Neue Materialien – Was kann die Synthesechemie heute?

Materials of construction will exert a greater influence on cultural developments on all continents than in the past, meaning that research in materials science will have to be given a high interdisciplinary priority in countries with the right scientific and technological background. Particularly in the case of this developing area, science will have to emerge from its classical compartmentalization because further progress will require joint consideration of chemical, physical, and where appropriate biological aspects, while paying due attention to the creative scope of engineering. It will become more important than ever to combine science and engineering and to derive an innovative materials architecture from the more contemplative discipline of materials science.     

Pulsed flow for enhanced cleaning in food processing

The use of slow (～1 Hz) flow oscillation imposed on a stationary flow of liquid has been shown to enhance shear stresses imposed on a surface and to mitigate fouling or enhance cleaning. Examples of the application of pulsed flow are presented in this paper. A new measuring technique in combination with tailored CFD simulations was developed for monitoring the cleaning of complex piping equipment with pulsed flow. A time-independent and isotropic approach to model the wall shear stress is introduced. The optical monitoring procedure uses a model food soil consisting of starch as matrix material and phosphorescent zinc sulfide crystals as optical tracer. Investigations of pulsed flow cleaning published prior to this work focused on tests with straight pipes, whereas difficulties in industrial cleaning operations more often arise while operating piping systems and plant components with complex geometries. Therefore cleaning experiments were performed in a CIP test rig simulating industrial cleaning processes. The results with pulsed flow show an enhancement of cleaning efficiency at locations difficult to access using stationary flow.     

Multispectral fluorescence lifetime imaging by TCSPC

We present a fluorescence lifetime imaging technique with simultaneous spectral and temporal resolution. The technique is fully compatible with the commonly used multiphoton microscopes and nondescanned (direct) detection. An image of the back-aperture of the microscope lens is projected on the input of a fiber bundle. The input of the fiber bundle is circular, and the output is flattened to match the input slit of a spectrograph. The spectrum at the output of the spectrograph is projected on a 16-anode PMT module. For each detected photon, the encoding logics of the PMT module deliver a timing pulse and the number of the PMT channel in which the photon was detected. The photons are accumulated by a multidimensional time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) process. The recording process builds up a four-dimensional photon distribution over the times of the photons in the excitation pulse period, the wavelengths of the photons, and the coordinates of the scan area. The method delivers a near-ideal counting efficiency and is capable of resolving double-exponential decay functions. We demonstrate the performance of the technique for autofluorescence imaging of tissue.     

Natural versus wastewater derived dissolved organic carbon: implications for the environmental fate of organic micropollutants

The interaction of organic micropollutants with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) can influence their transport, degradation and bioavailability. While this has been well established for natural organic carbon, very little is known regarding the influence of DOC on the fate of micropollutants during wastewater treatment and water recycling. Dissolved organic carbon-water partition coefficients (K_DOC) for wastewater derived and reference DOC were measured for a range of micropollutants using a depletion method with polydimethylsiloxane disks. For micropollutants with an octanol-water partition coefficient (log K_OW) greater than 4 there was a significant difference in K_DOC between reference and wastewater derived DOC, with partitioning to wastewater derived DOC over 1000 times lower for the most hydrophobic micropollutants. The interaction of nonylphenol with wastewater derived DOC from different stages of a wastewater and advanced water treatment train was studied, but little difference in K_DOC was observed. Organic carbon characterisation revealed that reference and wastewater derived DOC had very different properties due to their different origins. Consequently, the reduced sorption capacity of wastewater derived DOC may be related to their microbial origin which led to reduced aromaticity and lower molecular weight. This study suggests that for hydrophobic micropollutants (log K_OW > 4) a higher concentration of freely dissolved and thus bioavailable micropollutants is expected in the presence of wastewater derived DOC than predicted using K_DOC values quantified using reference DOC. The implication is that naturally derived DOC may not be an appropriate surrogate for wastewater derived DOC as a matrix for assessing the fate of micropollutants in engineered systems.     

Conductor loss on transmission lines in monolithic microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits

A field-theoretical analysis of conductor loss on planar transmission lines is presented. The full-wave approach employed holds for arbitrary values of metallization thickness and skin depth. Its validity is checked by comparison to measurement data on coplanar waveguide (CPW). The results are discussed and compared with modeling approaches available so far. The considerations concentrate on the CPW case where, in contrast to the microstrip structures used in hybrid ICs, a significant influence of the fields inside the lossy conductors can be detected. Finally, conclusions regarding both millimeter-wave integrated circuit design and modeling are drawn. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Unusual selectivity of oxygenate synthesis: Formation of acetic acid from syngas over unpromoted Rh in NaY zeolite

Syngas conversion over Rh/zeolite-NaY catalysts at high-pressure lead to high yields of acetic acid. This unusual selectivity toward one oxygenate in the absence of any catalyst promoter is most pronounced at lower temperature; the apparent activation energy for overall CO-hydrogenation is 23.7 kcal/mol, but for the formation of acetic acid it is 11.9 kcal/mol. The selectivity is little affected by the protons formed during the reduction of Rh. In stiu FT-IR measurement reveals that changes in activity and selectivity during the start-up period are caused by thorough catalyst reconstruction, converting the original Rh⁰ clusters to multinuclear Rh₆(CO)₁₆ and CH₃Rh_y(CO)_x and/or mononuclear CH₃Rh(CO)_x carbonyl complexes, and smaller Rh⁰ clusters. Stable acetate groups, but not the surface bound acetyls, are formed and detected by FT-IR. Most of the cooperating Rh species survive when the pressure is lowered from 1.0 to 0.1 MPa, maintaining a high acetic acid selectivity that is vastly superior to that of the fresh catalyst.     

Material and bonding characteristics for dimensioning and modelling of textile reinforced concrete (TRC) elements

The collaborative research center “Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) – Development of a New Technology” (SFB 532) established at Aachen University (RWTH Aachen) is investigating the basic mechanisms of this new composite material. The use of technical textiles as reinforcement material in cementitious binder systems allows the production of thin-structured elements as will be dimensioned, modelled, and produced within the research project. For this reason the material properties of the single components have to be known and will be integrated in analytical and numerical simulations of textile reinforced structures. Thus key parameters on the meso-level are introduced. These are on the one hand the tensile strength and elastic modulus of filaments and rovings, on the other hand mechanical and fracture mechanical parameters of the matrix, and finally the bonding characteristics of filaments as well as rovings embedded in the cement based matrix.     

A priori vs. a posteriori normalisation of citation indicators. The case of journal ranking

Two paradigmatic approaches to the normalisation of citation-impact measures are discussed. The results of the mathematical manipulation of standard indicators such as citation means, notably journal Impact Factors, (called a posteriori normalisation) are compared with citation measures obtained from fractional citation counting (called a priori normalisation). The distributions of two subfields of the life sciences and mathematics are chosen for the analysis. It is shown that both methods provide indicators that are useful tools for the comparative assessment of journal citation impact.     

粉尘捕捉和分离技术在激光焊接切割中的应用

激光技术广泛运用于不同材料的焊接和切割中,由于切割或焊接中会产生大量的粉尘和烟尘．这种烟尘对工人的健康和整个工作环境都是有害的,因此要使用高效的除尘系统。防火保护措施也是很有必要,应采取一些特殊装置来尽量降低火灾的危险性。尤其是有机的或者非金属物质,在激光切割或雕刻当中,会产生粘性的颗粒物和气味,而这些对于普通的除尘系统而言是一个很大的难题。