The performance of asphalt pavements is crucial due to heavy traffic loads from civil and industrial developments. Various additives and modifiers are used in flexible roads to improve their resistance to deterioration caused by climatic changes. From this context, modifying the asphalt binder with polymers is popular in asphalt pavement construction. The present research investigates the effect of Polyethylene (PE) polymers in powder form on the characteristics of asphalt mixtures since these polymers are composed of hydrocarbons. It is similar to asphalt binders, making them very effective in enhancing the performance of neat asphalt produced from the oil refinery. To confirm this, two types of PE, High-Density PE (HDPE) and Low-Density PE (LDPE), were blended with neat asphalt binder at different dosages of 0%, 2%, 4%, and 6% by the weight of asphalt binder. The physical tests, including penetration, ductility, softening point, and weight loss on heat, were conducted to examine neat and PE-modified binders' rheological properties, durability, and temperature sensitivity. Marshall stability, stiffness index, tensile strength, and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were also employed to assess the performance of PE-modified asphalt mixtures. The findings reveal that incorporating PE into asphalt mixtures significantly improves their mechanical properties, and the most optimal results are achieved when using 6% of both HDPE and LDPE. Specifically, modifying the asphalt binder with the inclusion of 6% HDPE and LDPE presents a remarkable increase in stability of 167.6% and 150.9%, respectively, compared to conventional mixtures. The stiffness index is improved for HDPE and LDPE-modified mixtures, which offers these mixtures superior resistance to permanent deformation. The moisture damage resistance can be enhanced by modification of the asphalt binder with HDPE and LDPE, especially at the inclusion of 6%. SEM images of asphalt pavement demonstrate HDPE's superiority in terms of distribution and dispersion in asphalt binder. In conclusion, the properties of HDPE-modified mixtures are better than those of LDPE-modified and untreated mixtures.
This study investigated the bioethanol production from green algae Chlorella vulgaris depending on its carbohydrate-enriched biomass. Four different phosphorous concentrations were employed to stimulate bioethanol production from Chlorella vulgaris. The impact of various phosphorous values on Chlorella vulgaris growth rate as well as primary product (carbohydrate) were evaluated. High performance liquid chromatography was utilized in this work. The stationary phase was identified as day 14, 12, 10 and 6 in treatments 6, 4, 2 and g/L, respectively. The findings suggest that the treatment without phosphorous addition had the highest record of carbohydrate content (22.64% dry weight) as well as the highest bioethanol yield (20.66% dry weight).
... Show MoreIn this work, the dyes Rhodamine B and Coumarin 102 containing titanium dioxide nanoparticles were used as scattering centers to fabricate a random gain medium. The laser dye was dissolved in hexanol and methanol solvent respectively. The titanium dioxide nanoparticles were synthesized by DC reaction magnetron spraying technique. The random-gain medium was made by adding 2.5 mg of titanium dioxide nanoparticles to Rhodamine and coumarin 102 dyes by coating the glass cell with two-sided titanium dioxide with high spectral efficiency and low production cost. A narrow line optical emission was detected at 565 nm for Rhodamine B and 534 nm for coumarin 102, where it was found that rhodamine B dye has FWHM 8 nm and coumarin dye 102 has FWHM 9 nm
... Show MoreIn the present work, a density functional theory (DFT) calculation to simulate reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle's sensitivity to NO2 gas is performed. In comparison with the experiment, DFT calculations give acceptable results to available bond lengths, lattice parameters, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy gaps, Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, entropy, etc. to ZnO, rGO, and ZnO/rGO hybrid. ZnO and rGO show n-type and p-type semiconductor behavior, respectively. The formed p-n heterojunction between rGO and ZnO is of the staggering gap type. Results show that rGO increases the sensitivity of ZnO to NO2 gas as they form a hybrid. ZnO/rGO hybrid has a higher number of vacancies that can b
... Show MoreThe present research was conducted to reduce the sulfur content of Iraqi heavy naphtha by adsorption using different metals oxides over Y-Zeolite. The Y-Zeolite was synthesized by a sol-gel technique. The average size of zeolite was 92.39 nm, surface area 558 m2/g, and pore volume 0.231 cm3/g. The metals of nickel, zinc, and copper were dispersed by an impregnation method to prepare Ni/HY, Zn/HY, Cu/HY, and Ni + Zn /HY catalysts for desulfurization. The adsorptive desulfurization was carried out in a batch mode at different operating conditions such as mixing time (10,15,30,60, and 600 min) and catalyst dosage (0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1, and 1.2 g). The most of the sulfur compounds were removed at 10 min for all catalyst types. The maximum
... Show MoreCarbon dioxide geo-sequestration (CGS) into sediments in the form of (gas) hydrates is one proposed method for reducing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and, thus reducing global warming and climate change. However, there is a serious lack of understanding of how such CO2 hydrate forms and exists in sediments. We thus imaged CO2 hydrate distribution in sandstone, and investigated the hydrate morphology and cluster characteristics via x-ray micro-computed tomography in 3D in-situ. A substantial amount of gas hydrate (∼17% saturation) was observed, and the stochastically distributed hydrate clusters followed power-law relations with respect to their size distributions and surface area-volume relationships. The layer-
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