The untreated effluent dropping into the environment from various textile industries is a major issue. To solve this problem, development of an efficient catalyst for the degradation of macro dye molecules has attracted extensive attention. This work is mainly focused on the synthesis of nickel–manganese sulfide decorated with rGO nanocomposite (Ni–Mn-S/rGO) as an effective visible photocatalyst for degradation of textile toxic macro molecule dye. A simple hydrothermal method was used to synthesize Ni–Mn-S wrapped with rGO. The prepared composites were characterized using various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), Fourier transform infra-red spectrometer (FTIR), and ultra violet–visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy. The photocatalytic performance of nickel sulfide (NiS), manganese sulfide (MnS), nickel–manganese sulfide (Ni–Mn-S), and Ni–Mn-S/rGO nanocomposite was assessed by analyzing the removal of acid yellow (AY) and rose bengal (RB) dyes under natural sun light. Among these, the Ni–Mn-S/rGO nanocomposite showed the high photocatalytic degradation efficiency of AY and RB dyes (20 ppm concentration) with efficiency at 96.1 and 93.2%, respectively, within 150-min natural sunlight irradiation. The stability of photocatalyst was confirmed by cycle test; it showed stable degradation efficiency even after five cycles. This work confirms that it is an efficient approach for the dye degradation of textile dyes using sulfide-based Ni–Mn-S/rGO nanocomposite.

The present research focuses on the tribological behavior of the AA5083 alloy-based hybrid surface composite using aluminosilicate and multi-walled-carbon nanotube through friction stir processing for automotive applications. The friction stir processing parameters (tool rotation and traverse speed) are varied based on full factorial design to understand their influence on the tribological characteristics of the developed hybrid composite. The surface morphology and composition of the worn hybrid composite are examined using a field-emission scanning electron microscope and an energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscope. No synergistic interaction is observed between the wear rate and friction coefficient of the hybrid composite plate. Also, adhesive wear is the major wear mechanism in both base material and hybrid composite. The influence of friction stir process parameters on wear rate and the friction coefficient is analyzed using the hybrid polynomial and multi-quadratic radial basis function. The models are utilized to optimize the friction stir processing parameters for reducing the rate of wear and friction coefficient using multi-quadratic RBF algorithm optimization.

The central theme of this work is the synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) through the chemical vapor deposition method (CVD). Single-walled carbon nanotubes are synthesized using catalyst-chemical vapor deposition of acetylene at 750 °C temperature. X-ray diffraction study gives a characteristic peak (002) at 26.55° corresponding to the existence of carbon nanotube confirms that the particles are crystalline in nature and hexagonal phase. An SEM and HRTEM outcome gives surface morphology of SWCNTs. The elemental composition was confirmed by EDAX. The ideal concentration of single-walled carbon nanotubes was used to design a novel electrochemical sensor for determining paracetamol (PA) using cyclic voltammetry. Electrochemical determination of paracetamol is described using a single-walled carbon nanotube modified carbon paste electrode (SWCNT/MCPE). The SWCNT/MCPE was used in this study to detect paracetamol electrochemically at pH 7.2 in a 0.2 M PBS with a scan rate of 50 mV s− 1. A single-walled nanotube modified carbon paste electrode was used to develop a sensitive and selective electrochemical technique for the detection of PA. The SWCNT/MCPE showed excellent electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidation of paracetamol in phosphate buffer solution. Therefore, with increased oxidation currents, the voltammetric responses of paracetamol at the bare carbon paste electrode are organized within cyclic voltammetric peaks.

In preparation of porous carbon materials microwave oven brightening is one of the warming modes used ever. The various procedures that take place in microwave combustion process include carbonization, incitation, and recovery and thus carbon is defined. This paper compares ideal conditions of traditional warming methods, as well as their implementation potential, losses, and specifications. This porous carbon with heat treatment possesses various properties and they are well suited for energy applications which require constrained space such as hydrogen storage in solid-state and supercapacitors. The enhanced properties are chemical and thermal stability, ready availability, low framework density and ease of processability. The recent trend in class of porous carbons is Activated Carbons that are employed traditionally as adsorbents or catalyst supporters but currently, they found potent applications in fabricating for hydrogen storage materials and supercapacitors. These activated carbons are much enhanced form in class of porous carbon materials and they possess the capability to enable hydrogen economy, where the energy carrier is hydrogen. Therefore, the utility of activated carbons as a source for energy storage experiences a rapid growth at current trend and they possess significant advances. This investigation is based on detailed cost development data and electrical imperativeness applications.

Herein, a new and generic strategy has been proposed to introduce uniformly distributed graphitic carbon into the nanostructured metal oxide. A facile and generic synthetic protocol has been proposed to introduce uniformly distributed conducting graphitic carbon into the Co3O4 nanoparticles ( Co3O4 NPs@graphitic carbon). The prepared Co3O4 NPs@graphitic carbon has been drop casted onto the portable screen-printed electrode (SPE) to realize its potential application in the individual and simultaneous quantification of toxic Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions present in aqueous solution. The proposed Co3O4 NPs@graphitic carbon-based electrochemical sensor exhibits a wide linear range from 0 to 120 ppb with limit of detection of 3.2 and 3.5 ppb towards the simultaneous detection of Pb(II) and Cd(II), which falls well below threshold limit prescribed by WHO.

Oil spills into ocean or coastal waters can result in significant damage to the environment via pollution of aquatic ecosystems. Absorbents based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) foams have the capacity to remove minor or major oil spills. However, conventional chemical synthesis of rGO often uses petrochemical precursors, potentially harmful chemicals, and requires special processing conditions that are expensive to maintain. In this work, an alternative cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach suitable for large-scale production of high-quality rGO directly from used cooking sunflower oil is discussed. Thus, produced flaky graphene structures are effective in absorbing used commercial sunflower oil and engine oil, via monolayer physisorption in the case of used sunflower and engine oils facilitated by van der Waals forces, π–π stacking and hydrophobic interactions, π-cation ( H+) stacking and radical scavenging activities. From adsorption kinetic models, first-order kinetics provides a better fit for used sunflower oil adsorption (R2 = 0.9919) and second-order kinetics provides a better fit for engine oil adsorption (R2 = 0.9823). From intra-particle diffusion model, R2 for USO is 0.9788 and EO is 0.9851, which indicates that both used sunflower and engine oils adsorption processes follow an intra-particle diffusion mechanism. This study confirms that waste-derived rGO could be used for environmental remediation.

The discharge of dye-containing industrial effluents such as methylene blue (MB) in water bodies has resulted in severe aquatic and human life problems. In addition to this factor, there is the accumulation of banana peel wastes, which can generate ecological damage. Thus, this research purpose a different method from the literature using the banana peel waste (BP) to produce activated carbon (ACBP) by NaOH activation followed by pyrolysis at 400 °C to remove methylene blue (MB). The material was characterized by TGA, XRD, SEM, BET, and FTIR. The influence of dye concentration (10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 mg L−1) was investigated. ACBP presented a well-developed pore structure with a predominance of mesopores and macropores. This morphological structure directly influences the MB removal capacity. The highest efficiency for dye removal was in the MB initial concentration of 25 mg L−1, sorbent of 0.03 g, and contact time of 60 min, which were 99.8%. The adsorption isotherms were well defined by Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models. The Langmuir model represented the best fit of experimental data for ACBP with a maximum adsorption capacity of 232.5 mg g−1. This adsorbent showed a comparatively high performance to some previous works. So, the banana peel waste is an efficient resource for producing activated carbon and the adsorption of methylene blue.

Engineering the microstructure of the carbonaceous materials is a promising strategy to enhance the capacitive performance of supercapacitors. In this work, nanostructured Black Pearl (1500 BP) carbon which is a conductive carbon being commercially used in printing rolls, conductive packaging, conductive paints, etc. is analyzed for its feasibility as an electrode material for Electric Double-Layer Capacitors (EDLCs). To achieve that commercial Black Pearl (BP), carbon is treated with mild acid H3PO4 to remove the impurities and enhance the active sites by regulating the growth of agglomerates and creating micropores in the nano-pigments. Generally, the coalescence of nanoparticles owing to their intrinsic surface energy has tendency to create voids of different sizes that act like meso/micropores facilitating the diffusion of ions. The electrochemical performance of BP carbon before and after chemical activation is investigated in aqueous ( H2SO4, KOH and KCl) and a non-aqueous electrolyte (1 M TEMABF4 in acetonitrile) environment employing different electrochemical techniques such as Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) and Electrochemical Impendence Spectroscopy (EIS). The chemically activated BP carbon delivers the highest specific capacitance of ∼156 F g−1 in an aqueous electrolyte, 6 M KOH. The highest specific power, ~ 15.3 kW kg−1 and specific energy, 14.6 Wh kg−1 are obtained with a symmetric capacitor employing non-aqueous electrolyte because of its high working potential, 2.5 V.

Processing and characterization of graphene (Gr)-reinforced aluminium alloy 7075 (AA7075) microcomposites and nanocomposites are reported in this work. Composites are fabricated by mechanical alloying process at wet conditions. The bulk composites are prepared by uniaxial die pressing to get higher densification and sintered in an inert atmosphere. Density of the nanocomposites is higher than the microcomposites due to the reduction of grain size by increased milling time. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirms graphene interaction with the AA7075 matrix lattice spaces. The effective distribution of graphene with aluminium alloy is further confirmed by the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis. The hardness of the composites proportionally increases with the graphene addition owing to grain refinement. Wear morphology is characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Microcomposites reveal abrasive and ploughing wear mechanism of material removal from the surface. Nanocomposites show adhesive wear with delamination and particle pull-out from the material surface.

Abstract Activated carbon from the shell of the cashew of Para (SCP) was produced by chemical activation with ZnCl using the ratio of SCP: ZnCl2 1.0:1.5 at 700 °C. The prepared activated carbon (SCP700) was used for the removal of two emerging contaminants, 4-bromophenol (4-BrPhOH) and 4-chloroaniline (4-ClPhNH2) that are primarily employed in the industry. Different analytical techniques were used to characterize the activated carbon. From the N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms were obtained the specific surface area of 1520 m2 g− 1 and total pore volume of 0.492 cm3 g−1. The functional groups were identified by the FTIR technique and quantified by modified Boehm titration. The results revealed the bearing of several functional groups on the SCP700 surface, which may utterly influence the removal of the emerging contaminants. The equilibrium experiments showed that the maximum uptaken capacities (Qmax) achieved at 45 °C were 488.2 (4-BrPhOH) and 552.5 mg g−1 (4-ClPhNH2). The thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that the processes of 4-BrPhOH and 4-ClPhNH2 adsorption are exothermic, spontaneous, energetically suitable, and the magnitude of ΔH° is compatible with physisorption. The mechanism of the adsorption of the emerging contaminants onto the carbon surface is dominated by microporous filling, hydrogen bonds, π-stacking interactions, and other Van der Waals interactions. The use of activated carbon for the treatment of industrial synthetic wastewater with several inorganic and organic molecules commonly found in industrial effluents showed a very high percentage of uptaking (up to 98.64%).

Researchers have yet to investigate whether it is beneficial for exporters to engage in greater levels of product adaptation in their export operations, or whether there is some limit to the amount of adaptation exporters should engage in. We posit that customer value creation, a central marketing concept and a mechanism to achieving market and financial goals in business to business markets, is a core outcome of export product adaptation activities. In order to explore the routes by which adaptation may shape export customer value creation, we adopt a multi-faceted conceptualization of firm-level product adaptation, comprising export product adaptation (i) quantity, (ii) intensity and (iii) novelty. Drawing on survey data from 249 Finnish exporters involved in business-to-business activities, we find evidence to support the claim that the impact of export product adaptation on export customer value creation is contingent on various factors, and we identify instances where greater adaptation is beneficial for export customer value creation, and instances where greater export product adaptation is potentially harmful for export customer value creation.

Pollution of chloride ion-reinforced concrete can trigger active corrosion processes that reduce the useful life of structures. Multifunctional materials used as a counter-electrode by electrochemical techniques have been used to rehabilitate contaminated concrete. Cement-based pastes added to carbonaceous material, fibers or dust, have been used as an anode in the non-destructive Electrochemical Chloride Extraction (ECE) technique. We studied the performance of the addition of Carbon Fiber (CF) in a cement-graphite powder base paste used as an anode in ECE of concretes contaminated with chlorides from the preparation of the mixture. The experimental parameters were: 2.3% of free chlorides, 21 days of ECE application, a Carbon Fiber Volume Fraction (CFVF) of 0.1, 0.3, 0.6, 0.9%, a lithium borate alkaline electrolyte, a current density of 4.0 A / m2 and a cement/graphite ratio of 1.0 for the paste. The efficiency of the ECE in the traditional technique using metal mesh as an anode was 77.6% and for CFVF of 0.9% it was 90.4%, with a tendency to increase to higher percentages of the CFVF in the conductive cement-graphite paste, keeping the pH stable and achieving a homogeneous ECE in the mass of the concrete contaminated with chlorides.

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute plans to develop a coronagraph in collaboration with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and to install it on the International Space Station (ISS). The coronagraph is an externally occulted one-stage coronagraph with a field of view from 3 to 15 solar radii. The observation wavelength is approximately 400~nm, where strong Fraunhofer absorption lines from the photosphere experience thermal broadening and Doppler shift through scattering by coronal electrons. Photometric filter observations around this band enable the estimation of 2D electron temperature and electron velocity distribution in the corona. Together with a high time cadence ($<$12~min) of corona images used to determine the geometric and kinematic parameters of coronal mass ejections, the coronagraph will yield the spatial distribution of electron density by measuring the polarized brightness. For the purpose of technical demonstration, we intend to observe the total solar eclipse in August 2017 with the filter system and to perform a stratospheric balloon experiment in 2019 with the engineering model of the coronagraph. The coronagraph is planned to be installed on the ISS in 2021 for addressing a number of questions (e.g., coronal heating and solar wind acceleration) that are both fundamental and practically important in the physics of the solar corona and of the heliosphere.

Polarbear is a ground-based experiment located in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. The experiment is designed to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode polarization at several arcminute resolution. The CMB B-mode polarization on degree angular scales is a unique signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic in ation and B-mode signal on sub-degree scales is induced by the gravitational lensing from large-scale structure. Science observations began in early 2012 with an array of 1,274 polarization sensitive antenna-couple Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers at 150 GHz. We published the first CMB-only measurement of the B-mode polarization on sub-degree scales induced by gravitational lensing in December 2013 followed by the first measurement of the B-mode power spectrum on those scales in March 2014. In this proceedings, we review the physics of CMB B-modes and then describe the Polarbear experiment, observations, and recent results.