Sharif Digital Repository

In this article, we have studied the properties (especially water repellency) of cotton coated by a thin layer of aluminum. The process has been performed in a low temperature plasma medium, using a magnetron sputtering device. We have also investigated the effect of different gases such as argon and oxygen as the discharge medium on the properties of the obtained samples. The results which are exposure time dependent show a good repellent property for 30 min of treating in argon medium under the condition of our experiment. However, when O2 is used in the system, the cotton property changes to become hydrophilic of which the factor decreases as we increase the time of treating. © 2006... 

In this research, titanium dioxide-phosphorus (TiO2-P) immobilized on silica phosphoric acid (SPA) was prepared by a simple modified sol–gel method with SPA as a precursor instead of phosphoric acid. TiO2-P thin film photocatalyst immobilized on SPA as a novel high-efficiency photocatalyst was investigated to remove naphthalene as a toxic compound from wastewater. The novel resulting photocatalyst were characterized by energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction pattern revealed nano-photocatalyst TiO2-P with the average size of 15–20 nm. EDX analysis showed the presence of phosphorus elements in the crystalline structure of TiO2 and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy showed the energy... 

Pichia pastoris is used extensively as a production platform for many recombinant proteins. The dissolved oxygen (DO) is one of the most important factors influencing protein production. The influence of the DO on productivity has not been studied independent from the feed rate. In this work, various DO levels were investigated independent from the feed rate. The model system was recombinant P. pastoris under the control of methanol-induced alcohol oxidase promoter, which expressed HRP as the target protein. No significant effect was observed in terms of titer and specific productivity, which is a confirmation of the fact that the DO in a one-compartment system cannot boost productivity for... 

Reduction of air pollutants formation from hydrocarbon combustion process requires improvements in combustion systems. The moderate and intense low oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion technique is an opportunity to achieve such a goal. MILD combustion is a combustion regime which can be attained by high temperature preheating and high level dilution. In this paper, the mechanism of CO and CO2 formation for a CH4/H2 fuel mixture is studied under MILD combustion condition of a jet in hot coflow (JHC) burner. This investigation is done using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and also zero dimensional well-stirred reactor (WSR) analysis. The RANS equations with modified k-ε equations are... 

A new di-manganese complex with "back-to-back" 1,4-bis(2,2′:6,2′′-terpyridin-4′-yl) benzene ligation has been synthesized and characterised by a variety of techniques. The back-to-back ligation presents a novel new mononuclear manganese catalytic centre that functions as a heterogeneous catalysis for the evolution of oxygen in the presence of an exogenous oxidant. We discuss the synthesis and spectroscopic characterizations of this complex and propose a mechanism for oxygen evolution activity of the compound in the presence of oxone. The di-manganese complex also shows efficient and selective catalytic oxidation of sulfides in the presence of H2O2. Density functional theory calculations were... 

Epitaxial cerium oxide (CeO2) buffer layer has been grown on lanthanum aluminate (LAO) single crystal substrates for fabrication of c-axis oriented YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO). Precursor solution of cerium acetylacetonates with viscosity of 0.6 centipoises was spin coated on the 1×1 cm area LAO substrates. The calcination was carried out by very slow ramp (1°C per minute) until the final temperature of 500°C in oxygen flow to remove most of the organic compounds. The final heat treatment has been done at 780°C by a ramp of 20° per minute in gas flow of mixed argon-oxygen with 5 Pa partial pressure of oxygen. The thickness of the deposited CeO2 buffer layer was 20 nm. Then, 100 nm thick YBCO film was... 

A moving bed biofilm reactor with pre-denitrification configuration was fed with a synthetic wastewater containing high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia. By changing different variables including ammonium and COD loading, nitrification rate in the aerobic reactor and denitrification rate in the anoxic reactor were monitored. Changing the influent loading was achieved via adjusting the inlet COD (956-2,096 mg/L), inlet ammonium (183-438 mg/L), and hydraulic retention time of the aerobic reactor (8, 12, and 18 hours). The overall organic loading rate was in the range of 3.60-17.37 gCOD/m2·day, of which 18.5-91% was removed in the anoxic reactor depending on the operational conditions.... 

Copper-palladium alloys of different compositions are electrodeposited on nickel from aqueous solutions. These alloys are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). The catalytic activity of these alloys toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline solution is investigated using rotating disk electrode (RDE). The number of electrons transferred per O2 molecule (n) obtained at different potentials is close to 2 at low overpotential indicating HO2- formation and gradually increases to 4 at higher overpotentials indicating full reduction to OH-. It is shown that Cu-Pd alloys are better electrocatalysts than Pd with Pd-Cu-1 having 24.5%... 

The development of cheaper electrocatalysts for fuel cells is an important research area. This work proposes a new, simpler and low-cost approach to develop nanostructured silver electrocatalysts by using natural cellulose as a template. Silver was deposited by reduction of Ag complexes on the surface of cellulose fibers, followed by heat removal of the template to create self-standing nanostructured silver fibers (NSSFs). X-Ray diffraction (XRD) showed fcc silver phase and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrated that the surface was partially oxidized. The morphology of the fibers consisted of 50 nm nanoparticles as the building blocks, and they possessed a specific surface area... 

The mononuclear complex [Mn(tptz)(CH3COO)(OH2)2]NO3 (1) was investigated by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in aqueous solution at pH 4.5. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry shows that mononuclear and dinuclear manganese cationic species are present in solution, probably in equilibrium with neutral 1. An experiment showed that the most important reaction in the presence of oxone (2KHSO5·KHSO4·K2SO4) is decoordination  

Abstract: This work describes coating of NiCoCrAlY on IN-738LC superalloy by high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) process. Properties of the coatings are significantly influenced by oxygen/fuel ratio and other spraying parameters. The effect of oxygen/fuel ratio on the oxidation behavior, bond strength, hardness, roughness and microstructure including porosity, inclusion formation and unmelted particles are discussed here. The porosity and inclusion in C1 coating are maximal. C2 coating with oxygen/fuel ratio of 2 has the highest bond strength and the lowest unmelted particles. C3 coating with the lowest total porosity and inclusion has the minimal roughness and the highest oxidation resistance... 

This work describes coating of NiCoCrAlY on IN-738LC superalloy by high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) process. Properties of the coatings are significantly influenced by oxygen/fuel ratio and other spraying parameters. The effect of oxygen/fuel ratio on the oxidation behavior, bond strength, hardness, roughness and microstructure including porosity, inclusion formation and unmelted particles are discussed here. The porosity and inclusion in C1 coating are maximal. C2 coating with oxygen/fuel ratio of 2 has the highest bond strength and the lowest unmelted particles. C3 coating with the lowest total porosity and inclusion has the minimal roughness and the highest oxidation resistance and... 

Microfluidic devices have been widely used for biological and cellular studies. Microbioreactors for three-dimensional (3D) multicellular spheroid culture are now considered as the next generation in in vitro diagnostic tools. The feasibility of using 3D cell aggregates to form multicellular spheroids in a microbioreactor with U-shaped barriers has been demonstrated experimentally. A barrier array is an alternative to commonly used microwell traps. The present study investigates oxygen and glucose concentration distributions as key parameters in a U-shaped array microbioreactor using finite element simulation. The effect of spheroid diameter, inlet concentration and flow rate of the medium... 

In this work, the role of dissolved oxygen in the solar and the photo-Fenton-mediated E. coli inactivation process was put under scrutiny. The effect of transient species that were produced in the presence of various natural organic matter isolates (NOM), namely Suwannee River (SR) NOM, Nordic Reservoir (NR) NOM, SR Humic acid (SRHA), and SR Fulvic acid (SRFA) was studied in detail. The role of 1 O2 in this reaction was systematically evaluated by modifying the O2 concentration (N2/O2 purging) and the matrix composition (10, 50, and 100% deuterium oxide (D2O) v/v). In the presence of NOM, 1 O2 was generated and the enhancement of E. coli inactivation rate due to charge transfer from triplet... 

Design and fabrication of highly efficient and low-cost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts is of paramount importance for practical applications. Herein, we proposed a cost-effective, metal-free catalyst based on ZIF-8 metal-organic framework nanoparticles/electro-polymerized poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) film on the surface of flexible carbon cloth (CC) electrode (ZIF-8/PEDOT/CC) via a two-step procedure. For this purpose, worm-like PEDOT nanostructures were deposited on the surface of carbon fibers using a pulse electro-polymerization technique followed by facile growth of ZIF-8 polyhedra nanoparticles via a chemical bath deposition method. The ORR measurements in... 

Design and fabrication of highly efficient and low-cost oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts is of paramount importance for practical applications. Herein, we proposed a cost-effective, metal-free catalyst based on ZIF-8 metal-organic framework nanoparticles/electro-polymerized poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) film on the surface of flexible carbon cloth (CC) electrode (ZIF-8/PEDOT/CC) via a two-step procedure. For this purpose, worm-like PEDOT nanostructures were deposited on the surface of carbon fibers using a pulse electro-polymerization technique followed by facile growth of ZIF-8 polyhedra nanoparticles via a chemical bath deposition method. The ORR measurements in... 

Oxy-fuel combustion is a modern carbon capture and storage (CCS) technique that improves the combustion process and reduces the environmental penalty of many combustion systems. Evidently, the accurate radiative calculation of oxy-fuel combustion is very important to obtain more improved combustion system designs with less environmental drawbacks. In the present study, a small scale unconfined turbulent bluff-body flame is numerically simulated to calculate the gas radiative properties using three different approaches of ignoring radiation, applying a modified version of the weighted sum of gray gases (WSGG) model, and employing the spectral line based weighted sum of gray gases (SLW) model.... 

Developing effective and priceless electrocatalysts is an indispensable requirement for advancing the efficiency of water splitting to get clean and sustainable fuels. Herein, we reported a feasible strategy for preparing a trimetallic (NiCoFe) superior electrocatalyst with a novel open-cage/3D frame-like structure for an oxygen evolution reaction (OER). It is prepared by consequent thermal treatments of a CoFe Prussian blue analogue frame/cage-like structure under an argon (CoFeA-TT) atmosphere and then electrochemical deposition of nickel-cobalt sulfide nanosheets as a shell layer on it. The electrochemical measurements demonstrated that the deposition of NiCo-S on CoFeA-TT... 

An oxygen nanoshuttle based on a reduced graphene oxide/copper peroxide (rGO/CuO2) nanocomposite has been presented to deliver in situ oxygen nanobubbles (O2 NBs) for combating bacterial infections. In the presence of rGO, the solid source of oxygen (i.e., CuO2) was decomposed (in response to environmental conditions such as pH and temperature) into O2 NBs in a more controllable and long-lasting trend (from 60 to 144 h). In a neutral buffer, the O2 NBs experienced growth and collapse evolutions, creating a dynamic micro-nanoenvironment around the nanocomposite. In addition to effective battling against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, the O2 NBs demonstrated superior... 

Insufficient electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction/evolution in lanthanum strontium ferrite (LSF) perovskites at temperatures below 700 °C, limits the utilization of these Co-free oxides as oxygen electrodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel/electrolysis cells (SOFC/SOEC). Marked performance improvement is here reported by decorating the surface with Pr2Ni1-xCuxO4 catalyst particles. Infiltrating porous LSF electrodes with aqueous nitrates solutions containing Pr, Ni and Cu, targeting the compositions Pr2Ni0.7Cu0.3O4 and Pr2Ni0.6Cu0.4O4, significantly reduces the polarization resistance at 650 °C from 0.98 Ω cm2 to 0.16 Ω cm2 and 0.13 Ω cm2 respectively. Electrical...