Single‐step fabrication of an anode supported planar single‐chamber solid oxide fuel cell

We present single‐step‐co‐sintering manufacture of a planar single‐chamber solid oxide fuel cell (SC‐SOFC) with porous multilayer structures consisting of NiO/CGO, CGO and CGO‐LSCF as anode, electrolyte, and cathode, respectively. Their green tapes were casted with 20 μm thickness and stacked into layers of anode, electrolyte, and cathode (10:2:2), then hot‐pressed at 2 MPa and 60°C for 5 minutes (deemed optimal). Subsequently, hot laminated layers were cut into 40 × 40 mm cells and co‐sintered up to 1200°C via different sintering profiles. Shrinkage behavior and curvature developments of cells were characterized, determining the best sintering profile. Hence, anode‐supported SC‐SOFCs were fabricated via a single‐step co‐sintering process, albeit with curvature formation at edges. Subsequently, anode thickness was increased to 800 μm and electrolyte reduced to 20 μm to obtain SOFCs with drastically reduced curvature with the help of a porous alumina cover plate.     

Pt and W ohmic contacts to p-6H-SiC by focused ion beam direct-write deposition

Low resistance Pt and W ohmic metallizations to p-type 6H-SiC, using focused ion beam (FIB) surface-modification and in-situ direct-write metal deposition without annealing, are reported. FIB (Ga) surface-modification and in-situ deposition of Pt, and W showed minimum contact resistance values of 2.8 × 10⁻⁴ ohm-cm² to 2.5 × 10⁻⁴ ohm-cm², respectively. A comparison with ex-situ pulse laser deposited Pt on surface-modified areas showed comparable contact resistance values and similar behavior. Auger and secondary ion mass spectroscopy analysis showed a significant (∼4% a.c.) incorporation of Ga within a 15 nm distance from the SiC surface with surface-modification. Atomic force micros-copy studies showed that surface-modification process smooths out the SiC surface significantly.     

A review on front end conversion in ocean wave energy converters

Harvesting the energy from ocean waves is one of the greatest attractions for energy engineers and scientists. Till date, plenty of methods have been adopted to harvest the energy from the ocean waves. However, due to technological and economical complexity, it is intricate to involve the majority of these energy harvesters in the real ocean environment. Effective utilization and sustainability of any wave energy harvester depend upon its adaptability in the irregular seasonal waves, situation capability in maximum energy extraction and finally fulfilling the economic barriers. In this paper, the front end energy conversions are reviewed in detail which is positioned in the first stage of the wave energy converter among other stages such as power take off (PTO) and electrical energy conversion. If the recent development of these front end energy conversion is well known then developing wave energy converter with economic and commercial viability is possible. The aim of this review is to provide information on front end energy conversion of a point absorber and emphasize the strategies and calamity to be considered in designing such kinds of devices to improve the energy harvesting competence. This will be useful to the engineers for speeding up the development of a matured point absorbing type wave energy converter.     

2D and 3D mapping of microindentations in hydrated and dehydrated cortical bones using confocal laser scanning microscopy

We report on responses of hydrated and dehydrated cortical bone tissues to mechanical loading applied by a Vickers indenter. The Vickers indentations were imaged in two- and three-dimensions (2D and 3D) using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) to understand mechanical behavior of bone tissues. Serial optical sections of indentation patterns of dry and wet bones were collected using CLSM. The indention surface structures were mapped using topographical CLSM imaging. The observation of CLSM shows the fundamental indentation responses for both the hydrated and dehydrated bone tissues were plastic deformation. No visible fracture was observed in the Vickers indentation patterns in the wet bone tissue, while non-propagating lamellar microcracks occurred in the dry bone tissue. This indicates that drying resulted in increased brittleness of the bone tissue. The Vickers hardness values of dry bone tissue were significantly higher than those of wet bone tissue at any applied loads (analysis of variation, ANOVA, p < 0.05). The resolution limits of confocal microscopy were also discussed for bone tissue scanning.     

Synthesis,characterization, and electrochemical performance of the ternary layered composite (1-x-y) LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2·xLi2MnO3·yLiCoO2

Composite ceramic cathodes represented by the formula (1-x-y) LiNi_1/3Co_1/3Mn_1/3O₂·xLi₂MnO₃·yLiCoO₂ were studied. A ternary compositional diagram was built with these ceramic materials as end-members, and selected points were chosen to represent the compositional space. Synthesized ceramic composite materials were investigated as to whether integration of structurally compatible units leads to improved electrochemical performance. Detailed structural (X-ray diffraction – XRD), elemental (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy-XPS), microstructure (Scanning electron microscopy – SEM), and electrochemical (galvanostatic testing of half-cells) studies were performed and are presented. Within eight samples studied three compositions are found to exhibit first discharge capacity of around 230 mAh/g.     

Hydrogen-iodide decomposition over PdCeO2 nanocatalyst for hydrogen production in sulfur-iodine thermochemical cycle

A highly active and stable catalyst for hydrogen-iodide decomposition reaction in sulfur-iodine (SI) cycle has been prepared in the form of PdCeO₂ nanocatalyst by sol-gel method with different calcination temperatures (300 °C, 500 °C, and 700 °C). XRD and TEM confirmed a size around 6–8 nm for PdCeO₂ particles calcined at 300 °C. Raman study revealed large number oxygen vacancies in PdCeO₂-300 when compared to PdCeO₂-500 and PdCeO₂-700. With increase in calcination temperature, the average particle size increased whereas the specific surface area and number of oxygen vacancies decreased. Hydrogen-iodide catalytic-decomposition was carried out in the temperature range of 400°C–550 °C in a quartz-tube, vertical, fixed-bed reactor with 55 wt % aqueous hydrogen-iodide feed over PdCeO₂ catalyst using nitrogen as a carrier gas. PdCeO₂-300 showed hydrogen-iodide conversion of 23.3%, which is close to the theoretical equilibrium conversion of 24%, at 550 °C. It also showed a reasonable stability with a time-on-stream of 5 h.     

Magnetic resonance scan‐time reduction using echo prediction

A linear prediction (LP) filter derived from a complete echo with zero‐phase encoding amplitude is used for recovering anatomical details from a partially acquired echo sequence. The LP filter is shown to reconstruct missing k‐space phase and amplitude information, with errors sufficiently low so as to provide image reconstruction with a contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR) ≥ 3. For volume imaging using multislice acquisition, the partial‐echo sequence enables more number of slices to be acquired for a given repetition time period T_R. For such sequences, separate predictors are used for reconstruction of missing k‐space data corresponding to each individual slice in the volume. The proposed filtering scheme is shown to achieve results comparable to other partial k‐space approaches such as singularity function analysis (SFA), when the noise content is less than about 0.4%. For higher noise levels, this technique is recommended as a preprocessing step for SFA to track the singularity locations more accurately. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 1–8, 2013     

Synthesis of phosphinic acid resin using acidic 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloroaluminate ionic liquid as catalyst

The resin is functionalized by the introduction of phosphinic acid moieties by Friedel–Crafts phosphination reaction using acidic 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloroaluminate ionic liquid as catalyst. The phosphorous and hydroxyl capacities of the resin are compared with those obtained by using conventional aluminium chloride catalysis. Extraction of uranium(VI) from nitric acid medium by the resins has been studied, and it was found that the distribution coefficient (K_d, mL/g) of uranium(VI) initially decreases with the increase in the concentration of nitric acid, and reaches a minimum value at 1.5 M in nitric acid followed by the increase in K_d values. A maximum distribution coefficient has been obtained when the concentration of nitric acid was 4.0–5.0 M. The extraction data have been fitted in to a Langmuir adsorption model for obtaining the apparent experimental capacity.     

Performance of a Binary PPM Ultra-Wideband Communication System with Direct Sequence Spreading for Multiple Access

In this paper, we present an analysis of the BER performance of an ultra-wideband (UWB) system with pulse position modulation (PPM) for data modulation and direct sequence (DS) spreading for multiple access over indoor lognormal fading channels. A rake receiver is used to combine a subset of the resolvable multipath components using the maximal ratio combining technique. Inter-path and multiple-access interferences are modeled and incorporated into the bit-error-rate expressions. The analytical and simulation results allow one to quantify many critical aspects of a DS-PPM UWB system such as the gain of the optimally spaced signaling scheme over the orthogonal signaling scheme, the potential error floor given a specific channel multipath delay spread and the number of interfering users, tolerance of the system to timing jitter, and impact of user codes.     

Polymer assisted isolation of hydroxyapatite from Thunnus obesus bone

The combination of micro and nanostructured hydroxyapatite (HAp) was isolated from Thunnus obesus bone via thermal calcination method in the presence of polymers such as poly ethylene glycol (PEG), poly (ethylene glycol)-block-poly (propylene glycol)-block-poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG-PPG-PEG) and poly vinyl alcohol (PVA). The thermal stability, crystalline phase, chemical composition and morphology of the derived HAp were characterized by thermal gravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy analysis. The physicochemical characteristic examination revealed that derived HAp was coherent with standard HAp data. Moreover, FE-SEM depicted significant difference in the crystal size of HAp derived with thermal calcination, with and without added polymers. The crystallinity of HAp isolated in the presence of polymer was lower than that obtained in the absence of polymers. The biocompatibility of the derived HAp crystals was checked with MC3T3-E1 osteoblastic cells by MTT assay and Hoechst-33342 staining. The biocompatibility of HAp derived by polymer assisted thermal calcination method revealed that it is less toxic as compared to HAp derived in the absence of polymer. As an inference, polymer assisted thermal calcination derived HAp is good in terms of the presence of combined micro and nanostructured HAp and its low toxicity will bring about new orthopaedic applications.