Effects of pigmentation on siloxane–polyurethane coatings and their performance as fouling-release marine coatings

Siloxane–polyurethane paints were formulated and characterized for coating properties and performance as fouling-release (FR) marine coatings. Paints were formulated at 20 and 30 pigment volume concentrations with titanium dioxide, and aminopropyl-terminated poly(dimethylsiloxane) (APT-PDMS) loadings were varied from 0 to 30% based on binder mass. The coatings were characterized for water contact angle, surface energy (SE), gloss, and pseudobarnacle (PB) adhesion. The assessment of the FR performance compared with polyurethane (PU) and silicone standards through the use of laboratory biological assays was also performed. Biofilm retention and adhesion were conducted with the marine bacterium Cellulophaga lytica, and the microalgae diatom Navicula incerta. Live adult barnacle reattachment using Amphibalanus amphitrite was also performed. The pigmented coatings were found to have properties and FR performance similar to those prepared without pigment. However, a higher loading of PDMS was required, in some cases, to obtain the same properties as coatings prepared without pigment. These coatings rely on a self-stratification mechanism to bring the PDMS to the coating surface. The slight reduction in water contact angle (WCA) and increase in pseudobarnacle release force with pigmentation suggests that pigmentation slowed or interfered with the self-stratification mechanism. However, increasing the PDMS loading is an apparent method for overcoming this issue, allowing for coatings having similar properties as those of clear coatings and FR performance similar to those of silicone standard coatings.     

Evaluation of Antioxidant Activity,and Nutritional and Chemical Composition of Ficus amplissima Smith Fruit

The present study was evaluated using the following in vitro antioxidant methods: 2,2′-azinobis (3-ethyl-benzothiozoline)-6-sulfonic acid disodium salt, phosphomolybdenum, ferric reducing antioxidant power, metal ion chelating activity, super oxide anion radical scavenging, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical. Among these assays, acetone extract showed maximum free radical scavenging activity in 2,2′-azinobis (3-ethyl-benzothiozoline)-6-sulfonic acid disodium salt, phosphomolybdenum, metal ion chelating, superoxide anion, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical assays. Moreover, the physiochemical, nutritional, and anti-nutritional parameters were analyzed. Its qualitative and quantitative composition was studied by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy and out of 27 peaks, 27 compounds were identified. These compounds have the property of antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory activity.     

Experimental Investigation and Simulation of Magnetic Flux Leakage from Metal Loss Defects

Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention - Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) principle is widely used in detecting defects in cross-country pipelines. The tools based on the MFL techniques termed as...     

Studies on spinel cobaltites,MCo2O4 (M = Mn,Zn, Fe,Ni and Co) and their functional properties

Optimization of electrodes for charge storage with appropriate processing conditions places significant challenges in the developments for high performance charge storage devices. In this article, metal cobaltite spinels of formula MCo₂O₄ (where M = Mn, Zn, Fe, Ni and Co) are synthesized by oxalate decomposition method followed by calcination at three typical temperatures, viz. 350, 550, and 750 °C and examined their performance variation when used as anodes in lithium ion batteries. Phase and structure of the materials are studied by powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. Single phase MnCo2O4,ZnCo2O4 and Co3O4 are obtained for all different temperatures 350 °C, 550 °C and 750 °C; whereas FeCo₂O₄ and NiCo₂O₄ contained their constituent binary phases even after repeated calcination. Morphologies of the materials are studied via scanning electron microscopy (SEM): needle-shaped particles of MnCo₂O₄ and ZnCo₂O₄, submicron sized particles of FeCo₂O₄ and agglomerated submicron particle of NiCo₂O₄ are observed. Galvanostatic cycling has been conducted in the voltage range 0.005–3.0 V vs. Li at a current density of 60 mA g^?1 up to 50 cycles to study their Li storage capabilities. Highest observed charge capacities are: MnCo₂O₄ – 365 mA h g^?1 (750 °C); ZnCo₂O₄ – 516 mA h g^?1 (550 °C); FeCo₂O₄ – 480 mA h g^?1 (550 °C); NiCo₂O₄ – 384 mA h g^?1 (750 °C); and Co₃O₄ – 675 mA h g^?1 (350 °C). The Co₃O₄ showed the highest reversible capacity of 675 mA h g^?1; the NiO present in NiCo₂O₄ acts as a buffer layer that results in improved cycling stability; the ZnCo₂O₄ with long needle-like shows good cycling stability.     

On the electrochemical migration mechanism of tin in electronics

Electrochemical migration (ECM) of tin can result in the growth of a metal deposit with a dendritic structure from cathode to anode. In electronics, such growth can lead to short circuit of biased electrodes, potentially leading to intermittent or complete failure of an electronic device. In this paper, mechanistic aspects of ECM of tin are discussed in detail, using experimental results on ECM of tin in various environments and varying potential bias. Results on the formation of local pH changes by the electrodes and experiments observations are combined with thermodynamic stability of tin species as depicted in the Pourbaix diagram.     

A new kind of fuzzy regression modeling and its combination with fuzzy inference

In this paper, a new kind of fuzzy regression model suggested by the author in papers [1] and [2] will be restated more clearly. Then a consistency between the new fuzzy regression modeling and fuzzy inference modeling will be presented, showing its added advantage for application problems. Based on the consistency, a method for combining fuzzy regression and fuzzy inference will be introduced in this paper. This will serve as the starting point for applying the two kinds of information resources, quantitative and qualitative information resources, simultaneously in practical prediction problems. This work was supported by a Research Enhancement Grant, WTAMU, 2003.     

Cellular convection in vertical annuli of fast breeder reactors

In the pool type fast reactors the roof structure is penetrated by a number of pumps and heat exchangers that are cylindrical in shape. Sandwiched between the free surface of sodium and the roof structure, is stagnant argon gas, which can flow in the annular space between the components and roof structure, as a thermosyphon. These thermosyphons not only transport heat from sodium to roof structure, but also result in cellular convection in vertical annuli resulting in circumferential temperature asymmetry of the penetrating components. There is need to know the temperature asymmetry as it can cause tilting of the components. Experiments were carried out in an annulus model to predict the circumferential temperature difference with and without sodium in the test vessel. Three-dimensional analysis was also carried out using PHOENICS CFD code and compared with the experiment. This paper describes the experimental details, the theoretical analysis and their comparison.     

Extraction of training samples from time-series MODIS imagery and its utility for land cover classification

A number of classification techniques to generate land cover maps from satellite imagery have been proposed but supervised classification with manual selection and delineation of training samples (TSs) continues to be the preferred technique. The current practices of field visits and manual delineation of TSs by visual recognition are highly demanding on both resources and time, with limited utility. With an increase in the number of Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) platforms and the enormous data that they generate, there is a need to process the data quickly and efficiently for creating global science products. Towards this goal, an attempt has been made in this article to develop a method for the automatic extraction of the TSs from the time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS – 250 m) vegetation index (VI), which can then be used for supervised classification to create a land cover map with any classification technique on relevant remotely sensed data. The TSs contained 1.27%, 0.09% and 1.18% of the total pixels for the forest, crop and water classes of the study region. Validation with Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS – 56 m)-derived national land use/land cover (LULC) map of India shows a complete agreement with the location of what can be considered as pure class pixels. The article also demonstrates and compares the utility of these TSs with an expert choice of TSs on MODIS time-series data using k-nearest neighbour, and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers and on a single-scene Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor-3 (LISS-3 – 24 m) imagery using maximum likelihood (ML) classifier.