decreased the melt viscosity, improving the processability. The tensile strength was maintained within the limit of experimental error for ESO and decreased slightly (6–7%) for the other plasticizers. PEG6000 and ESO delayed the decomposition process of PHB. The plasticizers did not hinder the crystallization, and poly(ethylene glycol)s increased the crystallinity. The change in the interplanar distance and crystallite size, correlated with lamellar stack dimensions, gave more information on the plasticizers' effects in PHB. The blend with 5 wt % ESO was considered suitable for the fabrication of marketable PHB films. This study showed that it is possible to tailor the rheological, thermal, and mechanical behavior of a commercial PHB through the addition of a second plasticizer. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 44810.     

Fault-tolerant adaptive routing under an unconstrained set of node and link failures for many-core systems-on-chip

An online fault tolerant routing algorithm for 2D mesh Networks-on-Chip is presented in this work. It combines an adaptive routing algorithm with neighbor fault-awareness and a new traffic-balancing metric. To be able to cope with runtime permanent and temporary failures that may result in message corruption, message loss or deadlocks, the routing algorithm is enhanced with packet retransmission and a new message recovery scheme.     

Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes nanoreinforced methacrylate/epoxy hybrids

The aim of this study was to design novel binary and ternary copolymers based on methacrylate and/or epoxy monomers reinforced with 10 wt % mono‐/octafunctional polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) compounds bearing one or eight epoxy or methacrylate moieties. The experimental parameters such as temperature and time of reaction, comonomer ratio and the incorporation of various types of POSS that strongly influences the curing behavior, polymerization kinetics, glass transition temperature (T_g), thermostability and morphological structure of the obtained copolymers were investigated through DSC, FTIR, DMA, TGA, and SEM techniques. The obtained results evidenced that the complex kinetic mechanisms of curing reactions for the binary and ternary copolymers ± POSS influence the thermomechanical and morphological properties of the materials. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 42912.     

Measurement of the Rheology of Lubricant Films Within Elastohydrodynamic Contacts

There is growing need for a reliable model of the rheological response of lubricants in elastohydrodynamic (EHD) contacts, not only to predict behaviour in full-film EHD conditions, but also for use in modelling mixed-film lubrication. One barrier to developing such a model is that measurements of friction actually represent averaged values over the whole, lubricated contact under study. However the fluid film conditions of temperature, pressure and strain rate generally vary over such contacts, which makes it difficult to determine constitutive shear-stress equations from friction measurements. This paper examines the various different techniques used to study the origins of EHD friction and the underlying film rheology. It then describes and applies a technique for obtaining the temperature rise maps of both solid surfaces in a rolling-sliding EHD contacts and thus shear-stress and friction maps. The work shows that the shear stress of the traction fluid studied increases approximately linearly with pressure and decreases approximately linearly with temperature in the high-pressure central region of EHD contacts.     

Designing gluten-free,anthocyanins-enriched cookies on scientific basis

The essential treatment of the coeliac disease is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet based on the avoidance of gluten, thus requiring new perspectives for identifying technological and functional alternatives for gluten-free products, with similar functionality and efficiency. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the potential of purple corn flour (PCF) as a functional and technological alternative to design new gluten-free, anthocyanins-enriched cookies. The PCF was characterised in terms of phytochemical and antioxidant activity, yielding an extract with a total anthocyanin content of 14.94 ± 0.68 mg cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (C3G) per g dry weight (DW). The results of the thermo-mechanical tests indicated that composite flour consisting of rice flour (RF, 75%) and PCF (25%) is suitable for obtaining gluten-free cookies. Tests showed increased anthocyanin content in cookies with 75% addition of PCF, up to 6.99 ± 0.20 mg C3G per 100 g DW, yielding an antioxidant activity of 18.46 ± 0.18 mm Trolox equivalents per g DW. The ELISA test confirmed the absence of prolamins recognised by the monoclonal antibody R5. The sensory analysis revealed that the substitution of RF with PCF had no significant influence on overall acceptability. The results of the shelf-life tests performed on the cookies showed slight variation in phytochemicals in both variants, influencing the antioxidant activity. The obtained results may bring potential benefits to people on restricted diets and coeliac consumers, which can benefit from a contribution of bioactives, with significant health benefits.     

Wittig-Horner reactions on styrene-divinylbenzene supports with benzaldehyde side-groups

Summary A styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer functionalized with aldehyde was prepared under phase transfer catalyzed (PTC) conditions. A statistical method for the calculation of the degree of functionalization with aldehyde groups is proposed. The degree of functionalization with aldehyde groups is relatively high. Styrene-divinylbenzene polymers functionalized with benzaldehyde groups were used in Wittig-Horner reaction, in order to introduce double bonds on polymers. The reactions were carried out using PTC method, solid-liquid-solid (s-l-s) (K₂CO₃, tetrahydrofuran, tetraethylammonium iodide) system. Phase transfer catalyzed reactions are often more easily and cheaply carried out than conventional method and they are therefore of particular interest.     

Synthesis and characterization of side-chain oxazoline–methyl methacrylate copolymers bearing azo-dye

We synthesized new polymeric structures by attaching a side-chain azo-moiety on poly(oxazoline) and poly(oxazoline-co-methyl methacrylate)s. For the polymer analogous transformation, we took advantage of the highly effective ring-opening addition of carboxyl group to the oxazoline cycle. The comonomers feed ratio allowed us to control the composition of the products while the kinetic treatment, employing an integral method, revealed a statistical copolymerization tendency of 2-isopropenyl-2-oxazoline with methyl methacrylate in acetonitrile at 70 °C. The elemental analysis and ¹H NMR spectroscopy provided almost identical composition data for both the substrates and the side-chain copolymers. The UV spectroscopy sustained the quantitative addition of 4-(4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethylphenylazo)benzoic acid to the oxazoline rings. Both the unmodified copolymers and the coloured ones exhibited good thermal stabilities, up to 371 °C and 302 °C, respectively. The glass transition temperatures ranged from 141.5 to 177.5 °C and from 153.8 to 200.9 °C for the substrates and for the modified copolymers, respectively. Preliminary investigations showed fluorescence activity for all copolymers bearing azo-moieties.     

Atomic structure and reactivity of ferromagnetic Fe deposited on Si(001)

This study presents a correlated study of structural, reactivity, and magnetic properties of ultrathin Fe layers grown on Si(001) by molecular beam epitaxy in ultrahigh vacuum. The interface reactivity is characterized by Auger electron spectroscopy. The surface structure is characterized by low electron energy diffraction with spot profile analysis. The magnetism of the synthesized layers is investigated by magneto-optical Kerr effect. At room temperature, metal Fe layers with poor long-range order are synthesized; these layers are ferromagnetic with an extremely low coercitive field (below 1 Oe). The reactivity with Si is low in this case, with formation of an interface layer of about 8 Å Fe equivalent thickness with about 7 at.% Si diffused. Samples synthesized at higher temperatures (500 °C) exhibit better long-range order, though the Fe reactivity with Si is higher and leads to the formation of an interface compound whose approximate stoichiometry is very close to Fe₃Si. Once this compound is formed (for an equivalent Fe thickness of about 14 monolayers), disordered metal Fe islands are developing with subsequent Fe deposition, which contain also about 8 at.% Si diffused. These structures exhibit a much lower ferrimagnetism, with saturation magnetization about one order of magnitude lower than in the case of the room temperature synthesis. In this case of high temperature synthesis, two phases are observed, a ferrimagnetic one and a superparamagnetic one.