Assessment and Improvement of IDF Generation Algorithms Used in the IDF_CC Tool

Water Resources Management - Climate change will modify the spatio-temporal variation of hydrological variables worldwide, potentially leading to more extreme events and hydraulic infrastructure...     

Form-Stabilized Polyethylene Glycol/Palygorskite Composite Phase Change Material: Thermal Energy Storage Properties,Cycling Stability,and Thermal Durability

In this work, polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a phase change material (PCM) was incorporated with palygorskite (Pal) clay to develop a novel form-stable composite PCM (F-SCPCM). The Pal/PEG(40 wt%) composite was defined as F-SCPCM and characterized using SEM/EDS, FT-IR, XRD, DSC, and TGA techniques. The DSC results revealed that the F-SCPCM has a melting temperature of 32.5°C and latent heat capacity of 64.3 J/g for thermal energy storage (TES) applications. Thermal cycling test showed that the F-SCPCM had good cycling thermal/chemical stability after 500 cycles. The TGA data proved that that both cycled and non-cycled F-SCPCMs had considerable high thermal durability. Consequently, the created F-SCPCM could be considered as an additive material for production of green construction components with TES capability. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 60:909–916, 2020. © 2020 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Siamese convolutional neural network and fusion of the best overlapping blocks for kinship verification

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Analysis of facial images decoding familial features has been attracting the attention of researchers to develop a computerized system interested in determining...     

A radiomics pipeline dedicated to Breast MRI: validation on a multi-scanner phantom study

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine - Quantitative analysis in MRI is challenging due to variabilities in intensity distributions across patients, acquisitions and...     

Synthesis of Novel Tetra(µ3-Methoxo) Bridged with [Cu(II)-O-Cd(II)] Double-Open-Cubane Cluster: XRD/HSA-Interactions,Spectral and Oxidizing Properties

A new double-open-cubane core Cd(II)-O-Cu(II) bimetallic ligand mixed cluster of type [Cl₂Cu₄Cd₂(NNO)₆(NN)₂(NO₃)₂].CH₃CN was made available in EtOH/CH₃CN solution. The 1-hydroxymethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazole (NNOH) and 3,5-dimethylpyrazole (NNH) act as N,O-polydentate anion ligands in coordinating the Cu(II) and Cd(II) centers. The structure of the cluster in the solid state was proved by XRD study and confirmed in the liquid state by UV-vis analysis. The XRD result supported the construction of two octahedral and one square pyramid geometries types around the four Cu(II) centers and only octahedral geometry around Cd(II) two centers. Interestingly, NNOH ligand acts as a tetra-µ³-oxo and tri-µ²-oxo ligand; meanwhile, the N-N in NNH acts as classical bidentate anion/neutral ligands. The interactions in the lattice were detected experimentally by the XRD-packing result and computed via Hirschfeld surface analysis (HSA). The UV-vis., FT-IR and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), supported the desired double-open cubane cluster composition. The oxidation potential of the desired cluster was evaluated using a 3,5-DTB-catechol 3,5-DTB-quinone as a catecholase model reaction.     

Development of high performance amine functionalized zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8)/cellulose triacetate mixed matrix membranes for CO2/CH4 separation

High cost and complex fabrication process of inorganic membranes and lower position of pristine polymeric membranes in the Robeson upper bound curve urged the researchers to develop mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). Cellulose acetate being most commercially used polymer, dominates the market of CO₂ separation mainly because of low cost and environmental friendly resource. In the present study, MMMs consists of amine functionalized zeolitic imidazolate framework (NH₂-ZIF-8) and cellulose triacetate were fabricated for the first time. NH₂-ZIF-8 was used as a filler because the pore size of ZIF-8 is between the kinetic diameter of separating gases (CO₂ and CH₄). Moreover,  NH₂ group attached on the surface of ZIF-8 has affinity with condensable gases like CO₂. Morphology, crystallinity, tensile strength and functional groups of fabricated membranes were investigated using different analytical techniques. Results revealed that the increase of feed pressure has increased CO₂ permeability and decreased permselectivity. However, improvements in gas separation performance were observed with the addition of nanofiller. Best position in Robeson's upper bound curve at 4 bar was obtained with 10 wt% loading with CO₂ permeability and CO₂/CH₄ permselectivity of 218 barrer and 13.84, respectively. The improvement in the gas separation performance with loading is attributed to the increased diffusion coefficients as well as solubility coefficients, which was increased to 33% and 3.8%, respectively.     

Low temperature ionothermal synthesis of TiO2 nanomaterials for efficient photocatalytic H2 production,dye degradation and photoluminescence studies

The photocatalytic hydrogen generation is a novel, eco-friendly and favourable method for production of green and clean energy using light energy. In this direction, we report low-temperature ionothermal method for the preparation of TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) using methoxy ethyl methyl imidazolium tris (pentafluoroethyl) trifluoro phosphate (MOEMINtf₂) as an ionic liquid (IL) at 120°C for 1 day. The synthesized nanomaterials were examined using different spectrochemical methods like UV-DRS, XRD, FT-IR, TEM, BET and TGA-DTA techniques. The mixed phase TiO₂ is obtained with 81.7% of anatase and 18.3% of rutile phase by the XRD studies, and average crystallite size is found to be ∼7 nm. The stretching of Ti-O bond (∼555 cm⁻¹) and few other bands related to ionic liquid were confirmed by FTIR spectrum. The band gap energy was observed to be ∼3.38 eV by UV-DRS analysis. TEM images reveal spherical shape with an average particles size of about 10 nm. Photocatalytic H₂ generation was carried out using TiO₂ NPs and observed the generation of 553 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ via water splitting reaction. Furthermore, the prepared TiO₂ NPs employed for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye (84.54%), and photoluminescence studies confirms the obtained material can be used in optoelectronic applications with green emission.     

Effect of annealing temperature on microstructure and thermoelectric transport properties of Cu2.1Zn0.9SnSe4 alloys

Cu-based quaternary chalcogenide compounds have been thermoelectric topic of interest among researchers, especially in recent years, due to their intrinsically low thermal conductivity. Recently plenty of work is done on thermoelectric properties of Cu₂ZnSnSe₄-based alloys emphasizing on importance of Cu₂ZnSnSe₄-based alloys in thermoelectric power generation. In this study, we report the effect of annealing temperature on microstructure and thermoelectric properties of Cu_2.1Zn_0.9SnSe₄ alloys. Cu_2.1Zn_0.9SnSe₄ compounds were synthesized by high-temperature melting followed by annealing at four different temperatures (600 °C, 650 °C, 700 °C and 725 °C). X-ray diffraction combined with Raman spectroscopy confirmed the presence of Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ phase along with ZnSe and CuSe secondary phases. The increased annealing temperature critically affected the microstructure of Cu_2.1Zn_0.9SnSe4 alloys. Successive increase in annealing temperature subsequently increases the average grain size from 7.3 for 600 sample to 12.1 μm for 725 °C sample by shifting grain size distribution toward higher range. Increased grain size results in reduced carrier scattering and decreases the electrical resistivity eventually improving power factor and maximum power factor of about 400 μWk^?2 m^?1 is obtained for 725 °C sample. Besides, the increased annealing temperature resulted in increased thermal conductivity attributing increased grain size resulting in low phonon scattering. 725 °C sample shows highest power factor and moderate thermal conductivity among all the samples which resulted in highest value of figure of merit for 725 °C sample of about 0.1 at 673 K.

Graphical abstract