Search Results (4)

In this research, an experimental study was carried out on the pre-treatment and turbidity removal of Persian Gulf water using cross flow microfiltration by new composite ceramic membranes. Three types of tubular microfiltration composite ceramic membranes that consisted of Mullite, Mullite/SiC, and Mullite/SiC/Fe₂O₃ with different compositions were fabricated at relatively low temperature (1250 °C) with extrusion and sintering for this purpose. Furthermore, changes in porosity, pore size, and mechanical strength were compared in Mullite membranes and composite membranes to find the most suitable membrane for turbidity removal from seawater. According to the results, the most suitable synthetic membrane was M/SiC/Fe10 membrane with 60:30:10 ratios of mullite, silicon carbide, and iron oxide with 64.6 ± 2% porosity, average pore size of 0.54 μm, 95.4% turbidity removal, pure water permeability of 3811 L/m².h, and higher mechanical strength (22.4 MPa) compared to other fabricated membranes. Results of Hermia’s models for fouling modeling indicated that the dominant mechanism of blocking in all membranes was standard pore blocking with the best compliance with experimental data. Therefore, results demonstrated that the addition of Fe₂O₃ to silicon carbide ceramic microfiltration membranes, with a specific weight percentage, improves their mechanical properties and membrane performance for pre-treatment of seawaters. Full article

In this work, phenyl methanesulfonate (PMS) is evaluated as an additive to enhance the cyclic stability of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) based on a graphite electrode. According to the theoretical results obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations, PMS possesses a lower reduction potential compared to the cyclic carbonate electrolyte solvent. Hence, this compound is foreseen to be reduced before ethylene carbonate (EC) and form a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer on the graphite electrode. The cyclic stability of Li/graphite battery is promoted considerably by adding a low dose of PMS to the electrolyte. The capacity retention of the Li/graphite half-cell is incredibly improved to about 100% after 35 cycles at room temperature. The results acquired from the electrochemical and surface characterization tests corroborate that an electrolyte with PMS is capable of forming a thinner SEI layer compared to the electrolyte devoid of an additive, which can dramatically lessen the interfacial resistance. Moreover, the results show that the graphite sheets are disguised under a myriad of PMS reductive deposits, which can neutralize the catalytic activity of prismatic surfaces. Full article

Irreversible capacity fading, originating from the formation of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), is a common challenge encountered in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) containing an electrolyte based on ethylene carbonate (EC). In this research, phenyl vinyl sulfonate (PVS) is examined as a novel electrolyte additive to mitigate this issue and subsequently enhance the cyclic stability of LIBs. As evidenced by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, PVS has a higher reduction potential than that of EC, which is in accordance with the cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements. Accordingly, the PVS-containing electrolyte demonstrated a reduction peak at ~1.9 V, which was higher than that of the electrolyte without an additive (at ~1.7 V). In contrast to the SEI derived from the reference electrolyte, the one built-in PVS-containing electrolyte was capable of completely inhibiting the electrolyte reduction. In terms of the Raman spectroscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis, SEI formation as the result of PVS reduction can lead to less structural disorder in the graphite electrode; the battery with the additive showed less interfacial and charge transfer resistance. The Li/graphite cell with 1 wt % of PVS delivered capacity retention much higher than that of its counterpart without the additive after 35 cycles at 1 C. Full article

Maintaining drinking water quality is considered important in building sustainable cities and societies. On the other hand, water insecurity is an obstacle to achieving sustainable development goals based on the issues of threatening human health and well-being and global peace. One of the dangers threatening water sources is cyanide contamination due to industrial wastewater leakage or sabotage. The present study investigates and provides potential strategies to remove cyanide contamination by chlorination. In this regard, the main novelty is to propose a sustainable decision support system for the dirking water system in a case study in Iran. First, three scenarios have been defined with low ([CN⁻] = 2.5 mg L⁻¹), medium ([CN⁻] = 5 mg L⁻¹), and high ([CN⁻] = 7.5 mg L⁻¹) levels of contamination. Then, the optimal chlorine dosage has been suggested as 2.9 mg L⁻¹, 4.7 mg L⁻¹, and 6.1 mg L⁻¹, respectively, for these three scenarios. In the next step, the residual cyanide was modelled with mathematical approaches, which revealed that the Gaussian distribution has the best performance accordingly. The main methodology was developing a hybrid approach based on the Gaussian model and the genetic algorithm. The outcomes of statistical evaluations illustrated that both injected chlorine and initial cyanide load have the greatest effects on residual cyanide ions. Finally, the proposed hybrid algorithm is characterized by the multilayer perceptron algorithm, which can forecast residual cyanide anion with a regression coefficient greater than 0.99 as a soft sensor. The output can demonstrate a strong positive relationship between residual cyanide- (RCN⁻) and injected chlorine. The main finding is that the proposed sustainable decision support system with our hybrid algorithm improves the resiliency levels of the considered drinking water system against cyanide treatments. Full article