Study on characterization of Furcraea foetida new natural fiber as composite reinforcement for lightweight applications

The exploration of new natural fibers in the field of polymer composites can contribute to increase the invention of natural reinforcements and expand their use in possible applications. In the present work, the physico-chemical, thermal, tensile and morphological properties of Furcraea foetida (FF) fiber are presented for the first time. Chemical analysis results shows that FF has relatively higher cellulose (68.35%) with lower hemicelluloses (11.46%) and lignin (12.32%). Structural analysis of FF was conducted by Fourier transform infrared and 13C (CP-MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis evidenced that FF has crystallinity index of 52.6% with crystalline size of 28.36 nmThe surface morphology of FF was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray micro analyzer (EDX) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) reveals thermal constancy of the fiber upto 320.5 °C with the kinetic activation energy of 66.64 kJ/mol, which can be used as reinforcements in thermoplastic green composite whose working temperatures is below 300 °C. The FF results were compared with those of other natural fibers, and indicated as a suitable alternative source for composite manufacture

Improved cuckoo search algorithm for hybrid flow shop scheduling problems to minimize makespan

The multistage hybrid flow shop (HFS) scheduling problems are considered in this paper. Hybrid flowshop scheduling problems were proved to be NP-hard. A recently developed cuckoo search (CS) metaheuristic algorithm is presented in this paper to minimize the makespan for the HFS scheduling problems. A constructive heuristic called NEH heuristic is incorporated with the initial solutions to obtain the optimal or near optimal solutions rapidly in the improved cuckoo search (ICS) algorithm. The proposed algorithm is validated with the data from a leading furniture manufacturing company. Computational results show that the ICS algorithm outperforms many other metaheuristics

Copper thiosemicarbazone modified electrode for hydrazine electrocatalytic oxidation

The major barrier in electro-oxidation of hydrazine hydrate involves usage of expensive, precious noble metal catalysts (Platinum, Palladium, Ruthenium and etc) along with complex reaction mechanism & sluggish kinetics. In this work, a novel copper thiosemicarbazone complex (Cu2L2) is synthesised and characterised by various spectroscopic techniques & proposed as a new electrocatalyst for hydrazine oxidation. Electrocatalytic efficiency of the modified catalyst with metal complex (Cu2L2) have been studied using several potentiostatic & potentiodynamic techniques. Fundamental cyclic voltammeteric investigation reveal sharp & irreversible oxidation peak at 0.3 V vs Ag/AgCl (Sat.KCl) electrode for the direct oxidation of hydrazine with fast electrochemical kinetics using the modified electrode approach & thus it can be an excellent platform for oxidising hydrazine in neutral, basic & acidic medium. The sensing ability of modified electrode for hydrazine is demonstrated using chronoamperometric technique with the detection limit of 0.5 μM with linearity range from 0.5 μM to 27 μM. In addition, Modified electrodes are specific and selective towards the precise oxidation of hydrazine in presence of other interfering organic compounds and inorganic ions. Thus, present modified electrode approach opens the possibility of using such new class of copper thiosemicarbazone complex as an electrocatalyst for direct electrochemical oxidation of hydrazine which can be further extended in the application of direct hydrazine fuel cells (DHFC)

Development and Characterization of Sustainable Bioplastic Films Using Cellulose Extracted from Prosopis juliflora

To diminish the environmental impacts instigated by plastics, investigators recommended bioplastics. In the current work, an attempt is made to develop sustainable bioplastics from waste plants. Cellulose was extracted from the wood of Prosopis juliflora. The Prosopis juliflora wood was cut and ground into powder. The powder was washed with water and subjected to several chemical treatments to extract the cellulose. The bioplastic film samples were produced using it. Six different samples were prepared by varying the composition of cellulose, gelatin, citric acid, and glycerol. Several tests were carried out on samples developed as per ASTM standards, and the results were compared with the existing bioplastics. The test results indicated that sample 1 has a maximum tensile strength of 7.73 MPa. The average bursting strength of the bioplastic film is 12.44 kg/cm2, which is better than the other bioplastics reported in the literature. The average biodegradability of developed bioplastic films is approximately 59.43%. The results revealed that the Prosopis juliflora cellulose-based bioplastics would be a better substitute for conventional plastics

Bat Algorithm with Individual Local Search

Part 7: Fault DiagnosisInternational audienceBat algorithm (BA) is a well-known heuristic algorithm, and has been applied to many practical problems. However, the local search method employed in BA has the shortcoming of premature convergence, and does not perform well in early search stage. To avoid this issue, this paper proposes a new update method for local search. To verify the proposed method, this paper employs CEC2013 test suit to test it with PSO and standard BA as comparison algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method obviously outperforms other algorithms and exhibits better performance