Search results for: heterogeneous catalyst

Authors: Boldin Roman, Liliana Analía Diaz

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As the hydrogen economy continues to expand, reducing energy consumption and emissions while stimulating economic growth, the development of efficient and cost-effective hydrogen production technologies is critical. Among various methods, anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis stands out due to its potential for using non-noble metal catalysts. The exploration and enhancement of non-noble metal catalysts, such as NiFe-type catalysts, are pivotal for the advancement of AEM technology, ensuring its commercial viability and environmental sustainability. NiFe-type catalysts were synthesized through electrodeposition and characterized both electrochemically and physico-chemically. Various supports, including Ni foam and Ni mesh, were used as porous transport layers (PTLs) to evaluate the effective catalyst thickness and the influence of the PTL in a 5 cm² AEM electrolyzer. This methodological approach allows for a detailed assessment of catalyst performance under operational conditions typical of industrial hydrogen production. The study revealed that electrodeposited non-noble multi-metallic catalysts maintain stable performance as anodes in AEM water electrolysis. NiFe-type catalysts demonstrated superior activity, with the NiFeCoP alloy outperforming others by delivering the lowest overpotential and the highest current density. Furthermore, the use of different PTLs showed significant effects on the electrochemical behavior of the catalysts, indicating that PTL selection is crucial for optimizing performance and efficiency in AEM electrolyzers. Conclusion: The research underscores the potential of non-noble metal catalysts in enhancing efficiency and reducing the costs of AEM electrolysers. The findings highlight the importance of catalyst and PTL optimization in developing scalable and economically viable hydrogen production technologies. Continued innovation in this area is essential for supporting the growth of the hydrogen economy and achieving sustainable energy solutions.

Keywords: AEMWE, electrocatalyst, hydrogen production, water electrolysis.

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Authors: Thuy Phuong Nhat Tran, Ashutosh Thakur, Toshiaki Taniike

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Recently, covalently linked graphene oxide frameworks (GOFs) have attracted considerable attention in gas absorbance and water purification as well-defined microporous materials. In spite of their potential advantages such as a controllable pore dimension, adjustable hydrophobicity, and structural stability, these materials have been scarcely employed in heterogeneous catalysis. Here we demonstrate a novel and facile method to synthesize Pd nanoparticles (NPs) confined in a GOF (Pd@GOF). The GOF with uniform interlayer space was obtained by the intercalation of diboronic acid between graphene oxide layers. It was found that Pd NPs were generated inside the graphitic gallery spaces of the GOF, and thus, formed Pd NPs were well-dispersed with a narrow particle size distribution. The synthesized Pd@GOF emerged as an efficient nanocatalyst based on its superior performance (product yield and recyclability) toward Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction in both polar and apolar solvents, which has been hardly observed for previously reported graphene-based Pd nanocatalysts. Furthermore, the rational comparison of the catalytic performance between two kinds of Pd@GOF (Pd NPs encapsulated in a diboronic ester-intercalated GOF and in a monoboronic ester-intercalated GOF) firmly confirmed the essential role of a rigid framework design in the stabilization of Pd NPs. Based on these results, the covalently assembled GOF was proposed as a promising scaffold for hosting noble metal NPs to construct desired metal@GOF nanocatalysts with improved activity and durability.

Keywords: graphene oxide framework, palladium nanocatalyst, pore confinement, Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction

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Authors: S. Forel, F. Bouanis, L. Catala, I. Florea, V. Huc, F. Fossard, A. Loiseau, C. Cojocaru

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Single wall carbon nanotubes are seen as excellent candidate for application on nanoelectronic devices because of their remarkable electronic and mechanical properties. These unique properties are highly dependent on their chiral structures and the diameter. Therefore, structure controlled growth of SWNTs, especially directly on final device’s substrate surface, are highly desired for the fabrication of SWNT-based electronics. In this work, we present a new approach to control the diameter of SWNTs and eventually their chirality. Because of their potential to control the SWNT’s chirality, bi-metalics nanoparticles are used to prepare alloy nanoclusters with specific structure. The catalyst nanoparticles are pre-formed following a previously described process. Briefly, the oxide surface is first covered with a SAM (self-assembled monolayer) of a pyridine-functionalized silane. Then, bi-metallic (Fe-Ru, Co-Ru and Ni-Ru) complexes are assembled by coordination bonds on the pre-formed organic SAM. The resultant alloy nanoclusters were then used to catalyze SWNTs growth on SiO2/Si substrates via CH4/H2 double hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (d-HFCVD). The microscopy and spectroscopy analysis demonstrate the high quality of SWNTs that were furthermore integrated into high-quality SWNT-FET.

Keywords: nanotube, CVD, device, transistor

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Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Naveed Nawaz, Mahmoud Al-Faris

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The dense deployment of small cells is a promising solution to enhance the coverage and capacity of the heterogeneous networks (HetNets). However, the unplanned deployment could bring new challenges to the network ranging from interference, unnecessary handovers and handover failures. This will cause a degradation in the quality of service (QoS) delivered to the end user. In this paper, we propose an integrated Grey Rational Analysis Standard Deviation based handover method (GRA-SD) for HetNet. The proposed method integrates the Standard Deviation (SD) technique to acquire the weight of the handover metrics and the GRA method to select the best handover base station. The performance of the GRA-SD method is evaluated and compared with the traditional Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods including Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and VIKOR methods. Results reveal that the proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of minimizing the number of frequent unnecessary handovers and handover failures, in addition to improving the energy efficiency.

Keywords: energy efficiency, handover, HetNets, MADM, small cells

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Authors: P. Acosta-Santamaría, A. Ibatá-Soto, A. López-Vásquez

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Organic compounds in wastewaters coming from textile and pharmaceutical industry generated multiple harmful effects on the environment and the human health. One of them is the methyl orange (MeO), an azoic dye considered to be a recalcitrant compound. The heterogeneous photocatalysis emerges as an alternative for treating this type of hazardous compounds, through the generation of OH radicals using radiation and a semiconductor oxide. According to the author’s knowledge, catalysts such as TiO₂ doped with metals show high efficiency in degrading MeO; however, this presents economic limitations on industrial scale. Black sand can be considered as a naturally doped catalyst because in its structure is common to find compounds such as titanium, iron and aluminum oxides, also elements such as zircon, cadmium, manganese, etc. This study reports the photocatalytic activity of the mineral black sand used as semiconductor in the discoloration of MeO by oxidation and reduction photocatalytic techniques. For this, magnetic composites from the mineral were prepared (RM, M1, M2 and NM) and their activity were tested through MeO discoloration while TiO₂ was used as reference. For the fractions, chemical, morphological and structural characterizations were performed using Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray (SEM-EDX), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis. M2 fraction showed higher MeO discoloration (93%) in oxidation conditions at pH 2 and it could be due to the presence of ferric oxides. However, the best result to reduction process was using M1 fraction (20%) at pH 2, which contains a higher titanium percentage. In the first process, hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) was used as electron donor agent. According to the results, black sand mineral can be used as natural semiconductor in photocatalytic process. It could be considered as a photocatalyst precursor in such processes, due to its low cost and easy access.

Keywords: black sand mineral, methyl orange, oxidation, photocatalysis, reduction

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Authors: M. Sneha Reddy, M. Arun Kumar, V. Kameswara Rao

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Chromites are binary transition metal oxides with a general formula of ACr₂O₄, where A = Mn²⁺, Fe²⁺, Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cu²⁺. Chromites have a normal-type spinel structure with interesting applications in the areas of applied physics, material sciences, and geophysics. They have attracted great consideration because of their unique physicochemical properties and tremendous technological applications in nanodevices, sensor elements, and high-temperature ceramics with useful optical properties. Copper chromite is one of the most efficient spinel oxides, having pronounced commercial application as a catalyst in various chemical reactions like oxidation, hydrogenation, alkylation, dehydrogenation, decomposition of organic compounds, and hydrogen production. Apart from its usage in chemical industries, CuCr₂O₄ finds its major application as a burn rate modifier in solid propellant processing for space launch vehicles globally. Herein we synthesized the nanoparticles of copper chromite using the co-precipitation method. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, BET, and TG-DTA. The synthesized nanoparticles of copper chromites were used as a catalyst for the thermal decomposition of various high-energy materials.

Keywords: copper chromite, coprecipitation method, high energy materials, catalytic thermal decomposition

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Authors: Patrizia Frontera, Anastasia Macario, Sebastiano Candamano, Fortunato Crea, Pierluigi Antonucci

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The increasing of the world energy demand makes today biomass an attractive energy source, based on the minimizing of CO2 emission and on the global warming reduction purposes. Recently, COP-21, the international meeting on global climate change, defined the roadmap for sustainable worldwide development, based on low-carbon containing fuel. Hydrogen is an energy vector able to substitute the conventional fuels from petroleum. Ethanol for hydrogen production represents a valid alternative to the fossil sources due to its low toxicity, low production costs, high biodegradability, high H2 content and renewability. Ethanol conversion to generate hydrogen by a combination of partial oxidation and steam reforming reactions is generally called auto-thermal reforming (ATR). The ATR process is advantageous due to the low energy requirements and to the reduced carbonaceous deposits formation. Catalyst plays a pivotal role in the ATR process, especially towards the process selectivity and the carbonaceous deposits formation. Bimetallic or trimetallic catalysts, as well as catalysts with doped-promoters supports, may exhibit high activity, selectivity and deactivation resistance with respect to the corresponding monometallic ones. In this work, NiMoCo/GDC, NiMoCu/GDC and NiMoRe/GDC (where GDC is Gadolinia Doped Ceria support and the metal composition is 60:30:10 for all catalyst) have been prepared by impregnation method. The support, Gadolinia 0.2 Doped Ceria 0.8, was impregnated by metal precursors solubilized in aqueous ethanol solution (50%) at room temperature for 6 hours. After this, the catalysts were dried at 100°C for 8 hours and, subsequently, calcined at 600°C in order to have the metal oxides. Finally, active catalysts were obtained by reduction procedure (H2 atmosphere at 500°C for 6 hours). All sample were characterized by different analytical techniques (XRD, SEM-EDX, XPS, CHNS, H2-TPR and Raman Spectorscopy). Catalytic experiments (auto-thermal reforming of ethanol) were carried out in the temperature range 500-800°C under atmospheric pressure, using a continuous fixed-bed microreactor. Effluent gases from the reactor were analyzed by two Varian CP4900 chromarographs with a TCD detector. The analytical investigation focused on the preventing of the coke deposition, the metals sintering effect and the sulfur poisoning. Hydrogen productivity, ethanol conversion and products distribution were measured and analyzed. At 600°C, all tri-metallic catalysts show the best performance: H2 + CO reaching almost the 77 vol.% in the final gases. While NiMoCo/GDC catalyst shows the best selectivity to hydrogen whit respect to the other tri-metallic catalysts (41 vol.% at 600°C). On the other hand, NiMoCu/GDC and NiMoRe/GDC demonstrated high sulfur poisoning resistance (up to 200 cc/min) with respect to the NiMoCo/GDC catalyst. The correlation among catalytic results and surface properties of the catalysts will be discussed.

Keywords: catalysts, ceria, ethanol, gadolinia, hydrogen, Nickel

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Authors: Takeyuki Suzuki, Ismiyarto, Da-Yang Zhou, Kaori Asano, Hiroaki Sasai

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The development of catalytic asymmetric reaction is important for the synthesis of natural products. To construct the multiple stereogenic centers, the desymmetrization of meso compounds is powerful strategy for the synthesis of chiral molecules. Oxidative desymmetrization of meso diols using chiral iridium catalyst provides a chiral hydroxyl ketone. The reaction is practical and an environmentally benign method which does not require the use of stoichiometric amount of heavy metals. This time we report here catalytic asymmetric synthesis of catalponol based on tandem coupling of meso-diols and an aldehyde. The tandem reaction includes oxidative desymmetrization of meso-diols, aldol condensation with an aldehyde. The reaction of meso-diol, benzaldehyde in the presence of a catalytic amount of chiral Ir complex and CsOH in tetrahydrofuran afforded the desired benzylidene ketone in 82% yield with 96% ee (enantiomeric excess). Next, we applied this benzylidene ketone derivative to the synthesis of catalponol. The corresponding benzylidene ketone was obtained in 87% yield with 99% ee. Finally, catalponol was synthesized by the regio- and stereo-selective reduction of dienone moiety in good yield.

Keywords: catalponol, desymmetrization, iridium, oxidation

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Authors: Ankur Gupta, Jayant Raj Saurav, Shantanu Bhattacharya

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In this work we report an effective water filtration system based on the photo catalytic performance of semiconducting dense nano-brushes under natural sunlight. During thin-film photocatalysis usually performed by a deposited layer of photocatalyst, a stagnant boundary layer is created near the catalyst which adversely affects the rate of adsorption because of diffusional restrictions. One strategy that may be used is to disrupt this laminar boundary layer by creating a super dense nanostructure near the surface of the catalyst. Further it is adequate to fabricate a structured filter element for a through pass of the water with as grown nanostructures coming out of the surface of such an element. So, the dye remediation is performed through solar means. This remediation was initially limited to lower efficiency because of diffusional restrictions but has now turned around as a fast process owing to the development of the filter materials with standing out dense nanostructures. The effect of increased surface area due to microholes on fraction adsorbed is also investigated and found that there is an optimum value of hole diameter for maximum adsorption.

Keywords: nano materials, photocatalysis, waste water treatment, water remediation

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Authors: Said Sair, Hanane Ait Ousaleh, Ilyas Belghazi, Othmane Amadine

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Plastic waste has become a major environmental issue, driving the need for innovative solutions to convert it into valuable resources. This study explores the catalytic pyrolysis of plastic waste to produce hydrogen, using zeolite catalysts as a key component in the process. Various zeolites, including types X, A, and P, are synthesized and characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These techniques are employed to assess the structural and chemical properties of the catalysts. Catalytic pyrolysis experiments are performed under different conditions, including variations in temperature, catalyst loading, and reaction time, to optimize hydrogen production. The results demonstrate that the choice of zeolite catalyst significantly impacts plastic waste conversion efficiency into hydrogen. This research contributes to advancing circular economy principles by providing an effective method for plastic waste management and clean energy production, promoting environmental sustainability.

Keywords: hydrogen production, plastic waste, zeolite catalysts, catalytic pyrolysis, circular economy, sustainable energy

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Authors: Gunasekaran Raja, Kottilingam Kottursamy, Rajakumar Arul, Ramkumar Jayaraman, Krithika Sairam, Lakshmi Ravi

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The synchronization server maintains a dynamically changing cache, which contains the data items which were requested and collected by the mobile node from the server. The order and presence of tuples in the cache changes dynamically according to the frequency of updates performed on the data, by the server and client. To synchronize, the data which has been modified by client and the server at an instant are collected, batched together by the type of modification (insert/ update/ delete), and sorted according to their update frequencies. This ensures that the DCASH (Dynamic Cache Synchronization Algorithm for Heterogeneous Reverse Y synchronizing Mobile Database Systems) gives priority to the frequently accessed data with high usage. The optimal memory management algorithm is proposed to manage data items according to their frequency, theorems were written to show the current mobile data activity is reverse Y in nature and the experiments were tested with 2g and 3g networks for various mobile devices to show the reduced response time and energy consumption.

Keywords: mobile databases, synchronization, cache, response time

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Authors: Paula Salazar, Rodrigo Henríquez, Pablo Zerega

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The textile, food and pharmaceutical industries are expanding daily worldwide, and they are located within the most polluting industries due to the fact that wastewater is discharged into watercourses with high concentrations of dyes and traces of drugs. Many of these compounds are stable to light and biodegradation, being considered as emerging organic contaminants. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) emerge as an effective alternative for the removal and elimination of this type of contaminants. Heterogeneous photocatalysis has been extensively studied as it is an efficient, low-cost and durable method. As the main photocatalyst, TiO₂ has been used for the degradation of a large number of dyes and drugs. The disadvantage of TiO₂ is its absorption in the UV region of the solar spectrum. On the other hand, quaternary chalcogenides based on Cu₂SnZnX₄ (X = S, Se) are a possible alternative due to their narrow bandgap (ca. between 0.8 to 1.5 eV depending on the phase considered), low cost, an abundance of its constituent elements in the earth's crust and its low toxicity. The objective of this research was to synthesize Cu₂SnZnS₄ (CZTS) through of a low-cost hydrothermal method and evaluate it as a potential photo-catalyst in the photo-degradation process of Congo Red. The synthesis of the nanoparticle in suspension and film onto fluorine-doped tin oxide coated glass (FTO) was carried out using a mixture of: 2 mmol CuCl₂, 1 mmol ZnCl₂, 1 mmol SnCl₂ and 4 mmol CH4N₂S in a Teflon reactor at 180⁰C for 72 h. Characterization was performed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV VIS spectroscopy. Photo-degradation monitoring was carried out employing a UV VIS spectrophotometer. The results show that photodegradation of 55% of the dye can be obtained after 4h of exposure to polychromatic light, it should be noted that the Congo Red dye is being studied for the first time.

Keywords: CZTS, hydrothermal, photocatalysis, dye

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Authors: Jamshid Hussain, Kuen Song Lin

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Over one thousand tons of pig hair biowaste (PHB) are produced yearly in Taiwan. The improper disposal of PHB can have a negative impact on the environment, consequently contributing to the spread of diseases. The treatment of PHB has become a major environmental and economic challenge. Innovative treatments must be developed because of the heavy metal and sulfur content of PHB. Like most organic materials, PHB is composed of many organic volatiles that contain large amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen gas can be effectively produced by the catalytic gasification of PHB using a laboratory-scale fixed-bed gasifier, employing 15 wt% NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst at 753–913 K. The derived kinetic parameters were obtained and refined using simulation calculations. FE–SEM microphotograph showed that NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst particles are Spherical or irregularly shaped with diameters of 10–20 nm. HR–TEM represented that the fresh Ni particles were evenly dispersed and uniform in the microstructure of Al₂O₃ support. The sizes of the NiO nanoparticles were vital in determining catalyst activity. As displayed in the pre-edge XANES spectra of the NiO/Al₂O₃ catalysts, it exhibited a non-intensive absorbance nature for the 1s to 3d transition, which is prohibited by the selection rule for an ideal octahedral symmetry. Similarly, the populace of Ni(II) and Ni(0) onto Al₂O₃ supports are proportional to the strength of the 1s to 4pxy transition, respectively. The weak shoulder at 8329–8334 eV and a strong character at 8345–8353 eV were ascribed to the 1s to 4pxy shift, which suggested the presence of NiO types onto Al₂O₃ support in PHB catalytic gasification. As determined by the XANES analyses, Ni(II)→Ni(0) reduction was mostly observed. The oxidation of PHB onto the NiO/Al₂O₃ surface may have resulted in Ni(0) and the formation of tar during the gasification process. The EXAFS spectra revealed that the Ni atoms with Ni–Ni/Ni–O bonds were found. The Ni–O bonding proved that the produced syngas were unable to reduce NiO to Ni(0) completely. The weakness of the Ni–Ni bonds may have been caused by the highly dispersed Ni in the Al₂O₃ support. The central Ni atoms have Ni–O (2.01 Å) and Ni–Ni (2.34 Å) bond distances in the fresh NiO/Al₂O₃ catalyst. The PHB was converted into hydrogen-rich syngas (CO + H₂, >89.8% dry basis). When PHB (250 kg h−1) was catalytically gasified at 753–913 K, syngas was produced at approximately 5.45 × 105 kcal h−1 of heat recovery with 76.5%–83.5% cold gas efficiency. The simulation of the pilot-scale PHB catalytic gasification demonstrated that the system could provide hydrogen (purity > 99.99%) and generate electricity for an internal combustion engine of 100 kW and a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) of 175 kW. A projected payback for a PHB catalytic gasification plant with a capacity of 10- or 20-TPD (ton per day) was around 3.2 or 2.5 years, respectively.

Keywords: pig hair biowaste, catalytic gasification, hydrogen production, PEMFC, resource recovery

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Authors: L. O'Sullivan, C. Murphy

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This study examined the impact, if any, of mobile technology on the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education for All. It focused specifically on teachers and their practice, in a school with large class sizes and limited teaching resources. Teachers in third grade in a large public school in Mozambique were provided with an iPad connected to a projector, powered by a mobile solar-panel. Teachers also participated in ten days of professional development workshops over thirteen months. Teacher discussions, micro-teaching sessions and classes in the school were video-recorded, and data was triangulated using surveys and additional documents including class plans, digital artifacts created by teachers, workshop notes and researcher field notes. The catalyst for teachers’ creativity development was to use the photographic capabilities of the iPad to capture the local context and make lessons relevant to the lived experience of the students. In the transition stage, teachers worked with lesson plans and support from the professional development workshops to make small incremental changes to their practice, which scaffolded their growing competence in the creative use of the technology as a tool for teaching and developing new teaching resources. Over the full period of the study, these small changes in practice resulted in a cultural shift in how teachers approached all lessons, even those in which they were not using the technology. They developed into working as a community of practice. The digital lessons created were re-used and further developed by other teachers, providing a relevant and valuable bank of content in a context lacking in books and other teaching resources. This study demonstrated that mobile technology proved to be a successful catalyst for impacting creative teaching practice in this context, and supports the Quality Education for All Sustainable Development Goal.

Keywords: mobile technology, creative teaching, sub-Saharan Africa, quality education for all

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Authors: Finbarr Murphy, Wei Xu, Xian Xu

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The embedding of digital technologies in the global economy has attracted increasing attention from economists. With a large and detailed dataset, this study examines the specific case where consumers have a choice between offline and digital channels in the context of insurance purchases. We find that digital channels screen consumers with lower unobserved risk. For the term life, endowment, and disease insurance products, the average risk of the policies purchased through digital channels was 75%, 21%, and 31%, respectively, lower than those purchased offline. As a consequence, the lower unobserved risk leads to weaker information asymmetry and higher profitability of digital channels. We highlight three mechanisms of the risk screening effect: heterogeneous marginal influence of channel features on insurance demand, the channel features directly related to risk control, and the link between the digital divide and risk. We also find that the risk screening effect mainly comes from the extensive margin, i.e., from new consumers. This paper contributes to three connected areas in the insurance context: the heterogeneous economic impacts of digital technology adoption, insurer-side risk selection, and insurance marketing.

Keywords: digital economy, information asymmetry, insurance, mobile application, risk screening

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Authors: Panupong Lohrattanarungrot, Falan Srisuriyachai

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Polymer flooding is a well-known technique used for controlling mobility ratio in heterogeneous reservoirs, leading to improvement of sweep efficiency as well as wellbore profile. However, low injectivity of viscous polymer solution attenuates oil recovery rate and consecutively adds extra operating cost. An attempt of this study is to improve injectivity of polymer solution while maintaining recovery factor, enhancing effectiveness of polymer flooding method. This study is performed by using reservoir simulation program to modify conventional single polymer slug into sequential polymer flooding, emphasizing on increasing of injectivity and also reduction of polymer amount. Selection of operating conditions for single slug polymer including pre-injected water, polymer concentration and polymer slug size is firstly performed for a layered-heterogeneous reservoir with Lorenz coefficient (Lk) of 0.32. A selected single slug polymer flooding scheme is modified into sequential polymer flooding with reduction of polymer concentration in two different modes: Constant polymer mass and reduction of polymer mass. Effects of Residual Resistance Factor (RRF) is also evaluated. From simulation results, it is observed that first polymer slug with the highest concentration has the main function to buffer between displacing phase and reservoir oil. Moreover, part of polymer from this slug is also sacrificed for adsorption. Reduction of polymer concentration in the following slug prevents bypassing due to unfavorable mobility ratio. At the same time, following slugs with lower viscosity can be injected easily through formation, improving injectivity of the whole process. A sequential polymer flooding with reduction of polymer mass shows great benefit by reducing total production time and amount of polymer consumed up to 10% without any downside effect. The only advantage of using constant polymer mass is slightly increment of recovery factor (up to 1.4%) while total production time is almost the same. Increasing of residual resistance factor of polymer solution yields a benefit on mobility control by reducing effective permeability to water. Nevertheless, higher adsorption results in low injectivity, extending total production time. Modifying single polymer slug into sequence of reduced polymer concentration yields major benefits on reducing production time as well as polymer mass. With certain design of polymer flooding scheme, recovery factor can even be further increased. This study shows that application of sequential polymer flooding can be certainly applied to reservoir with high value of heterogeneity since it requires nothing complex for real implementation but just a proper design of polymer slug size and concentration.

Keywords: polymer flooding, sequential, heterogeneous reservoir, residual resistance factor

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Authors: Jenaidullah Batur, Sebghatullah Mudaber

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Currently, there is a list of catalysts that can reduce CO₂ to valuable chemicals and fuels, among them metal oxides such as TiO₂, known as promising photocatalysts to produce hydrogen and CO unless they are at an earlier age and still need to promote activity to able for produce fabricated values. Herein, in this work, we provided a novel, facile and eco-friendly synthesis strategy to synthesize more effective TiO₂-organic composite materials to selectively reduce CO₂ to CO. In this experiment, commercial nanocrystalline TiO₂ and saccharin with Li (LiBr, LiCl) were synthesized using the facile physical grinding in the motel pestle for 10 minutes, then added 10 mL of deionized water (18.2 megaohms) on the 300mg composite catalyst before samples moving for hydrothermal heating for 24 hours at 80 C in the oven. Compared with nanosized TiO₂, the new TiO₂-Sac-Li indeed displays a high CO generation rate of 70.83 μmol/g/h, which is 7 times higher than TiO₂, which shows enhancement in CO₂ reduction and an apparent improvement in charge carrier dynamic. The CO₂ reduction process at the gas-solid interface on TiO₂-Sac-Li composite semiconductors is investigated by functional calculations and several characterization methods. The results indicate that CO₂ can be easily activated by the TiO₂-Sac-Li atoms on the surface. This work innovatively investigates CO₂ reduction in novel composite materials and helps to broaden the applications of composite materials semiconductors.

Keywords: green chemistry, green synthesis, TiO₂, photocatalyst

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Authors: Kishor Kumar Sadasivuni, Mizaj Shabil Sha, Assim Alajali, Godlaveeti Sreenivasa Kumar, Aboubakr M. Abdullah, Bijandra Kumar, Mithra Geetha

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A potential pathway for efficient hydrogen production from water splitting electrolysis involves catalysis or electrocatalysis, which plays a crucial role in energy conversion and storage. Hydrogen generated by electrocatalytic water splitting requires active, stable, and low-cost catalysts or electrocatalysts to be developed for practical applications. In this study, we evaluated combination of 2D materials of NiS nanoparticle catalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions. The photocatalytic H₂ production rate of this nanoparticle is high and exceeds that obtained on components alone. Nanoparticles serve as electron collectors and transporters, which explains this improvement. Moreover, a current density was recorded at reduced working potential by 0.393 mA. Calculations based on density functional theory indicate that the nanoparticle's hydrogen evolution reaction catalytic activity is caused by strong interaction between its components at the interface. The samples were analyzed by XPS and morphologically by FESEM for the best outcome, depending on their structural shapes. Use XPS and morphologically by FESEM for the best results. This nanocomposite demonstrated higher electro-catalytic activity, and a low tafel slope of 60 mV/dec. Additionally, despite 1000 cycles into a durability test, the electrocatalyst still displays excellent stability with minimal current loss. The produced catalyst has shown considerable potential for use in the evolution of hydrogen due to its robust synthesis. According to these findings, the combination of 2D materials of nickel sulfide sample functions as good electocatalyst for H₂ evolution. Additionally, the research being done in this fascinating field will surely push nickel sulfide-based technology closer to becoming an industrial reality and revolutionize existing energy issues in a sustainable and clean manner.

Keywords: electrochemical hydrogenation, nickel sulfide, electrocatalysts, energy conversion, catalyst

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Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Li Zhang, Naveed Nawaz

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In this paper, a non-cooperative game method is formulated where all players compete to transmit at higher power. Every base station represents a player in the game. The game is solved by obtaining the Nash equilibrium (NE) where the game converges to optimality. The proposed method, named Power Efficient Handover Game Theoretic (PEHO-GT) approach, aims to control the handover in dense small cell networks. Players optimize their payoff by adjusting the transmission power to improve the performance in terms of throughput, handover, power consumption and load balancing. To select the desired transmission power for a player, the payoff function considers the gain of increasing the transmission power. Then, the cell selection takes place by deploying Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). A game theoretical method is implemented for heterogeneous networks to validate the improvement obtained. Results reveal that the proposed method gives a throughput improvement while reducing the power consumption and minimizing the frequent handover.

Keywords: energy efficiency, game theory, handover, HetNets, small cells

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Authors: Smita Chaudhary

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Traffic in India are observed uncontrolled, and are characterized by chaotic (not follows the lane discipline) traffic situation. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a viable option to enhance transportation capacity and provide increased levels of mobility and accessibility. At present in Ahmadabad there are as many intersections which face the congestion and delay at signalized intersection due to transit (BRT) lanes. Most of the intersection in spite of being signalized is operated manually due to the conflict between BRT buses and heterogeneous traffic. Though BRTS in Ahmadabad has an exclusive lane of its own but with this comes certain limitations which Ahmadabad is facing right now. At many intersections in Ahmadabad due to these conflicts, interference, and congestion both heterogeneous traffic as well as transit buses suffer traffic delays of remarkable 3-4 minutes at each intersection which has a become an issue of great concern. There is no provision of BRT bus priority due to which existing signals have their least role to play in managing the traffic that ultimately call for manual operation. There is an immense decrement in the daily ridership of BRTS because people are finding this transit mode no more time saving in their routine, there is an immense fall in ridership ultimately leading to increased number of private vehicles, idling of vehicles at intersection cause air and noise pollution. In order to bring back these commuters’ transit facilities need to be improvised. Classified volume count survey, travel time delay survey was conducted and revised signal design was done for whole study stretch having three intersections and one roundabout, later one intersection was simulated in order to see the effect of giving priority to BRT on side street queue length and travel time for heterogeneous traffic. This paper aims at suggesting the recommendations in signal cycle, introduction of intermittent priority for transit buses, simulation of intersection in study stretch with proposed signal cycle using VISSIM in order to make this transit amenity feasible and attracting for commuters in Ahmadabad.

Keywords: BRT, priority, Ridership, Signal, VISSIM

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Authors: Littlelet N. Scarlet, Kamaluddin Abdur-Rashid, Paul T. Maragh, Tara Dasgupta

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Aminophosphines are a privileged class of ancillary ligands with emerging importance in homogeneous catalysis. The unique combination of soft phosphorus (P) and hard nitrogen (N) centres affords a variety of transition metal complexes as potential pre-catalysts for synthetically useful reactions. Herein three ligand systems will be reported; two bidentate ligands - (S)-8-(diphenyl-phosphino)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalen-1-amine, (S)THNANH2, and (Rc)-1-((Sp)-2-diphenylphosphino) ferrocenylethylamine, (RcSp)PPFNH2 - and a tridentate (Rc)-1-((Sp)-2-diphenylphosphino) ferrocenylimino-pyridine, (RcSp)PPFNNH2 ligand; the latter prepared from the condensation of selected ferrocene aminophosphines with pyridine-2-carboxaldehyde. Suitable combinations of these aminophosphine ligands with ruthenium precursors have afforded highly efficient systems for the asymmetric hydrogenation and transfer hydrogenation of selected ketones in 2-propanol. The Ru-(S)THNANH2 precatalyst was the most efficient in the asymmetric hydrogenation of selected ketones with 100% conversions within 4 hours at a catalyst loading of 0.1 mol%. The Ru-(RcSp)PPFNNH2 precatalyst was the most efficient in the asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of the ketones with conversions as high as 98% with 0.1 mol% catalyst. However, the enantioselectivities were generally low.

Keywords: aminophosphine, asymmetric hydrogenation, homogeneous catalysis, ruthenium (II), transfer hydrogenation

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Authors: Shalini Arora, Sri Sivakumar

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The deep removal of high molecular weight sulphur compounds (e.g., 4,6, dimethyl dibenzothiophene) is challenging due to their steric hindrance. Hydrogenation desulfurization (HYD) pathway is the main pathway to remove these sulfur compounds, and it is mainly governed by the number of type 2 sites. The formation of type 2 sites can be enhanced by modulating the pore structure and the interaction between the active metal and support. To this end, we report the enhanced HDS catalytic activity of ultrasmall NiMo supported on amorphous alumina (A-Al₂O₃) catalysts by one pot colloidal synthesis method followed by calcination and sulfidation. The amorphous alumina (A-Al₂O₃) was chosen as the support due to its lower surface energy, better physicochemical properties, and enhanced acidic sites (due to the dominance of tetra and penta coordinated [Al] sites) than crystalline alumina phase. At 20% metal oxide composition, NiMo supported on A-Al₂O₃ catalyst showed 1.4 and 1.2 times more reaction rate constant and turn over frequency (TOF) respectively than the conventional catalyst (wet impregnated NiMo catalysts) for HDS reaction of dibenzothiophene reactant molecule. A-Al₂O₃ supported catalysts represented enhanced type 2 sites formation (because this catalystpossesses higher sulfidation degree (80%) and NiMoS sites (19.3 x 10¹⁷ sites/mg) with desired optimum stacking degree (2.5) than wet impregnated catalyst at same metal oxide composition 20%) along with higher active metal dispersion, Mo edge site fraction. The experimental observations were also supported by DFT simulations. Lower heat of adsorption (< 4.2 ev for MoS2 interaction and < 3.15 ev for Ni doped MoS2 interaction) values for A-Al₂O₃ confirmed the presence of weaker metal-support interaction in A-Al₂O₃ in contrast to crystalline ℽ-Al₂O3. The weak metal-support interaction for prepared catalysts clearly suggests the higher formation of type 2 sites which leads to higher catalytic activity for HDS reaction.

Keywords: amorphous alumina, colloidal, desulfurization, metal-support interaction

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Authors: Siddhartha Chauhan, Nitin Kumar Kotania

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Traditional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) generally use static sinks to collect data from the sensor nodes via multiple forwarding. Therefore, network suffers with some problems like long message relay time, bottle neck problem which reduces the performance of the network. Many approaches have been proposed to prevent this problem with the help of mobile sink to collect the data from the sensor nodes, but these approaches still suffer from the buffer overflow problem due to limited memory size of sensor nodes. This paper proposes an energy efficient scheme for data gathering which overcomes the buffer overflow problem. The proposed scheme creates virtual grid structure of heterogeneous nodes. Scheme has been designed for sensor nodes having variable sensing rate. Every node finds out its buffer overflow time and on the basis of this cluster heads are elected. A controlled traversing approach is used by the proposed scheme in order to transmit data to sink. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified by simulation.

Keywords: buffer overflow problem, mobile sink, virtual grid, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Didem Ildırar, Serap Fındık

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Baker’s yeast industry uses molasses as a raw material. Molasses wastewater contains high molecular weight polymers called melanoidins. Melanoidins are obtained after the reactions between the amino acids and carbonyl groups in molasses. The molasses wastewater has high biochemical and chemical oxygen demand and dark brown color. If it is discharged to receiving bodies without any treatment, it prevents light penetration and dissolved oxygen level of the surface water decreases. Melanoidin compounds are toxic effect to the microorganism in water and there is a resistance to microbial degradation. Before discharging molasses wastewater, adequate treatment is necessary. In addition to changing environmental regulations, properties of treated wastewater must be improved. Advanced oxidation processes can be used to improve existing properties of wastewater. Sonochemical oxidation is one of the alternative methods. Sonochemical oxidation employs the use of ultrasound resulting in cavitation phenomena. In this study, decolorization and chemical oxygen demand removal (COD) of baker’s yeast effluent was investigated by using ultrasound. Baker’s yeast effluent was supplied from a factory which is located in the north of Turkey. An ultrasonic homogenizator was used for this study. Its operating frequency is 20kHz. SnO2/TiO2 catalyst has been used as sonocatalyst. The effects of the composite preparation method, mixing time while composite prepared, the molar ratio of SnO2/TiO2, the calcination temperature, and time, the catalyst amount were investigated on the treatment of baker’s yeast effluent. . According to the results, the prepared composite SnO2/TiO2 by using ultrasonic probe gave a better result than prepared composite by using an ultrasonic bath. Prepared composite by using an ultrasonic probe with a 4:1 molar ratio treated at 800°C for 60min gave a better result. By using this composite, optimum catalyst amount was 0.2g/l. At these conditions 26.6% decolorization was obtained. There was no COD removal at the studied conditions.

Keywords: baker’s yeast effluent, COD, decolorization, sonocatalyst, ultrasonic irradiation

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Authors: Gyo Woo Lee, Man Young Kim

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Emission regulations for diesel engines are being strengthened and it is impossible to meet the standards without exhaust after-treatment systems. Lack of the space in many diesel vehicles, however, make it difficult to design and install stand-alone catalytic converters such as DOC, DPF, and SCR in the vehicle exhaust systems. Accordingly, those have been installed inside the muffler to save the space, and referred to the catalytic muffler. However, that has complex internal structure with perforated plate and pipe for noise and monolithic catalyst for emission reduction. For this reason, flow uniformity and pressure drop, which affect efficiency of catalyst and engine performance, respectively, should be examined when the catalytic muffler is designed. In this work, therefore, the flow uniformity and pressure drop to improve the performance of the catalytic converter and the engine have been numerically investigated by changing various design parameters such as inlet shape, porosity, and outlet shape of the muffler using the three-dimensional turbulent flow of the incompressible, non-reacting, and steady state inside the catalytic muffler. Finally, it can be found that the shape, in which the muffler has perforated pipe inside the inlet part, has higher uniformity index and lower pressure drop than others considered in this work.

Keywords: catalytic muffler, perforated inlet cone, catalysts, perforated pipe, flow uniformity, pressure drop

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Authors: Yingjeng James Li, Chiao-Chih Hu

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Membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) applications were prepared by using 10 and 15 um PEMs. Except for different membrane thicknesses, these MEAs were prepared by the same conditions. They were prepared by using catalyst coated membrane (CCM) process. The catalyst employed is 40% Pt/C, and the Pt loading is 0.5mg/cm² for the sum of anode and cathode. Active area of the MEAs employed in this study is 5cm*5cm=25cm². In polarization measurements, the flow rates were always set at 1.2 stoic for anode and 3.0 stoic for cathode. The outlets were in open-end mode. The flow filed is tri-serpentine design. The cell temperatures and the humidification conditions were varied for the purpose of MEA performance observations. It was found that the performance of these two types of MEAs is about the same at fully or partially humidified operation conditions; however, 10um MEA exhibits higher current density in dry or low humidified conditions. For example, at 70C cell, 100% RH, and 0.6V condition, both MEAs have similar current density which is 1320 and 1342mA/cm² for 15um and 10um product, respectively. However, when in operation without external humidification, 10um MEA can produce 1085mA/cm²; whereas 15um MEA produces only 720mA/cm².

Keywords: fuel cell, membrane electrode assembly, PEFC, PEMFC, proton exchange membrane

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Authors: Umberto Di Staso, Marco Soave, Alessio Giori, Federico Prandi, Raffaele De Amicis

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The increasing availability of information about earth surface elevation (Digital Elevation Models DEM) generated from different sources (remote sensing, Aerial Images, Lidar) poses the question about how to integrate and make available to the most than possible audience this huge amount of data. In order to exploit the potential of 3D elevation representation the quality of data management plays a fundamental role. Due to the high acquisition costs and the huge amount of generated data, highresolution terrain surveys tend to be small or medium sized and available on limited portion of earth. Here comes the need to merge large-scale height maps that typically are made available for free at worldwide level, with very specific high resolute datasets. One the other hand, the third dimension increases the user experience and the data representation quality, unlocking new possibilities in data analysis for civil protection, real estate, urban planning, environment monitoring, etc. The open-source 3D virtual globes, which are trending topics in Geovisual Analytics, aim at improving the visualization of geographical data provided by standard web services or with proprietary formats. Typically, 3D Virtual globes like do not offer an open-source tool that allows the generation of a terrain elevation data structure starting from heterogeneous-resolution terrain datasets. This paper describes a technological solution aimed to set up a so-called “Terrain Builder”. This tool is able to merge heterogeneous-resolution datasets, and to provide a multi-resolution worldwide terrain services fully compatible with CesiumJS and therefore accessible via web using traditional browser without any additional plug-in.

Keywords: Terrain Builder, WebGL, Virtual Globe, CesiumJS, Tiled Map Service, TMS, Height-Map, Regular Grid, Geovisual Analytics, DTM

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Authors: Alexander Dao, Oscar Wambuguh

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a heterogeneous functional bowel disease that is characterized by chronic visceral abdominal pain and abnormal bowel function and habits. Its multifactorial pathophysiology and mechanisms are still largely a mystery to the contemporary biomedical community, although there are many hypotheses to try to explain IBS’s presumed physiological, psychosocial, genetic, and environmental etiologies. IBS’s symptomatic presentation is varied and divided into four major subtypes: IBS-C, IBS-D, IBS-M, and IBS-U. Given its diverse presentation and unclear mechanisms, diagnosis is done through a combination of positive identification utilizing the “Rome IV Irritable Bowel Syndrome Criteria'' (Rome IV) diagnostic criteria while also excluding other potential conditions with similar symptoms. Treatment of IBS is focused on the management of symptoms using an assortment of pharmaceuticals, lifestyle changes, and dietary changes, with future potential in microbial treatment and psychotherapy as other therapy methods. Its chronic, heterogeneous nature and disruptive gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are negatively impactful on patients’ daily lives, health systems, and society. However, with a better understanding of the gaps in knowledge and technological advances in IBS’s pathophysiology, management, and treatment options, there is optimism for the millions of people worldwide who are suffering from the debilitating effects of IBS.

Keywords: irritable bowel syndrome, lifestyle, diet, functional gastrointestinal disorder

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Authors: Su-Ning Wang, Yao-Qiang Chen

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The CeO2-ZrO2-La2O3-Al2O3 composite oxides are synthesized using co-precipitation method by two different reactors (i.e. continuous stirred-tank reactor and batch reactor), and the corresponding Rh-only three-way catalysts are obtained by wet-impregnation approach. The textural, structural, morphology and redox properties of the support materials, as well as the catalytic performance of the Rh-only catalyst are investigated systematically. The results reveal that the materials (CZLA-C) synthesized by continuous stirred-tank reactor have a better physic-chemical properties than the counterpart material (CZLA-B) prepared by batch reactor. After aging treatment at 1000 ℃ for 5 h, the BET surface area and pore volume of S1 reach up to 76 m2 g-1 and 0.36 mL/g, respectively, which is higher than that of S2. The XRD and Raman results demonstrate that a high structural stability is obtained by S1 because of the negligible lattice variation and the slight grain growth after aging treatment. The SEM and TEM images display that the morphology of S1 is assembled by many homogeneous primary nanoparticles (about 6.12 nm) that are connected to form mesoporous structure The TPR measurement shows that S1 possesses a higher reduction ability than S2. Compared with the catalyst supported on the CZLA-B, the as-prepared CZLA-C demonstrates an improved three-way catalytic activity both before and after aging treatment.

Keywords: composite oxides, reactor, catalysis, catalytic performance

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Authors: Abhishek Chandra, Man Singh

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Highly stable and homogeneously dispersed amino acid coated silver nanoparticles (ANP) of ≈ 10 nm diameter, ranging from 420 to 430 nm are prepared on AgNO3 solution addition to gum of Azadirachta indica solution at 373.15 K. The amino acids were selected based on their polarity. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis, FTIR spectroscopy, HR-TEM, XRD, SEM and 1H-NMR. The coated nanoparticles were used as catalyst for the reduction of methylene blue dye in presence of Sn(II) in aqueous, anionic and cationic micellar media. The rate of reduction of dye was determined by measuring the absorbance at 660 nm, spectrophotometrically and followed the order: Kcationic > Kanionic > Kwater. After 12 min and in absence of the ANP, only 2%, 3% and 6% of the dye reduction was completed in aqueous, anionic and cationic micellar media respectively while, in presence of ANP coated by polar neutral amino acid with non-polar -R group, the reduction completed to 84%, 95% and 98% respectively. The ANP coated with polar neutral amino acid having non-polar -R group, increased the rate of reduction of the dye by 94, 3205 and 6370 folds in aqueous, anionic and cationic micellar media respectively. Also, the rate of reduction of the dye increased by three folds when the micellar media was changed from anionic to cationic when the ANP is coated by a polar neutral amino acid having a non-polar -R group.

Keywords: silver nanoparticle, surfactant, methylene blue, amino acid

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