Effect of calcite/activated carbon-based post-combustion CO2 capture system in a biodiesel-fueled CI engine—An experimental study

The present study aims to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission from a CI engine using calcite/activated carbon-based post-combustion CO₂ capture system fueled with Calophyllum inophyllum biodiesel (B100). The tests were conducted in a two-cylinder CI engine used in tractors at different load conditions. The performance and emission parameters of diesel and B100 with and without calcite and activated carbon-based CO₂ capture system were studied. The results show that compared to diesel, CO₂ emission increased by 19% for B100 due to high fuel-bound oxygen and carbon. Higher NO emission with a slightly reduced smoke opacity is observed with B100 combustion. CO₂ emission is reduced with the CO₂ capture system for both diesel and B100. CO₂ emission is reduced by 11.5% and 7.3% for diesel with calcite and activated carbon, respectively, and reduced by 15.8% and 10.5% for B100 with calcite and activated carbon. Due to the adsorption capacity of both calcite and activated carbon, NO and smoke opacity are reduced considerably. The results display that calcite is better in reducing CO₂ compared to activated carbon-based CO₂ capture system. It is perceived that the combination of biofuel and calcite-based CO₂ capture system can both reduce engine-out emissions and cause a net negative CO₂ emission as it is renewable aiding in mitigation of global warming effects.     

High oxygen permeable Zeolite-4A poly(dimethylsiloxane) membrane for air separation

High oxygen permeability with optimal selectivity of the membrane is required for advancement in air separation membrane technology. Zeolite 4A-PDMS composite membranes were prepared by incorporation of Zeolite 4A nanoscale crystals during the polymerization process of PDMS membrane using toluene and n-heptane solvents, and their oxygen gas permeability and selectivity were explored. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) technique was further used to study the polymer chain conformation and structure of membranes influenced by Zeolite 4A loading. The intersegmental distance between polymer chains and polymer chain aggregation or clustering were found to be increased on increasing the Zeolite 4A content in the membranes. Increment in the O₂ permeability and O₂/N₂ selectivity were observed for both type of membranes (toluene and n-heptane) with 1 wt% Zeolite 4A loading. The best performance result with O₂/N₂ selectivity of 2.6, and O₂ permeability of 1052 Barrer was exhibited by PDMS/toluene membrane loaded with 1 wt% Zeolite 4A. The PDMS/toluene membranes with 10 wt% Zeolite 4A loading exhibited increased O₂ permeability of 1245 Barrer with a fair O₂/N₂selectivity of ~1.7, while the PDMS/n-heptane membrane with the same loading exhibited excellent O₂ permeability of 6773 Barrer but lesser O₂/N₂ selectivity of ~1.2. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48047.     

Low Complexity Preprocessing Approach for Wireless Physical Layer Secret Key Extraction Based on PCA

Achieving communication security, along with high computational efficiency, is one of the challenging issues in the advancement of modern resource constraint wireless networks. Wireless physical layer secure key extraction in conjunction with suitable preprocessing techniques may be a possible way out. Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the dimensionality reduction techniques employed commonly in various domains for different applications. However, the physical layer secure key extraction employing PCA as dimensionality reduction is untouched so far. This paper presents a comprehensive study on PCA based wireless secret key extraction with real-time experimentation. In this work, we propose to apply PCA as a preprocessing technique to reduce the total number of numerical computations required in the key generation process, by cutting down the dimension of the input data set. We propose to select the extracted principal components to be processed further for key generation, based on their information content and cross-correlation. We analyzed the performance of the proposed in terms of bit disagreement rate, key randomness and pass ratio. The computational complexity of the proposed approach is derived and the effect of dimensionality reduction factor (\({\mathbf{R}}_{\mathbf{f}}\)) on the required numerical computations is analyzed. It is found that substantial improvement in bit disagreement performance is achieved along with a significant reduction in the required numerical computations. Remarkably, these outcomes are achieved by slightly modifying one of the blocks of the traditional key generation system. Furthermore, the practicability of the proposed technique is verified through real-time experimentation in different physical scenarios.

     

Sol-gel auto-combustion synthesis of Ba–Sr hexaferrite ceramic powders

We report the mechanism involved in sol-gel auto-combustion synthesis of Ba–Sr-hexaferrite (Ba_1-xSr_xFe₁₂O₁₉; x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1, BSFO) ceramic powders through the analysis of the phases evolved during annealing of the as-synthesized powders, along with their structure and morphological studies. The XRD patterns of the as-synthesized samples indicate the formation of barium/strontium monoferrite ((Ba/Sr)Fe₂O₄) and maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃) phases along with a minute amount of hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) phase. Annealing of these samples facilitates formation of BSFO phase through the solid state reaction between BaFe₂O₄ and γ-Fe₂O₃ phase. Interestingly, after annealing the samples with x = 0, 0.5 and 1, at 1000 °C for 2 h, we observed that phase pure Ba–Sr hexaferrite structure forms, but for samples with x = 0.25 and 0.75, high amount of hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) phase is observed, especially for x = 0.75. The reason associated with this could be the large difference between the ionic radii of Ba²⁺ and Sr²⁺ ions occupying the oxygen site. Furthermore, our study on annealing dependent phase evolution confirms that, this difference in ionic radii forbids the formation of a single phase Ba–Sr hexaferrite. The growth of clear hexagonal-shaped plate-like particles with varied particle sizes was observed for all the samples. The particle size variation may be due to the influence of the ionic radii difference on the sinterability of the samples. Our study provides a better understanding of synthesis mechanism of Ba–Sr hexaferrite samples.     

Discrete‐time sector based hands‐off control for nonlinear system

This article presents a hands‐off control design for discrete‐time nonlinear system with a special type of nonlinear sector termed as “discrete‐time sector.” The design method to define the boundary of a discrete‐time sector is done with control‐Lyapunov function. The generalization of nonlinear system is viewed in the perspective of a comparison function. By means of a proposed sector, a switching control is designed such that no control action is experienced inside the sector thus, saving unnecessary control efforts. However, to study the robustness for discrete‐time system, a hands‐off control is modified to ensure the monotonic decrease in the energy of the system. Finally, the proposed approach is verified with the simulation results.     

Sol- gel synthesis of Ga2O3 nanorods and effect of precursor chemistry on their structural and morphological properties

Synthesis of mono-crystalline Ga₂O₃ Nanorods was done by sol-gel transformation of gallium(III) isopropoxide (Ga(OPrⁱ)₃). XRD studies were done to determine the planes and crystal structure of synthesized nanorods that showed the synthesis of β-Ga₂O₃(a). TEM studies of synthesized Ga₂O₃ confirmed the synthesis of monocrystalline β-Ga₂O₃ nanorods. To study the effect of precursor chemistry and to determine role of precursor structures on the crystal structure, phase and morphology of the Ga₂O₃, a new modified precursor complex was synthesized. The reaction of Ga(OPrⁱ)₃ with N-phenylsalicylaldimine, [C₆H₄(OH)CH=N(C₆H₅)] in 1:1?M ratio yielded [{(H₅C₆)N?=?CH-C₆H₄O}Ga(OPrⁱ)₂]. The newly synthesized complex was characterized by elemental analyses, molecular weight measurement, FT-IR and NMR (¹H and ¹³C) spectral studies. Spectral studies of the modified complex suggest the presence of bi-dentate mode of attachment of Schiff's base in the solution state. Sol-gel transformations of [{(H₅C₆)N?=?CH-C₆H₄O}Ga(OPrⁱ)₂] in organic medium, yielded γ-Ga₂O₃(b), as found by XRD studies. TEM image of the sample (a) revealed the formation of nano-rods of oxide with average diameter of ~100?nm whereas the TEM image of sample (b) showed presence of nano-sized particles of oxide with average particle size of 10?nm. Morphological and compositional studies of synthesized samples (a) and (b) were carried out using SEM and EDX. The method provides a possibility of large scale synthesis of dissimilar shaped and pure Ga₂O₃ nanoparticles.     

A combined experimental‐numerical framework for residual energy determination in spent lithium‐ion battery packs

The present research proposes a combined framework that evaluates remaining capacity, material behavior, ions concentration of remaining metals, and current rate of chemical reactions of spent Li‐ion batteries accurately. Voltage, temperature, internal resistance, and capacity were studied during charging and discharging cycles. Genetic programming was applied on the obtained data to develop a model to predict remaining capacity. The results of experimental work and those estimated from model were found to be correlated, confirming the validation of model. Materials structure and electrochemical behavior of electrodes during cycles were studied by cyclic voltammetry, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersion spectrum.     

Impact of crystal structure and microstructure on electrical properties of Ho doped lead-free BCST piezoceramics

Conventional solid state sintering method was used to synthesize lead-free (Ba_0.91Ca_0.09Sn_0.07Ti_0.93)O₃-xHo₂O₃ (x?=?0, 1.2,1.4,1.6,1.8 and 2.0?mol%) ceramics. The influence on electrical properties of the system as a result of the structural and microstructural changes introduced by the incorporation of rare earth Ho³⁺ ions has been investigated. The X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that Ho³⁺ ions completely diffuse into the (Ba_0.91Ca_0.09Sn_0.07Ti_0.93)O₃ lattice to form a homogeneous solid solution with a pure perovskite structure having tetragonal symmetry. Evidence of Ho³⁺ substituting Ti⁴⁺ via the oxygen vacancy compensation mechanism exists in the range of 0–1.6?mol % Ho content, while the self-compensation mode is the preferred mechanism beyond 1.6?mol %. The average grain size exhibits a drastic reduction from 16?μm to 0.7?μm as the Ho content increases from 0 to 1.6?mol%, followed by a slight increase at higher Ho concentration. It suggests that addition of Ho³⁺ inhibits grain growth in the ceramics. In the composition range studied, increasing Ho³⁺ content produces a gradual decrease in the relative density from 93% to 81%, room temperature dielectric constant (ε_rt) from 3997 to 807, electromechanical coupling factor (k_p) from 0.23 to 0.06, and piezoelectric charge constant (d₃₃) from 102 to 38?pC/N. This degradation in the properties is attributed to the crystalline and microstructural changes driven by the increasing presence of Ho content in the ceramics.     

APuML: An Efficient Approach to Detect Mobile Phishing Webpages using Machine Learning

Wireless Personal Communications - The recent trend in wireless technology has been tremadously increased the demand of higher frequency bands from every corners of the mobile technology. As next...     

Low‐Cost Self‐Assembled Oxide Separator for Rechargeable Batteries

Rechargeable battery cells having a liquid electrolyte require a separator permeable to the electrolyte between the two electrodes. Because the electrodes change their volume during charge and discharge, the porous separators are flexible polymers with an electronic energy gap E_g large enough for the Fermi levels of the two electrodes to be within it. In this work, a porous film of self‐assembled SiO₂ nanoparticles is developed as the separator for a Li‐ion battery with a liquid electrolyte. This coating does not require the plasticity of a polymer membrane and has the required large E_g. If adsorbed water is removed from the SiO₂ surface, the nanoparticles bond to one another and to an oxide cathode to form a plastic self‐assembling porous layer into which the liquid electrolyte can penetrate. The Li‐ion batteries with a LiCoO₂ cathode coated with SiO₂ as a separator show similar performance to cells with a traditional polypropylene separator and improved cyclability with a reduced volume of liquid electrolyte owing to the electrolyte wetting properties of the SiO₂ nanoparticles. The SiO₂ nanoparticles are easy to prepare, cheap, and environmentally friendly.