The Effect of Rock-crude Oil-fluid Interactions on Wettability Alteration of Oil-wet Sandstone in the Presence of Surfactants

The aim of the present work was to study the rock-fluid interaction in presence of surfactants and thereby their effects on wettability alteration of oil-wet sandstone for its essentiality in enhanced oil recovery. Characterization of sandstone sample and its interaction with crude oil, brine and surfactants were investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction studies were performed to characterize the sandstone sample. Critical micelle concentrations of sodium dodecyl sulfate, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, Tergitol 15-S-7, Tergitol 15-S-9, and Tergitol 15-S-12 were determined by interfacial tension measurement method. Wettability alteration of sandstone was studied by contact angle method.     

Enantioselective Synthesis of α‐Amino‐γ‐sulfonyl Phosphonates with a Tetrasubstituted Chiral α‐Carbon via Quinine‐Squaramide‐Catalyzed Michael Addition of Nitrophosphonates to Vinyl Sulfones

α‐Nitro‐γ‐sulfonyl phosphonates with a key tetrasubstituted chiral α‐carbon center have been synthesized for the first time in high yield and enantioselectivity through a quinine‐squaramide‐catalyzed conjugate addition of α‐nitro phosphonates to aryl vinyl sulfones. Representative examples presented here for the transformation of nitrosulfonyl phosphonates to aminosulfonyl phosphonates, alkylation at the α‐position of the sulfonyl group followed by desulfonation and scale‐up of the conjugate addition highlight the practical applications of the methodology.     

Thermal behaviour of hydroxides, hydroxysalts and hydrotalcites

Mass spectrometric analysis of gases evolved during thermal decomposition of divalent metal hydroxides, hydroxysalts and hydrotalcites show that all these compounds undergo dehydration in the temperature range 30 <T < 220°C followed by decomposition at temperatures above 250°C. The latter step involves simultaneous deanation and dehydroxylation of the layers. Our observations conclusively prove that alternative mechanisms which envisage CO₂ evolution due to deanation at lower temperatures proposed by Kanezaki to be wrong.     

Reliability analysis of a flexible machining cell

Introduction of flexible machining systems incorporating robotic manipulators for high speed transfer of tools and workpieces entails high capital investment. This is an important constraint which limits the scope for experimentation and emphasises the importance of reliability as a deciding factor in the use of such systems. This paper describes a typical flexible machining cell configuration. Operational details relating to its elements and their components are included. A large amount of data concerning the failure characteristics of various subsystem elements are gathered and processed. Using a representative sample, qualitative and quantitative analyses of the system reliability are carried out using various reliability evaluation techniques. These include block diagram analysis (BDA), fault tree analysis (FTA) and a discrete Markov model. In particular attention is paid to the availability of the robot-assisted tool delivery system, including sensing, measuring and signal conditioning devices.     

Formation of hafnium-aluminum-oxide gate dielectric using single cocktail liquid source in MOCVD process

We demonstrate that a high quality metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) HfAl/sub x/O/sub y/ (hereafter HfAlO) dielectric film can successfully be deposited with a wide range of composition controllability between HfO/sub 2/ and Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ in HfAlO using a single cocktail liquid source HfAl(MMP)/sub 2/(OiPr)/sub 5/. A composition ratio between 45 to 90% of HfO/sub 2/ in HfAlO is achieved by controlling deposition process parameters. The effect of the composition ratio between HfO/sub 2/ and Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ on the electrical properties of the film is also investigated. The HfAlO film with 90% HfO/sub 2/ (10% Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/), which has minimum sacrifice of K value (around 19), shows a great improvement in thermal stability and significant reduction of interfacial layer growth during subsequent thermal processes, leading to the reduction in leakage current by around 2 orders of magnitude compared to pure HfO/sub 2/ film. The HfAlO film also shows good compatibility with TaN metal gate electrode under high temperature annealing process.     

A solid transportation problem in uncertain environment involving type-2 fuzzy variable

Neural Computing and Applications - The main focus of this paper is to develop a new safety-based restricted fixed charge solid transportation problem with type-2 fuzzy parameter that minimizes...     

Features Extraction for Detection of Blurred Image Regions

The article discusses our study of the problem of blurred image regions detection. Proposed are 21 features: 20 based on the discrete wavelet transform and one being a ratio based on a gray-level co-occurrence matrix. Described features are introduced in order to detect blurred segment regardless of the blur type such as background blur, motion blur, or out of focus. Moreover, proposed features are relatively easy to calculate and parallelize. Multilayer perceptron with a backpropagation algorithm is trained on mentioned features. Three approaches are introduced and tested: (1) with nonoverlapping fixed size windows, (2) with nonoverlapping recursively divided windows, and (3) with addition of a morphological closing operator.     

On the Characterization of Absentee-Voxels in a Spherical Surface and Volume of Revolution in $${\mathbb Z}^3$$

We show that the construction of a digital sphere by circularly sweeping a digital semi-circle (generatrix) around its diameter results in the appearance of some holes (absentee-voxels) in its spherical surface of revolution. This incompleteness calls for a proper characterization of the absentee-voxels whose restoration in the surface of revolution can ensure the required completeness. In this paper, we present a characterization of the absentee-voxels using certain techniques of digital geometry and show that their count varies quadratically with the radius of the semi-circular generatrix. Next, we design an algorithm to fill up the absentee-voxels so as to generate a spherical surface of revolution, which is complete and realistic from the viewpoint of visual perception. We also show how the proposed technique for absentee-filling can be used to generate a variety of digital surfaces of revolution by choosing an arbitrary curve as the generatrix. We further show that covering a solid sphere by a set of complete spheres also results to an asymptotically larger count of absentees, which is cubic in the radius of the sphere. A complete characterization of the absentee-voxels that aids the subsequent generation of a solid digital sphere is also presented. Test results have been furnished to substantiate our theoretical findings.     

Maleic anhydride grafted linear low‐density polyethylene/waste paper powder composites with superior mechanical behavior

The present work aims to study the perspectives of an efficient utilization of waste products as fillers for the thermoplastic polymer. Maleic anhydride grafted linear low‐density polyethylene (LLDPE‐g‐ MA), without any compatibilizers, has been used as polymer matrix to prepare composites with different contents (0–50 phr) of waste paper powder (WPP). Mechanical properties assessment has shown up to 88% improvement in tensile strength and a huge increment of 409% in Young's modulus for the composites prepared at 30 phr WPP. The reinforcement effect of WPP in the polymer matrix was also assessed by Guth‐Gold and modified Guth‐Gold equations. Microstructural analysis of the fractured surfaces revealed good interfacial adhesion with fewer voids and fiber pull out up to 30 phr WPP loading. Interfacial interaction between maleic anhydride group of LLDPE‐g‐ MA and ? OH groups present dominantly in the cellulosic component of WPP was established through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The thermal properties of prepared composites were analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134 , 45167.     

Alkyl amine functional dextran macromonomer‐based thin film composite loose nanofiltration membranes for separation of charged and neutral solutes

Thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membranes with defined porous structure of the separation layer are desirable for the concentration of neutral solute and separation of salts from a mixture. Herein, we report the formation of TFC membranes composed of polyamide (PA) separation layer by the interfacial polymerization between new dextran‐butyl amine (Dex‐NH₂) macromonomer and trimesoyl chloride on polysulfone support membrane. The membranes prepared with 1%–1.5% (wt/vol) of Dex‐NH₂ exhibited water permeance of 110–116 L m^?2 h^?1 MPa^?1 with 62%–71% rejection of Na₂SO₄ and 12%–14% rejection of MgCl₂. The membranes also showed about 91% rejection of poly(ethylene glycol) of molecular weight 2000 g/mol and about 11% rejection of NaCl. A decrease in permeance and ions selectivity was observed with increasing concentration of Dex‐NH₂. The dextran chains attached to the PA network restrict the diffusion of Dex‐NH₂ toward the interfacial zone and thereby assist the formation of porous and thin PA layer compared to that when free amine (alkyl diamine) was used. These membranes are applicable for the separation of small molecular weight neutral solutes from mixture containing monovalent salts. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134 , 45301.