Search

Industrial wastewater often consists of toxic chemicals and pollutants, which are extremely harmful to the environment. Heavy metals are toxic chemicals and considered one of the major hazards to the aquatic ecosystem. Analytical techniques, such as potentiometric methods, are some of the methods to detect heavy metals in wastewaters. In this work, the quantitative structure–property relationship (QSPR) was applied using a range of machine learning techniques to predict the stability constant (logβML) and potentiometric sensitivity (PSML) of 200 ligands in complexes with the heavy metal ions Cu2+, Cd2+, and Pb2+. In result, the logβML models developed for four ions showed good performance with square correlation coefficients (R2) ranging from 0.80 to 1.00 for the training and 0.72 to 0.85 for the test sets. Likewise, the PSML displayed acceptable performance with an R2 of 0.87 to 1.00 for the training and 0.73 to 0.95 for the test sets. By screening a virtual database of coumarin-like structures, several new ligands bearing the coumarin moiety were identified. Three of them, namely NEW02, NEW03, and NEW07, showed very good sensitivity and stability in the metal complexes. Subsequent quantum-chemical calculations, as well as physicochemical/toxicological profiling were performed to investigate their metal-binding ability and developability of the designed sensors. Finally, synthesis schemes are proposed to obtain these three ligands with major efficiency from simple resources. The three coumarins designed clearly demonstrated capability to be suitable as good florescent chemosensors towards heavy metals. Overall, the computational methods applied in this study showed a very good performance as useful tools for designing novel fluorescent probes and assessing their sensing abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated the effect of fly ash content on the compressive strength development of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) at different curing conditions, i.e., the standard curing condition and the heat curing. A total of 20 mixtures were prepared to cast specimens to measure the compressive strength at different ages from 3 days to 180 days. Additionally, 300 specimens were prepared to estimate the appropriate heat curing period at the early ages in terms of enhancing the 28-day compressive strength of UHPC with high content of fly ash (FA). From the regression analysis using test data, empirical equations were formulated to assess the compressive strength development of UHPC considering the FA content and maturity function. Test results revealed that the preference of the addition of FA for enhancing the compressive strength of UHPC requires the early heat curing procedure which can be recommended as at least 2 days under 90 °C. Moreover, the compressive strength of UHPC with FA under heat curing mostly reached its 28-day strength within 3 days. The proposed models based on the fib 2010 model can be a useful tool to reliably assess the compressive strength development of UHPC with high-volume fly ash (HVFA) (up to 70% fly ash content) under a heat curing condition that possesses a different performance from that of normal- and high-strength concrete. When 50% of the cement content was replaced by FA, the embodied CO2 emission for UHPC mixture reduced up to approximately 50%, which is comparable to the CO2 emission calculated from the conventional normal-strength concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the comparison of combustion characteristics in a constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC) with alternative fuel biodiesel blends. To achieve this goal, a CVCC experimental was established, and the biodiesel was made from fish oil and was used as test fuel. The combustion process of diesel fuel (B0) and bio-diesel 10% (B10) will be investigated based on doing experiments with two conditions: air-fuel mixed before and after ignition timing. The influence of the oxygen concentration on the burning process is also being investigated. The results of the research show that the heat release rate of B0 is faster and higher than that of B10 in the case of air-fuel mixed before ignition timing. In the case of after ignition timing, these values are almost similar to B0 and B10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effectiveness of zeolite addition to reduce the autogenous shrinkage of high-performance cement-based concrete (HPC). The zeolites were replaced up to 15% of the cement content by weight and their mean particle size varied from 5.6 to 16.7 µm. To evaluate the crack resistance of HPC containing zeolites, the ring tests and internal relative humidity measurements were performed at different ages. The compressive strengths were determined at 3, 7, 28 and 90 days of curing. Test results confirmed that the addition of zeolite was promising and favourable in enhancing the compressive strength, crack resistance and reducing the autogenous shrinkage of HPC due to synergistic pozzolanic and internal curing effects. The autogenous shrinkage tended to decrease with the increase in zeolite content and its particle size. In addition, the extent of the autogenous shrinkage development at the early ages decreased with higher zeolite content replaced. Furthermore, to predict the autogenous shrinkage of HPC containing zeolite, an improved model has been proposed, in which the conventional ultimate autogenous shrinkage strain and time function were modified by introducing new parameters accounting for the zeolite content and its particle size. It appeared that the proposed model was able to capture the autogenous shrinkage behaviour of HPC with or without zeolite, while the fib 2010 model underestimated the autogenous shrinkage of HPC containing less than 10% zeolite replacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]