Computer-controlled Sophisticated Ultrasonic Cleaner

The significant advantage of ultrasonic cleaning technique is the abilities to clean the delicateand complex shape materials without damaging their surfaces quickly. Ultrasonic cleaners havefound increasing applications in a variety of industries because these offer an environmentallygood alternative to ozone-depleting compounds and hazardous solvents. Also, ultrasonicvibration is one of the methods for chemical synthesis (chemical reaction) and of yieldenhancement of chemical engineering process. Consequently, there is a need to developmultipurpose ultrasonic cleaner/vibrator using computer control, which can be used to set thevarious performance parameter of ultrasonic vibrator such as frequency, duty cycle, continuous/pulsed mode, duration of operation, and thermal profile of tank during the process. An ultrasoniccleaner was developed using an oscillator circuit and the duration of oscillator circuit functioningcan be set through the computer. Computerised ultrasonic cleaner using indigenously madepiezoceramic transducers and their advantages over the conventional ultrasonic cleaners are discussed

Software Development for the Detonation Product Analysis of High Energetic Materials - Part I

The detonation of energetic materials will result in the formation of decomposition products. These may be carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon, water, etc. In order to clarify the problems of decomposition products, a software package is developed to solve the problems of decomposition products using four different concepts. Although each concept will provide a different answer for the decomposition products they can be used as a guide and give fairly good approximations. This paper describes the development of a software package to estimate the possible decomposition products and the results generated using the software package LION. An algorithm to compute the detonation products of energetic materials using four different concepts along with the computation of oxygen balance, elemental composition, and molecular weight has been developed and described in this paper. The concept or predicting possible detonation products is particularly useful as one of the guideline for screening the potential molecules, when formulating explosives to produce a minimum toxic fumes to reduce the toxic hazardous to the users

Piezoceramic-based chlorofluorocarbon-free tunable ultrasonic cleaning system

960-964Use of piezoceramic based ultrasonic cleaning is becoming increasingly popular, since it is free from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) solvents and removes tough contaminants (yet gentle enough not to damage the delicate substrate), grease, soil, oil, abrasive dust, blast debris, swarf, paint, corrosion etc., from the surface of components either individually or coming off the product lines. The critical component manufacturers and surface treaters are therefore preferably using lead zirconium titanate (PZT) based cleaning systems for intricately shaped components. The significant advantages of this technique are an ability to clean the delicate and complex shapes in a short time without damaging the materials geometry. This paper highlights the design and manufacturing technique of a tunable ultrasonic cleaning system using indigenously developed PZT elements in which the output frequency and duration of cleaning cycle can be adjusted for a particular application

Synthesis of nanolayers of lead titanate ceramics using organic lipid templates

In this work, an attempt to probe the feasibility of formation of nanolayers of piezoelectric material viz lead titanate by lipid matrix using stearic acid (CH3(CH2)17COOH) and octadectyl amine (CH3(CH2)19NH3) templates deposited by thermal evaporation technique was attempted in two successive stages. This paper also discusses the kinetic study of nanolevel thin films during the entrapment of Pb2+ in a fatty acid template of about 50 nm thickness and TiF62− ions in the fatty amine template of about 50 nm thickness, followed by in situ hydrolysis of the metal ions using quartz crystal microgravimetry (QCM). Glass substrate containing lead and titanium incorporated organic lipid matrix were heated at 300°C for various durations to probe the physical change in the lipid matrix entrapped with metal ions. The X-ray diffraction patterns were analyzed at each step of entrapment of metal ions and in situ hydrolysis. Silicon wafers of N-type, having orientation hkl=111 was used as substrate material for FTIR analysis to confirm the formation of lipid templates without any disintegration in the functional groups present in the lipid. This paper presents the process development of nanomaterials using organic lipid templates on various substrates such as silicon wafers, quartz substrate, glass substrate etc., and also highlights its potential applications

Sensibility of polyaniline nanofibers to biomarker of benzene recognized as a carcinogen

Alarming situation of toxic substances such as benzene and its analogs in the environment and workplaces, making it important to monitor these chemicals and their metabolites in order to evaluate risk hazards and potential problems caused by exposure to toxic compounds. Benzene is omnipresent in usage across industries. International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) which is a part of World Health Organization (WHO) has classified Benzene as a human carcinogen. trans-trans Muconic acid (ttMA) is the most important biomarker of benzene for biomonitoring of its low level exposure. In this paper the sensing ability of polyaniline (PANI) to ttMA is investigated for development of cheap, portable and effective electrochemical biosensor. To take this ahead for biosensor device application, successful self-assembling of PANI nanofibers of 40–70 nm range on SS 304 working electrode was achieved. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the chemical structure of PANI. Morphology of sample was observed by field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM). The detection potential of ttMA in phosphate buffer solution of pH 5.8 acting as a supporting electrolyte was found to be at 0.26 V by linear sweep voltammetry

Superconductivity in immiscible Nb–Cu nanocomposite films

We report the superconducting properties of immiscible Nb–Cu nanocomposite films with varying compositions. The microstructure of the films revealed the presence of phase separated, closely spaced, nano-grains of Nb and Cu whose sizes changed marginally with composition. In all films we observe two resistive transitions. Analysis of the superconducting phase transition from temperature dependences of DC resistivity and AC susceptibility and comparison of the superconducting transition temperatures with that in nanoparticles of pure Nb with different particle sizes permit us to make a conclusion about a possible establishment of a global phase coherence in Nb–Cu system. The temperature variation of the critical current fits well with the Ambegaokar-Baratoff theory and this agreement suggests that our thick Nb–Cu films possibly behave like a random 3D network of Josephson junctions