Sharif Digital Repository

A catalytic membrane reactor was synthesized by coating a 4-5 micron thick Ni/γ-Al2O3 layer on top of a hydrogen selective SiO2/Al2O3 composite membrane using a sol-gel method. Mercury intrusion and BET analysis indicated a uniform size distribution with an average pore size of 285 nm and average surface area of 279 m2 g-1. Single-component permeation tests were carried out for H2, CH4 and CO2 in the temperature range of 650-800 °C and the results showed the same permeance and selectivity values for hydrogen as the composite membrane without a catalytic layer. Performance of the catalytic membrane was evaluated by using as a membrane reactor for the methane steam reforming reaction with a... 

Liquid phase hydro-purification of crude terephthalic acid (CTA) was performed using supported Pd and Pd-Sn catalysts on functionalized multi-wall carbon nanotubes (FMWCNT). Pd/FMWCNT catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation with Pd loadings of 0.05 to 0.6 wt.%. Pd-Sn/FMWCNT catalysts were prepared by co-impregnation (CI) and successive impregnation (SI) using 0.3 wt.% Pd loading and Sn/Pd molar ratios of 0.1 and 0.35 for the CI method and 0.05 to 0.35 for the SI method. Pd loading of 0.3 wt.% for Pd/FMWCNT was sufficient to decrease the 4-carboxybenzaldehyde (4-CBA) content of CTA from 2100 ppm to 5.5 ppm without excessive hydrogenation of terephthalic acid (TA). The commercial catalyst... 

Partial purification of plant peroxidase from turnip (Brassica rapa) was optimized. Aqueous two phase system and precipitation by ammonium sulfate (as two parallel purification methods) were used. Polyethylene glycol/ammonium sulfate/NaCl (25:7:3%, w/v) system followed by gel-filtration chromatography gave a purification factor of about 36 fold. On the other hand, ammonium sulfate precipitation (60-80% deg) followed by gel filtration gave only about 13 purification fold. Hence, the aqueous two-phase system was more efficient and useful method as a primary purification step since it was less laborious, less time-consuming, and led to more purification factor. The partially purified turnip... 

TiO2 and transition metal (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn) doped TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol-gel method using 2-hydroxylethylammonium formate as an ionic liquid. All the prepared samples were calcined at 500 °C and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET surface area determination, energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR) techniques. The studies revealed that transition metal (TM) doped nanoparticles have smaller crystalline size and higher surface area than pure TiO2. Dopant ions in the TiO2 structure caused significant absorption shift into the visible region. The results of... 

A torsion test recently implemented for solid oxide fuel cell sealant materials is analyzed as a method for measuring the shear strength of sealant for solid oxide fuel cells. The finite element method is used to simulate the stress distribution in the hourglass-shaped steel specimens with intermediate sealant layer with different specimen's dimensions and configurations. Also, it is analyzed how stress concentration changes if the sealant does not completely fill the gap or is squeezed out of gap. The reduction of seal thickness to outer radius ratio results in an increase in stress concentration at the outer edge of sealant. The developed specimens with a hollow halve steel plate as well... 

As an integral part of a hybrid control system for Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) processes, a dynamical hybrid observer is proposed for online reconstruction of the active mode and continuous states of these processes. Hybrid systems feature both continuous and discrete-event dynamics and hence are very suited to describe PSA processes. For estimation of the active mode, a mode observer is designed, and the continuous spatial profiles in each mode are estimated by distributed and decentralized Kalman filters. The proposed hybrid observer has been applied, in silico, for a two-bed, six-step PSA process used for Hydrogen purification. The active mode of the process along with the continuous... 

A number of human diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's have been linked to amyloid formation. To search for an anti-amyloidogenic product, alkaloid enriched extract from borage leaves was examined for anti-amyloidogenic activity using Hen Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL) as a model protein. After isolation of the plant extract using rHPLC, only one fraction indicated a significant bioactivity. TEM analysis confirmed a remarkable reduction of amyloid fibrils in the presence of the bioactive fraction. To identify the effective substance in the fraction, mass spectrometry, FTIR, and NMR were performed. Our analyses determined that the bioactive compound as... 

A novel class of substituted quinazolines were prepared in good yields by a one-pot three-component reaction of isocyanides with adducts of anilines and tri- or dichloroacetonitrile, followed by intramolecular C-H activation, catalyzed by copper(I) iodide with l -proline as a ligand in acetonitrile at room temperature. © 2017 Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart .New York-Synlett  

In this research, an attempt was made toward synthesizing a sol–gel–based silica aerogel and its subsequent coating on a copper wire by phase separation of polystyrene. Adaption of this new approach enabled us to coat the metallic wire with powder materials. The use of this method for coating, led to the formation of a porous and thick structure of silica aerogel. The coated wire was placed in a needle and used as the sorbent for in–tube solid phase microextraction of chlorobenzenes (CBs). The superhydrophobicity of sorbent on extraction efficiency was investigated by using different ratios of tetraethylorthosilicate/methyltrimethoxysilane. The surface coated with the prepared silica aerogel... 

An imprinted interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) was synthesized and used as a medium for isolation of carbamazepine from urine samples. The polymer network consisted of a homogeneous polystyrene–sol gel hybrid constructed by in–situ radical polymerization method. In this process, within the sol–gel reaction duration, styrene monomer could penetrate into the reaction mixture and after the polymerization initiation, a monolithic IPN structure was prepared. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) are indications of the polystyrene dispersion at nano- to micro-meter level in the sol gel matrix. Eventually, the synthesized IPN was used as a... 

Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane process has become the most promising technology for desalination to produce purified water. Among numerous polymeric materials used to fabricate RO membranes, aromatic polyamide thin film composite (TFC) membranes are dominant in commercial RO membrane processes because of their high salt rejection and water permeability as well as their excellent chemical, thermal, and mechanical stability. However, the major hindrance to the effective application of polyamide TFC RO membranes is membrane fouling. Furthermore, polyamide TFC RO membranes have limited stability to chlorine, which is commonly used as disinfect to control membrane biofouling. These two factors... 

Human parvovirus B19 (B19) is a small, non-enveloped virus and belongs to Parvoviridae family. B19 persists in many tissues such as thyroid tissue and even thyroid cancer. The main aim of this study was to determine the presence of B19, its association with increased inflammation in thyroid tissue, and thus its possible role in thyroid cancer progression. Studies have shown that virus replication in non-permissive tissue leads to overexpression of non-structural protein and results in upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha. A total of 36 paraffin-embedded thyroid specimens and serum were collected from patients and 12 samples were used... 

Since that pathogenic bacteria are major threats to human health, this paper describes the fabrication of an effective and durable sensing platform based on gold nanoparticles/carbon nanoparticles/cellulose nanofibers nanocomposite (AuNPs/CNPs/CNFs) at the surface of glassy carbon electrode for sensitive and selective detection of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The AuNPs/CNPs/CNFs nanocomposite with the high surface area, excellent conductivity, and good biocompatibility was used for self-assembled of the thiolated specific S. aureus aptamer as a sensing element. The surface morphology of AuNPs/CNPs/CNFs nanocomposite was characterized with field emission scanning electron microscopy... 

Access to clean water is one of the challenges of the 21st century. Thus water purification is inevitable. One method of water treatment is purification by magnetic particles in the presence of magnetic field. The contaminants are attached to the magnetic particles and then by applying a magnetic field, magnetic particles and, thus, the pollutants can be collected. For the optimal design of a water treatment system, the effect of important parameters in the design, such as magnetic fields, particle size, and Reynolds number are determined numerically by modeling and simulating the water treatment process. Two methods are used to create the magnetic field: permanent magnet and coils. It is... 

The direct growth of self-supported metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) thin film can be considered as an effective strategy for fabrication of the advanced modified electrodes in sensors and biosensor applications. However, most of the fabricated MOFs-based sensors suffer from some drawbacks such as time consuming for synthesis of MOF and electrode making, need of a binder or an additive layer, need of expensive equipment and use of hazardous solvents. Here, a novel free-standing MOFs-based modified electrode was fabricated by the rapid direct growth of MOFs on the surface of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE). In this method, direct growth of MOFs was occurred by the formation of vertically... 

Ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were prepared from poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) as main polymer, poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) as additive, and 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent using Design Expert software for designing the experiments. The membranes were characterized by SEM, contact angle measurement, and atomic force microscopy. The performance of UF membranes was evaluated by pure water flux (PWF) and blue indigo dye particle rejection. In addition, the molecular weight cutoff of UF membranes was determined by poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) rejection. The UF membranes were used as substrates for fabrication of polyamide thin film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. The... 

The presence of impurities in the copper electrolyte increases the energy consumption of an electrorefining process and contaminates the deposited copper on cathode. The concentration of impurities increases over time making it necessary to remove them from the solution. This research introduces a fast, effective, and simple method to refine the industrial electrolyte from arsenic, iron and antimony by solvent displacement crystallisation technique. In this method, when alcohol is added to the electrolyte, the impurities precipitate from the solution as amorphous arsenato antimonite phase. Results show that Fe, Sb, and As are removed from the copper electrolyte by 75.2, 96.9 and 99.8%,... 

Chemical industries need to employ new process designs due to environmental policies and energy optimization because of the global energy challenge. Pervaporation has been introduced as a promising alternative for conventional processes such as distillation, known as energy intensive process, in chemical plants. In this work, the energy consumption of different processes for separation of toluene and i-octane (representatives of aromatics and aliphatic mixtures) has been evaluated, based on our previous laboratory pervaporation experiments using Polyvinyl alcohol/Graphene oxide mixed matrix membranes. Accordingly, hybrid distillation-pervaporation and cascade pervaporation systems have been... 

In this study, dynamic adsorption behavior of different gaseous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on a new modified M-MIL-101(Cr) was investigated with a great emphasis on gasoline adsorption. The M-MIL-101(Cr) was synthesized, along with comprehensive purification procedures, using a new linker to cluster molar ratio (2:1 instead of 1:1) and different modulators (i.e. HF and HNO3). All prepared adsorbents were characterized by XRD, FTIR, FE-SEM and N2 adsorption-desorption at 77 K. The results showed that surface area and pore volume of the M-MIL-101@Free (i.e. modified MIL-101(Cr) with using any modulator) which were 4293 m2/g and 2.43 cm3/g, greatly elevated up to 37.2% and 71.6% against... 

Comprehensive structural/molecular simulations have been undertaken to study the poly(benzimidazoles) (PBI) membrane combined with four different nano-oxide materials (ZnO, Al2O3, SiO2 and TiO2) for purification and production of hydrogen from natural gases. Composite membranes were built with different amounts of nano-oxide materials to investigate the influence of nano-oxide content on the PBI membrane performance. Several structural characterizations such as FFV, WAXD and also a thermal one (glass transition temperature) were done to study the structural properties of all simulated membrane cells. Moreover, MSD and adsorption isotherms tasks were used to estimate the diffusivity and...