Catalytic reduction is considered an effective approach for the reduction of toxic organic pollutants from the environment, but finding an active catalyst is still a big challenge. Herein, Ag decorated CeO2 catalyst was synthesized through polyol reduction method and applied for catalytic reduction (conversion) of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP). The Ag decorated CeO2 catalyst displayed an outstanding reduction activity with 99% conversion of 4-NP in 5 min with a 0.61 min−1 reaction rate (k). A number of structural characterization techniques were executed to investigate the influence of Ag on CeO2 and its effect on the catalytic conversion of 4-NP. The outstanding catalytic performances of the Ag-CeO2 catalyst can be assigned to strong synergistic interaction of Ag with CeO2 that prevents the aggregation of Ag species and also, helps in the exposure of more surface active metallic Ag0. In addition, the Ag-CeO2 catalyst shown remarkable durability up to several (five) repeated rounds, certifying its everyday applicability.
Production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.
The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified c
... Show MoreClinical 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
In this study NiO - CoO bimetallic catalysts are prepared with two Ni/Co ratios (70:30 and 80: 20) using the precipitation method of nitrate salts. The effects of Ni /Co ratio and preparation methods on the catalyst are analyzed by using different characterization techniques, i.e. atomic absorption (AA) , XRD, surface area and pore volume measurements according to the BET method . The results indicate that the best catalyst is the one containing the percentage of Ni :Co ( 70 : 30 ). Experiments indicate that the optimal conditions to prepare catalyst are stirring for three hours at a temperature of 60oC of the preparation , pH= (8-9) , calcination temperature at 400oC for two hours
... Show MoreTitanium dioxide nanotubes were synthesized by anodizing Ti sheets in the ethylene glycol solution and were covered in Pt nanoparticles onto the surface of TiO2NTs using electrodeposition method from using five derivatives of Mannich base Pt complexes which have been used as precursor of platinum. The mean size, shape, elemental composition of the titanium dioxide nanotubes and platinum deposited on the template were evaluated by different techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD), and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) technique. From all these analyses, the TiO2NTs prepared and Ptnanoparticles deposited on it were ide
... Show MoreNanostructured photodetectors have garnered great attention due to their enriched electronic and optical properties. In this work, we aim to fabricate a high-performance CeO2/Si photodetector by growing a CeO2 nanostructure film on a silicon substrate using the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique at different laser energy densities. The impact of laser energy density and the number of pulses on the morphological, optical, and electrical properties was studied. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) results show that the CeO2 film has a spherical grain morphology with an average grain size ranging from 33 to 54 nm, depending on the laser energy density. The film deposited at various numbers of laser pulses also has spherical
... Show MoreVisible Light Communication (VLC) has emerged as a powerful technique for wireless communication systems. Providing high data rate and increasing capacity are the major problems in VLC. Recent evidence suggests that Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technique can offers improved data rates and increased link range. This paper describes the design and implementation of visible light communication system in indoor environment exploring the benefits of MIMO. The specific objective of this research was to implement a 4× 4 Multiple Input (LEDs) Multiple Output (photodetectors)-VLC communication system, where a 16 white power LEDs in four arrays are setting up at transmitter and four RX modules are setting up at receiver side without the nee
... Show MoreIn this research, a low cost, portable, disposable, environment friendly and an easy to use lab-on-paper platform sensor was made. The sensor was constructed using a mixture of Rhodamine-6G and gold nanoparticles also Sodium chloride salt. Drop–casting method was utilized as a technique to make a platform which is a commercial office paper. A substrate was characterized using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectrophotometer and Raman Spectrometer. Rh-6G Raman signal was enhanced based on Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy technique utilized gold nanoparticles. High Enhancement factor of Plasmonic commercial office paper reaches up to 0.9 x105 because of local surface pl
... Show MoreThis paper studies a novel technique based on the use of two effective methods like modified Laplace- variational method (MLVIM) and a new Variational method (MVIM)to solve PDEs with variable coefficients. The current modification for the (MLVIM) is based on coupling of the Variational method (VIM) and Laplace- method (LT). In our proposal there is no need to calculate Lagrange multiplier. We applied Laplace method to the problem .Furthermore, the nonlinear terms for this problem is solved using homotopy method (HPM). Some examples are taken to compare results between two methods and to verify the reliability of our present methods.