Sharif Digital Repository

Urea is a major source of nitrogen pollution in domestic sewage and its denitrification is difficult since it is very likely to be converted into ammonia or nitrate instead of expected N2. Herein, we propose an exhaustive denitrification method for urea via the oxidation of amine/ammonia-N with chlorine oxide radical, which induced from a bi-functional RuO2//WO3 anode, and the highly selective reduction of nitrate-N on cathode in photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). Under illumination, the WO3 photoanode side promotes the quantities hydroxyl and reactive chlorine radical, and these radicals are immediately combined to stronger chlorine oxide radical by RuO2 side, which obviously enhances the... 

In this study, an assessment of concrete compressive strength was conducted using an impulse excitation data-driven machine learning (ML) framework. The model was constructed upon a deep neural network and aided by the backpropagation method, ensuring a precise training process. In contrast to prior research, which mainly focused on mixture components, a meaningful relationship between physical parameters—resonant frequencies and elastic moduli—and compressive strength was established by our ML model. Remarkable performance was demonstrated, with a root mean square error value of 2.8MPa and a determination factor of 0.97. Through Pearson analysis, correlations between input features and... 

TiO2 is a promising photoanode material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, but its severe bulk recombination of photogenerated carriers, sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) kinetics and poor visible light response are the main bottleneck problems. Here, the carbon quantum dots (CQDs) modified anatase/rutile TiO2 photoanode (CQDs/A/R-TiO2) was designed by growth of anatase TiO2 nanothorns on rutile TiO2 nanorods and further surface modification of CQDs. The results revealed that the A/R-TiO2 heterojunction significantly suppressed the bulk recombination of photogenerated carriers. With further incorporation of CQDs into A/R-TiO2, dramatical improvement of OER kinetics and... 

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) generated by natural gas exploitation is a dangerous and harmful gas that needs to be purified. Electrochemical Natural Gas Desulfurization offers a promising way for H2S purification and resource utilization in ambient conditions. However, poor energy efficiency and low resource value limit the prospective application in the industry. Herein, we propose a gas-liquid flow electrocatalysis system that couples H2S oxidation and O2 reduction processes to effectively recover sulfur and H2O2 with low energy consumption. Gas diffusion and mass transfer are accelerated by gas-liquid flow cells, which also significantly decrease the resistance. Besides, I-/I3- redox pairs... 

The treatment of refractory wastewater and energy utilization are challenging environmental issues. Carbonate as the most common anion abounds in the aquatic environment. Here, we proposed a novel method to degrade carbonate-containing wastewater and simultaneous electricity generation via the combined oxidation of CO3[rad]− and O2[rad]− radicals. The CO3[rad]− radical was produced by the photoelectrode of TiO2/Si photovoltaic cell with the rear Si photovoltaic cell providing external bias, and the O2[rad]− radical was produced from the generation of H2O2 on a gas diffusion electrode (GDE), and they were both further enhanced from the activation reaction of H2O2 with HCO3− electrolyte. The... 

The ongoing and rapid growth of atmospheric CO2 levels causes a crucial worldwide concern. Herein, an efficient electrocatalyst has been introduced for electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to address the stability issue of ZIF-67. The catalyst consists of gold and silver nanostructures electrodeposited on the surface of a cobalt-based metal-organic framework (Au-Ag@ZIF-67). The uniform distribution of the Au-Ag alloy without any agglomeration on ZIF-67 was confirmed through microscopic observations. After 13.3 h of CO2RR, the specific surface area of Au-Ag@ZIF-67 slightly decreased, whereas that of ZIF-67 declined drastically, indicating excellent structural stability of the Au-Ag... 

H2S and CO2 are the main impurities in raw natural gas, which needs to be purified before use. However, the comprehensive utilization of H2S and CO2 has been ignored. Herein, we proposed a fully resource-based method to convert toxic gas H2S and greenhouse gas CO2 synchronously into CO and elemental S by using a novel electrochemical reactor. The special designs include that, in the anodic chamber, H2S was oxidized rapidly to S based on the I−/I3− cyclic redox system to avoid anode passivation. On the other hand, in the cathodic chamber, CO2 was rapidly and selectively reduced to CO based on a porous carbon gas diffusion electrode (GDE) modified with polytetrafluoroethylene and cobalt... 

The present study is focused on the investigation of the absorption properties of the bi-layer absorber with different thickness and orientation approaches. Improvement in absorption exclusively depends on the various parameters as interfacial polarization, multiple reflections among layers, conduction loss, phase cancellations, and shape anisotropy, etc. By considering these parameters. Calcium titanate micro-cubes CaTiO3 (CTO) and polypyrrole nanotubes (PPy) nanocomposites were prepared and microwave absorption from single layer coaxial absorbers having M1 = CaTiO3+15 wt% polymer and M2 = CaTiO3+30 wt% polymer were determined. Different layer orientations and thicknesses of the bi-layer... 

The present research examines the effects of UV radiation, moisture and elevated temperature on the mechanical properties of GFRP pultruded profiles. Flexural, compressive and tensile properties of different GFRP sections were studied after they were exposed for 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 h to UV radiation and water vapour condensation cycles. Mechanical tests, including three-point bending, compression and tension tests, SEM analyses, and statistical studies were conducted to gather comprehensive results. The results showed that the mechanical properties of various GFRP sections generally decreased with the duration of conditioning: however, the rate of the decrease that was only slight up... 

This article presents an investigation on the durability of different glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites when subjected to harsh outdoor conditions, including freeze/thaw cycles, ultraviolet radiation and moisture, as well as when used with seawater sea-sand concrete for construction applications. To achieve this, the effects of a number of parameters, including the environment of exposure, exposure time, profile cross-sectional configuration and orientation of fibres, on the mechanical properties of different glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites were studied. To investigate the degradation of the mechanical properties, three-point bending, compression and tension tests were... 

A solution-processed, bottom-up nanowire network electrode is developed and employed in a bulk heterojunction colloidal quantum dot solar cell. The electrode features a ZnO template which is converted into locally connected, infi ltratable TiO2 nanowires. The new electrode allows the application of a thicker light absorbing fi lm without compromising the charge extraction, as reported by Edward H. Sargent, Ghassan Jabbour, and co-workers on page 1769. The frontispiece shows schematically the electrode shape and the resultant device architecture  

This article presents an investigation on the durability of different glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites when subjected to harsh outdoor conditions, including freeze/thaw cycles, ultraviolet radiation and moisture, as well as when used with seawater sea-sand concrete for construction applications. To achieve this, the effects of a number of parameters, including the environment of exposure, exposure time, profile cross-sectional configuration and orientation of fibres, on the mechanical properties of different glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites were studied. To investigate the degradation of the mechanical properties, three-point bending, compression and tension tests were... 

In this research, the mechanical properties of various glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) pultruded profiles exposed to seawater sea sand concrete (SWSSC) and its combination with UV radiation and water vapour condensation were studied. The effect of different conditions, duration of conditioning, and the profile cross-section configuration on the mechanical properties were investigated. Three-point bending, tension, and compression tests were carried out to obtain the mechanical properties, including flexural, tensile and compressive strengths and tensile elastic modulus. Furthermore, in order to scrutiny the mechanisms and extent of damage, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried... 

This paper reports on the NTIRE 2021 challenge on perceptual image quality assessment (IQA), held in conjunction with the New Trends in Image Restoration and Enhancement workshop (NTIRE) workshop at CVPR 2021. As a new type of image processing technology, perceptual image processing algorithms based on Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) have produced images with more realistic textures. These output images have completely different characteristics from traditional distortions, thus pose a new challenge for IQA methods to evaluate their visual quality. In comparison with previous IQA challenges, the training and testing datasets in this challenge include the outputs of perceptual image... 

The insect circulatory system contains an open hemocoel, in which the mechanism of hemolymph flow control is ambiguous. As a continuous fluidic structure, this cavity should exhibit pressure changes that propagate quickly. Narrow-waisted insects create sustained pressure differences across segments, but their constricted waist provides an evident mechanism for compartmentalization. Insects with no obvious constrictions between segments may be capable of functionally compartmentalizing the body, which could explain complex hemolymph flows. Here, we test the hypothesis of functional compartmentalization by measuring pressures in a beetle and recording abdominal movements. We found that the... 

In [1], [2] it is shown that the minimum broadcast rate of a linear index code over a finite field Fq is equal to an algebraic invariant of the underlying digraph, called minrankq. In [3], it is proved that for F2 and any positive integer k, minrankq(G) ≤ k if and only if there exists a homomorphism from the complement of the graph G to the complement of a particular undirected graph family called 'graph family {Gk}'. As observed in [2], by combining these two results one can relate the linear index coding problem of undirected graphs to the graph homomorphism problem. In [4], a direct connection between linear index coding problem and graph homomorphism problem is introduced. In contrast to... 

I present an in-depth review of the trends and the directions taken by researchers worldwide in optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) systems. I highlight those trends and features that I believe are essential to the successful introduction of various OCDMA techniques in communication systems and data networks in the near future. In particular I begin by giving a comprehensive review of the construction of optical orthogonal codes (OOCs). Specifically I discuss the recently developed algorithms that are based on matrix algebra, which simplify and enhance the efficiencies of algorithms in OOC generation. In communication systems studies I first focus on and discuss various OCDMA... 

In this paper, we analyze the worst-case delay performance of a network of fair queuing servers in case of multiple-paths between source-destination pairs. In order to develop worst-case delay analysis for the multiple-path scenario, two challenging events should be addressed: merging different sub-streams of a session as well as distributing a traffic stream among different paths (traffic partitioning). Specifically, we propose to merge incoming sub-streams of a session to a node according to a limited rate Fair Queuing (FQ) scheme. Although the merged stream is treated as a unity, this approach results in a guaranteed level of service to each sub-stream. In addition, an algorithm is... 

This paper presents an investigation of the effects of tool rake angle and nose radius on the surface quality of ultraprecision diamond-turned porous silicon. The results showed that as rake angle decreases, the high-stress field induced by the tool edge increases, causing microcracks to propagate extensively near the pore walls. As a result, the ductile-machined areas shrank under a negative tool rake angle. On the other hand, brittle fracture occurred around pores released cutting pressure significantly. These trends of rake angle effects are distinctly different from those in the cutting of non-porous silicon. Finite element simulation of stress in the cutting area agreed with the... 

This paper presents an investigation of the effects of tool rake angle and nose radius on the surface quality of ultraprecision diamond-turned porous silicon. The results showed that as rake angle decreases, the high-stress field induced by the tool edge increases, causing microcracks to propagate extensively near the pore walls. As a result, the ductile-machined areas shrank under a negative tool rake angle. On the other hand, brittle fracture occurred around pores released cutting pressure significantly. These trends of rake angle effects are distinctly different from those in the cutting of non-porous silicon. Finite element simulation of stress in the cutting area agreed with the...