Additive manufacturing for solid oxide cell electrode fabrication

© The Electrochemical Society.Additive manufacturing can potentially offer a highly-defined electrode microstructure, as well as fast and reproducible electrode fabrication. Selective laser sintering is an additive manufacturing technique in which three-dimensional structures are created by bonding subsequent layers of powder using a laser. Although selective laser sintering can be applied to a wide range of materials, including metals and ceramics, the scientific and technical aspects of the manufacturing parameters and their impact on microstructural evolution during the process are not well understood. In the present study, a novel approach for electrode fabrication using selective laser sintering was evaluated by conducting a proof of concept study. A Ni-patterned fuel electrode was laser sintered on an yttria-stabilized zirconia substrate. The optimization process of laser parameters (laser sintering rate and laser power) and the electrochemical results of a full cell with a laser sintered electrode are presented. The challenges and prospects of using selective laser sintering for solid oxide cell fabrication are discussed

Dual Implantation of Artificial Urinary Sphincter and Inflatable Penile Prostheses for Concurrent Male Urinary Incontinence and Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence secondary to sphincter dysfunction are common conditions affecting many men worldwide with a negative effect on quality of life. They are encountered in a number of etiologies most commonly following radical prostatectomy in which they coexist in the same patient. Implantations of an artificial urinary sphincter and inflatable penile prosthesis have proven to be effective in the treatment of both conditions should conservative and minimally invasive measures fail. The recent literature has shown that dual implantation of these devices is feasible and safe with a durable clinical outcome. Once indicated, this can be done in a synchronous or nonsynchronous manner; however, the emerging of the single transverse scrotal incision as well as advancement in the prostheses has made synchronous dual implantation more favourable and appealing option. It provides time and cost savings with an evidence of high patient satisfaction. Synchronous dual implantation should be offered initially when indicated. This paper discusses the surgical techniques of artificial urinary sphincter and inflatable penile prosthesis dual implantation in the management of concurrent moderate-to-severe urinary incontinence and medically refractive erectile dysfunction, in addition to highlighting the existing literature pertaining to this approach

Validation of a physically-based solid oxide fuel cell anode model combining 3D tomography and impedance spectroscopy

This study presents a physically-based model for the simulation of impedance spectra in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) composite anodes. The model takes into account the charge transport and the charge-transfer reaction at the three-phase boundary distributed along the anode thickness, as well as the phenomena at the electrode/electrolyte interface and the multicomponent gas diffusion in the test rig. The model is calibrated with experimental impedance spectra of cermet anodes made of nickel and scandia-stabilized zirconia and satisfactorily validated in electrodes with different microstructural properties, quantified through focused ion beam SEM tomography. Besides providing the material-specific kinetic parameters of the electrochemical hydrogen oxidation, this study shows that the correlation between electrode microstructure and electrochemical performance can be successfully addressed by combining physically-based modelling, impedance spectroscopy and 3D tomography. This approach overcomes the limits of phenomenological equivalent circuits and is suitable for the interpretation of experimental data and for the optimisation of the electrode microstructure

New method for the deposition of nickel oxide in porous scaffolds for electrodes in solid oxide fuel cells and electrolyzers

A simple chemical bath deposition is used to coat a complex porous ceramic scaffold with a conformal nickel layer. The resulting composite is used as a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell electrode and its electrochemical response is measured in humidified hydrogen. X-Ray tomography is used to determine microstructural parameters of the uncoated and Ni-coated porous structure, among other, the surface area to total volume, the radial pore size and size of the necks between pores

Disease Resistance and Susceptibility Genes to Bacterial Blight of Rice

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a valuable resource for understanding the complex processes controlling yield and value-added traits. Bacterial blight (BB) is a vascular disease of rice, caused by strains of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) and provides insight, both practical and basic, into the concepts of susceptibility and resistance. Basic knowledge has been empirically and, more recently, intentionally exploited for broad and durable resistance to the disease. Bacterial blight involves representatives of most classes of resistance genes (R genes) and pathways for basal plant immunity. The study of BB also revealed novelties not observed in other models, possibly due to the long history of rice cultivation and the constant disease pressure. Conspicuous are the recessive R genes that target the notorious type III Transcription Activator-like effectors (TALes) of Xoo. Results indicate that pathogen and host are currently in a battle over a small patch of ground involving TALes function. At the same time, analyses of rice disease physiology are adding to a growing body of knowledge for plant disease processes and to how these processes are intertwined with disease susceptibility. The basic processes of BB present rich targets for the rapid advances in genome editing

Study of the Immunological Status of Iraqi Vitiligo Patients

Vitiligo is an acquired idiopathic skin disorder characterized by depigmented macules due to loss of cutaneous melanocytes. A potential role of the immune dysfunction has been suggested in vitiligo, so to test this hypothesis, certain cytokines (IL-17A and TNF-?) and immunoglobulins (IgM, IgG, IgA and total IgE) were investigated in all participants. The study included: 60 patients with age range between (6-55) year; 30(11 males and 19 females) were untreated and 30(12 males and 18 females) were treated with Narrow Band Ultraviolet-B (NB-UVB) and 30 (14 males and 16 females) apparently healthy control. Serum was separated and cytokines (IL-17A and TNF-?) and total immunoglobulin E (IgE) were detected by using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA); while immunoglobulins (IgM, IgG and IgA) were detected by using Single Radial Immunodiffusion (SRID) method. The results showed that the mean levels of serum IL-17A and TNF-? in both untreated and NB-UVB treated vitiligo patients were increased significantly (p ? 0.05) as compared with healthy control. The mean levels of serum IgG and IgA in untreated vitiligo patients showed non significant decreased (

Operando visualisation and multi-scale tomography studies of dendrite formation and dissolution in zinc batteries

Alternative battery technologies are required to meet growing energy demands and address the limitations of present technologies. As such, it is necessary to look beyond lithium-ion batteries. Zinc batteries enable high power density while being sourced from ubiquitous and cost-effective materials. This paper presents, for the first time known to the authors, multi-length scale tomography studies of failure mechanisms in zinc batteries with and without commercial microporous separators. In both cases, dendrites were grown, dissolved, and regrown, critically resulting in different morphology of dendritic layer formed on both the electrode and the separator. The growth of dendrites and their volume-specific areas were quantified using tomography and radiography data in unprecedented resolution. High-resolution ex situ analysis was employed to characterize single dendrites and dendritic deposits inside the separator. The findings provide unique insights into mechanisms of metal-battery failure effected by growing dendrites

Ring hulls and applications

AbstractOur goal is to develop methods that enable one to select a class K of rings and then to describe all right essential overrings or all right rings of quotients of a given ring R which lie in K. Our major method of attack is to determine the existence and/or uniqueness of right ring hulls of R in K and to use these to characterize the right essential overrings of R which are in K. Some applications are: (1) a characterization of the right rings of quotients of the 2-by-2 upper triangular matrix ring over a PID which are either Baer or right extending; (2) a characterization of a continuous ring hull for a commutative ring whose singular ideal has finite uniform dimension; (3) a characterization of the right extending rings which have the 2-by-2 matrix ring over a given division ring for their maximal right ring of quotients; (4) a characterization of the intermediate right extending rings between the 2-by-2 upper triangular matrix ring and the 2-by-2 matrix ring over a large class of local right finitely Σ-extending rings; (5) a characterization of the classical right ring of quotients as a ring hull from a certain class of rings