Carbon nanohorn‐graphene nanoplate hybrid: An excellent electrode material for supercapacitor application

This study describes the capacitor behavior of carbon nanohorn (CNH)/graphene nanoplate (GNP) hybrid (CNGN). The well‐CNH‐decorated GNP‐plate electrode materials show high capacitance value (≈677 F/g) and can be extensively used in new generation for energy storage. In the hybrid (CNGN), two nanofillers jointly affect the capacitance behavior and increase the capacitance value of the CNGN hybrid. Homogeneous coating of CNH over the GNP plate plays an effective role to enhance the capacitance behavior of the composite. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis of the composite confirmed the CNH coating on the GNP plate. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42118.     

Frictional Pressure Drop of Air Non‐Newtonian Liquid Flow through Helical Coils in Horizontal Orientation

Investigations have been carried out to evaluate the two‐phase frictional pressure drop for air non‐Newtonian liquid flow through helical coils in horizontal orientation. The experiments performed using 36 different helical coils and 4 different concentrations of sodium salt of carboxymethyl—cellulose (SCMC) as non‐Newtonian liquids. The effects of air and liquid flow rate, coil diameter, helix angle and liquid properties‐ on two‐phase frictional pressure drop have been discussed. An attempt has been made to fit the experimental two‐phase frictional pressure drop data by the Lockhart and Martinelli, Chem. Eng. Prog. 45 , 39–48 (1949) correlation and the modified Lockhart‐Martinelli correlation as presented by different authors. In another approach, friction factor method was adopted to correlate the experimental data by dimensional analysis. The correlation developed predicts the two‐phase frictional pressure drop with acceptable statistical accuracy.     

Multipath routing in mobile ad hoc network with probabilistic splitting of traffic

Multipath routing is a burning issue in mobile ad hoc network due to its various advantages over single path routing. Some of these advantages are load balancing, bandwidth aggregation, and fault tolerance. Multipath routing means multiple paths exist between source and destination pair. Many works discussed in section 2 addressed queuing delays, but none of them suggested queuing delay for multiple path deliveries of data in mobile ad hoc network context. In this paper, we have designed a mathematical model to compute delay and throughput for multipath. Our model follow the network of M/M/1 queues, and we have applied Burke’s theorem to calculate the queuing delay of the packet in mobile network scenario. This model can be used to estimate delay and throughput of an individual path. Further, through the analysis the best path for data delivery out of available multiple paths as well as the multipath path can be used simultaneously for data delivery to the destination. Simulation result shows that splitted traffic multiple paths outperform splitted traffic. Therefore, our model is useful for design and analysis of ad hoc network. The simulation work has been carried out in Qualnet simulator.     

Effect of carbon containing SiNx antireflection coating on the screen‐printed contact and low illumination performance of silicon solar cell

Screen‐printed metal contact formation through a carbon containing antireflection coating was investigated for silicon solar cells by fabricating conventional carbon‐free SiN_x and carbon‐rich SiC_xN_y film. An appreciable difference was found in the average shunt resistance (R_sh), which was about an order of magnitude higher for SiC_xN_y‐coated solar cells relative to the counterpart SiN_x‐coated solar cells. Series resistance (R_s) and fill factor (FF) were comparable for both antireflection coatings but the starting efficiency of SiC_xN_y‐coated cell was ~0·2% lower because of slightly inferior surface passivation. However, SiC_xN_y‐coated solar cells showed less degradation under lower illumination (<1000 W/m²) compared with the SiN_x‐coated cells due to reduced FF degradation under low illumination. Theoretical calculations in this paper support that this is a direct result of high R_sh. Detailed photovoltaic system and cost modeling is performed to quantify the enhanced energy production and the reduced levelized cost of electricity due to higher shunt resistance of the SiC_xN_y‐coated cells. It is shown that R_sh value below 30 Ω (7000 Ω cm² for 239 cm² cell) can lead to appreciable loss in energy production in regions of low solar insolation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of thermophoresis and chemical reaction on MHD micropolar fluid flow with variable fluid properties

This work investigates the effect of thermophoresis and chemical reaction on heat and mass transfer in hydromagnetic micropolar fluid flow over an inclined permeable plate with constant heat flux and non-uniform heat source/sink in the presence of thermal radiation. It is assumed that the transverse magnetic field is a function of the distance from the origin. The analysis accounts for both temperature dependent fluid viscosity and thermal conductivity. Using the similarity transformation, the governing system of equations are transformed into non-linear ordinary differential equations and are solved numerically using symbolic software MATHEMATICA. Numerical results for the velocity, microrotation, temperature and species concentration as well as for the skin friction, heat and mass transfer are obtained and displayed graphically for pertinent parameters to show interesting aspects of the solution.     

Use of Raw and Acid-Treated MnO2 as Catalysts for Oxidation of Dyes in Water: A Case Study with Aqueous Methylene Blue

Catalytic wet oxidation has become one of the best options for mineralization of dyes in water. In this work, mineralization of methylene blue in water was tried by using raw and acid-treated (0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 N H₂SO₄) MnO₂ as oxidation catalysts. Fourier transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, surface area and cation exchange capacity measurements were used to characterize the catalysts. The acid-treated materials showed large increases in surface area while changes in other surface characteristics were moderate in nature. The oxidative destruction of the dye was possible at near room temperature and the process was optimized with respect to interaction time, dye concentration, catalyst loading, pH of the medium, and temperature. The dye (1.0 mg/L) was oxidized to the extents of 88.5%, 96.5%, 96.8%, and 97.7% with corresponding chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction of 64.7%, 86.4%, 87.2%, and 88.2% by raw MnO₂, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 N acid-treated MnO₂(catalyst loading 2.5 g/L), respectively. The reduction in COD indicated oxidation of the dye to simpler organic compounds achieving mineralization to a large extent. The oxidation followed first-order kinetics and the catalysts could be used up to six repeated runs without much change in activity. Analysis of the intermediate products of oxidation helped in proposing the potential pathways for oxidative conversion of methylene blue.     

Fischer–Tropsch synthesis: Deactivation of promoted and unpromoted cobalt–alumina catalysts

The loss in activity of Pt-promoted and unpromoted 25 wt% Co–Al₂O₃ catalysts has been compared under identical conditions except for adjustment of the space velocity to give the same initial CO-conversion. Both catalysts underwent a 200 h period of rapid, initial decline in CO conversion and then a slower, linear decline during the next 1000 h. Pt-promotion did not alter the cobalt dispersion (or average particle size) from that of the unpromoted catalyst but did increase the amount of cobalt that was reduced. When compared not by time-on-stream, but by the moles of Co converted per unit weight of catalyst, both the Pt-promoted and unpromoted catalysts decline in activity at the same rate.     

Utilization of Hyperion data over Dongargarh,India, for mapping altered/weathered and clay minerals along with field spectral measurements

Hyperion data acquired over Dongargarh area, Chattisgarh (India), in December 2006 have been analysed to identify dominant mineral types present in the area, with special emphasis on mapping the altered/weathered and clay minerals present in the rocks and soils. Various advanced spectral processes such as reflectance calibration of the Hyperion data, minimum noise fraction transformation, spectral feature fitting (SFF) and spectral angle mapper (SAM) have been used for comparison/mapping in conjunction with spectra of rocks and soils that have been collected in the field using Analytical Spectral Devices's FieldSpec instrument. In this study, 40 shortwave infrared channels ranging from 2.0 to 2.4 μm were analysed mainly to identify and map the major altered/weathered and clay minerals by studying the absorption bands around the 2.2 and 2.3 μm wavelength regions. The absorption characteristics were the results of O–H stretching in the lattices of various hydrous minerals, in particular, clay minerals, constituting altered/weathered rocks and soils. SAM and SFF techniques implemented in Spectral Analyst were applied to identify the minerals present in the scene. A score of 0–1 was generated for both SAM and SFF, where a value of 1 indicated a perfect match showing the exact mineral type. Endmember spectra were matched with those of the minerals as available in the United States Geological Survey Spectral Library. Four minerals, oligoclase, rectorite, kaolinite and desert varnish, have been identified in the studied area. The SAM classifier was then applied to produce a mineral map over a subset of the Hyperion scene. The dominant lithology of the area included Dongargarh granite, Bijli rhyolite and Pitepani volcanics of Palaeo-Proterozoic age. Feldspar is one of the most dominant mineral constituents of all the above-mentioned rocks, which is highly susceptible to chemical weathering and produces various types of clay minerals. Oligoclase (a feldspar) was found in these areas where mostly rock outcrops were encountered. Kaolinite was also found mainly near exposed rocks, as it was formed due to the weathering of feldspar. Rectorite is the other clay mineral type that is observed mostly in the southern part of the studied area, where Bijli rhyolite dominates the lithology. However, the most predominant mineral type coating observed in this study is desert varnish, which is nothing but an assemblage of very fine clay minerals and forms a thin veneer on rock/soil surfaces, rendering a dark appearance to the latter. Thus, from this study, it could be inferred that Hyperion data can be well utilized to identify and map altered/weathered and clay minerals based on the study of the shape, size and position of spectral absorption features, which were otherwise absent in the signatures of the broadband sensors.     

Investigation of thermal performance of SAC variables using fuzzy logic based expert system

The thermal performance of a solar air collector (SAC) is investigated experimentally under the different climatic conditions of north eastern India using fuzzy logic based expert system (FLES). The FLES based on subtractive clustering (SC) with the fuzzy logic method where here, SC is used for extraction of optimal fuzzy IF-THEN rules while a fuzzy logic is used for modeling of SAC variables. This work considered four input variables [like mass flow rate (m), collector tilt angles (θ), solar radiation (Q), temperature (T)] and the four output variables [i.e. efficiency (η), exergetic efficiency (η_II), temperature rise (∆T), and pressure drop (∆P)]. First, 272 trials of experimentation on SAC are performed by varying m from 0.0078 to 0.0118 kg/s and θ from 30 to 60°, whereas the variation of metrological data is obtained in different working days. Then modeling and parametric analysis is carried out for SAC. Experimental results reveal that the value of η increases with the increase in m, Q, T and θ up to 45°. The higher value of m results in a higher value of ∆P and that reduces the value of η_II. Also, FLES model provides comparable and acceptable values for SAC. At last, validation of the FLES model is done via published data to confirm the results.