Solar collector design with respect to moisture problems

Humidity inside the collectors is one factor that can be minimised to keep the most favourable microclimatic condition for the internal materials of the collector. This microclimate inside the collector is an important factor in determining the service lifetime of an absorber coating. During the design of the collector, the location and size of ventilation holes, properties of the insulation materials and dimension of the solar collector box are parameters that have to be taken into account for the optimisation in order to achieve the most favourable microclimate to prevent corrosion.Simulation of the microclimate in solar thermal collectors can be a valuable tool for optimisation of the collector with respect to ventilation. A computer model has been established for fulfilling this. By using this tool the producers can be advised whether their solar collectors ought to be additionally tightened, or whether more ventilation openings should be made and what influence the insulation material has. Guidelines for collector designers are proposed. The design guidelines provide some suggestions to be considered during the design of solar collectors.The work was carried out within the framework of the working group Materials in Solar Thermal Collectors of the International Energy Agency-Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.     

Factors in gold nanocatalysis: oxidation of CO in the non-scalable size regime

Focusing on size-selected gold clusters consisting of up to 20 atoms, that is, in the size regime where properties cannot be obtained from those of the bulk material through scaling considerations, we discuss the current state of understanding pertaining to various factors that control the reactivity and catalytic activity of such nanostructures, using the CO oxidation reaction catalyzed by the gold nanoclusters adsorbed on MgO as a paradigm. These factors include the role of the metal-oxide support and its defects, the charge state of the cluster, structural fluxionality of the clusters, electronic size effects, the effect of an underlying metal support on the dimensionality, charging and chemical reactivity of gold nanoclusters adsorbed on the metal-supported metal-oxide, and the promotional effect of water. We show that through joined experimental and first-principles quantum mechanical calculations and simulations, a detailed picture of the reaction mechanism emerges.     

Influence of a dry fractionation of butterfat on the content of fatty acids including conjugated linoleic acids

There is a growing demand among consumers for food products with natural nutritional–physiological advantages over comparable conventional products. As part of an EU project, a process using dry fractionation is evaluated that enables the targeted low-input enrichment of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) in milk fat. Furthermore, the distribution of CLA isomers in the fat fractions was analysed. In the olein fraction for highland butter a CLA enrichment of 15.3% was obtained. The yield of the CLA rich olein fraction was 44.5% of the total amount of olein and stearin. There were significant increases during the first fractionation step of highland butter for the concentration of the CLA isomer cis-9, trans-11 (P ≤ 0.05) and during the second fractionation step for the concentration of CLA isomers cis-9, trans-11; trans-11, cis-13 (P ≤ 0.05) and trans-7, cis-9 (P ≤ 0.01). Experiments carried out demonstrate that the selected physical separation process enables CLA enrichment but the increase is too minor to achieve any decisive positive impact on human health and therefore too costly as an industrial CLA enrichment process.     

Delay and reward choice in ADHD: An experimental test of the role of delay aversion.

Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) choose smaller sooner (SS) over larger later (LL) rewards more than controls. Here we assess the contributions of impulsive drive for immediate rewards (IDIR) and delay aversion (DAv) to this pattern. We also explore the characteristics of, and the degree of familiality in, ADHD SS responders. We had 360 ADHD probands; 349 siblings and 112 controls (aged between 6 to 17 years) chose between SS (1 point after 2 s) and LL reward (2 points after 30 s) outcomes on the Maudsley Index of Delay Aversion (Kuntsi, Oosterlaan, & Stevenson, 2001): Under one condition SS choice led to less overall trial delay under another it did not. ADHD participants chose SS more than controls under both conditions. This effect was larger when SS choice reduced trial delay. ADHD SS responders were younger, had lower IQ, more conduct disorder and had siblings who were more likely to be SS responders themselves. The results support a dual component model in which both IDIR and DAv contribute to SS choice in ADHD. SS choice may be a marker of an ADHD motivational subtype. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical chloride content in reinforced concrete — A review

Chloride induced corrosion as the major cause for degradation of reinforced concrete has been the subject of great research efforts over the last fifty years. The present literature review summarises the state of the art by presenting the concept of the critical chloride content, discussing influencing factors, and assessing available measurement techniques. A large number of published chloride threshold values together with the respective experimental details are collected. While today's experience is mostly based on Portland cement, more modern studies with non-traditional binders often reported contradictory results. The present literature evaluation highlights the strong need for a practice-related test method, and, in this regard, focuses especially on experimental procedures by discussing advantages and drawbacks of methods and setups. It clearly emerges that many of the setups used to determine critical chloride contents are not suited to give realistic results.     

Nano-assembled Pd catalysts on MgO thin films

Cluster-assembled materials open fascinating new routes for tuning physical and chemical properties by changing cluster size and often behave completely differently than their bulk analogues. By depositing gas phase Pd clusters on MgO thin films, model catalysts are fabricated which exhibit remarkable catalytic activity. In contrast to the high selectivity of Pd (111) surfaces for the cyclotrimerization of acetylene to benzene, small supported Pd_n clusters reveal a strongly size-dependent selectivity and catalyse the formation of benzene as well as of other hydrocarbons. The understanding at the atomistic level of the observed processes has been obtained by means of first-principles quantum–mechanical simulations. The theoretical studies have shown the importance of the surface defects of the oxide substrate in stabilizing the supported clusters but also in promoting their catalytic activity. For instance, Pd atoms bound at the regular sites of the MgO (100) terraces do not promote the acetylene to benzene conversion while they become active catalysts when bound at oxygen vacancies (F centers).     

Metal-Metal Coordination Chemistry: Free Clusters of Group 12 Elements with Sodium

A systematic study of the mass spectra of particles formed in a supersonic nozzle expansion of Zn, Cd, and Hg vapors together with Na was performed. The particles discussed in this paper contain only one heavy atom and less than 12 Na ligands. Mass spectra from the neutral particles were generated by photoionization at five wavelengths (250, 260, 280, 300, and 320 nm) with a slit width corresponding to 16.5 and 3.3 nm, respectively. The abundances were corrected to relative differential ionization cross-sections. Photoionization potentials for Na_n M with 5 < n < 10 and M = Zn, Cd, Hg were measured. Below n = 6 no mixed clusters were found. The first abundance maximum occurred for all M at n = 8. A second maximum was with n = 16 or n = 18 (not covered in this paper). This selectivity can be rationalized by recent ab initio calculations by Fantucci et al. (J. Chem. Phys.; in press) and by jellium calculations, which give a closed shell at n = 8 with the occupations 1s²1p⁶2s². Ionization potentials clearly show a level reversal to 1p-2s-1d in contrast to the homonuclear jellium with 1p-1d-2s. This is similar to previous results with K_nMg (Kappes, M. et al., Chem. Phys. Lett., 1985, 119 : 11). Molecular dynamics simulations with empirical potentials show that the heavy metal migrates to the center of a cube in the frozen asymptote of Na_gM. At finite temperatures and for larger central atoms, a square antiprismal arrangement seems to be more stable.     

Fast generation of prime numbers and secure public-key cryptographic parameters

A very efficient recursive algorithm for generating nearly random provable primes is presented. The expected time for generating a prime is only slightly greater than the expected time required for generating a pseudoprime of the same size that passes the Miller-Rabin test for only one base. Therefore our algorithm is even faster than algorithms presently used for generating only pseudoprimes because several Miller-Rabin tests with independent bases must be applied for achieving a sufficient confidence level. Heuristic arguments suggest that the generated primes are close to uniformly distributed over the set of primes in the specified interval.Security constraints on the prime parameters of certain cryptographic systems are discussed, and in particular a detailed analysis of the iterated encryption attack on the RSA public-key cryptosystem is presented. The prime-generation algorithm can easily be modified to generate nearly random primes or RSA-moduli that satisfy these security constraints. Further results described in this paper include an analysis of the optimal upper bound for trial division in the Miller-Rabin test as well as an analysis of the distribution of the number of bits of the smaller prime factor of a random k-bit RSA-modulus, given a security bound on the size of the two primes.Some results of this paper were presented at EUROCRYPT '89, Houthalen, Belgium, April 10–13, 1989 [55].