Antibacterial textiles that repel external liquids while synchronously transport internal sweat to keep comfort moisture balance are desirable. However, very limited success has been achieved to ...construct such textiles. Herein, a facile approach to create durable antibacterial cotton fabric with skin-like wet management was proposed. The first step involved several minutes (< 5) dip-coating subsequently with PA and Cu2+, which afforded Cu enriched surfaces endowing highly efficient (99.95% in 2 h for E. coli, 99.99% in 2 h for S. aureus) and durable antibacterial activity (> 99.95% after 50 times washing treatment). The following step further paved a way of skin-like wet management by the construction of dotted wetting gradient on superhydrophobic background via transient exposure to a vapor mixture of methylchlorosilanes and successive patterned plasma etching. The liquid could only be transferred in the direction of the wetting gradient and was stopped when the fabric was faced against it, featuring synchronous antifouling and unidirectional water transmission so as to avoid wet clicking of the fabric with high air permeability even in a wet environment. This study opens a way for developing advanced fabrics which voluntarily release human sweat and meanwhile restrain microbial development obviating bacterial infection.
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•Durable antibacterial cotton fabric with skin-like wet management is created.•Minutes of dip-coating with phytic acid and Cu2+ solution afford Cu enriched surfaces.•Liquid gating involves superhydrophobic skin containing dotted wetting gradient.•Highly efficient and durable antibacterial activity (> 99.95% after 50 washing cycles).•Voluntary unidirectional water transmission and high air permeability at wetted state.
•The early cracking resistance and self-shrinkage performance of SWSSC were investigated.•The incorporation of FA can effectively reduce the self-shrinkage of SWSSC.•Early cracking performance of ...SWSSC was improved by incorporating LC2/FA.•LC2 hydrates slowly in 0-1d, but can promote rapid hydration of the matrix in 1-3d.
The building sector is one of the major consumers of resources and energy. To reduce its environmental impact, alternatives have been proposed: Concrete is manufactured using seawater and sea sand (SWSS) and fly ash (FA)/limestone calcined clay (LC2) to reduce the use of cement, freshwater river sand (FWRS). In this study, we investigated the early-age mechanical properties, self-shrinkage, cracking resistance, water transport characteristics, and pore structure of SWSS concrete with different dosages of FA/LC2 and water-to-binder ratios (W/B). The results showed that SWSS concrete had higher early-age strength and cracking resistance than FWRS concrete due to the stimulation effect of seawater on cement hydration, but also exhibited higher self-shrinkage. The use of FA as supplementary cementitious material reduced both the strength and self-shrinkage of SWSS concrete at early age, while LC2 had a dual effect: it showed low activity in the first day but enhanced hydration and strength development from day 1 to 3. However, LC2 also increased self-shrinkage significantly during this period. By using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, we found that when different types of concrete had similar pore characteristics, the proportion of pores smaller than 50 nm was the dominant factor affecting self-shrinkage and its potential evolution. This study provides some references for using SWSS and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) in concrete applications.
The need for energy is growing due to concerns about development and well-being, but the traditional methods of energy production harm people and the environment. This impact can be reduced by using ...renewable energy sources like hydropower. Since the cost of electromechanical equipment in small hydroelectric power plants accounts for a large percentage of the capital cost, applying the pump as turbine (PAT) is recommended. In this research, an effort has been made to select the optimal arrangement of PATs for a water transmission line without the need for control systems. The selection optimization process involves selecting the model of the pump as turbine and the number of turbines in parallel simultaneously. The optimization process relies on economic parameters, aiming to maximize the Net Present Value (NPV) of the power plant. In addition, the financial analysis of the project has been carried out. As a first step to achieve this objective, a database including single and double-suction pumps based on available pumps is needed. To cover a wider range of heads and flow rates, impeller trimming relationships for the pumps are considered. The Brute-Force algorithm has been used for the optimization process and two different objective functions (OF) have been investigated. First, it is based on economic optimization, and the NPV function is used as the OF; then, the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method is used as the second OF. The case study of this research is a water transmission line between two cities in Iran. A MATLAB code has been developed to perform all the steps of this study. The results demonstrate that by considering impeller trimming for pumps in the database and using NPV as OF, the number of pumps used for the power plant decreased from 12 to 6 and the capital cost decreased by about 10%. By implementing impeller trimming, the NPV and energy production of the PAT power plant are increased. Comparing the two desired objective functions leads to the recommended appropriate OF for applications. It is worth mentioning that the harvested energy from this water transmission line is about 9 GWh/year. The economic analysis results show that the PAT power plant payback period (PP) for this water transmission line is less than one year.
•The arrangement of PATs for a water transmission line without the need for a control system is optimized.•The database can handle a more range of heads and flows considering impeller trimming.•Net Present Value function is used as the objective function for the economic optimization.•Number of pumps in this case study decreased from 12 to 6 and the capital cost decreased by about 10%.•It is worth mentioning that the harvested energy from this water transmission line is about 9 GWh/year.
The stability of long‐term microfabricated implants is hindered by the presence of multiple water diffusion paths within artificially patterned thin‐film encapsulations. Side permeation, defined as ...infiltration of molecules through the lateral surface of the thin structure, becomes increasingly critical with the trend of developing high‐density and miniaturized neural electrodes. However, current permeability measurement methods do not account for side permeation accurately nor quantitatively. Here, a novel optical, magnesium (Mg)‐based method is proposed to quantify the side water transmission rate (SWTR) through thin film encapsulation and validate the approach using micrometric polyimide (PI) and polyimide‐silicon carbide (PI‐SiC) multilayers. Through computed digital grayscale images collected with corroding Mg film microcells coated with the thin encapsulation, side and surface WTRs are quantified. A 4.5‐fold ratio between side and surface permeation is observed, highlighting the crucial role of the PI–PI interface in lateral diffusion. Universal guidelines for the design of flexible, hermetic neural interfaces are proposed. Increasing encapsulation's width (interelectrode spacing), creating stronger interfacial interactions, and integrating high‐barrier interlayers such as SiC significantly enhance the lateral hermeticity.
This study introduces a magnesium‐based optical technique to quantify water permeation in thin film encapsulation, which becomes crucial as devices miniaturize. It highlights that design rules, robust interfacial interactions, and the use of high‐barrier materials like silicon carbide significantly enhance the encapsulation's barrier effectiveness. This offers a novel approach to improving the durability of thin film coatings.
Air valve failure can cause air accumulation and result in a loss of carrying capacity, pipe vibration and even in some situations a catastrophic failure of water transmission pipelines. Air is most ...likely to accumulate in downward sloping pipes, leading to flow regime transition in these pipes. The flow regime identification can be used for fault diagnosis of air valves, but has received little attention in previous research. This paper develops a flow regime identification method that is based on support vector machines (SVMs) to evaluate the operational state of air valves in freshwater/potable pipelines using pressure signals. The laboratory experiments are set up to collect pressure data with respect to the four common flow regimes: bubbly flow, plug flow, blow-back flow and stratified flow. Two SVMs are constructed to identify bubbly and plug flows and validated based on the collected pressure data. The results demonstrate that pressure signals can be used for identifying flow regimes that represent the operational state (functioning or malfunctioning) of air valves. Among several signal features, Power Spectral Density and Short-Zero Crossing Rate are found to be the best indictors to classify flow regimes by SVMs. The sampling rate and time of pressure signals have significant influence on the performance of SVM classification. With optimal SVM features and pressure sampling parameters the identification accuracies exceeded 93% in the test cases. The findings of this study show that the SVM flow regime identification is a promising methodology for fault diagnosis of air valve failure in water pipelines.
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•Flow regime identification is able to detect the operational state of air valves.•SVM effectively classifies the different flow regimes.•Best pressure signal feature improves identification accuracy.•Pressure sampling parameters impacts on identification accuracy.
India suffered from a devastating 2021 spring outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), surpassing any other outbreaks before. However, the reason for the acceleration of the outbreak in India ...is still unknown. We describe the statistical characteristics of infected patients from the first case in India to June 2021, and trace the causes of the two outbreaks in a complete way, combined with data on natural disasters, environmental pollution and population movements etc. We found that water-to-human transmission accelerates COVID-19 spreading. The transmission rate is 382% higher than the human-to-human transmission rate during the 2020 summer outbreak in India. When syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) enters the human body directly through the water-oral transmission pathway, virus particles and nitrogen salt in the water accelerate viral infection and mutation rates in the gastrointestinal tract. Based on the results of the attribution analysis, without the current effective interventions, India could have experienced a third outbreak during the monsoon season this year, which would have increased the severity of the disaster and led to a South Asian economic crisis.
Next‐generation bioelectronic implants require miniaturization, durability, and long‐term functionality. Thin film encapsulations, prepared with inorganic or hybrid organic/inorganic designs, are ...essential for ensuring protection, low water permeation, adaptability, and structural strength. It is equally important to precisely measure their barrier performance, especially for in vivo use, to ensure the manufacture of reliable bioelectronics. Current monitoring solutions are not adequate: they are bulky, lack sensitivity, and are incompatible with microfabricated devices. Here, a comprehensive method is introduced to quantify the permeability of thin‐film encapsulation for bioelectronic implants both in situ and in real time. This method relies on monitoring the electrical resistance of the Mg film, which experiences corrosion due to water permeation, leading to Mg hydrolysis. An analytical model is proposed that predicts and quantifies this permeation, and is adaptable for various types of encapsulations, including hybrid multilayers. An unprecedented ultra‐low detection limit of 3 × 10−8 g m−2 d−1 at room temperature is demonstrated and the monitoring approach is validated in vivo using polyimide and poly(dimethylsiloxane)‐coated bioelectronics.
A robust method is proposed that addresses a longstanding need for in situ assessment of thin film hermeticity. It allows for a quantitative evaluation of various types of TFE for bioelectronic systems in a manner that is reliable, robust, and ultra‐sensitive. Furthermore, it can serve as an in vivo quality control and reliability test for all types of implantable device.
Clogging and blockage of water transmission pipelines is one of the problems that reduce discharge downstream by creating various sediments. The aim of this study was to identify and remove the ...constraints caused by sediment in the water transmission lines of Sarcheshmeh copper complex to agricultural lands of downstream areas. First, the formed sediment was identified through XRF and XRD experiments and then optimized by using different concentrations of 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50% sodium hydroxide to remove the sediment. The results of sediment analysis showed that the predominant hardened sediment around the inner wall of the pipelines is calcium sulfate. The results of titration of the remaining solution from laboratory reactions also showed that 10 to 21% of sodium hydroxide with a concentration of 30 to 50% is used to separate more than 80% of the sediment adhering to the pipelines, which is 50% in real conditions. Also, the optimal amount of sodium hydroxide in this study was about 35% in 72 hours for complete separation of sediment from pipelines. However, due to the availability of sodium hydroxide with a concentration of 31% in the market and the no need to dilute its higher concentrations in the operating conditions, the proposed amount of sodium hydroxide for the removal of Sarcheshmeh copper pipeline to downstream 31% with an efficiency of more than 87% estimated.
The growing population and the development of industries in all countries of the world have created a very important and complex issue for water supply to cities. Today, many parts of the world are ...facing the problem of water shortage and this problem cannot be easily solved. In addition to the proper use of water resources and preventing the loss of natural water, the establishment of regional water supply networks is effective in meeting the future needs of the people. A water distribution network (water supply network) is a set of interconnected pipelines used to transport and distribute water in a complex. In designing the water distribution network, factors such as the type of water distribution network, water pressure, water velocity, design flow, minimum pipe diameter, pipe material and many other factors should be considered. In this study, we have tried to design the water supply network of a part of Balikpapan city in Indonesia. The design method led to the determination of pressure values in the connection nodes, pipe diameters, flow rate and velocity in the pipes. All the existing criteria are considered in the design of the water supply network. Although this study has been implemented for a specific study area, it can be of great help to designers in designing the water supply network.
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