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•(SAFPBM) as heterogeneous photocatalyst was synthesized and characterized.•The transesterification of castor oil performed with was with methanol ethanol in presence of visible light ...irradiations (5W/9W/12W LED).•Maximum yield of the methyl biodiesel achieved of 94% (18 h, 15 mg photocatalyst under visible light at ambient conditions).•The heterogeneous photocatalyst (SAFPBM) was recycled up to 7th cycle without declined its activity.•The possible mechanism is through formation of H+, CH3O* and RCOOH* on the surface of catalyst.
A novel sulfonic acid-functionalized porphyrin comprising benzimidazolium moiety (SAFPBM) was prepared using 1-(3-formyl-2-hydroxybenzyl)-3-(4-sulfobutyl) (3a), dihydro-1H-benzod imidazole-3-ium(oxidosulfinyl)bis(I1-oxy) (7a) and pyrrole in stoichiometric proportions. The synthesized photocatalyst was confirmed by various characterizations and assessed as a potential photocatalyst for the conversion of castor oil to biodiesel component by reaction with alcohols in presence of visible light irradiations (5 W/9W/12 W LED). The photocatalyst with 0.70 Hammett acidity, achieved 94% methyl ricinoleate in 18 h using 15 mg under visible light at ambient temperature and 6:1 methanol: castor oil ratio. SAFPBM displayed admirable photocatalytic activity with recyclability for 7 runs, towards the transesterification of castor oil and other vegetable oils at room temperature. The formation of methyl recinoleate was confirmed by NMR, DEPT, HRMS, HPLC and successfully hydrogenated to methyl 12-hydroxyoctadecanoate using HCOOH as a hydrogen source. A plausible reaction mechanism for the formation of methyl ricinoleate is projected via formation of H+, CH3O* and unstable tetrahedral intermediate on Photocatalytic surface.
Characterization of microbiomes has been enabled by high-throughput metagenomic sequencing. However, existing methods are not designed to combine reads from short- and long-read technologies. We ...present a hybrid metagenomic assembler named OPERA-MS that integrates assembly-based metagenome clustering with repeat-aware, exact scaffolding to accurately assemble complex communities. Evaluation using defined in vitro and virtual gut microbiomes revealed that OPERA-MS assembles metagenomes with greater base pair accuracy than long-read (>5×; Canu), higher contiguity than short-read (~10× NGA50; MEGAHIT, IDBA-UD, metaSPAdes) and fewer assembly errors than non-metagenomic hybrid assemblers (2×; hybridSPAdes). OPERA-MS provides strain-resolved assembly in the presence of multiple genomes of the same species, high-quality reference genomes for rare species (<1%) with ~9× long-read coverage and near-complete genomes with higher coverage. We used OPERA-MS to assemble 28 gut metagenomes of antibiotic-treated patients, and showed that the inclusion of long nanopore reads produces more contiguous assemblies (200× improvement over short-read assemblies), including more than 80 closed plasmid or phage sequences and a new 263 kbp jumbo phage. High-quality hybrid assemblies enable an exquisitely detailed view of the gut resistome in human patients.
The composite manufacturing has been a wide area of research and it is the preferred choice due to its superior properties like low density, stiffness, light weight and possesses better mechanical ...properties. This has found its wide applications in aerospace, automotive, marine and sporting industries. There has been continuous lookout for synthesizing composites without compromising on the mechanical and physical properties. In this research, fiber reinforced composites were prepared with jute fibers of fiber length 5-6mm. The resins used in this study are polyester and epoxy. The composites were synthesized at 18:82 fiber-resin weight percentages. The prepared composites were tested to study the mechanical properties of the composite such as tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength and hardness. The results show that the jute reinforced epoxy composite exhibited better mechanical properties than Jute-polyester composite.
The key intention of this study is to effectively utilize the Madhuca longifolia oil (ML) in a diesel engine. Dual fuel mode is one of the most promising research concepts in diesel engine arena that ...intends to improve the performance and reduce the smoke emission. In this work, hydrogen was injected into intake manifold as primary fuel whereas the ML was injected directly into the cylinder as pilot fuel in the setup that had a single cylinder constant speed diesel engine. The performance of the engine was increased from 25% with neat ML operation to 28.5% with hydrogen-based dual fuel mode. However, the hydrogen combustion resulted in knocking, thus it had a direct impact on BTE as well. Water Injection (WI) method was used to extend the knock limit and to increase the hydrogen energy share. The researcher observed 18% and 76% improvements in BTE and smoke emission from 5% of water using mass fraction along with hydrogen. The hydrogen energy share was increased from 6% to 8.5% with 5% WI. A distinctive attempt i.e., addition of ALPG was attempted on behalf of offsetting the knock and increasing the hydrogen energy share. ALPG was inducted along with hydrogen in the range of 1, 1.5 and 2 l/m. Interestingly, 24% improvement in BTE was noted when 1.5 l/m of ALPG was inducted. In addition to this, 83% smoke emission was reduced remarkably. Overall performance of the engine was improved by extending the knock limit, WI and ALPG induction along with hydrogen.
High speed machining is now acknowledged to be one of the key manufacturing technologies to ensure high productivity and throughput. Drilling of CFRP, though a challenging task, is being performed ...successfully at low spindle speeds. However high speed drilling in CFRP thin laminates has not been explored much. This paper reports an experimental investigation of a full factorial design performed on thin CFRP laminates using K20 carbide drill by varying the drilling parameters such as spindle speed and feed rate to determine optimum cutting conditions. The hole quality parameters analyzed include hole diameter, circularity, peel-up delamination and push-out delamination. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out for hole quality parameters and their contribution rates were determined. Genetic Algorithm (GA) methodology was used in the multiple objective optimization (using MATLAB R2010a software) to find the optimum cutting conditions for defect free drilling. Tool life of the K20 carbide drill was predicted at optimized cutting speed and feed.
The objective of this work is to study the addition of n-pentanol with the Calophyllum Inophyllum biodiesel to evaluate the performance, emission and combustion characteristics. Five different fuel ...blends are prepared by varying the n-pentanol fraction (10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%) on volume basis with biodiesel. The prepared samples are tested in single cylinder constant speed CI engine. The addition of n-pentanol with biodiesel improves the thermal efficiency of the fuel blend up to 30% as compared to pure biodiesel. Among all fuel samples, B90P10 blend has shown higher brake thermal efficiency as 27% which is slightly lower than BTE of diesel fuel. The brake specific fuel consumption of biodiesel-pentanol blends are increased from 4.2% to 27.3% when compared to diesel fuel (D100). However, addition of n-pentanol more than 40% shows a negative effect in terms of performance and combustion. It is noted that biodiesel and n-pentanol blends have shown 15–43% and 33–50% reduction in hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions compared to diesel. Further, the oxides of nitrogen and smoke emissions are found to be lesser for n-pentanol blends while comparing to the pure biodiesel. Among all blends, B90P10 is found to have better performance and emission characteristics.
•n-pentanol is add with Calophyllum Inophyllum biodiesel at fractions of 10%–50%.•Engine characteristics of higher alcohol blend with biodiesel is studied.•Performance of n-pentanol fraction for 10%, 20%, 30% is superior than pure biodiesel.•NOx emissions is reduced for the n-pentanol fractions with biodiesel.•Ignition delay is increased for the n-pentanol blends due to low cetane number.
The present work shows the improved humidity sensing characteristics of TiO2 nanoparticles in the form of a nanocomposite with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) prepared by a ...hydration–dehydration method. The structural and morphological characterizations of TiO2–MWCNTs confirm the nanocomposite formation without any other impurities and with an improved surface area. The pure TiO2 and nanocomposite films are deposited on IDE coated flexible poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates by a drop casting method. The nanocomposite shows improved sensitivity (1246.2 MΩ/%RH) and an ultrafast response/recovery time (2 s/1 s) with a minimal hysteresis of 0.27%RH. Further, the flexible nanocomposite sensor is tested for human healthcare applications including respiratory monitoring, apnea like situations, and skin moisture detection. The sensor can distinguish different breath patterns like normal, fast, deep and apnea like situations significantly. Skin moisture detection can also be performed using the nanocomposite sensor in a non-invasive manner. Overall, this study represents an environmentally friendly, easy to fabricate, flexible TiO2–MWCNT nanocomposite based improved humidity sensor for application in human healthcare and wearable devices.
The present requirement of automobile industry is seeking lightweight material that satisfices the technical and technological requirements with better mechanical and tribological characteristics. ...Aluminium matrix composite ( AMC ) materials meet the requirements of the modern demands. AMCs are used in automotive applications as engine cylinders, pistons, disc and drum brakes. This paper investigates the effect of particle size and wt% of Al2O3/SiC reinforcement on mechanical and tribological properties of hybrid metal matrix composites (HMMCs). AA2024 aluminium alloy is reinforced with Al2O3/SiC different particle sizes (10, 20 and 40 µm) and weight fractions (upto 10 wt %) were fabricated by using squeeze casting technique. HMMCs were characterized for its properties such asX-ray diffraction (XRD), density, scanning electron microscope ( SEM ), hardness, tensile strength, wear and coefficient of friction. AA2024/5wt%Al2O3/5wt%SiC with 10 μm reinforced particle size showed maximum hardness and tensile strength 156.4 HV and 531.43 MPa and decrease in wear rate was observed from from 0.00307 to 0.00221 for 10N. Hybrid composites showed improved mechanical and wear resistance suitable for engine cylinder liner applications.
Task allocation within the cloud computing environment is a nondeterministic polynomial time class problem that is laborious to get the best solution. It is an important issue in the cloud computing ...setting. The usage of cloud based applications and cloud users are increasing tremendously. In order to handle the massive cloud user’s requests, effective multi-objective Hybrid Genetic Algorithm–Ant Colony Optimization (HGA–ACO) based task allocation technique is proposed in this paper. Utility based scheduler identifies the task order and suitable resources to be scheduled. The proposed HGA–ACO considers the utility based scheduler output and finds the best task allocation method based on response time, completion time and throughput. The HGA–ACO algorithm combines Genetic and Ant Colony Optimization algorithms together. Genetic algorithm (GA) initializes the effective pheromone for ant colony optimization (ACO). ACO is used to enhance the GA solutions for crossover operation of GA. The experimental results show that the proposed framework has better performance in task allocation and ensuring quality of service parameters.
Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a group of naturally occurring plant steroidal compounds having varied biological activities. This group was recently added in the category of classical hormones and ...considered as sixth novel plant growth hormone. BRs regulate numerous important pomological attributes such as initiation and cessation of flowering, plant canopy architecture, micropropagation, cell division and elongation, vegetative growth, flowering, fruit set, fruit ripening, quality and yield. Besides, BRs can improve resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. These are also known to enhance postharvest fruit quality. Owing to multiple and diverse physiological roles in plant growth and development, BRs have been collectively referred to as ‘pleotropic phytohormones’. In the present review, we have attempted to highlight the conceptual research and development of BRs with their wide range of physiological functions and economic significance in relation to modern fruit production.
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