6,640 research outputs found
Importance of the morphology and structure of the primary aggregates for the dispersibility of carbon nanotubes in polymer melts
n/
Some aspects of the liquid water thermodynamic behavior: From the stable to the deep supercooled regime
Liquid water is considered to be a peculiar example of glass forming materials because of the possibility of giving rise to amorphous phases with different densities and of the thermodynamic anomalies that characterize its supercooled liquid phase. In the present work, literature data on the density of bulk liquid water are analyzed in a wide temperature-pressure range, also including the glass phases. A careful data analysis, which was performed on different density isobars, made in terms of thermodynamic response functions, like the thermal expansion αP and the specific heat differences CP − CV, proves, exclusively from the experimental data, the thermodynamic consistence of the liquid-liquid transition hypothesis. The study confirms that supercooled bulk water is a mixture of two liquid “phases”, namely the high density (HDL) and the low density (LDL) liquids that characterize different regions of the water phase diagram. Furthermore, the CP − CV isobars behaviors clearly support the existence of both a liquid–liquid transition and of a liquid–liquid critical point
Produção de serrapilheira em diferentes áreas de manipulação da caatinga.
O presente trabalho teve como objetivo determinar a deposição de serrapilheira em duas áreas de caatinga, nativa e manipulada, durante o período chuvoso. A produção de serrapilheira na área de reserva nativa foi maior do que área de pecuária no período analisado
Dispersing hydrophilic nanoparticles in hydrophobic polymers: HDPE/ZnO nanocomposites by a novel template-based approach
The efficiency of a novel template-based approach for the dispersion of hydrophilic nanoparticles within hydrophobic polymer matrices is investigated. The procedure envisages the permeation of a well dispersed nanoparticle suspension inside a micro-porous matrix, obtained through selective extraction of a sacrificial phase from a finely interpenetrated co-continuous polymer blend. Specifically, a blend of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene oxide (PEO) at 50/50 wt% is prepared by melt mixing. The addition of small amounts of organo-clay promotes the necessary refinement of the blend morphology. Once removed the PEO, the micro-porous HDPE matrix is dipped in a colloidal suspension of zinc oxide nanoparticles which exhibits low interfacial tension with HDPE. A system prepared by traditional melt mixing is used as reference. Melt- and solid-state viscoelastic measurements reveal a good quality of the filler dispersion despite the uneven distribution on micro-scale. The latter can be capitalized to minimize the filler content to attain a certain improvement of the material properties or to design nano-structured polymer composites. © BME-PT
Tailoring chitosan/lta zeolite hybrid aerogels for anionic and cationic dye adsorption
Chitosan (CS) is largely employed in environmental applications as an adsorbent of anionic dyes, due to the presence in its chemical structure of amine groups that, if protonated, act as adsorbing sites for negatively charged molecules. Efficient adsorption of both cationic and anionic dyes is thus not achievable with a pristine chitosan adsorbent, but it requires the combination of two or more components. Here, we show that simultaneous adsorption of cationic and anionic dyes can be obtained by embedding Linde Type A (LTA) zeolite particles in a crosslinked CS‐based aerogel. In order to optimize dye removal ability of the hybrid aerogel, we target the crosslinker concentration so that crosslinking is mainly activated during the thermal treatment after the fast freezing of the CS/LTA mixture. The adsorption of isotherms is obtained for different CS/LTA weight ratios and for different types of anionic and cationic dyes. Irrespective of the formulation, the Langmuir model was found to accurately describe the adsorption isotherms. The optimal tradeoff in the adsorption behavior was obtained with the CS/LTA aerogel (1:1 weight ratio), for which the maximum uptake of indigo carmine (anionic dye) and rhodamine 6G (cationic dye) is 103 and 43 mg g−1, respectively. The behavior observed for the adsorption capacity and energy cannot be rationalized as a pure superposition of the two components, but suggests that reciprocal steric effects, chemical heterogeneity, and molecular interactions between CS and LTA zeolite particles play an important role
Developement of real time diagnostics and feedback algorithms for JET in view of the next step
Real time control of many plasma parameters will be an essential aspect in
the development of reliable high performance operation of Next Step Tokamaks.
The main prerequisites for any feedback scheme are the precise real-time
determination of the quantities to be controlled, requiring top quality and
highly reliable diagnostics, and the availability of robust control algorithms.
A new set of real time diagnostics was recently implemented on JET to prove the
feasibility of determining, with high accuracy and time resolution, the most
important plasma quantities. With regard to feedback algorithms, new
model–based controllers were developed to allow a more robust control of
several plasma parameters. Both diagnostics and algorithms were successfully
used in several experiments, ranging from H-mode plasmas to configuration with
ITBs. Since elaboration of computationally heavy measurements is often
required, significant attention was devoted to non-algorithmic methods like
Digital or Cellular Neural/Nonlinear Networks. The real time hardware and
software adopted architectures are also described with particular attention to
their relevance to ITER.Comment: 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004,
Nice (France
Nebular abundances of southern symbiotic stars
We have calculated relative elemental abundances for a sample of 43 symbiotic
stars. Helium abundances and the relative elemental abundances N/O, Ne/O, Ar/O
were derived from new spectra collected in the optical range through low
dispersion spectroscopy. The He ionic abundances were derived taking into
account self-absorption effects in Balmer lines. We found that the symbiotic
stars in the galactic bulge have heavy element abundances showing the same wide
distribution as other bulge objects. In the galactic disk, the symbiotic stars
follow the abundance gradient as derived from different kinds of objects.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, A&A - accepte
Observation of confined current ribbon in JET plasmas
we report the identification of a localised current structure inside the JET
plasma. It is a field aligned closed helical ribbon, carrying current in the
same direction as the background current profile (co-current), rotating
toroidally with the ion velocity (co-rotating). It appears to be located at a
flat spot in the plasma pressure profile, at the top of the pedestal. The
structure appears spontaneously in low density, high rotation plasmas, and can
last up to 1.4 s, a time comparable to a local resistive time. It considerably
delays the appearance of the first ELM.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area
This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management
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