Sharif Digital Repository

In this work, the thermodynamic behavior of aqueous solutions containing the solutes NaCl, glucose, and/or urea is investigated. These substances are vital components for living bodies and further they are main components of blood serum. Osmotic coefficients were determined by cryoscopic measurements in single-solute and multi-solute aqueous solutions containing salts (NaCl, KCl, CaCl2), glucose, and/or urea. The results show that NaCl determines the osmotic coefficients in the urea/glucose/NaCl/water system. Investigation of the effect of different salts on osmotic coefficients revealed ion-specific effects. At physiologically important solute concentrations in typical blood serum... 

Urea and inorganic ions are present in some of the physiological systems, e.g. urine. Understanding the interactions in urea/salt/water is a preliminary step to shed light on more complicated behavior of multi-component physiological systems. State-of-the-art models as well as thermophysical properties can be applied to understand the interactions in these systems. In order to determine such interactions densities, mean ionic activity coefficients (MIACs), osmotic coefficients, and solubility were measured in aqueous solutions of urea and different salts. Densities were determined at temperatures 293.15, 303.15, and 313.15K for urea concentrations up to 3molal and up to 1molal for NaCl.... 

We use an efficient molecular theory approach to study electrokinetic flow within a pH-responsive nanopore grafted with a polyelectrolyte (PE) brush. The flow rate, migration and convective conductance, electric potential and velocity fields, species distributions and the degree of ionization of the weak PE functional groups and nanopore selectivity are obtained and interpreted while considering pH-induced surface charges. The theory is generally based on writing the overall free energy of the system including the entropies arising from the conformations of flexible, excluded volume chains, the mixing of mobile species, electrostatic contribution, and the free energy due to the chemical... 

The electrokinetic energy conversion, electroviscous effect, and induced internal and external magnetic fields in a smart polyelectrolyte grafted "soft"nanopore with pH responsiveness are studied here using an efficient molecular theory approach. The analysis is based on writing the total free energy of the system, including the conformational entropy of the flexible, self-avoiding polymer chains and the translational entropy of the mobile species, the electrostatic interactions, and the free energy due to chemical equilibrium reactions. Then, the free energy is minimized, while satisfying the necessary constraints to find the equilibrium state of the system. The predictions of the model are... 

A new type of collapsible soil was encountered in Southern Iran and caused some serious technical problems including subsidence, collapse and sinkholes during the construction of Zahedan-Chabahar railway. Field observations indicated that in-situ soil contains excessive amount of salts resulting in dispersive features in response to seepage forces in addition to its collapsibility. Therefore, a systematic research plan including field sampling and laboratory testing was carried out to investigate the observed geotechnical features. Results of physio-chemical tests revealed the dominance of Sodium in excess of 70% relative to total dissolved salts, which results in high dispersive potential.... 

Laboratory investigation on the influence of solute concentration on the soil water-retention curve (SWRC) and volumetric behaviour of expansive soils has received much attention in recent years due to increasing environmental pollution. However, most studies only considered applying wetting or drying path with almost no attention to hydraulic hysteresis. Furthermore, these studies have focused on examining expansive soils and only marginal effort has been devoted to collapsible soils. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to systematically explore the SWRC and shrinkage characteristics of an artificially made collapsible soil at various molar concentrations. The tests were... 

Natural soils contain a certain amount of salt in the form of dissolved ions or electrically charged atoms, originated from the long-term erosion by acidic rainwater. The dissolved salt poses an extra osmotic water potential being normally neglected in laboratory measurements and numerical analyses. However, ignorance of salinity may result in overestimation of stability, and the design may not be as conservative as thought. Therefore, this research aims to first experimentally examine the influence of pore water salinity on water retention curve and saturated permeability of natural dispersive loess under saline and desalinated conditions. Second, the measured parameters are used for... 

In the present study, the effect of electromagnetic field on the salt and water transport and reduction of carbonate deposit during reverse osmosis desalination was investigated. The electromagnetic field was generated by AC current through a solenoid wound around the membrane separation module. The current intensity and frequency was 25 A and 50 Hz, respectively. Experiments were conducted using CaCO3 solution at the concentration of 5.5 mmol/L. For comparison purposes, desalination by the membrane, in the presence and absence of an electromagnetic field was conducted. While the desalination process temperature was kept constant, the product temperature increased by less than 2 °C when the... 

Considerable researches have been focused on zinc-iron (Zn-Fe) alloy coatings due to their superior characteristics among zinc alloy electrodeposits in recent years. The corrosion behavior of these coatings depends on the phase structure and morphology of the Zn-Fe deposits. In this work the effects of pulse plating variables such as current density, off-time, frequency and pulse modes on the morphology and phase structure of Zn-Fe deposits was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) analysis. The corrosion behavior of these coatings was measured by means of polarization curves and Neutral salt spray tests. It was shown... 

The adsorption of chromium compounds from solutions by a composite of polyaniline/poly ethylene glycol (PANi/PEG) was investigated in this study. Experiments were conducted in batch mode under various operational conditions including agitation time, solution pH, PANi/PEG dose and initial concentration of chromium salts. Results showed that concentration of PEG at synthesizing stage has a significant effect on the capacity of produced composite for removal of chromium. Morphologically, PANi/PEG composite is closely dependent on the concentration of PEG. Maximum removal of hexavalent chromium was experienced when 2. g/L of PEG was used in synthesis of PANi/PEG. Removal of hexavalent chromium... 

Hydroxyapatite (HA) is the most substantial mineral constituent of a bone which has been extensively used in medicine as implantable materials, owing to its good biocompatibility, bioactivity high osteoconductive, and/or osteoinductive properties. Nevertheless, its mechanical property is not utmost appropriate for a bone substitution. Therefore, a composite consist of HA and a biodegradable polymer is usually prepared to generate an apt bone scaffold. In the present work polycaprolactone (PCL), a newly remarkable biocompatible and biodegradable polymer, was employed as a matrix and hydroxyapatite nanoparticles were used as a reinforcement element of the composite. HA/PCL nanocomposites were... 

The implementation of Monte Carlo simulations (MCSs) for the propagation of uncertainty in real-world seawater intrusion (SWI) numerical models often becomes computationally prohibitive due to the large number of deterministic solves needed to achieve an acceptable level of accuracy. Previous studies have mostly relied on parallelization and grid computing to decrease the computational time of MCSs. However, another approach which has received less attention in the literature is to decrease the number of deterministic simulations by using more efficient sampling strategies. Sampling efficiency is a measure of the optimality of a sampling strategy. A more efficient sampling strategy requires... 

A novel cellulose supported copper NHC complex has been prepared by the reaction of cellulose supported imidazolium salt with copper(i) iodide. The catalyst is active in the synthesis of 1,2,3-triazoles via a one-pot reaction of alkyl/benzyl halides or tosylates and terminal alkynes, with sodium azide in water  

Novel polyampholytic superabsorbing nanocomposites based on the zwitterionic sulfobetaine monomer [3-(methacrylamido)propyl)]dimethyl(3- sulfopropyl)ammonium hydroxide were synthesized through in situ polymerization in aqueous solution with different contents of an organo-modified clay (OMMT, Cloisite 30B). Structural and thermomechanical properties of hydrogels were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, and DMTA, respectively. Swollen gel strength of hydrogels was determined by a rheological method. Storage modulus of the hydrogels was considerably improved in comparison with its the clay-free counterpart. The nanocomposite hydrogel containing 15% OMMT possessed the highest gel strength. The glass... 

The synthesis of a novel superabsorbent hydrogel with natural hybrid backbone via graft copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) onto kappa-carrageenan (kC, as a polysaccharide) and gelatin (as a protein) under classic thermal conditions is described. The Taguchi method as a strong experimental design tool was used for synthesis optimization. A series of hydrogels were synthesized by proposed conditions of Qualitek-4 Software. Considering the results of 9 trials according to analysis of variance (ANOVA), optimum conditions were proposed. The swelling behavior of optimum hydrogel was measured in various solutions with pH values ranging from 1 to 13. In addition, swelling kinetics, swelling in... 

A series of biopolymer-based superabsorbent hydrogels based on carboxymethyl cellulose has been prepared by free-radical graft copolymerization of acrylamide and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropan sulfonic acid (AMPS) in aqueous solution using methylenebisacrylamide as a crosslinking agent and ammonium persulfate as an initiator. The effect of variables on the swelling capacity such as: acrylamide/AMPS weight ratio, reaction temperature, and concentration of the initiator and crosslinker were systematically optimized. The results indicated that with increasing the amount of AMPS, the swelling capacity is increased. FT-IR spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope analysis were used to confirm... 

Synthesis and swelling behavior of a new superabsorbent hydrogel based on natural salep grafted with Polyacrylamide is described. The new superabsorbent hydrogel biopolymer was synthesized via radical crosslink-ing and graft copolymerization of acrylamide monomer onto salep backbones. Regarding to the water absorption of hydrogel, the best synthesis condition is reported. FTIR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis were used to confirm the structure of the final product and a mechanism for superabsorbent hydrogel formation was also suggested. After preparing the desired hydrogels based on optimum condition, several factors affecting the swelling behavior of hydrogel including pH of... 

A novel full-polysaccharide hydrogel was prepared by crosslinking of chitosan with periodate-oxidized sucrose. A tetraaldehyde molecule is synthesized via periodate oxidation of sucrose and then applied as a crosslinking agent to form a new hydrogel network. A mechanism for the superabsorbent hydrogel formation via reductive N-alkylation was also suggested. The structure of the hydrogel was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It is shown that crosslinking of chitosan can improve its thermal stability. The effects of crosslinker concentration, pH, and inorganic salt on the swelling behavior of the hydrogel were studied. The... 

A novel approach was developed to prepare a highly porous hydrogel with superior salt- and pH-resisting properties. According to this method, synthetic comonomers, i.e. acrylic acid (AA) and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS), were polymerized and crosslinked in the presence of hydrolyzed collagen as a natural backbone. The characterizations of hydrogels were investigated by swelling experiment, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, acid-base titration and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Morphology of the samples was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Experimental results indicate that the hydrogel has an absorbency of 360 and 73-82 g/g for distilled... 

A novel hydrolyzed collagen-based hydrogel has been prepared by grafting the binary mixture of acrylamide and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid onto the collagen backbone in the presence of a cross-linking agent. Its physicochemical properties in aqueous solution were studied. The effect of reaction variables on both gel content and swelling capacity was investigated to achieve a hydrogel with improved absorbency and gel content. The absorbency under load of optimized hydrogel was also investigated by using an absorbency under load tester at various applied pressures. The swelling ratio in various salt solutions was also determined and additionally, the swelling of hydrogels was...