Sharif Digital Repository

Artificial neural networks were used to predict the oxidation peaks potentials of 7 monosaccharides under linear sweep voltammetry regime. Two sets of descriptors, one based on molecular properties calculated through DFT and another based on simple geometric distributions of hydroxyl groups and asymmetric carbon atoms along molecular chains, were employed to introduce the molecules to networks. Relatively, simple networks of (3,3,1) and (3,3,3,1) structures with the number of epochs not exceeding 15 through training process were capable of correctly predicting the peaks positions with R values in the range of 0.97-0.99. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved  

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is receiving renewed interest worldwide in recent years as a viable method while not damaging the reservoir is proven to be remarkably effective, however to some extent costly. This method is based on microorganisms' activities to reduce residual oil of reservoirs, which is dependent on behavior of inherent microorganisms or injection of bioproduct of external microorganisms. In this work, five bacterial species were taken from MIS crude oil that is one of the aging Persian fractured reservoirs. These microorganisms are substantially strong in increasing oil recovery especially by reducing IFT and other MEOR mechanisms such as change of wettability of... 

Nutrient pollution has become a global environmental issue. Innovative biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes are needed to overcome the drawbacks of conventional technologies. This study evaluates the potential of a hybrid 5-stage Bardenpho - moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) process for organic carbon and nutrient removal from municipal wastewater at different hydraulic retention time (HRT) and nitrate recycle ratio (R). Response surface methodology (RSM) based on a central composite design (CCD) of thirteen experiments was applied to optimize the nitrogen and phosphorus conversion of the treatment system. High removal efficiencies of about 98.20%, 92.54%, 94.70% and 96.50% for total... 

Feed-forward is one of the best methods for linearizing microwave power amplifiers, but due to device tolerance in implementation of the system components, the practical Inter-Modulation Rejection (IMR) value may differ quite much from the theoretical IMR value. One of the methods to improve the practical performance of the system is using the multi-loop configuration. Here we have introduced the multi-loop feedforward systems and we have estimated the practical IMR values of the system using Monte-Carlo analysis. As the analysis shows, although the number of components in a multi-loop system is increased with respect to a simple feed-forward system, but the difference between the practical... 

Medium-pore (diameter - 6A) zeolites such as ZSM-5 and silicalite impregnated with Group VIII metals provide selective catalytic pathways for the conversion of synthesis gas to gasoline or olefins. Mössbauer and magnetic studies on these catalysts containing iron or iron plus cobalt are reported. The zeolites were impregnated with metal nitrate solutions, reduced, and carbided to yield showed Fe3+ type spectra. The ZSM-5 (14.7 % Fe) and Silicalite (13.6 % Fe) samples exposed to H2 (450 C) showed an approximate 85% reduction to the metallic state. The carbided ZSM-5 (14.7 % Fe) revealed a spectrum of Hagg carbide (Fe5C2), an active component of the catalyst. The used catalysts showed mixtures... 

The effects of water vapor on CO2/CH4 separation using commercially available poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) and Cardo-type polyimide hollow fiber membranes were investigated. Pure methane and CO2/CH4 mixture permeation experiments were carried out in the absence and presence of water vapor (60% RH). Pure methane permeance decreased in the presence of water vapor for both membrane types. The decrease was 28% for hydrophilic Cardo-type polyimide and 6% for hydrophobic PPO membranes. The decline in the permeance was also observed for CO2/CH4 mixture separation through both membranes. However, selectivities of the two membranes were affected differently by water vapor. The... 

The current paper is an attempt to find a sustainable fuel strategy for passenger cars in Iran. Currently, most of Iran's passenger cars consume gasoline, a non-renewable fossil fuel. This fuel has well-known environmental impacts, including various kinds of pollutions, as well as the threat of quick running out. These general negative characteristics of gasoline are amplified by the high consumption rate of Iran's transportation sector, (e.g. about three times more than that of UK). The objective of this paper is firstly selecting possible alternative fuels for Iran's transportation sector, and then proposing the percent of cars consuming these alternative fuels (along with gasoline). The... 

Fiber reinforced materials are widely used in many industrial structures including automotive, aviation, and civil due to their lower weights compared to metal structures. Full-composite body structures, especially in automotive and aviation applications, are becoming a proper replacement for current metal ones. For this reason, damage of such structures subjected to impact is a crucial case study in current research. The typical types of damages are mainly caused during production, repair, maintenance, or by particle crashes during function, and collisions between different structures. In this paper, four different fiber reinforced composite plates are studied after being impacted by a... 

Lithium perchlorate has been found to be an inexpensive and efficient catalyst for the ring opening of epoxides by indole and N-methylindole, which provides an environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of substituted indoles. A complete regioselectivity in favor of nucleophilic attack at the benzylic carbon atom of aromatic epoxides, such as styrene oxide, is observed. However, aliphatic unsymmetrical alkene oxides undergo selective nucleophilic attack at the sterically less-hindered carbon atom. This catalyst offers several advantages, such as short reaction time, high yields, lower catalytic loading, simple experimental procedure, and easy isolation of the products, under... 

In this study, 15 wt. % NiO-MgO-SiO2 catalysts modified by La2O3 promoter were prepared through a co-precipitation route and employed for syngas production via propane steam reforming. Various techniques including X-Ray diffraction, BET, TPR, CO2-TPD, CO-chemisorption, TPO, and Scanning electron microscopy were utilized to characterize the final samples. The results indicated that the incorporation of La2O3 enhanced the metal-support interaction providing less reducible Ni species. In comparison with the La-free catalyst, the promoted ones possessed higher metal dispersion and smaller Ni particles. Nonetheless, excessive amounts of La covering the active sites negatively decreased the Ni... 

Carbon fiber (CF) as a multifunctional material with superb performance in aviation industry has serious drawback such as impedance mismatch which restricted the capability of using it as microwave absorber materials. In this research, a novel hierarchical carbon fiber@La0.7Sr0.3MnO@NiO (CF/LS/N) composite was facilely and successfully synthesized via sol-gel and subsequent hydrothermal reactions. The structural, morphological, magnetic and electromagnetic behavior of the composite were precisely evaluated via XRD, FESEM, XPS, VSM and VNA analysis. According to the systematic evaluation results, the synergistic positive effect of adding NiO nanoparticles is revealed in improving the... 

Stem cell treatment is promising in the various disorders treatment, but its effect is confined by the adverse conditions in the damaged tissues. The utilization of hydrogels has been suggested as a procedure to defeat this issue by developing the engraftment and survival of injected stem cells. Specifically, injectable hydrogels have drawn much attention due to their shape adaptability, ease of use, and the capability to reach body parts that are hard to access. In this study, the thermosensitive injectable hydrogels based on oxidized alginate, gelatin, and carbon nitride quantum dots (CNQDs) have been fabricated for tissue engineering. The mechanical characteristics of the nanocomposite... 

Different polymers have been already introduced for passivating the interfacial defects at the interface of perovskite and the organic hole transport material, meanwhile as an environmental barrier in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) compared to polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) at the interface of the perovskite (Cs0.05(MA0.83FA0.17)0.95Pb(Br0.17I0.83)3) layer and CuInS2/carbon as a low-cost inorganic hole-collecting electrode are investigated. By suppressing interfacial recombination using PMMA and PVK, saturation current density (in dark current) decreases one order of magnitude from 7.9 × 10−10 to 4.0 × 10−11 mA cm−2 by adding PMMA and two orders of magnitude... 

An environmentally friendly heterogeneous ternary carbon dots (CDs)/MIL-88B (Fe)/Bi2S3 nanocomposite was synthesized by a multistep method. In this study, we have studied low-temperature calcination with relatively inexpensive reactants. The sufficient CD arrays were generated by loading the glucose molecules into the pores of an as-obtained metal-organic framework (MOF), i.e. MIL-88B (Fe)), by heating to 200 °C. Fabricated nanocomposite structures were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, EIS, SEM, TEM, BET, and TGA techniques, demonstrating the decoration of the Bi2S3 on the CDs/MIL-88B (Fe) nanocomposite surface. MOF templating has been chosen as a systemic method for limited size CD formation... 

Hydrogen and syngas, as two effective clean fuels, have a considerable stake in the global fuel market. These are dominantly produced from fossil fuels through reforming processes, which lose a large amount of energy and emit numerous amounts of CO2. Bio-renewable glycerol steam reforming is an attractive alternative to traditional reforming for reducing the dependence on hydrocarbon resources and mitigating climate change. This research aims to manage a heat-integrated reactor with three concentric cylinders, containing exothermic-side (methane tri-reforming), endothermic-side (glycerol steam reforming), and permeation-side for co-production of pure hydrogen and syngas. In this process,... 

The aim of this study is to assess the influence of oxygen-to-steam ratio, wall boundary conditions, coal feeding rate, and static bed height on the concentrations, heating values, and efficiencies of the product gas in a tapered fluidized bed reactor. Results show that lower and higher heating values slightly vary with increasing the oxygen-to-steam ratio in the range of 0.25–0.35. It is found that cold gas efficiency and carbon conversion efficiency goes up with increased ratio of oxygen to steam; however, both efficiencies decline as a result of increasing the coal feeding rate. As static bed height rises, lower and higher heating values diminish for tapered angle of 5°. For tapered angle... 

SnO2 is considered as one of the high specific capacity anode materials for Lithium-ion batteries. However, the low electrical conductivity of SnO2 limits its applications. This manuscript reports a simple and efficient approach for the synthesis of Sb-doped SnO2 nanowires (NWs) core and carbon shell structure which effectively enhances the electrical conductivity and electrochemical performance of SnO2 nanostructures. Sb doping was performed during the vapor-liquid-solid synthesis of SnO2 NWs in a horizontal furnace. Subsequently, carbon nanolayer was coated on the NWs using the DC Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition approach. The carbon-coated shell improves the Solid-Electrolyte... 

Water flooding is one of the most common enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods, however its application in naturally fractured reservoirs (NFR), suffers from the flow of water in high permeable channels and fractures which leads to low areal and volumetric sweep efficiency. Preformed Particle Gels (PPG), as a subset of gel treatments, can play a vital role in plugging super-permeable zones either near wellbore or deep in the reservoir. Nevertheless the mechanical strength and thermal stability of the designed PPGs, especially under harsh environmental conditions, are subject to further research and development. In spite of recent studies, the effects of nano-materials on the rheological and... 

Carbon-based nanocarriers such as multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have shown promising delivery capabilities due to their low immunogenicity, superior internalization, and suitable cell penetration efficiency. Herein, a molecular engineering strategy is advanced for the one-pot synthesized rGO/MWCNT/Fe3O4/ZnO to enhance the stability of the nanocarrier in the biological matrix; green synthesized ZnO was responsible for water uptake and reduced cytotoxicity, while Fe3O4controlled the cellular internalization for gene delivery. Surface morphology of the ensuing nanocomposite was correlated with photocatalytic and gene delivery (CRISPR/Cas9) features. For... 

With significant advancements in research technologies, and an increasing global population, microfluidic and nanofluidic systems (such as point-of-care, lab-on-a-chip, organ-on-a-chip, etc) have started to revolutionize medicine. Devices that combine micron and nanotechnologies have increased sensitivity, precision and versatility for numerous medical applications. However, while there has been extensive research on microfluidic and nanofluidic systems, very few have experienced wide-spread commercialization which is puzzling and deserves our collective attention. For the above reasons, in this article, we review research advances that combine micro and nanotechnologies to create the next...