In the presented work, a series of asymmetric dicationic ionic liquids (ADILs) with different alkyl chain length spacer between the two cation nuclei (imidazolium and pyridinium) with chlorine halide ...anion was designed, synthesized with excellent yield (89, 90 and 88%) and well characterized via different tools of analysis (FT-IR and 1H-NMR spectroscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis; TGA). The synthesized ADILs were examined for potential esterification as recyclable catalysts including the activity of catalytic performance, the reaction conditions justifying. The noted resulted data indicated that the butyric acid was converted perfectly into ester in presence of ADILs with short time of reaction. By completing our studies through the effect of chemical structures, concentrations, time and temperatures, we found that the synthesized Py-6-Imi exhibit the best catalytic performance with 96% as conversion value after 20 min at the ambient temperature (25 °C). The synthesized ADILs also recovered and reused for minimum three rounds without any significant reduction in the catalytic performance. Totally, the usage of ADILs in the esterification process offers lots of benefits such as perfect yield, quick time and environmentally friendly characteristics which make them the optimum sustainable compounds to be achieved in variety of industrial applications.
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Abstract
Membrane electrode assemblies enable CO
2
electrolysis at industrially relevant rates, yet their operational stability is often limited by formation of solid precipitates in the cathode ...pores, triggered by cation crossover from the anolyte due to imperfect ion exclusion by anion exchange membranes. Here we show that anolyte concentration affects the degree of cation movement through the membranes, and this substantially influences the behaviors of copper catalysts in catholyte-free CO
2
electrolysers. Systematic variation of the anolyte (KOH or KHCO
3
) ionic strength produced a distinct switch in selectivity between either predominantly CO or C
2+
products (mainly C
2
H
4
) which closely correlated with the quantity of alkali metal cation (K
+
) crossover, suggesting cations play a key role in C-C coupling reaction pathways even in cells without discrete liquid catholytes. Operando X-ray absorption and quasi in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the Cu surface speciation showed a strong dependence on the anolyte concentration, wherein dilute anolytes resulted in a mixture of Cu
+
and Cu
0
surface species, while concentrated anolytes led to exclusively Cu
0
under similar testing conditions. These results show that even in catholyte-free cells, cation effects (including unintentional ones) significantly influence reaction pathways, important to consider in future development of catalysts and devices.
Selective electrochemical reduction of CO2 is an emerging field which needs more active and stable catalysts for its practicability. In this work, we have studied the influence of Ag metal ...incorporation into Cu dendritic structures on the product distribution and selectivity of CO2 electroreduction. Bimetallic AgCu foams prepared by hydrogen bubble templated electrodeposition shift the potentials of CO production to more positive values compared to bulk silver. The presence of Ag during the electrodeposition significantly changed the size and the shape of the dendrites in the pore walls of AgCu foams compared to Cu foam. The CO adsorption characteristics are studied by operando Raman spectroscopy. In the presence of Ag, the maximum CO adsorption is observed at a more positive potential. As a result, an improved selectivity for CO is obtained for AgCu foam catalysts at lower overpotentials compared to Cu foam catalyst, evidencing a synergistic effect between the bimetallic components. We were successful in increasing the CO mass activity with respect to the total Ag amount. AgCu foams are found to retain the CO selectivity during long-term operation, and with their easily scalable electrodeposition synthesis they possess high potential for industrial application.
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Recent empirical literature has seen many multidimensional indices emerge as well-being or poverty measures, in particular indices derived from principal components and various latent variable ...models. Though such indices are being increasingly and widely employed, few studies motivate their use or report the standard errors or confidence intervals associated with these estimators. This paper reviews the different underlying models, reaffirms their appropriateness in this context, examines the statistical properties of resulting indices, gives analytical expressions of their variances and establishes certain exact relationships among them.
Abstract
Deposition of asphaltene aggregates can easily depress the oil production, because it may clog the wellbores, annulus, pipelines, and surface facilities. Moreover, asphaltene molecules have ...a negative effect on the catalytic reactions in the refinery process. Therefore, in this work, three different ionic liquids (IL-H, IL-CH
3
, and IL-NO
2
) were synthesized, and characterized using FT-IR and NMR spectroscopy to evaluate their efficiency as asphaltene dispersants. The thermal gravimetric analysis of the prepared ILs showed that IL-H, IL-NO
2
, and IL-CH
3
were thermally stable up to 280 °C. The ILs showed good dispersion activity of the petroleum asphaltenes, where the asphaltene onset precipitation (AOP) was changed from 7.5 to 10.5, 11, and 13.5 ml added n-heptane after the use of IL-H, IL-NO
2
, and IL-CH
3
, respectively. Moreover, the colloidal instability index of crude oil was changed from 0.92 (unstable asphaltene) to 0.69 (stable asphaltene). It is noted during the experiments that the presence of an alkyl chain attached to the ionic liquid moiety increases the efficiency of the dispersant. This may be owing to the formation of π–π
*
with asphaltene molecules due to the presence of electron donating group. Quantum chemical parameters were calculated for the prepared ILs, and the theoretical data confirmed the experimental results.
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We study a one-dimensional lattice model of particles which interact with each other via hard-core repulsion, and which can make long hops in addition to the usual nearest neighbour hopping dynamics. ...The parameter p gives the probability for long hops and the p = 0 limit leads to the well studied totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP). The first part of this study describes the combined effect of open boundaries and long hops on the steady state of the system. Apart from the usual low density (LD), high density (HD) and maximum current (MC) phases, the introduction of a finite p leads to a new possibility-an empty road (ER) phase with particles clearing out faster than they enter. The variation in the phase diagram with p is interesting, with the LD and MC phases vanishing at large values of p while the ER and HD phases divide the parameter space into 1/2. In the second part of this study, we look at the combined effect of long hops and static/dynamic impurities. The boundaries are taken to be periodic for simplicity. We see that the system with a static impurity and with 0 < p < 1 shows a phase transition from a shock phase characterised by finite densities on either side of the shock (HD-LD phase) to a phase where the density on one side of the shock is zero (HD-ER phase). We also study the effect of a dynamic impurity, introduced via a slow particle. Here, the system undergoes a phase transition from a homogeneous phase to a shock phase depending on the density, the speed of the particle, as well as the probability p. The shock phase dominates the phase diagram at large values of p. All our studies involve numerical simulations which are supported by mean field theory arguments. The mean field approximation works well qualitatively and correctly identifies the possible phases, while the quantitative agreement with numerics varies, depending on parameter values.
With the projected increase in the production of heavy oil due to the energy crisis, asphaltene-related issues are likely to come to the forefront. This leads to operational problems, safety hazards, ...and oil production deficiencies, resulting in huge economic losses for the petroleum industry. Therefore, in this work, we aimed to inhibit asphaltene precipitation using ionic liquid (IL) compounds. ILs with long alkyl chains can inhibit the precipitation of asphaltene molecules due to the π-π* interactions between them and the formation of hydrogen bonds. A series of imidazolium-based ionic liquids, IL-0, IL-4, IL-10, and IL-16, were synthesized with yield percents of 79, 81, 80, and 83%, respectively. The prepared materials were characterized well using FTIR,
H-NMR, and Elemental Analysis. The surface tension, interfacial tension (IFT), and different surface parameters were investigated at different temperatures to simulate the reservoir temperature. IL-0, IL-4, IL-10, and IL-16 displayed their γ
values at 35, 34, 31, and 32 mN/m at 303 °K, respectively. It was found that the prepared ILs are good surfactants with low values of interfacial tension. Quantum structure-activity relationships using Density Functional Theory (DFT) were used to investigate the geometry optimization electronic structures, the energy gap (ΔE), and the reactivity of the cations of the prepared ILs. The synthesized ILs were evaluated as asphaltene dispersants using two different techniques. The viscometric technique showed that the asphaltene onset precipitation was 28.5 vol.%. This percent was postponed to 42.8, 50, 78.5, and 64.3 vol.%, after adding IL-0, IL-4, IL-10, and IL-16, respectively, and the spectroscopic technique confirmed the results.
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Nowadays, researchers are very interested in improving the stability and solubility of blending diesel fuel with a high percentage of ethanol. As a result, the goal of this paper was to find a way to ...use the surfactant of Tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) substance to blend ethanol with diesel fuel to a level of 40%. Diesel fuel is mixed with ethanol in volumetric proportions of 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%, as well as a tiny amount of TBP from 1 to 4%. The prepared blends were the subject of an experiment evaluation by fueling a direct injection diesel engine. This engine is a water-cooled, commercial diesel engine, single cylinder, and four-stroke with 12 kW maximum power. The four blends were evaluated as clean fuel mixtures of 10% ethanol/90% diesel/1% TBP, 20% ethanol/80% diesel/2% TBP, 30% ethanol/70% diesel/3% TBP, and 40% ethanol/60% diesel/4% TBP. As the starting fuel, we used 100% diesel to compare the results. The engine's output and emissions have been measured at various engine loads and constant speeds of 1500 rpm. According to the data gathered, even when the percentage of ethanol was increased to 40%, neither the base fuel nor the engine BTE changed significantly. The engine exhaust gas temperature was found to decrease slightly when the proportion of ethanol was increased. When bioethanol is increased to 40% of the base volume, it causes an increase in the combustion of unburned hydrocarbons and CO emissions. However, when the percentage of ethanol was increased from 100% diesel to the base fuel to 40%, CO
emissions decreased, and O
emissions slightly increased.
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