Automatic PC disassembly for component recovery

In this article, a personal computer disassembly cell is presented. With this cell, a certain degree of automatism is afforded for the non-destructive disassembly process and for the recycling of these kinds of mass-produced electronic products. Each component of the product can be separated. The disassembly cell is composed of several sub-systems, each of which is dedicated to the planning and execution of one type of task. A computer vision system is employed for the recognition and localisation of the product and of each of its components. The disassembly system proposed here also has a modelling system for the products and each of its components, the information necessary for the planning of tasks, generating the disassembly sequence and planning of the disassembly movements. These systems co-operate with each other to achieve a semi-automatic disassembly of the product.     

Unprecedented Improvement of Single Li‐Ion Conductive Solid Polymer Electrolyte Through Salt Additive

Solid‐state lithium metal (Li°) batteries (SSLMBs) are believed to be the most promising technologies to tackle the safety concerns and the insufficient energy density encountered in conventional Li‐ion batteries. Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) inherently own good processability and flexibility, enabling large‐scale preparation of SSLMBs. To minimize the growth of Li° dendrites and cell polarization in SPE‐based SSLMBs, an additive‐containing single Li‐ion conductive SPE is reported. The characterization results show that a small dose of electrolyte additive (2 wt%) substantially increases the ionic conductivity of single Li‐ion conductive SPEs as well as the interfacial compatibility between electrode and SPE, allowing the cycling of SPE‐based cells with good electrochemical performance. This work may provide a paradigm shift on the design of highly cationic conductive electrolytes, which are essential for developing safe and high‐performance rechargeable batteries.     

Robust Disturbance Rejection Based Control with Extended-state Resonant Observer for Sway Reduction in Uncertain Tower-cranes

Machine Intelligence Research - In this paper, the problem of load transportation and robust mitigation of payload oscillations in uncertain tower-cranes is addressed. This problem is tackled...     

A complement to lexical query’s search-term selection for emerging technologies: the case of “big data”

Obtaining document sets to study emerging technologies is challenging. Researchers studying emerging technologies use lexical queries, e.g., core, expanded and evolutionary, to face this challenge. Creating lexical queries requires the selection of search-terms. Manual, automatic and semi-automatic techniques can be implemented to select search-terms. The current reported processes to select search-terms can be complemented by attending two issues. One is the lack of a systematic process for the selection of search-terms from previous literature, and the second is the evaluation of candidate search-terms’ document retrieval interdependence. We propose two steps to complement the process of selecting search-terms to create lexical queries to study emerging technologies. The first step consists of a process to systematically select search-terms from previous literature. The second is an evaluation of search-terms’ document retrieval interdependence, and for its evaluation, we propose the Significance of Interception Ratio (SIR). We tested our proposed steps setting as a reference the big-data lexical query proposed by Huang et al. (Scientometrics 105:2005–2022, 2015). The tests results show that the proposed steps can complement the current automatic methods to select search-terms. The first step increased around a 24% the recall of the reference lexical query. The increase in the recall was possible because of the addition of 37 additional search-terms and the elimination of three search-terms from the reference lexical query. In the second step (application of the SIR), five search-terms from the reference lexical query were optimized, showing a slight complementary ability when selecting search-terms.     

A facile co-precipitation synthesis of heterostructured ZrO<Subscript>2</Subscript>|ZnO nanoparticles as efficient photocatalysts for wastewater treatment

ZrO₂-decorated ZnO (ZrO₂|ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) have been synthesized by a facile co-precipitation method in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant. The ZrO₂ amount in the NPs has been varied from 1.0, 2.0, 4.9, to 9.3% by weight. The resulting NPs are heterostructured and consist of a crystalline ZnO core (wurtzite phase) surrounded by an amorphous ZrO₂ layer. X-ray diffraction analyses support this observation. The NPs show a narrow size distribution and are slightly elongated. Compared to pure ZnO NPs, the hybrid ZrO₂|ZnO ones show enhanced photocatalytic activity toward the degradation of Rhodamine B under UV–Vis light. Such enhancement has been partly attributed to the increased amount of oxygen vacancies when ZrO₂ is incorporated into the NPs, as shown by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses.     

An I&I‐Based Observer to Solve the Output‐Feedback Synchronization Problem for a Class of Chaotic Systems

A novel robust observer, intended to solve the output‐feedback chaos synchronization problem for the Master/Slave Configuration, is proposed here. Assuming that the given Master system belongs to a specific class of feedback‐linearized systems, our solution is based on the well‐known Immersion and Invariance (I&I) method. The proposed observer is devoted to the asymptotic estimation of the Master system's underlying dynamics, and its effectiveness is illustrated via computer‐based simulations that involve both the so‐called Duffing's oscillator and the Genesio & Tesi system.     

Nanostructure and Micromechanical Properties of Silica/Silicon Oxycarbide Porous Composites

The microhardness–nanostructure correlation of a series of silica/silicon oxycarbide porous composites has been investigated, as a function of pyrolysis temperature, T _p. The pyrolyzed products have been studied by means of scanning electron microscopy, mercury porosimetry, chemical analysis, solid-state ²⁹Si-NMR, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and microindentation hardness. Two distinct regimes are found for the microhardness behavior with T _p. In the low-temperature regime (1000°C ≤ T _p < 1300°C), the material response to indentation seems to be dominated by the large amount of pores present in the samples. In this T _p range, low microhardness values, H , are found (<110 MPa). Above T _p= 1300°C, a conspicuous H increase is observed. In this high-temperature regime ( T _p= 1300–1500°C), microhardness values are shown to notably increase with increasing pyrolysis temperature. The H behavior at T _p= 1300–1500°C is discussed in terms of (i) the volume fraction of pores and the average pore size, (ii) the bond density of the oxycarbide network, and (iii) the occurrence of a nanocrystalline SiC phase.     

A wind tunnel for anemometer calibration in the range of 0.2-1.25 m/s

In order to calibrate different types of anemometers in a low-speed range (0.2-1.25 m/s) using pressure measurements, a wind tunnel has been built and characterized. The wind tunnel has a low-speed section and a high-speed section. The wind tunnel calibration has been performed by means of comparison of airspeed at the test cross section (low-speed) and at the reference cross section (high-speed). Measurements have been taken with a calibrated hot-wire anemometer and static and total probes respectively. A linear fitting is used to relate reference and test airspeed. A model based on mass conservation law has been developed. Calculations have been made with and without introducing the effect of the speed profile. Uncertainties of the experimental calibration are presented.     

Optimization of properties in a rubber compound containing a ternary polymer blend using response surface methodology

In order to find the best combination of three synthetic rubbers, that is, styrene‐butadiene rubber (SBR) grade 1712, SBR grade 1721 and high‐1,4‐cis polybutadiene, that produce a compound with specific end‐use properties, a statistical experimental design is proposed in this work. The design consists of ten mixtures containing specific amounts of total styrene and BR content. A number of properties are tested in each mixture, selecting those related to requirements for the tread of a high performance tire: glass transition temperature (T_g), the ratio between the viscous modulus and the elastic modulus (tanδ@60 °C), Mooney viscosity, and the tensile properties. The values obtained for each property are fit to statistically significant models, obtaining the respective response surfaces. These are next used to define a desirable formulation with the optimal ratio of each rubber, and finally the optimized formulation is validated by comparing the experimental and predicted values for each modeled property. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46548.