Effect of thermal aging on the crystal structural characteristics of poly(tetra fluoro ethylene)

The residual effects of cumulative thermal aging on the crystal structural characteristics of the fluoro carbon poly(tetra fluoro ethylene) (PTFE) have been studied by X‐ray diffraction methods. The initial hexagonal arrangement of the PTFE chains in a 15₇ helical conformation is left unaffected by the exposures to temperatures (T), up to and beyond its melting point, T_m. The unit cell registers a residual anisotropic volume expansion. The anisotropy arises from the enhanced enlargement of the basal plane dimension a compared with the axial dimension c. Conformational changes contributing to the observed increase in the chain length have been examined. Enhancement of residual crystallinity of samples aged at T's < T_m suggests that the selective thermal aging could be used as an effective tool to improve the initial crystallinity of commercially available PTFE. The activation energy for 50% enhancement in initial crystallinity has been estimated as 53.9 kJ mol^?1. Aging at 400°C, a temperature above T_m, is accompanied by markedly different features viz., deterioration in crystallinity and other structural characteristics. The overall behavior of thermally aged PTFE bears a marked similarity to many polyamides. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 47:1724–1729, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Decorated on Arundo donax L. Plant Leaves Derived Silica Nanosheets for Enriched Catalytic Degradation of Organic Dye Under UV-Visible Light Irradiation

Silicon - In this study, heterojunction photocatalysts made up of Arundo donax L. plant leaves are used to synthesized SiO2 nanosheets and ZnO nanoparticles were prepared by wet impregnation...     

Traditional Kerala style fish curry in indigenous retort pouch

Fish curry processed in metal cans is popular in the overseas markets. An important limitation with the use of metal cans is the undesirable taste imparted to the products on storage. Flexible pouches are an ideal alternative to metal cans. Extensive work carried out at Central Institute of Fisheries Technology has been able to identify indigenous pouches, which are as good as imported pouches. This has been done after collecting different types of indigenous and imported flexible pouches, analyzing their composition and conducting detailed studies on their physical and food contact application properties. Two indigenous pouches with composition 12 micron polyester/12 micron aluminium foil/87.5 micron cast polypropylene and 12 micron polyester/15 micron aluminium foil/70 micron cast polypropylene have been selected and got made by indigenous laminators and an imported one with configuration 12 micron polyester/15 micron aluminium foil/75 micron cast polypropylene were used for further experiment on processing fish curry. Traditional Kerala style mackerel fish curry was processed in the retort pouches of the above configurations. About 220 g fish curry was packed in each pouch (15.5 cm×7 cm). Process requirements were worked out by measuring heat penetration using thermocouples introduced into the pouches. Fish curry processed to a F₀ value of 8.43 gave an acceptable product with desired texture and sensory characteristics. The physical properties of the pouches studied showed that the indigenous pouches of the above configurations were good enough to give a shelf life of 1 year at room temperature. The curry remained sterile throughout the storage period at ambient temperature (25–30°C) and retained acceptable sensory characteristics.     

Single- and few-layer graphene growth on stainless steel substrates by direct thermal chemical vapor deposition

Increasing interest in graphene research in basic sciences and applications emphasizes the need for an economical means of synthesizing it. We report a method for the synthesis of graphene on commercially available stainless steel foils using direct thermal chemical vapor deposition. Our method of synthesis and the use of relatively cheap precursors such as ethanol (CH(3)CH(2)OH) as a source of carbon and SS 304 as the substrate proved to be economically viable. The presence of single- and few-layer graphene was confirmed using confocal Raman microscopy/spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic measurements were further used to establish the influence of various elemental species present in stainless steel on graphene growth. The role of cooling rate on surface migration of certain chemical species (oxides of Fe, Cr and Mn) that promote or hinder the growth of graphene is probed. Such analysis of the chemical species present on the surface can be promising for graphene based catalytic research.     

Nonlinear techniques for interference suppression inspread-spectrum systems

The binary nature of direct-sequence signals is exploited to obtain nonlinear filters that outperform the linear filters hitherto used for this purpose. The case of a Gaussian interferer with known autoregressive parameters is considered. Using simulations, it is shown that an approximate conditional mean (ACM) filter of the Masreliez type performs significantly better than the optimum linear (Kalman-Bucy) filter. For the case of interferers with unknown parameters, the nature of the nonlinearity in the ACM filter is used to obtain an adaptive filtering algorithm that is identical to the linear transversal filter except that the previous prediction errors are transformed nonlinearly before being incorporated into the linear prediction. Two versions of this filter are considered: one in which the filter coefficients are updated using the Widrow LMS algorithm, and another in which the coefficients are updated using an approximate gradient algorithm. Simulations indicate that the nonlinear filter with LMS updates performs substantially better than the linear filter for both narrowband Gaussian and single-tone interferers, whereas the gradient algorithm gives slightly better performance for Gaussian interferers but is rather ineffective in suppressing a sinusoidal interferer     

Lattice filters based on the delta operator

The delta operator defined by δ=(q-1)/Δ has been proposed as an alternative to the conventional shift operator q for implementing discrete-time estimation and control algorithms for processing data obtained by continuous-time processes, when the rate 1/Δ is rapid relative to the process dynamics. The authors present lattice and ladder filter structures based on the delta operator. As the sampling interval goes to zero, these filters converge to classical continuous-time lattice and ladder structures     

A Levinson-type algorithm for modeling fast-sampled data

The standard discrete-time autoregressive model is poorly suited for modeling series obtained by sampling continuous-time processes at fairly rapid rates. Large computational errors can occur when the Levinson algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of this model, because the Toeplitz covariance matrix is ill-suited for inversion. An alternative model is developed based on an incremental difference operator, rather than the shift operator. It is shown that, as the sampling period goes to zero, unlike the standard autoregressive parameters, the coefficients of this model converge to certain parameters that depend directly on the statistics of the continuous-time process. A Levinson-type algorithm for efficiently estimating the parameters of this model is derived. Numerical examples are given to show that when the sampling interval is small this algorithm is considerably less sensitivity to arithmetic roundoff errors than the Levinson algorithm