1,056 research outputs found
Crystallization of medium length 1-alcohols in mesoporous silicon: An X-ray diffraction study
The linear 1-alcohols n-C16H33OH, n-C17H35OH, n-C19H37OH have been imbibed
and solidified in lined up, tubular mesopores of silicon with 10 nm and 15 nm
mean diameters, respectively. X-ray diffraction measurements reveal a set of
six discrete orientation states (''domains'') characterized by a perpendicular
alignment of the molecules with respect to the long axis of the pores and by a
four-fold symmetry about this direction, which coincides with the crystalline
symmetry of the Si host. A Bragg peak series characteristic of the formation of
bilayers indicates a lamellar structure of the spatially confined alcohol
crystals in 15 nm pores. By contrast, no layering reflections could be detected
for 10 nm pores. The growth mechanism responsible for the peculiar orientation
states is attributed to a nano-scale version of the Bridgman technique of
single-crystal growth, where the dominant growth direction is aligned
parallelly to the long pore axes. Our observations are analogous to the growth
phenomenology encountered for medium length n-alkanes confined in mesoporous
silicon (Phys. Rev. E 75, 021607 (2007)) and may further elucidate why porous
silicon matrices act as an effective nucleation-inducing material for protein
solution crystallization.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear as a Brief Report in Physical Review
Preferred orientation of n-hexane crystallized in silicon nanochannels: A combined x-ray diffraction and sorption isotherm study
We present an x-ray diffraction study on n-hexane in tubular silicon channels
of approximately 10 nm diameter both as a function of the filling fraction f of
the channels and as a function of temperature. Upon cooling, confined n-hexane
crystallizes in a triclinic phase typical of the bulk crystalline state.
However, the anisotropic spatial confinement leads to a preferred orientation
of the confined crystallites, where the crystallographic direction
coincides with the long axis of the channels. The magnitude of this preferred
orientation increases with the filling fraction, which corroborates the
assumption of a Bridgman-type crystallization process being responsible for the
peculiar crystalline texture. This growth process predicts for a channel-like
confinement an alignment of the fastest crystallization direction parallel to
the long channel axis. It is expected to be increasingly effective with the
length of solidifying liquid parcels and thus with increasing f. In fact, the
fastest solidification front is expected to sweep over the full silicon
nanochannel for f=1, in agreement with our observation of a practically perfect
texture for entirely filled nanochannels
The assessment of the implementation of fuel related legislations and their impact on air quality and public health
The main focus of Work Package 6 of the Aphekom project was: to develop innovative methods to analyse the decrease in air pollution levels following implementation of an European regulation to reduce the sulphur content in liquid fuels; to follow the evolution of health risks over time; to track related effect modifiers; and to quantify the monetary costs of health impacts of the implemented regulation
Profiling SO2 air pollution patterns in 9 EU Aphekom cities: The Aphekom Project
A detailed analysis of hourly pollutant concentrations mainly focusing on SO2 data obtained from 9 centres involved in the Aphekom project was conducted. This involved the generation of individual diurnal SO2 profiles in order to:
(i) identify city specific patterns including source apportionment and quantification,
(ii) track changes over time,
(iii) analyse the changes in SO2 concentrations from different emission sources, i.e. traffic, heating, shipping and industrial sources, overtime
Mortality impacts of sulphur concetrations in 20 European cities in the APHEKOM Project
The implementation of three EU directives to reduce sulphur content in fuel was assessed for mortality impacts
in 20 European cities, between 1990 and 2007 in the APHEKOM project. This specific study aimed to examine whether different lag structures apply to the relationships between cardiovascular and respiratory events and SO2 concentrations, which will therefore result in differences in mortality impacts from regulation implementation. Prior evidence has shown that cardiovascular mortality is more likely to be affected by SO2 concentrations on the same or the previous day of the event, while respiratory mortality more likely to show a delayed effect of exposure to the same pollutant
The APHEKOM Project: A literature review of air pollution interventions and their impact of public health
Intervention studies play an important role in supporting and complementing scientific validation of results of epidemiological non-intervention studies linking air pollution and health. In this paper a collection of existing published intervention studies is reviewed with the aim to give a summarized overview spanning a variety of approaches regarding the type of the intervention and findings with the main focus on studies that assessed interventions that improved air quality and the associated positive impact on public health. Air pollution interventions were defined as events aimed at reducing air pollution and also events where air pollution reductions occurred as a side effect
Phase transitions and molecular dynamics of n-hexadecanol confined in silicon nanochannels
We present a combined x-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy study on
the phase behavior and molecular dynamics of n-hexadecanol in its bulk state
and confined in an array of aligned nanochannels of 8 nm diameter in mesoporous
silicon. Under confinement the transition temperatures between the liquid, the
rotator RII and the crystalline C phase are lowered by approximately 20K. While
bulk n-hexadecanol exhibits at low temperatures a polycrystalline mixture of
orthorhombic beta- and monoclinic gamma-forms, geometrical confinement favors
the more simple beta-form: only crystallites are formed, where the chain axis
are parallel to the layer normal. However, the gamma-form, in which the chain
axis are tilted with respect to the layer normal, is entirely suppressed. The
beta-crystallites form bi-layers, that are not randomly orientated in the
pores. The molecules are arranged with their long axis perpendicular to the
long channel axis. With regard to the molecular dynamics, we were able to show
that confinement does not affect the inner-molecular dynamics of the CH_2
scissor vibration and to evaluate the inter-molecular force constants in the C
phase.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figure
Stationary Properties of a Randomly Driven Ising Ferromagnet
We consider the behavior of an Ising ferromagnet obeying the Glauber dynamics
under the influence of a fast switching, random external field. Analytic
results for the stationary state are presented in mean-field approximation,
exhibiting a novel type of first order phase transition related to dynamic
freezing. Monte Carlo simulations performed on a quadratic lattice indicate
that many features of the mean field theory may survive the presence of
fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages in RevTex format, 7 eps/ps figures, send comments to
"mailto:[email protected]", submitted to PR
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