Sharif Digital Repository

Groundwater vulnerability assessment of urban areas is a challenging task in the fast trend of urbanization around the globe. This study introduces a new approach for modifying well-known parameters of common vulnerability indexes to adjust them for urban areas. The approach is independent of a specific weighting system. The aquifer of Mashhad city, contaminated by domestic wastewater, is selected as a case in this study. In order to evaluate the aquifer vulnerability due to anthropogenic activities, at first, parameters of depth to groundwater, recharge, land use, and soil are modified based on their basic concepts and their influences on contamination attenuation. Then, the modified... 

Most of 200 Activated Sludge Plant in Iran are overloaded and as a result, their efficiency is low. In this work, a pilot plant is manufactured and put into operation in one of the wastewater treatment plants in the west of Tehran. Instead of conventional activated sludge, a membrane bioreactor and an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor used as a pretreatment unit in this pilot. For the sake of data accuracy and precision, an enriched municipal wastewater was opted as an influent to the pilot. Based on the attained result, the optimum retention time in this system was 4. h, and the overall COD removal efficiency was 98%. As a whole, the application of this retrofit would increase the... 

In the present work a central composite design based on response surface methodology (RSM) is employed for fine tuning of the aspect ratios of seed-mediated synthesized gold nanorods (GNRs). The relations between the affecting parameters, including ratio of l-ascorbic acid to Au3+ ions, concentrations of silver nitrate, CTAB, and CTAB-capped gold seeds, were explored using a RSM model. It is observed that the effect of each parameter on the aspect ratio of developing nanorods highly depends on the value of the other parameters. The concentrations of silver ions, ascorbic acid and seeds are found to have a high contribution in controlling the aspect ratios of NRs. The optimized parameters led... 

We report a new method of growing Mn-doped CdS (CdS:Mn) nanoparticles in an aqueous solution at boiling temperature. The idea is to use precursors that react only at high temperature, in order to gain crystalline luminescent nanoparticles. CdSO4, Mn(NO3)2 and Na 2S2O3 were used as the precursors, and thioglycerol was employed as the capping agent and also the reaction catalyst. Na2S2O3 is thermally sensitive and it releases S2- ions upon heating. The CdS:Mn nanoparticles obtained are about 4 nm in size and show both cubic and hexagonal crystalline phases with a ratio of 35% to 65%. The luminescence of nanoparticles contains a peak at 580 nm, which is related to Mn2+ ions. Prolonged reaction... 

Nanocrystalline TiO2-AgO thin films and powders were prepared by an aqueous particulate sol-gel route at the low temperature of 573 K (300 °C). Titanium tetraisopropoxide and silver nitrate were used as precursors, hydroxypropyl cellulose was used as a polymeric fugitive agent in order to increase the specific surface area. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that the phase composition of the mixed oxide depends upon the annealing temperature, being a mixture of TiO2 and AgO in the range 573 K to 773 K (300 °C to 500 °C) and a mixture of TiO2, AgO, Ag2O at 973 K (700 °C). Furthermore, one of the smallest crystallite sizes was obtained for TiO... 

Pechini process was used for preparation of three kinds of nanocrystalline powders of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ): doped with 1.5 mol% nickel oxide, doped with 15 mol% ceria, and doped with 1.5 mol% nickel oxide plus 15 mol% ceria. Zirconium chloride, yttrium nitrate, cerium nitrate, nickel nitrate, citric acid and ethylene glycol were polymerized at 80 °C to produce a gel. XRD, SEM and TEM analyses were used to investigate the crystalline phases and microstructures of obtained compounds. The results of XRD revealed the formation of nanocrystalline powder at 900 °C. Morphology of the powder calcined at 900 °C, examined with a scanning electron microscope, showed that the presence of... 

Nickel nanoparticles supported on MgO-Al2O3 and Al2O3 were synthesized by an impregnation method using dinitrobisethylenediamine nickel and nickel nitrate hexahydrate as precursors and were used as catalysts for CO methanation. Different MgO contents (1.5-11.25 wt %) were employed for the preparation of supports, and NiO loadings were in the range of 10-40 wt %. The optimum catalyst prepared from proper amounts of MgO (∼2 wt %) and NiO loading (20 wt %) with [Ni(en)2(H2O)2](NO3)2 as precursor and a mesoporous support with a wide range of mesopores resulted in highly dispersed nickel nanoparticles that exhibited moderate metal-support interactions, lower acidic surface sites, and enhanced... 

In this investigation a new type of superabsorbent hydrogel based on agar was prepared, and the effect of the feed ratio of some components (acrylic acid, MBA, APS and agar) on the swelling capacity of the hydrogel was systematically studied. Maximum water absorbency of the optimized final product was found to be 1,100∈g/g in distilled water. The structure of the hydrogel was characterized by FT-IR method and morphology of the samples was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Swelling properties of optimized hydrogel sample in different swelling mediums were investigated. The optimum hydrogel were also loaded with potassium nitrate and its potential for controlled release of... 

Nanocomposites of Ce-TZP/Al 2O 3 were synthesized by aqueous combustion, and urea, ammonium acetate and glycine were used as mixtures of fuels with the corresponding metal nitrates. Thermodynamic modeling was conducted to anticipate the effect of the alumina content on the exothermicity of the combustion procedure. The thermodynamic properties of the combustion reaction indicated that as the alumina content increased, the amount of gases produced during the reaction increased with a decrease in the adiabatic temperature. Furthermore, to reduce the particle size of the powders, a series of combustion reactions were performed to optimize the fuel composition and alumina content. Ce 0.1Zr 0.9O... 

Graft copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) was carried out on bagasse fibers in an aqueous medium using eerie ammonium nitrate (CAN) as initiator under a neutral atmosphere. In order to obtain the optimum condition for graft copolymerization, the effects of initiator concentration, temperature, time of reaction, and monomer concentration were studied. The maximum grafting percent was found to be 122%. The bagasse grafted poly(methyl methacrylate) was characterized by FTIR and its thermal behavior was characterized by TGA. Copyright © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA