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Considering the growing green awareness and increasingly stringent emission regulations, heavy-emitting supply chains are required to re-schedule their operations for environmental responsibility. Although coordination helps the supply chains overcome the decentralised disadvantages to achieve desirable profits, literature considering option contracts under emission constraints, especially combining warehousing contracts, remains scarce. This paper fills this research gap with the novelty in the dual-contract-coordinated decision analysis for achieving profit maximum and emission reduction targets considering customers' green awareness through option and warehousing contracts, based on the originality of using the Lagrange-Stackelberg optimisation method, which overcomes the difficulty in expressing the first-mover's decisions and simplifies the problem-solving process. Analytical and numerical results show that Pareto-efficient coordination can be fully achieved by the option contract if the warehousing contract ensures the same inventory costs before and after coordination. Otherwise, partial coordination also raises insiders' profitability only through the option contract. Purchasing extra emissions with green investment is the best in most cases. The contract-maker should deliberate its contract settings including the option and wholesale prices, as well as warehousing, to develop Pareto-efficient coordination. Sustainability comes at a cost, but coordination raises profitability and emission mitigation in a well-built ETS market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combustion synthesis is capable of producing many types of refractory and ceramic materials, as well as metals, with a relatively lower cost and shorter time frame than other solid state synthetic techniques. TiO2 with Mg as reductant were dry mixed and hand compacted into a 60 mm diameter mold and then combusted under an Ar atmosphere. Depending on the reaction parameters (Mg concentration 2 ≤ α ≤ 4), the thermocouples registered temperatures between 1160°C and 1710°C · 3 mol of Mg gave the optimum results with combustion temperature (Tc) and combustion velocity (Uc) values of 1372°C and 0.26 cm/s respectively. Furthermore, this ratio also had the lowest oxygen concentration in this study (0.8 wt%). After combustion, DC plasma treatment was carried out to spheroidize the Ti powder for use in 3D printing. The characterization of the final product was performed using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and N/O analysis.

The water atomization of iron powder with a composition of Fe-3Cr-0.5Mo (wt.%) at 1600°C and 150 bar creates an oxide layer, which in this study was reduced using a mixture of methane (CH4) and argon (Ar) gas. The lowest oxygen content was achieved with a 100 cc/min flow rate of CH4, but this also resulted in a co-deposition of carbon due to the cracking of CH4. This carbon can be used directly to create high-quality, sinter hardenable steel, thereby eliminating the need for an additional mixing step prior to sintering. An exponential relationship was found to exist between the CH4 gas flow rate and carbon content of the powder, meaning that its composition can be easily controlled to suit a variety of different applications.

Although TiNb2O7 is regarded as a material with high application potential in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), it has been difficult to find suitable cost-effective conditions for synthesizing it on a commercial scale. In this study, TiNb2O7 compounds were synthesized by a solid state synthesis process. For stoichiometrically precise synthesis of the TiNb2O7 phase, the starting materials, TiO2 and Nb2O5 were taken in a 1:1 molar ratio. Activation energy and reaction kinetics of the system were investigated at various synthesis temperatures (800,1000,1200, and 1400°C) and for various holding durations (1,5,10, and 20 h). Furthermore, change in the product morphology and particle size distribution were also evaluated as a function of synthesis temperature and duration. Additionally, quantitative phase analysis was conducted using the Rietveld refinement method. It was found that increases in the synthesis temperature and holding time lead to increase in the mean particle size from 1 to 4.5 μm. The reaction rate constant for the synthesis reaction was also calculated.