Sharif Digital Repository

This study explores the effect of Guar gum as an eco-friendly additive on concrete mechanical characteristics. In the first stage, the slump and relative humidity tests were carried out for the fresh mortar, and tensile and compressive strengths were then determined for fifteen different mixture designs with two different curing times. Further, an exponential correlation was obtained between the ultrasonic pulse velocity and the compression test results. Additionally, scanning electron microscope (SEM) was employed to assess the bond between aggregates and Guar gum. At last, the Taguchi method and ANOVA were utilized to conduct the optimum states of the mechanical characteristics of the... 

Two-dimensional MXenes are the newly emerging family of nanomaterials with competitive performance for nano-device development. Surface functional groups and abundant binding sites make these materials ideal candidates for sensor applications. Herein, we report the successful fabrication of a MXene-based nano-bio device for capturing, sensing, and filtering the Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. Mannose carbohydrate, which binds strongly to E.coli's fimH protein via glucan multivalent interactions, is used as the bio-receptor element. MXene's structure was engineered to guarantee efficient E. coli capturing without mannose detachment. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic... 

In this research, a series of numerical simulations were conducted utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software in order to predict the heat transfer performance of queues nanofluids containing clove-treated graphene nanoplatelets (CGNPs) flowing in a horizontal stainless steel heated pipe. The GNPs were covalently functionalized with clove buds using free radical grafting reaction using an eco-friendly process. The advantage of this synthesis method was that it did not use hazardous acids, which are typically used in traditional treatment methods of carbon nanostructures. The thermo-physical properties of the aqueous nanofluids obtained experimentally were used as inputs for the... 

Efficient environmental management calls for the consideration of multiple pollutants, for which two main types of transferable discharge permit (TDP) program have been described: separate permits that manage each pollutant individually in separate markets, with each permit based on the quantity of the pollutant or its environmental effects, and weighted-sum permits that aggregate several pollutants as a single commodity to be traded in a single market. In this paper, we perform a mathematical analysis of TDP programs for multiple pollutants that jointly affect the environment (i.e., interactive pollutants) and demonstrate the practicality of this approach for cost-efficient maintenance of... 

Since the term was coined in the Brundtland report in 1987, the issue of sustainable development has been challenged in terms of quantification. Different policy options may lend themselves more or less to the underlying principles of sustainability, but no analytical tools are available for a more in-depth assessment of the degree of sustainability. Overall, there are two major schools of thought employing the sustainability concept in managerial decisions: those of measuring and those of monitoring. Measurement of relative sustainability is the key issue in bridging the gap between theory and practice of sustainability of water resources systems. The objective of this study is to develop a... 

Energy efficiency is one of the main pathways for energy security and environmental protection. In fact, the International Energy Agency asserts that without energy efficiency, 70% of targeted emission reductions are not achievable. Despite this clarity, enhancing the energy efficiency introduce significant challenge toward process operation. The reason is that the methods applied for energy-saving pose the process operation at the intersection of safety constraints. The present research aims at uncovering the trade-off between safe operation and energy efficiency; an optimization framework is developed that ensures process safety and simultaneously optimizes energy-efficiency, quantified in... 

Greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic sources are believed to be the main cause of global warming and climate change. Furthermore, fossil fuels are forecasted to remain the dominant source of energy in the near future. Therefore, capture and sequestration of greenhouse gases and in particular carbon dioxide is likely to be a major pathway toward environmental protection and energy sustainability. Such clarity has stimulated an intense and diverse range of research into various capture and mitigation technologies, which race with global warming in real-time. Quantification of the performance improvement rates of these technologies can inform decision-makers' long-term investment... 

In this study, a three-dimensional mathematical model, based on a nonuniform droplet concentration distribution, has been developed to simulate gas absorption in a venturi scrubber. The mass transfer process was illustrated by assuming the liquid phase as a combination of droplets and film. The flow, just as the annular two-phase flow, includes a flow of liquid film layer on the walls and a flow of gas and liquid drops in the core. Peclet number was determined using experimental data reported by Viswanathan et al. (1984) for distribution of droplets across the cross section of the scrubber. The mathematical model for gas absorption was justified by comparing the theoretical predictions with... 

An eco-friendly, simple, and effective protocol is developed for the synthesis of various multisubstituted 2-aminothiophenes. In the presence of a catalytic amount of ZnO (5 mol), ketones or aldehydes, malononitrile and elemental sulfur were converted to the corresponding 2-aminothiophene derivatives in moderate to high yields (27%-70%) under solvent-free conditions at 100 °C. Zinc oxide as an efficient, readily available, and reusable catalyst, showed very good catalytic activity for the synthesis of 2-aminothiophene derivatives. Thus far, little research has been reported on the Gewald reaction under solvent-free conditions; to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that it has...