Fabrication and characterization of copper-diamond particles

The electroless copper deposition on both pure and Cr-coated diamond particles was studied to produce copper/diamond composites for electronic packaging materials. The particles were characterized and the mechanism of product formation was investigated through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS). The particle coating thickness was measured using optical micrographs. The diamond particles got uniform coating thickness of copper crystals layers. This method provided an excellent base for the fabrication of metal-based composites using cheap equipments, and was less time consuming, nature friendly and economical compared with other methods of diamond surface metallization.     

Diversity improvement estimation from rain Radar databases using maximum likelihood estimation

This research examines route diversity as a fade mitigation technique in the presence of rain, for terrestrial microwave links. The improvement in availability due to diversity depends upon the complex spatio-temporal properties of rainfall. To produce a general model to predict the advantage due to route diversity it is necessary to be able to predict the correlation of rain attenuation on arbitrary pairs of microwave links. This is achieved by examination of a database of radar derived rain rate fields. Given a representative sample of rain field images, the joint rain attenuation statistics of arbitrary configurations of terrestrial links can be estimated. Existing rain field databases often yield very small numbers of high joint attenuation events. Consequently, estimates of the probability of joint high attenuation events derived from ratios of the number of occurrences can be highly inaccurate. This paper assumes that pairs of terrestrial microwave links have joint rain attenuation distributions that are bi-lognormally distributed. Four of the five distribution parameters can be estimated from ITU-R models. A maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method is used to estimate the fifth parameter, i.e., the covariance or correlation. The predicted diversity statistics vary smoothly and yield plausible extrapolations into low probability situations.     

Recent developments in catalyst synthesis using DBD plasma for reforming applications

The catalyst has a significant role in gas processing applications such as reforming technologies for H₂ and syngas production. The stable catalyst is requisite for any industrial catalysis application to make it commercially viable. Several methods are employed to synthesize the catalysts. However, there is still a challenge to achieve a controlled morphology and pure catalyst which majorly influences the catalytic activity in reforming applications. The conventional methods are expansive, and the removal of the impurities are major challenges. Nevertheless, it is not straightforward to achieve the desired structure and stability. Therefore, significant interest has been developed on the advanced techniques to take control of the physicochemical properties of the catalyst through non-thermal plasma (NTP) techniques. In this review, the systematic evolution of the catalyst synthesis using NTP technique is elucidated. The emerging DBD plasma to synthesized and effective surface treatment is reviewed. DBD plasma synthesized catalyst performance in reforming application for H₂ and syngas production is summarised. Furthermore, the status of DBD plasma for catalyst synthesis and proposed future avenues to design environmentally suitable and cost-effective synthesis techniques are discussed.     

Effect of Bicarbonate Salts and Sequential Using of Frying Oil on Acrylamide and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural Contents in Coated Fried Chicken Meat

In this research, the effect of different bicarbonate salts (sodium and ammonium) and their doses (0, 1, 2, and 3 g/100 g raw material) in the coating batter formula use and the sequential use of frying oil (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) on 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and acrylamide contents in coated fried chicken meat. The addition of sodium bicarbonate was efficient for reducing acrylamide content, but it increased browning and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural content compared to the control. When increasing the doses of sodium and ammonium bicarbonate from 1 to 3 g/100 g of raw material, the acrylamide content of samples did not change significantly, although adding sodium bicarbonate significantly reduced the acrylamide content as a control. These research results showed that using about 1 g/100 g raw material sodium bicarbonate rather than ammonium bicarbonate and as little frying oil as possible use during the production of coated and fried meat results in lower contents of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and acrylamide.     

The use of basalt powder as a natural heterogeneous catalyst in the Fenton and Photo-Fenton oxidation of cationic dyes

The use of naturally present heterogeneous catalysts has recently been an essential issue in the Fenton and photo-Fenton processes. In this study, the uses of basalt as a catalyst for the Fenton and photo-Fenton reactions for methylene Blue (MB) and Basic Red 18 (BR18) degradations were investigated. Basalt was selected because of the presence of the iron (III) oxide in the structure. Basalt was characterized by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis to obtain the chemical composition and the crystalline phase. The surface charge and the surface area were obtained by zeta potential and Brunauer Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were utilized to explore the functional group and the surface morphology. Fenton and photo-Fenton processes were applied to explore the best degradation method. Adsorption was also tested and the adsorption process had minimum removal efficiency (12% for MB and 17% for BR18). The removal efficiencies for MB and BR18 by the Fenton process were 87% and 28%, respectively. The photo-Fenton process had maximum removal efficiency with 100% for MB and 70% for BR18. The optimum conditions were 70 mg/L dye concentration, 5 mM H₂O₂, 1.0 g/L basalt loading and pH 2. Basalt has shown reuse capability as a catalyst for three consecutive cycles.     

Comparative Analysis of Ti,Ni,and Au Electrodes on Characteristics of TiO2 Nanofibers for Humidity Sensor Application

The effect of metal（Ti,Ni,and Au） electrodes on humidity sensing properties of electrospun TiO₂ nanofibers was investigated in this work.The devices were fabricated by evaporating metal contacts on SiO₂ layer thermally grown on silicon substrate.The separation between the electrodes was 90μm for all sensors.The sensors were tested from 40%to 90%relative humidity（RH） by AC electrical characterization at room temperature. When sensors are switched between 40%and 90%RH,the corresponding response and recovery time are 3 s and 5 s for Ti-electrode sensor,4 s and 7 s for Ni-electrode sensor,and 7 s and 13 s for Au-electrode sensor.The hysteresis was 3%,5%and 15%for Ti-,Ni-,and Au-electrode sensor,respectively.The sensitivity of Ti,Ni,and Au-electrode sensors are 7.53 MΩ/%RH,5.29 MΩ/%RH and 4.01 MΩ/%RH respectively at 100 Hz.Therefore Ti-electrode sensor is found to have linear response,fast response and recovery time and higher sensitivity as compared with those of Ni- and Au-electrode sensors.Comparison of humidity sensing properties of sensors with different electrode material may propose a compelling route for designing and optimizing humidity sensors.