Thermal Stability Study of Ultrafine Grained 304L Stainless Steel Produced by Martensitic Process

An ultrafine grain 304L stainless steel with average grain size of about 650 nm was produced by martensitic process. 10 mm as-received sheets were 80% cold rolled in the temperature of ?15 °C and then annealed at 700 °C for 300 min to obtain ultrafine grained microstructure. The results showed that the ultrafine grained 304L steel has yield strength of 720 MPa, tensile strength of about 920 MPa, and total elongation of 47% which is about twice that of coarse grain structure. The effect of annealing temperature (750-900 °C) on the grain growth kinetics was modeled by isothermal kinetics equation which resulted in the grain growth exponent (n) and activation energy for grain growth of 4.8 and 455 KJ/mol, respectively. This activation energy was also compared with those for other austenitic steels to better understanding of the nature of grain growth and atoms mobility during annealing. It was found that activation energy for grain growth is about twice higher than self-diffusion activation energy of austenite that is related to the Zener pinning effects of the second phase particles.     

Opportunistic interference management: a new approach for multiantenna downlink cellular networks

A new approach for multiantenna broadcast channels in cellular networks based on multiuser diversity concept is introduced. The technique called opportunistic interference management achieves dirty paper coding capacity asymptotically with minimum feedback required. When there are K antennas at the base station with M mobile users in the cell, the proposed technique only requires K integer numbers related to channel state information between mobile users and base station. The encoding and decoding complexity of this scheme is the same as that of point‐to‐point communications, which makes the implementation of this technique easy. An antenna selection scheme is proposed at the base station to reduce the minimum required mobile users significantly at the expense of reasonable increase in feedback. In order to guarantee fairness, a new algorithm is presented that incorporates opportunistic interference management into existing Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) standard. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis of Co3O4 @ Organo/Polymeric Bentonite Structures as Environmental Photocatalysts and Antibacterial Agents for Enhanced Removal of Methyl Parathion and Pathogenic Bacteria

Two green nanocomposites of Co₃O₄ decorated CTAB/bentonite (Co@CT/BE) and chitosan/bentonite (Co@CH/BE) were synthesized as enhanced and environmental photocatalysts and antibacterial agents. As photocatalysts, the products were applied in the effective oxidation of toxic methyl parathion pesticide (MP) in wastewater under a visible light source. The application of Co@CH/BE (0.02 g) resulted in the complete oxidation of MP (50 mg/L) after 40 min and complete mineralization after 60 min. while the complete oxidation and mineralization of MP (50 mg/L) by Co@CT/BE was recognized after 75 min and 100 min, respectively. The Co@CH/BE composite is of higher activity than Co@CT/BE and can cause complete oxidation for MP at high concentrations up to 100 mg/L after 75 min. The oxidation pathway was illustrated considering the existence of the hydroxyl radicals as the active oxidizing species and the identified secondary organic compounds during the oxidation tests. The detected intermediate converted into end products of CO₂ and inorganic anions of SO₄^?2, NO₃^?, and PO₄^?3 at the final stages of the oxidation processes. As antibacterial agents, the two composites exhibit considerable inhabitation zones of about 20 mm against both the Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative bacterium Vibrio Sp. The synthetic Co@CH/BE showed the best antibacterial properties with 200 μg/mL as minimum inhibitory against Staphylococcus aureus.

     

Use of a selective extractant-impregnated resin for removal of Pb(II) ion from waters and wastewaters: Kinetics,equilibrium and thermodynamic study

Adsorption of Pb(II) ion by a novel extractant-impregnated resin, EIR, was studied as a function of various experimental parameters using batch adsorption experiments. The new EIR was prepared by impregnating gallocyanine (GCN) onto Amberlite XAD-16 resin beads. The EIR was characterized by nitrogen analysis and SEM micrographs. The new EIR showed excellent selectivity factor values (α) for Pb(II) adsorption respect to other metal ions. The effects of some chemical and physical variables were evaluated and the optimum conditions were found for Pb(II) removal from aqueous solutions. The equilibrium adsorption isotherm was fitted with the Langmuir adsorption model. The maximum adsorption capacity (q_max) of EIR for Pb(II) ions was found to be 367.92 mg g⁻¹. The kinetic studies showed that the intra-particle diffusion is the rate-controlling step. Also, the intra-particle diffusion coefficients, D_ip values, were of the order of 10⁻¹² m² s⁻¹. The values of enthalpy (ΔH°) were positive, which confirms the endothermic nature of adsorption process. Also, the positive entropy changes (ΔS°) were showed that the randomness increased along with the adsorption process. In addition, the obtained negative values of Gibbs free energy (ΔG°) indicated feasible and spontaneous nature of the adsorption process at different temperatures. The new adsorbent was very stable so that it can be successfully used for many consecutive cycles without significant loss in its adsorption capacity.     

Correction to: Synthesis of Co3O4 @ Organo/Polymeric Bentonite Structures as Environmental Photocatalysts and Antibacterial Agents for Enhanced Removal of Methyl Parathion and Pathogenic Bacteria

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials -     

Preparation of Al2O3–TiB2 nanocomposite powder by mechanochemical reaction between Al,B2O3 and Ti

Mechanochemical processing is a novel technique for the synthesis of nano-sized materials. This research is based on the production of Al₂O₃–TiB₂ nanocomposite powder using mechanochemical processing. For this purpose, a mixture of aluminum, titanium and boron oxide powders was subjected to high energy ball milling. The structural evaluation of powder particles after different milling times was conducted by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that during ball milling the Al/B₂O₃/Ti reacted with a combustion mode producing Al₂O₃–TiB₂ nanocomposite. In the final stage of milling, the crystallite sizes of Al₂O₃ and TiB₂ were estimated to be less than 50 nm.     

Petrology and origin of chromite mineralisation in the Khoy Area,NW Iran

There are several chromite occurrences in the Khoy ophiolite complex, in NW Iran. These deposits have been extensively altered and deformed, with the host dunite-harzburgite often undergoing complete alteration to serpentinite. The ophiolite complex composed of harzburgite, dunite, gabbro, diabasic dykes, pillow lavas which are accompanied by deep water sediments, radiolarian chert and plagic limestone. The Khoy chromite occurs as disseminated grains, nodular and discontinuous layers often in a lenticular form all characteristics of podiform chromite deposits. The Cr₂O₃% reaches up to 34.7% in the massive chromite bodies. The effects of tectonic activity and obduction are recorded as cataclastic textures and pull-apart structures in chromite grains. Geochemical studies confirm that the Khoy chromite is podiform type. It appears that this chromite has crystallised from a Cr-rich magma in separate, mini-magma conduits in the upper mantle.     

A subspace approach to adaptive narrow-band interferencesuppression in DSSS

We address the problem of suppression of a digital narrow-band interferer in direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) communications. We focus on the adaptive suppression method proposed by Honig, Madhow and Verdti (see IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol.41, p.944-960, 1995) for wide-band interference, applying it to a narrow-band interferer. We identify the eigenspaces of the system dynamics to analyze the convergence of the adaptive version of the minimum mean square error (MMSE) algorithm for this application. Using this subspace approach we are able to: (1) significantly decrease the convergence times via a new constraint on the step size in adaptation; (2) introduce a simple parameterization of the mean output energy (MOE) and signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) to compare performance of various receivers; and (3) identify modes of operation where the algorithm will cease to effectively cancel interference. We propose a new adaptive receiver that avoids the convergence anomalies identified, while capitalizing on the new step size for faster convergence. Simulation results to support theoretical results are presented     

The effect of type of atmospheric gas on milling behavior of nanostructured Ti6Al4V alloy

Recently fabrication of titanium alloys through solid state processes such as mechanical alloying has been greatly taken into consideration. In the present investigation the effects of common atmospheric impurities, oxygen and nitrogen, on the fabrication procedure and milling behavior of nanostructured Ti–6Al–4V alloy during mechanical alloying (MA) was studied. In this regards, elemental powders were milled under three different protective atmospheres of air, 90% and 99.998% pure Argon. Results indicated that, samples milled under Ar with 90% purity featured the best behavior and reached a nanostructure and subsequent amorphous state in shorter time periods. This was considered to be due to Ti lattice distortion made by interstitial element such as O₂ and N₂.     

Rapid carbothermic synthesis of silicon carbide nano powders by using microwave heating

This paper reports an improved procedure for synthesis of silicon carbide nanopowders from silica by carbothermic reduction under fast microwave-induced heating. The powders have been prepared by direct solid-state reaction in a 2.45 GHz microwave field in nitrogen atmosphere after 40 h milling. For the first time, the formation of silicon carbide (β-SiC) as a major phase can be achieved at 1200 °C in 5 min of microwave exposure, resulting in nano sized particles ranging from 10 to 40 nm under optimized synthesis condition. The Rietveld quantitative phase-composition analysis confirmed that the major SiC polytype is cubic SiC (β-SiC) with 98.5(4) weight fraction and the remained is minor hexagonal SiC polytypic (α-SiC) phases. Therefore this method is the most efficient one for SiC powder synthesis in terms of energy and time saving as well as preparation of SiC nano powders.