Perennial biofuel and cover crops systems are important for enhancing soil health and can provide numerous soil, agricultural, and environmental benefits. The study objective was to investigate the effects of cover crops and biofuel crops on soil hydraulic properties relative to traditional management for claypan soils. The study site included selected management practices: cover crop (CC) and no cover crop (NC) with corn/soybean rotation, switchgrass (SW), and miscanthus (MI). The CC mixture consisted of cereal rye, hairy vetch, and Austrian winter pea. The research site was located at Bradford Research Center in Missouri, USA, and was implemented on a Mexico silt loam. Intact soil cores (76‐mm diam. by 76‐mm long) were taken from the 0–10, 10–20, 20–30, and 30–40 cm depths with three plot replicates and two sub‐samples per plot replicate per depth. Soil hydraulic properties evaluated for each sample included: saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat), water retention, bulk density, and pore size distributions. Results showed with the test of Duncan's least significant differences that treatments of MI (1.18 Mg m−3) and SW (1.21 Mg m−3) had lower values of bulk density averaging across soil depth than CC (1.27 Mg m−3) and NC (1.31 Mg m). Management systems significantly increased Ksat with the biofuel treatments at 0–10 cm compared to NC system. The MI management showed a significant increase in macroporosity and fine mesoporosity as compared to other management systems. Slight changes have occurred in the measured soil physical properties for CC system compared to NC plots. Overall, increasing soil organic matter from more plant roots from long‐term biofuel cropping systems can improve soil water storage and crop productivity.
Gallium arsenide diamondoids structural and vibrational properties are investigated using density functional theory at the PBE/6-31(d) level and basis including polarization functions. Variation of energy gap as these diamondoids increase in size is seen to follow confinement theory for diamondoids having nearly equiaxed dimensions. Density of energy states transforms from nearly single levels to band structure as we reach larger diamondoids. Bonds of surface hydrogen with As atoms are relatively localized and shorter than that bonded to Ga atoms. Ga-As bonds have a distribution range of values due to surface reconstruction and effect of bonding to hydrogen atoms. Experimental bulk Ga-As bond length (2.45 Å) is within this distribu
... Show MoreRecently, emulgel has emerged as one of the most interesting topical preparations in the field of pharmaceutics. In this research clotrimazole was formulated as topically applied emulgel ; different formulas were prepared. The prepared emulgels were evaluated for their physical appearance , rheological behaviour , and in vitro drug release . The influence of the type of gelling agent (carbopol 934 and methyl cellulose), the concentration of both the emulsifying agent (2% and 4% w/w of mixture of span 20 and tween 20) and the oil phase (5% and 7.5% w/w of liquid paraffin) and the type of oil phase (liquid paraffin and cetyl alcohol), on the drug release from the prepared emulgels was invest
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Locally natural occurring Iraqi rocks of Bauxite and Porcelanite (after pre calcinations at 1000oC for 1hr) were used, with the addition of different proportions of MgO and Al2O3, to prepare refractory materials. The effects of these additives on the physical and thermal properties of the prepared refractories were investigated.
Many batches of Bauxite/MgO, Bauxite/Al2O3, Bauxite/MgO/Al2O3, and Porcelanite/ MgO/Al2O3 were prepared. The mixture is milled and classified into different size fractions; fine (less than 45μm) 40%, middle (45-75μm) 40%, and coarse (75-106μm) 20% .
... Show MoreA thin film of SnSe were deposited by thermal evaporation technique on 400 ±20 nm thick glass substrates of these films were annealed at different temperatures (100,150,200 ⁰C), The effect of annealing on the characteristics of the nano crystalline SnSe thin films was investigated using XRD, UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and Hall effect measurements. The results of X-ray displayed that all the thin films have polycrystalline and orthorhombic structure in nature, while UV-VIS study showed that the SnSe has direct band gap of nano crystalline and it is changed from 60.12 to 94.70 nm with increasing annealing temperature. Hall effect measurements showed that all the films have a positive Hall coeffic
... Show MoreIn this work Study effect of annealing temperature on the Structure
of a-Se and electrical properties of a-Se/c-Si hetrojunction have been
studied.The hetrojunction fabricated by deposition of a-Se film on c-
Si using thermal evaporation.
Electrical properties of a-Se/ c-Si heterojunction include I-V
characteristics, in dark at different annealing temperature and C-V
characteristics are considered in the present work.
C-V characteristics suggested that the fabricated diode was
abrupt type, built in potential determined by extrapolation from
1/C2-V curve. The built - in potential (Vbi) for the Se/ Si System
was found to be increase from 1.21 to 1.62eV with increasing of
annealing temperature
Cadmium Oxide films have been prepared by vacuum evaporation technique on a glass substrate at room temperature. Structural and optical properties of the films are studied at different annealing temperatures (375 and 475) ËšC, for the thickness (450) nm at one hour. The crystal structure of the samples was studied by X- ray diffraction. The highest value of the absorbance is equal to (78%) in the wavelength (530) nm, at annealing temperature (375) ËšC. The value of at a rate of deposition is (10) nm/s. The value of optical energy gap found is equal to (2.22) eV.
The ZnTe alloy was prepared as deposited thin films on the glass substrates at a thickness of 400±20 nm using vacuum evaporation technique at pressure (1 × 10-5) mbar and room temperature. Then the thin films under vacuum (2 × 10-3 mbar) were annealing at (RT,100 and 300) °C for one hour. The structural properties were studied by using X-ray diffraction and AFM, the results show that the thin films had approached the single crystalline in the direction (111) as preferred orientation of the structure zinc-blende for cubic type, with small peaks of tellurium (Te) element for all prepared thin films. The calculated crystallite size (Cs) decreased with the increase in the anne
... Show MoreIn this work, (CdO)1-x (CoO)x thin films were prepared on glass slides by laser-induced plasma using Nd:YAG laser with (λ=1064 nm) and duration (9 ns) at different laser energies (200-500 mJ) with ratio (x=0.5), The influence of laser energy on structural and optical properties has been studied. XRD patterns show the films have a structure of polycrystalline wurtzite. As for AFM tests results for the topography of the surface of the film, where the results showed that the grain size and the average roughness increase with increasing laser energy. The optical properties of all films were also studied and the results showed that the absorption coefficient for within the wavelength range (280-1100 nm), The value of the optical power gap fo
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