Hard-grade asphalt binders, such as AC 20–30, offer excellent resistance to permanent deformation but are inherently brittle, making them highly susceptible to fatigue and low-temperature cracking. While polymer modification addresses these issues, virgin polymers remain expensive. Despite the growing interest in recycled plastics, the rheological impact of complex waste streams, specifically polyvinyl chloride (PVC) derived from flex banners containing plasticizers, on excessively stiff binders within the complete Superpave Performance Grading (PG) framework remains critically underexplored. This study introduces a novel valorization approach by utilizing solvent-extracted flex banner waste (WPVC) as a dual-action modifier. It leverages
... Show MoreThe ground state charge, neutron, proton and matter densities, the associated nuclear radii and the binding energy per nucleon of 8B, 17Ne, 23Al and 27P halo nuclei have been investigated using the Skyrme–Hartree–Fock (SHF) model with the new SKxs25 parameters. According to the calculated results, it is found that the SHF model with these Skyrme parameters provides a good description on the nuclear structure of above proton-rich halo nuclei. The elastic charge form factors of 8B and 17Ne halo nuclei and those of their stable isotopes 10B and 20Ne are calculated using plane-wave Born approximation with the charge density distributions obtained by SHF model to investigate the effect of the extended charge distributions of proton-rich nucl
... Show MoreIn this work, pure and Ag-doped nickel oxide (NiO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates with different dopant concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 wt.%) by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) technique at room temperature. These films were annealed at temperature of 450 °C. The structural and optical properties of the prepared thin films were studied. It was found that annealing process has lead to increase the transmittance of the deposited films. Also, the transmittance was found to increase with doping concentration of silver in the deposited NiO films. The optical energy gap was decreased from 3.5 to 3.2 eV as the doping concentration was increased to 0.4 %.
In this work, silicon nitride (Si3N4) thin films were deposited on metallic substrates (aluminium and titanium sheets) by the DC reactive sputtering technique using two different silicon targets (n-type and p-type Si wafers) as well as two Ar:N2 gas mixing ratios (50:50 and 70:30). The electrical conductivity of the metallic (aluminium and titanium) substrates was measured before and after the deposition of silicon nitride thin films on both surfaces of the substrates. The results obtained from this work showed that the deposited films, in general, reduced the electrical conductivity of the substrates, and the thin films prepared from n-type silicon targets using a 50:50 mixing ratio and deposited on both
... Show MoreA low-cost, effective green porous composite was prepared and used for the sorption of Zn+2 ions from aqueous solutions. The effect of contact time, sorbent dosage, initial ion concentration, solution pH, and temperature on the sorption of Zn+2 ions was investigated. The results showed higher removal efficiency of Zn+2 ions (83%), which was achieved at a contact time of 120 minutes, a normal pH of 6.4, and a temperature of 313 K. The Langmuir isotherm model successfully described the experimental results of the sorption process with a theoretical maximum sorption capacity of 4.819 mg/g. The kinetics of sorption showed that the pseudo-second-order model fitted the experimental results better than the pseudo-first-order model. The int
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