Enhancing power transfer capability through flexible AC transmission system devices:a review

Global demand for power has significantly increased, but power generation and transmission capacities have not increased proportionally with this demand. As a result, power consumers suffer from variou...     

Ubi-App: a ubiquitous application for universal access from handheld devices

Universal access from a handheld device (such as a PDA, cell phone) at any time or anywhere is now a reality. Ubicomp Assistant (UA) (Sharmin et al. in Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM symposium on applied computing (ACM SAC 2006), Dijon, France, pp 1013–1017, 2006) is an integral service of MARKS (Sharmin et al. in Proceedings of the third international conference on information technology: new generations (ITNG 2006), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp 306–313, 2006). It is a middleware developed for handheld devices, and has been designed to accommodate different types of users (e.g., education, healthcare, marketing, or business). This customizable service employs the ubiquitous nature of current short range, low-power wireless connectivity and readily available, low-cost lightweight mobile devices. These devices can reach other neighbouring devices using a free short-range ad hoc network. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the UA service is the only service designed for these devices. This paper presents the details of Ubi-App, a ubiquitous application for universal access from any handheld device, which uses UA as a service. The results of a usability test and performance evaluation of the prototype show that Ubi-App is useful, easy to use, easy to install, and does not degrade the performance of the device.     

Numerical and Optical Analysis of Solar Power Level Adaptable Solar Reactor

Solar energy is an abundant renewable energy resource that can be used to provide high process heat necessary to run thermochemical processes for production of various solar fuels and commodities. In a solar reactor, sunlight is concentrated into a receiver through a small opening called the aperture. However, obtaining and maintaining semiconstant high temperatures inside a solar reactor is a challenge. This is because the incident solar radiation can fluctuate depending on the position of the sun and the weather conditions. For fixed aperture size reactors, changes in incident solar flux directly affect the temperature inside the reactor. This paper presents a novel solar reactor with variable aperture mechanism that is designed and manufactured at our lab. Radiation heat transfer analysis of this reactor concept is studied via Monte Carlo (MC) ray tracing. MC ray tracing module is coupled to a steady-state one-dimensional energy equation solver. Energy equation is solved for the wall and gas, accounting for the absorption, emission, and convection. Incoming direct flux values for a typical day are obtained from National Renewable Energy Lab database. Results show that for a perfectly insulated reactor, the average temperature of the working fluid may be kept appreciably constant throughout the day if aperture diameter is varied between 3 cm and 1.5 cm for incoming fluxes starting with 400 W/m² at 05:12 a.m., reaching peak value of 981 W/m² at noon, and eventually receiving 400 W/m² at 6:58 p.m., which can make the solar reactor run about 13 hr continuously at 1500 K semiconstant temperature.     

Nanoenergetic Composites of CuO Nanorods,Nanowires, and Al‐Nanoparticles

This paper reports on the synthesis of the nanoenergetic composites containing CuO nanorods and nanowires, and Al‐nanoparticles. Nanorods and nanowires were synthesized using poly(ethylene glycol) templating method and combined with Al‐nanoparticles using ultrasonic mixing and self‐assembly methods. Poly(4‐vinylpyridine) was used for the self‐assembly of Al‐nanoparticles around the nanorods. At the optimized values of equivalence ratio, sonication time, and Al‐particle size, the combustion wave speed of 1650 m s⁻¹ was obtained for the nanorods‐based energetics. For the composite of nanowires and Al‐nanoparticles the speed was increased to 1900 m s⁻¹. The maximum combustion wave speed of 2400 m s⁻¹ was achieved for the self‐assembled composite, which is the highest known so far among the nanoenergetic materials. It is possible that in the self‐assembled composites, the interfacial contact between the oxidizer and fuel is higher and resistance to overall diffusional process is lower, thus enhancing the performance.     

First record of Platygaster luteipes Buhl (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) from leaf galls on black pepper along with first report of the species from India.

Platygaster luteipes Buhl (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) is reported for the first time from India. Several specimens of both sexes of the species were reared from the globular galls on mature leaves of black pepper. The hitherto undescribed male of the species is characterized and illustrated.     

Dispersion of chitosan on perlite for enhancement of copper(II) adsorption capacity

Chitosan coated perlite beads were prepared by drop-wise addition of slurry, made of chitosan dissolved in oxalic acid and perlite, to an alkaline bath (0.7 M NaOH). The beads that contained 32% chitosan enhanced the accessibility of OH and amine groups present in chitosan for adsorption of copper ions. The experiments using Cu(II) ions were carried out in the concentration range of 50-4100 mg/L (0.78-64.1 mmol/L). Adsorption capacity for Cu(II) was pH dependent and a maximum uptake of 104 mg/g of beads (325 mg/g of chitosan) was obtained at pH 4.5 when its equilibrium concentration in the solution was 812.5 mg/L at 298 K. The XPS and TEM data suggested that copper was mainly adsorbed as Cu(II) and was attached to amine groups. The adsorption data could be fitted to one-site Langmuir adsorption model. Anions in the solution had minimal effect on Cu(II) adsorption by chitosan coated perlite beads. EDTA was used effectively for the regeneration of the bed. The diffusion coefficient of Cu(II) onto chitosan coated beads was calculated from the breakthrough curve and was found to be 2.02 x 10(-8) cm(2)/s.     

Dielectric Investigation of NaLiS Nanoparticles Loaded on Alginate Polymer Matrix Synthesized by Single Pot Microwave Irradiation

Sodium lithium sulfide (NaLiS) nanocomposite have been successfully synthesized by using microwave-irradiation (MWI) method. The study suggested that the application of microwave heating is to produce homogeneous and fine NaLiS nanocomposite which were achieved by using the precursors of lithium acetate and thioacetamide in the presence of sodium alginate biopolymer. FTIR is used to identify the structural coordination and functional groups of the prepared nanocomposite. The structural property of NaLiS particles was investigated by XRD. The surface morphology and elemental composition of synthesized material was confirmed by SEM and EDX analyses. The optical property was studied by using UV–Vis spectrophotometer. Thermal stability of as prepared sample was studied by TGA/DTG analysis. Electrical transport studies of the prepared nanocomposite have been analyzed for various temperatures. NaLiS nanocomposite has ionic conductivity of ~?10^?7 S cm^?1 at 35 °C which is six orders of magnitude higher than that of micro sized bulk Li₂S (~?10^?13 S cm^?1).     

Effect of novel (Gd,Cu) substitution on the electrical properties and magnetoelectric coupling of bismuth ferrite ceramics

The influence of Gd dopant and (Gd, Cu) dopants on the ferroelectric, dielectric and magnetoelectric properties of single phase BiFeO₃ (BFO) were investigated. Nanoparticles of undoped BiFeO₃, Bi_0.95Gd_0.05FeO₃ and Bi_1?xGd_xFe_0.98Cu_0.02O₃ (x?=?1, 2, 3, 4 and 5%) were prepared by sol–gel method. X-ray diffraction reveals that all the samples crystallize in rhombohedral phase. The simultaneous Gd and Cu doping at BFO lattice has significantly enhanced the ferroelectric properties of BFO compared to that of BFO. Substitution of Gd alone at the Bi site, gave rise to attractively enhanced remnant polarization. Though the (Gd, Cu) doped BFO samples exhibit relatively less enhancement, their values of remnant polarization are appreciable. Doping of (Gd, Cu) in the BFO lattice leads to an appreciable dielectric properties. An effective magnetoelectric coupling has been recorded for doped BFO when compared to BFO.     

Preparation and Characterization Studies of Nanostructured CdO Thin Films by SILAR Method for Photocatalytic Applications

This work reports the preparation of cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films with different molar concentrations on glass substrate by simple and low cost SILAR (Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction) method. The characterization, XRD pattern confirmed the presence of polycrystalline CdO in the deposited thin films with the cubic structure. The surface morphology and elemental composition of prepared thin films have been examined by scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis system. The optical property of the films was analyzed by UV–visible spectroscopy. The band gap of the deposited thin films was estimated by Tauc’s plot and it was found to be 2.6–2.8 eV. The prepared thin films were examined for the decomposition of the Methylene Blue (MB) dye which was visualized by UV-Visible spectroscopy, by decreasing the intensity of absorbance and concentration.