Critical Shear Stress of Bimodal Sediment in Sand-Gravel Rivers

A new model for the critical shear stress and the transport of graded sediment is presented. The model is based on the size distribution of the bed surface and can be used to compute sediment transport rates in numerical simulations with an active layer model. This model makes a distinction between unimodal and bimodal sediments. It is assumed that all size fractions of unimodal sediments have the same critical shear stress while there is selective transport for the gravel fractions of bimodal sediments. A recently published laboratory transport data set is used to calibrate our model.     

Coding distributive lattices with Edge Firing Games

In this note, we show that any distributive lattice is isomorphic to the set of reachable configurations of an Edge Firing Game. Together with the result of James Propp, saying that the set of reachable configurations of any Edge Firing Game is always a distributive lattice, this shows that the two concepts are equivalent.     

Recovering gallium from residual bayer process liquor

Gallium is normally obtained by direct electrolysis as a by-product from Bayer process residual liquor at an aluminum processing plant. However, to permit any net accumulation of the metal, the gallium concentration must be at least about 0.3 g/l in the liquor. This article describes a continuous process of extraction with organic solvents and rhodamine-B, followed by a re-extraction step into aqueous media. The final product is a solid containing up to 18 wt.% Ga in a solid mixture of hydroxides and oxides of gallium and aluminum. This final product can then be electrolyzed to recover the gallium more efficiently.     

Study of siloxane additives migration to the surface of polyester-(melamine)-polyurethane coatings: Aging effects after ethanol cleaning

This study determines the influences of siloxane flow agents’ migration on the outermost surface composition of clearcoats, before and after ethanol cleaning. This evaluation is undertaken to improve adhesion of pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) on automotive paint systems. Most of the siloxane flow agents segregate from the bulk to the clearcoat outermost surface during curing. These additives can cover until 50% of the surface area but X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) analyses indicate that they can be removed by ethanol cleaning. Composition of the cleaned clearcoats surfaces are similar as the composition of clearcoat formulated without siloxane additives: the polyester-(melamine)-polyurethane network is more detected than before cleaning. However, outermost surface analyses show that several aging weeks increase the siloxane additives segregation. This post-cleaning migration modifies the clearcoat surface composition and cancels the chemical modifications due to the ethanol cleaning. XPS analyses show that silicon concentrations after cleaning and aging are inversely proportional to the initial silicon concentrations measured after curing. It highlights that aging has to be controlled to improve adhesion of PSAs on clearcoats. A second ethanol cleaning on aged clearcoats is not effective to remove these new siloxane additives. Their formulation should be different from the flow agents and it could modify their solubility in ethanol. This result could also indicate that these new siloxane additives are not located on the last molecular layer of surface and they would not be soluble in ethanol.     

Comparing the Performance of Organic Solvent Nanofiltration Membranes in Non-Polar Solvents

Organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) is gradually expanding from academic research to industrial implementation. The need for membranes with low and sharp molecular weight cutoffs that are able to operate under aggressive OSN conditions is increasing. However, the lack of comparable and uniform performance data frustrates the screening and membrane selection for processes. Here, a collaboration is presented between several academic and industrial partners analyzing the separation performance of 10 different membranes using three model process mixtures. Membrane materials range from classic polymeric and thin film composites (TFCs) to hybrid ceramic types. The model solutions were chosen to mimic cases relevant to today's industrial use: relatively low molar mass solutes (330–550 Da) in n-heptane, toluene, and anisole.     

On preconditioning for a parallel solution of the Richards equation

In this paper, we present a class of preconditioning methods for a parallel solution of the three-dimensional Richards equation. The preconditioning methods Jacobi scaling, block-Jacobi, incomplete lower–upper, incomplete Cholesky and algebraic multigrid were applied in combination with a parallel conjugate gradient solver and tested for robustness and convergence using two model scenarios. The first scenario was an infiltration into initially dry, sandy soil discretised in 500,000 nodes. The second scenario comprised spatially distributed soil properties using 275,706 numerical nodes and atmospheric boundary conditions. Computational results showed a high efficiency of the nonlinear parallel solution procedure for both scenarios using up to 64 processors. Using 32 processors for the first scenario reduced the wall clock time to slightly more than 1% of the single processor run. For scenario 2 the use of 64 processors reduces the wall clock time to slightly more than 20% of the 8 processors wall clock time. The difference in the efficiency of the various preconditioning methods is moderate but not negligible. The use of the multigrid preconditioning algorithm is recommended, since on average it performed best for both scenarios.     

Development of a water-in-oil-in-water multiple emulsion system integrating biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanodroplets for protein entity stabilization. Part II: process and product characterization

The aqueous-core enclosed in lipid nanoballoons integrating multiple emulsions of the type water-in-oil-in-water mimic, at least in theory, the environment within viable cells, thus being suitable for housing hydrophilic protein entities such as bioactive proteins, peptides and bacteriophage particles. This study reports a complete physicochemical characterization of optimized biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons housing hydrophilic (BSA) protein entities, evolved from a statistical 2³×3¹ factorial design study (three variables at two levels and one variable at three levels) that was the subject of the first paper of a series of three, aiming at complete stabilization of the three-dimensional structure of protein entities attempted via housing the said molecular entities within biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons integrating a multiple (W/O/W) emulsion. The statistical factorial design followed led to the production of an optimum W/O/W multiple emulsion possessing quite homogeneous particles with an average hydrodynamic size of (186.2?±?2.6) nm and average Zeta potential of (?36.5?±?0.9) mV, and exhibiting a polydispersity index of 0.206?±?0.014. Additionally, the results obtained for the diffusion coefficient of the lipid nanoballoons integrating the optimized W/O/W multiple emulsion were comparable and of the same order of magnitude (10^?12 m² s^?1) as those published by other authors since, typically, diffusion coefficients for molecules range from 10^?10 to 10^?7 m² s^?1, but diffusion coefficients for nanoparticles are typically of the order of magnitude of 10^?12 m² s^?1.     

A new approach to the design of high-Tc superconductors: Metallised interlayers

We show from muon spin relaxation (SR) studies on mercury HTS superconductors that a 50-fold increase in irreversibility field obtained by partial substitution of Re for Hg is due to metallisation of the Hg/Re layer. Induced superconductivity on this metallic layer doubles the overall superfluid density. This suggests a new approach to the design of high performance HTS materials: metallising one of the non-CuO₂ interlayers and thereby greatly enhancing the superconducting properties.     

Electronic specific heat of overdoped Tl2Ba2CuO6+δ in a magnetic field

We have measured the magnetic field dependence of the electronic specific heat ^el (=C^el/T) of polycrystalline Tl₂Ba₂CuO₆₊ from 8 K to above T_c, for samples with T_c = 24 K to 72 K using a high resolution, differential technique. We find that in applied fields of up to 13 T the position of the specific heat jump does not shift significantly for any T_c. This is in strong disagreement with H_C2(T) inferred from magnetoresistance experiments on the same compound, where the resistive transition is shifted down considerably by similar fields. However, there is a dramatic collapse of the specific heat anomaly height in field — signifying a loss in entropy around T_c — compensated by a corresponding increase in ^el at lower temperatures. The superconducting anomaly is almost completely suppressed in 13 T for the lowest T_c sample, compared to a reduction of 65 % for the sample with T_c = 72 K. We find simple vertical scaling of ^el(T) — _n suggesting that the field forces a proportion of the superconductor into the normal state, while the remainder in the superconducting state is unaffected.