Coal fines are highly prone to be generated in all stages of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) production and development. These detached fines tend to aggregate, contributing to pore throat blockage and permeability reduction. Thus, this work explores the dispersion stability of coal fines in CSG reservoirs and proposes a new additive to be used in the formulation of the hydraulic fracturing fluid to keep the fines dispersed in the fluid. In this work, bituminous coal fines were tested in various suspensions in order to study their dispersion stability. The aggregation behavior of coal fines (dispersed phase) was analyzed in different dispersion mediums, including deionized-water, low and high sodium chloride solutions. Furthermore, the effect of Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonate (SDBS), an anionic surfactant, on fine aggregation in the suspensions was investigated over a wide alkaline range. At a known pH, the results of stability were validated with the proppant pack glass column test and further verified with microscopic images. It was observed that adding SDBS to the hydraulic fracturing fluid keeps the coal fines well-dispersed in the post-hydraulic fracturing flow back and prevents coal fines aggregation, and ultimately helps permeability enhancement. The results show that at a constant pH, as salinity increases, the zeta-potential (an indirect indicator of stability of the coal-water slurry) reduces. Also, a trace amount of SDBS substantially enhances the dispersion stability of coal fines. This enhancement dictates that coal fines will not congregate and will not plug the proppant pack. Furthermore, the results were confirmed by proppant pack glass-column tests and microscopic images, the result of which illustrate much less aggregation when having SDBS added to the suspension. Polymeric surfactants have been used in the field to disperse coal fines. However, it causes the coal matrix to swell and clog the pore throats, thus reducing the permeability. The anionic surfactant, SDBS, has never been tried in field applications to disperse coal fines. The current research demonstrates the considerable potential of SDBS, as a hydraulic fracturing fluid additive, in enhancing the dispersion stability of the coal fines.
Biocompatible gold nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by hibiscus plant leaf extract as a bioreactor. The prepared nanoparticles were evaluated using UV/Vis spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray Diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) . The study also investigated the effect of the different gamma irradiation doses on the size and dispersion of the produced nanoparticles. In UV- Vis spectra, the peak of Au NPs' surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was detected as a single peak at 543 nm. The gamma irradiation induced a blue shift in the SPR peak, which indicates that it might be applied as affective factor for size control. Physical as well as chemi
... Show MoreThe characteristics of sulfur nanoparticles were studied by using atomic force microscope (AFM) analysis. The atomic force microscope (AFM) measurements showed that the average size of sulfur nanoparticles synthesized using thiosulfate sodium solution through the extract of cucurbita pepo extra was 93.62 nm. Protecting galvanized steel from corrosion in salt media was achieved by using sulfur nanoparticles in different temperatures. The obtained data of thermodynamic in the presence of sulfur nanoparticles referred to high value as compares to counterpart in the absence of sulfur nanoparticles, the high inhibition efficiency (%IE) and corrosion resistance were at high temperature, the corrosion rate or weig
... Show MoreA simple method was used to create a graphene oxide/chitosan (GO/CS) nanocomposite, which was then used in batch experiments to remove copper ions from industrial wastewater under various conditions of initial concentration, adsorbent weight, pH, and contact time. Maximum removal percentage equal to 99.4 % for initial copper ion concentration of 5x10-2 mol/L at pH 6, time 75 min, temperature 25 °C, and adsorbing dose 0.1 g. The pseudo-second order kinetic model and the Freundlich isotherm adequately fit the experimental results. The process was spontaneous and endothermic, according to thermodynamic studies.
Background. “Polyetheretherketone (PEEK)” is a biocompatible, high-strength polymer that is well-suited for use in dental applications due to its unique properties. However, achieving good adhesion between PEEK and hydrophilic materials such as dental adhesives or cement can be challenging. Also, this hydrophobicity may affect the use of PEEK as an implant material. Surface treatment or conditioning is often necessary to improve surface properties. The piranha solution is the treatment of choice to be explored for this purpose. Methods. PEEK disks of 10 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness were used in this study. Those samples were divided into five groups (each group has five samples). The first is the control group, in which no
... Show MoreColloidal silver nanoparticles were prepared by single step green synthesis using aqueous extracts of the leaves of thyme as a function of different molar concentration of AgNO3 (1,2,3,4 mM(. The Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), UV-Visible and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the resultant AgNPs. The surface Plasmon resonance was observed at wavelength of 444 nm. The four intensive peaks of XRD pattern indicate the crystalline nature and the face centered cubic structure of the AgNPs. The average crystallite size of the AgNPs ranged from 18 to 22 nm. The FESEM image illustrated the well dispersion of the AgNPs and the spherical shape of the nanoparticles with a particle size distribution be
... Show MoreIn the present work, the possibility of treating many types of radioactive sources was examined practically. Six types of sealed radioactive sources were selected: 137Cs, 133Ba, 90Sr, 152Eu, 226Ra, and 241Am. The sources were exposed to a neutron flux emitted from 241Am/Be source for 33 days. The results showed a measurable reduction of activity for 226Ra, 241Am, and 152Eu, while the other radionuclides, 137Cs, 133Ba, and 90Sr, showed less response to neutron incineration.
Clinical keratoconus (KCN) detection is a challenging and time-consuming task. In the diagnosis process, ophthalmologists must revise demographic and clinical ophthalmic examinations. The latter include slit-lamb, corneal topographic maps, and Pentacam indices (PI). We propose an Ensemble of Deep Transfer Learning (EDTL) based on corneal topographic maps. We consider four pretrained networks, SqueezeNet (SqN), AlexNet (AN), ShuffleNet (SfN), and MobileNet-v2 (MN), and fine-tune them on a dataset of KCN and normal cases, each including four topographic maps. We also consider a PI classifier. Then, our EDTL method combines the output probabilities of each of the five classifiers to obtain a decision b
Autism Spectrum Disorder, also known as ASD, is a neurodevelopmental disease that impairs speech, social interaction, and behavior. Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that focuses on creating algorithms that can learn patterns and make ASD classification based on input data. The results of using machine learning algorithms to categorize ASD have been inconsistent. More research is needed to improve the accuracy of the classification of ASD. To address this, deep learning such as 1D CNN has been proposed as an alternative for the classification of ASD detection. The proposed techniques are evaluated on publicly available three different ASD datasets (children, Adults, and adolescents). Results strongly suggest that 1D
... Show MoreRemote sensing is a source of up-to-date information. The present study relied on various approaches for gathering information, including descriptive, quantitative and quantitative analytical processes. Particularly, we conducted the analysis of the satellite data ETM + of the satellite Landsat7 and the digital models of Digital Elevation Model of SRTM using ArcGIS9.2. The model depends on primary mathematical equations and constitutes an essential base for GIS applications that rely on data, computer, and software, performing the processes of data entry, analysis and processing. This paper deals with the geomorphological characteristics of a selected study area in Kirkuk province. The cha
... Show MoreImage is an important digital information that used in many internet of things (IoT) applications such as transport, healthcare, agriculture, military, vehicles and wildlife. etc. Also, any image has very important characteristic such as large size, strong correlation and huge redundancy, therefore, encrypting it by using single key Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) through IoT communication technologies makes it vulnerable to many threats, thus, the pixels that have the same values will be encrypted to another pixels that have same values when they use the same key. The contribution of this work is to increase the security of transferred image. This paper proposed multiple key AES algorithm (MECCAES) to improve the security of the tran
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