Sharif Digital Repository

The use of commercially available 2,6-bis(diphenylphosphino)pyridine as a ligand in conjunction with K2CO3, DMAc and TBAB is an effective method for the palladium-catalyzed CN coupling of a variety of aryl halides with anilines, N-heterocyclic aromatic amines, and a cyclic secondary amine. The reactions proceed in good to excellent yield (up to 98%) while the loading of Pd(OAc)2 was as low as 0.025 mol %  

A new modification of constrained groove pressing (CGP) process named as constrained groove pressing-cross route (CGP-CR) was suggested for severe plastic deformation (SPD) of sheet form metals with great potential for fabricating high strength nanostructured sheets. This process is based on the conventional CGP process including some modifications. One pass of this process includes eight stages (four corrugation and four flattening) and involves 90° cross-rotation between each two stages. As a result of each CGP-CR pass, a strain magnitude of ∼2.32 is imparted to the sample. To simulate the process, finite element modeling (FEM) was carried out using three-dimensional finite element... 

The development of high performance supercapacitors with high energy densities without sacrificing power densities has always been at the leading edge of the emerging field of renewable energy. Herein, the design and fabrication of innovative high performance binder-free electrodes consisting of coiled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and biomass-derived hydrothermal carbon spheres (HTCSs) as, respectively, positive and negative electrodes is reported. High performance asymmetric supercapacitors (ASCs) were developed using novel 3D core/shell-like binary Ni-Co oxide (NCO) decorated coiled CNTs directly grown on Ni nano-cone arrays (NCAs) and HTCSs directly deposited on NCAs. Novel 3D structures of... 

Developing high-performance supercapacitors is of great significance in the area of renewable energies by virtue of having both high energy and power densities. In this work, an innovative strategy is employed for the fabrication of binder-free binary nickel–cobalt-sulfide (NCS) nanosheets (NSs) directly decorated onto the hydrothermal nickel-sulfide (Ni3S2) nanowires (NWs) as the positive electrodes. The NCS/Ni3S2-nickel foam (NF) positive electrodes rendered superior specific capacity of 499.1 mAh.g−1 at 6 A.g−1. Encapsulated iron into the carbon sphere hosts (Fe-HTCSs) are used as the negative counterparts, exhibiting remarkable specific capacitance of 336.6 F.g−1 (at 0.1 A.g−1). The... 

Over the last few years, substantial efforts have been made to develop earth-abundant bi-functional catalysts for urea oxidation and energy-saving electrolytic hydrogen production due to their low cost and the potential to replace traditional noble-metal-based catalysts. Nevertheless, finding a straightforward and effective route to prepare efficient catalysts with unique structural features and optimal supports still is a big challenge. Among the various candidates, metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived materials show great advantages as new kinds of active non-precious catalysts. On the other hand, the controllable integration of MOFs and carbon-based nanomaterials leads to further... 

The disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as persistent organic pollutants from the environment has been normally performed by isolation from soil or water because of their biological activity and toxic potential. In the present investigation, catalytic hydrodehalogenation was used to detoxify PCBs-contaminated transformer oil. All reactions were directed on an oil containing 11.09 wt% of PCBs utilizing palladium supported on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Pd/MWCNTs). The amount of hexa-chlorine homologues reduced considerably from 5.07% to less than 800 ppm utilizing HDC at the atmosphere of argon. Moreover, the amounts of long half-lives and bioaccumulative congener of PCB 153... 

Gas flooding processes have emerged as attractive enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods over the last few decades. Among different gas flooding processes, CO2 flooding is recognized as being most efficient for displacing oil through miscible displacement. Minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) is a crucial parameter for successfully designing CO2 flooding, which is traditionally measured through time-consuming, expensive, and cumbersome experiments. In the present study, a new reliable model based on feed-forward artificial neural networks was presented to predict both pure and impure CO2-crude oil MMP. Among various properties and parameters, reservoir temperature, reservoir oil composition, and... 

The Phase I applications of the statistical profile monitoring have recently been extended to the case when the response variable is binary. We are motivated to undertake the current research in an attempt to try to provide a unified framework for the Phase I control in the context of statistical profile monitoring that can be used to tackle a large class of response variables, such as continuous, count, or categorical response variables. The unified framework is essentially based on applying the change point model to the class of generalized linear models. The proposed Phase I control chart is assessed and compared with the existing charts under binomial and Poisson profiles. Some... 

In today's competitive supply chains, providing products which can stimulate the customer's demand and enhance the revenues of companies is an important objective. Therefore, three stimulating factors, including the carbon emission reduction, return policy and quality improvement efforts are taken into consideration in a supply chain (SC). In line with reducing carbon emission, two possibilities in the forward flow, including the technologies investment and the trade and cap are employed. In the reverse flow, hybrid remanufacturing of the imperfect quality products under technology license is investigated. The impacts of collecting-remanufacturing processes on carbon reduction, quality... 

A transcritical carbon dioxide (T-CO2) cycle is analyzed for waste heat recovery from a gas turbine. The cycle is proposed to produce combined power and cooling using carbon dioxide as a single pure working fluid. Simple, cascade and split cycle configurations are compared for power generation using a recuperator while a low-temperature loop is added for the cascade and split cycles. In a previous report in the literature the power generation part alone was presented for the three configurations and it was concluded that the split cycle can produce the highest power among the three systems. Here, the same configurations are studied combined with a compression refrigeration cooling effect... 

Electro-oxidation of methanol in alkaline solution at a glassy carbon electrode electrochemically modified by a conductive polymeric meso-tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrinato nickel(II), abbreviated as poly-NiTCPP and also meso-tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin with incorporated nickel(II) cations, abbreviated as, poly-TCPP/Ni, were investigated and compared. Both films were prepared by oxidative electro-polymerization of complexes by repetitive cyclic voltammetry (RCV) in 0.1 M NaOH aqueous solution. The electrochemical properties and behaviors and also kinetic values of both films have been characterized and compared using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA) and electrochemical... 

A gas-phase heterogeneous kinetics is described over perovskite with formula La0.6Sr0.4Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ (LSCF) for the oxidative coupling of methane under differential conversion conditions in a microcatalytic fixed-bed reactor. The ethane (C2H6) and carbon oxides (COX) formation and methane conversion rates were obtained as a function of methane and oxygen partial pressure under experimental conditions of: 0.20 < PC H4 < 0.82 atm, 0.04 < PO2 < 0.15 atm, and 1073 < T < 1173 K. The different kinetic models were examined and two Eley-Rideal mechanisms (a and b) were successfully performed to fit the experimental data into the theoretical relations from which two mechanisms having a first step of... 

Nickel modified graphite electrodes (G/Ni) prepared by galvanostatic deposition were examined for their redox process and electrocatalytic activities towards the oxidation of methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol and 2-propanol in alkaline solutions. The methods of cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA) and impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed. In CV studies, the electrochemical response, peak current varied in the order of MeOH > EtOH > 1-PrOH > 2-PrOH. Under the CA regime, a higher catalytic rate constant obtained for methanol oxidation was in agreement with CV measurements. Lower charge transfer resistance was obtained for low carbon alcohols oxidation and significantly higher... 

The aim of this study is to investigate the most important drivers of environmental impacts and identify the influence of parameters on the uncertainty of the environmental impacts in various climate zones and future climate scenarios. We couple a combined greenhouse energy demand-yield simulation tool with a life cycle assessment to identify the drivers for greenhouse energy, water and CO2 demand as well as yield production. Environmental impacts are evaluated using the methods of IPPC for assessing climate change and available water remaining (AWARE) for water scarcity impacts. Furthermore, we compare the results for all five main climate world regions. With a global sensitivity analysis,... 

HVOF-sprayed coatings (WC-17%Co) and hard chromium coatings corrosion resistances have been compared through electrochemical polarization test in 3.5% NaCl solution. WC-17%Co alloy coatings were deposited on mild steel substrates by High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (HVOF) spray process. The layers of standard and crack free hard chromium coatings were prepared by using Direct Current (DC) and Pulse Current (PC) electroplating process on the mild steel substrates. Hard chromium coatings was characterized as a reference material, to verify whether HVOF-sprayed coatings are suitable as a hard chromium coatings replacement. The microstructure of the coatings was examined by OM, SEM and XRD. Standard hard... 

Two kinds of carbon coated and uncoated 316L stainless steel are studied to use as bipolar plates in fuel cells. The results show that the conductive amorphous carbon film has a low corrosion rate in simulated PEMFC environment. Rather long term potentiostatic tests and SEM investigations indicate that carbon thin films can be a good candidate to use as bipolar plate  

The results of three cases of two consecutive reactors are studied in two types of co-current and counter-current flow in second reactor where two consecutive reactors are oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reactors. FT reactor can be fixed bed or membrane fixed bed reactor with a hydrogen perm-selective membrane. Effect of CH4/O2 ratio, contact time, inlet temperature, and amount of N2 in OCM feed on C2 to C5+ hydrocarbons produced in FT reactor were studied. Results show that use of counter-current hydrogen-perm selective membrane FT reactor that sequenced after OCM reactor improves the C5+ yield as a desirable product and reduces the amount of CH4 and CO2 as... 

Urban transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in big cities. In-use emissions of vehicles are higher than the emission control certification levels. The current study uses a roadside remote sensing emission monitoring campaign to investigate (a) fraction of high emitters in the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet and their contributions to the total emissions, (b) emission inspection (I/M) programs' effectiveness, and (c) alternate fuel (natural gas) encouragement policy. LDVs consist of passenger or freight transport vehicles with four wheels equivalent to classes M1 and N1 of European union vehicle classifications. The motivation is to assess the current emission inspection... 

Through tearing test, the absorbed energy of a low carbon steel and an Al-Mg alloy sheets are compared. The tests are carried out quasi-statically using the wedge tools with different angles. Also, the effects of the inclination angle of sheet to vertical and angle between normal to sheet and edge of wedge are investigated on the energy absorption of both the steel and aluminum alloy. The results show that with increasing the later angles, the absorbed energy is decreased and with increasing the wedge angle, the energy is increased. Comparing the absorbed energy of the sheets with the same thicknesses, it is found that the energy absorption of the steel is higher than that of the aluminum... 

The use of water-alternating-gas injection can potentially lead to improved oil recovery from the fields; simultaneous water and gas injection is a form of water-alternating-gas injection. However, there is still an incomplete understanding of these processes and the need for comparative work is inevitable. Core flood experiments and compositional simulations of water-alternating-gas and simultaneous water and gas processes are presented. Immiscible, near miscible, and miscible modes of injection are covered. Matching process is done and optimization of design parameters (injection rate, slug size, water-alternating-gas ratio, and injection gas) is performed. Experimental data demonstrate...