bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Viscosity impact investigation on erosion of carbon steel in sand-mixed-polivinyl alcohol
Authors: Naz M Y , Khan N A , Naeem M , Sharif F , Heral F A , Ghaffar A , Shukrullah S 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Erosion in oil and gas production sector is predominantly caused by fine particles’ migration into the processing facilities. Fine particles are mostly transported to the facilities via carrier fluid. Other than sand, the viscosity of the carrier fluid also contributes to the sand erosion phenomenon. However, the impact of viscosity on sand erosion is not fully discovered by previous researchers. Therefore, this paper investigated the impact of fluid viscosity on erosion of carbon steel surface. In the presented work, an experimental rig was fabricated and tested for the study of impact of fluid viscosity on erosion of the carbon steel by considering the water mixed-polyvinyl alcohol as a carrier fluid. The metal coupons were impacted with sand slurries of different viscosities. Scanning electron microscopy along with energy dispersive spectroscopy and Universal scanning probe microscopy were used to analyse the centred and adjunct areas of the coupons. These analyses revealed that the viscous slurry is least effective in removal of metal surface in comparison with the pitting erosion. The obtained results reflected a decrease in erosion rate as the fluid viscosity upsurges and the type of metal surface erosion changes from uniform erosion to pitting erosion by fluid viscosity increment.
Experimental investigation of impact of dust accumulation on the performance of photovoltaic solar module
Authors: Naz S , Nadeem M , Zain-ul-Abideen M , Buttar S K , Shukrullah S , Naz M Y , Jamil Y 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
The effect of dust and sand on the surface of photovoltaic module has been investigated experimentally in this paper. The size distribution analysis of each sample was carried out using digital microscope. The chemical composition was investigated through EDX analysis. Experiments on photovoltaic solar module were conducted under controlled conditions by using artificial light source at different tilt angles and a dust blower. It has been concluded that there was only a small difference of degradation in maximum voltage and current when dust and sand was deposited on photovoltaic panel. The voltage decrement was 9.1%, 3.1%, 1.2% and 6.1% at tilt angles of 35°, 45°, 55° and 65°, respectively. These results reveal that the solar panel should be installed at angles between 45° and 55° in order to minimize the dust impact.
Computational fluid dynamics study of a single stage solar still for water treatment
Authors: Hussain M , Shoukat B , Wahid A A , Shukrullah S , Anwar M , Ashraf M Z , Naz M Y 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
The freshwater is only 2.5% of the total water on this earth and rest is the brackish. At present, the human being is facing a serious problem of availability of potable water. The amount of potable water can be enhanced by translating brackish water into drinkable through solar distillation in solar stills. Different geometries of solar stills are being designed to serve the distillation purpose. The performance of a solar still is mainly influenced by its design parameters and wall material. In the presented work, a 3-dimentional geometric modeling of a solar still was carried out by using k-epsilon model in ANSYS-FLUENT. The objective was to study the effect of the design parameters on performance of a solar still through CFD modelling followed by the experimental validation. ANSYS-FLUENT 14.0 package was used to simulate the solar still system. The simulated work was compared with the experimental data and a good agreement was seen among the experimental and simulated data.
Effect of calcination temperature on the structural and morphological properties of zinc sulphide nanomaterials
Authors: Ahmad G , Batool A , Iqbal Q , Iqbal A , Ali F , Nawaz S , Shad N A , Sajid M M , Javed Y 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Metal sulfide nanomaterials have emerged an important material in recent times due to its potential applications in optical devices, nanoelectronics and nano-optoelectronics. In current research work, zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanoparticles were synthesis by simple chemical co-precipitation method and effect of calcination temperature on the structural and morphological properties of the nanomaterials have been investigated. It was observed that when temperature rises to 500 °C, cubic structure of ZnS transformed into hexagonal phase. Further increase in temperature oxidize the sulfide and ZnS changes into zinc oxide at 750 °C. This temperature rise was also evident in the SEM images where nanoparticles transformed into rod like morphology at 750 °C. Oxidation of the ZnS to ZnO also confirmed by FTIR spectrum which shows Zn-O bonds presence. These studies show that temperature variation can affect the structure and ultimately their relevant technological applications.
Application of central composite design for optimization of microbial growth inhibition using pineapple leaves juice
Authors: Ya’acob A , Zainol N 
Published: June 2020

AbstractMicrobial growth inhibitor is very important to prevent transmission of disease and infection. In this research paper, pineapple (Ananas comosus) leaves juice (PLJ) was used as microbial growth inhibitor agent. Microbe from infected pineapple leaves was used as microbe model. The selected factors in this study were temperature and microbial inhibition time with the range between 35 to 39 °C and 10 to 50 minutes respectively. In order to determine the optimum condition for microbial growth inhibition process, an experiment were designed according to a central composite design (CCD) in two variables following the response surface methodology (RSM). Microbial growth inhibition was measured from cell dry weight of microbe using dry weight measurement method. Result from RSM showed that microbial inhibition time have significant effect on the microbial growth inhibition. Model validation from experiments showed good correspondence between experimental and predicted values. The highest error was achieved at 8.03%. The optimal condition obtained for microbial growth inhibition was at 37 °C and 34.25 minutes. Minimum cell dry weight was found at 0.0508 gram which indicated the microbial growth inhibition at 94.73%. Optimal condition from this study would be useful for the application of PLJ in pineapple plantation.
Air co-gasification of palm kernel shell and polystyrene: Effect of different polystyrene content
Authors: Basha M H , Sulaiman S A 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Plastic waste management has been a problem as most of the plastics are not biodegradable. Although plastics are recyclable, only 21% of total plastic wastes are recycled. Using plastics as gasification feedstock/co-feedstock and converting it to usable energy is one of the solutions of removing plastics waste. Co-gasifying polystyrene (PS) with palm kernel shell (PKS) is promising as both of the feedstocks are abundant and have high energy content. However, the performance of air gasification of PKS and PS has not been studied previously. In this work, co-gasification of PKS and PS was carried out, focusing on the effect of PS content in the feedstock. The PS content was varied from 0 to 30 wt%. By increasing the PS content, the CH4 volume percentage increases, while CO and H2 volume percentage decreases. The high heating value of the producer gas increases with PS content, from 11.95 MJ/Nm3 at 10 wt% PS, to 12.36 MJ/Nm3 at 30 wt% PS. Higher PS content also increases the gas yield percentage.
Influence of non-covalently functionalized graphene nanoplatelets on viscosity and wettability for improved oil mobility at reservoir conditions
Authors: Hamdi S S , Muhsan A S , Al-Kayiem H H 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Noncovalent functionalized graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) were successfully prepared with Gum Arabic as exfoliation solvent via an ultrasonication-assisted process to produce a highly dispersed material under high salinity and high temperature conditions. The implementation of the functionalization groups was validated with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy. The functionalized graphene nanoplatelets with Gum Arabic were dispersed in 3 wt.% high salinity brine with various concentrations to prepare Gum Arabic-GNP/brine nanofluids. The dynamic viscosity of the produced nanofluid at different concentrations was higher than that of crude oil at a high temperature (90 °C) and a high shear rate (1000 L/s). The functionalized graphene with Gum Arabic altered the wettability of sandstone from oil to water and changed the contact angle from 108° to 21° at 0.1 wt.%. Moreover, the value of contact angle reduced to 87% with presence 0.1 wt.% of GA-GNPs. These results are demonstrating that the GA-GNPs nanofluids could improve the mobility of the residual oil from the porous media to the production well with high efficiency of oil displacement.
Correlation between microstructure and micro-hardness of 316L nitrided austenitic stainless steel
Authors: Hussain P , Mahmoud H , Basha S N , Mohamad A I 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
This paper presents the effect of duration of solution nitriding towards microstructure and microhardness of AISI 316L stainless steel. The AISI 316L stainless steel was exposed to high temperature gas nitriding process at 1200 °C by using 50% ammonia gas and 50% nitrogen gas for different durations of 8, 15 and 20 hours. The nitrided austenitic stainless steel then underwent several analyses and tests to find the effect of different durations of nitriding towards its microstructures and microhardness. From the experiments conducted to the nitrided samples, it was found that the higher duration of nitriding resulted in the increase of microhardness of the samples due to the increase of nitrogen content in the stainless steel. However, there was no effect found on the microstructure of the nitrided samples. It was noted that the highest hardness was obtained from the nitrided sample of 20 hours that has 245.1 HV which is about 70% higher than the as-received sample.
An investigation of thermal stability and heat capacity of imidazolium based ionic liquids at elevated temperature
Authors: Bakthavatchalam B , Habib K , Saidur R , Irshad K , Hussein O A 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
In this paper, the thermal stability and specific heat capacities of four imidazolium based ionic liquids namely 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium octylsulfate, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium diethyl phosphate, 1,3-dimethyl-imidazolium dimethyl phosphate and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride have been experimentally analysed using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The thermal stability was assessed by conventional and high resolution modulated TGA with the temperature range of 0 to 700 °C. The specific heat capacity was measured by using DSC within the temperature interval of 0 to 200 °C. The factors influencing the thermal stability and heat capacity of ionic liquids were studied. The thermal analysis results indicate that 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium octylsulfate exhibited excellent thermal stability even at 440 °C while 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium diethyl phosphate obtained a maximum specific heat capacity of 4.52 J/g.K.
Multi-objective model optimisation using genetic algorithms for pleurotus sp. cultivation
Authors: Zainol N , Fakharudin A S , Dzulkefli N A , Bakar M F A 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Malaysia is the largest exporter of Elaeis Guineensis (Palm oil) in the international market. Oil palm cultivation generates a significant amount of lignocellulosic biomass derived from empty fruit bunches (EFB) as waste product. This research focused on optimizing the mycelium growth in Pleurotus sp. cultivation by using EFB as a culture medium. The EFB was cut into the range of size of substrate (S) from 1.5 cm to 3.0 cm, soaked in water for overnight, applied steam treatment and incubated at the selected range of temperature (T) from 29 °C to 32 °C. The responses were mycelium extension rate (M) and nitrogen concentration in mycelium (N). The multi-objective optimisation of M and N requires the objective functions which represent both processes. For this type of problem, multi-objective genetic algorithm was chosen as the methodology, specifically using NSGA-II algorithm. Through the implementation of selected multi-objective genetic algorithm, it was able to produce the pareto front for optimising both nitrogen concentration and the extension rate of the mycelium. The highest nitrogen concentration and mycelium extension rate was from the result with crossover and mutation probability of 0.5 and 0.2. It produced 388.45 mg/L of nitrogen concentration and 0.370 cm/day of mycelium growth.
Review on effects of gasifying agents, temperature and equivalence ratio in biomass gasification process
Authors: Sidek F N , Abdul Samad N A F , Saleh S 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Biomass gasification is one of the promising technologies for converting biomass into gaseous fuels. It is crucial to fully understand the influence of operation parameters and types of gasifier on the performance of biomass gasification. It also can provide useful information for a better design and operation of gasification process. The general overview on each types of gasifier are discussed where it can be classified into fixed bed and fluidized bed gasifiers. Most of the review from literature focuses more on the effects of temperature and equivalence ratio rather than gasifying agent. However, the review on the effect of gasifying agent is still limited whereas the effect of gasifying agent is also important as it influences the yield and composition of product gas. In the present work, the effects of gasifying agent, temperature and equivalence ratio on the gasification process were reviewed. Firstly, this article highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each gasifiers which consists of fixed bed and fluidized bed. Based on review, a detailed comparison was made in terms of syngas composition obtained by using steam, air, oxygen and carbon dioxide as gasifying agents in order to provide basic knowledge regarding the selection of gasifying agents. The effects of temperature and equivalence ratio (ER) on the gas composition, tar content and reaction rate were discussed and analyzed. Finally, guidelines on the operation parameters in terms of gasifying agent, temperature and equivalence ratio are suggested in the summary review.
Effects of pure and mixed stabilizers on opto-electrical properties and morphology of TiO2nanoparticles synthesized by sol-gel method
Authors: Ayyaz M , Huda N U , Rasool F , Sami-ur-Rehman H , Mehmood A , Naz M Y , Shukrullah S , Ghaffar A 
Published: June 2020

AbstractTitanium dioxide (TiO2) is acknowledged as the most advanced nanomaterial. It has been used in certain application, such as semiconductor, photocatalyst, dye solar cells, paints, dyes, cosmetics, antifogging coatings, self-cleaning windows, etc. Although TiO2nanoparticles occur naturally in mineral form, but the particles are also being synthesized through different well-known techniques. The past literature reveals that sol-gel methodology is considered as the most attractive and suitable technique for the preparation of such kind of nanoparticles. This article reports the effects of three different stabilizers (HCl, HNO3and mixture of HCl+HNO3) on the morphological and opto-electrical properties of TiO2nanoparticles. The nanoparticles of TiO2were synthesized through sol-gel process by using titanium tetra isopropoxide (TTIP) as precursor in a solution of deionized water and isopropanol at 80 °C under constant stirring. The synthesized TiO2nanoparticles were characterized through X-ray Diffractometry (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-Visible spectrophotometry. The grain size with perfect crystallinity obtained through XRD were in good agreement with SEM results. The grain size of the prepared TiO2nanoparticles using HCl, HNO3and (HCl+HNO3) were 3 nm, 2.8 nm and 3.3 nm, respectively. The optical characterization of TiO2revealed band gap energy values of 4.10 eV, 6.16 eV and 6.14 eV corresponding to absorption edges at 302 nm, 201.2 nm and 201.73 nm, respectively. The smaller grain sizes were having larger band gaps.
Synthesis and characterization of silver nanorods using water coupled atmospheric pressure dc plasma
Authors: Saleem S , Asghar I , Manzoor S , Abbas A , Shukrullah S , Naz M Y , Hussain Z 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Non-thermal microplasmas are gaining attention of research community due to their unique physical, chemical, optical and catalytic properties. Due to theses remarkable properties, microplasmas are being used in medicine, electronics, material processing and biotechnology. In this study, silver nanorods (AgNRs) were synthesized by coupling dc plasma with aqueous solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3). Sucrose was added in the solution as a stabilizing agent. AgNRs were produced in aqueous solution by reducing AgNO3 with dc plasma jet of argon at atmospheric pressure. No additional reducing agent was added used during production of AgNRs. Different molar ratios of AgNO3 were used to control the size and dispersion of nanorods. Chemical composition and surface morphology of AgNRs were examined by using different techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The EDX spectrum confirmed that nanorods are AgNRs metallic silver with atomic weight of 16.86%. SEM micrographs revealed the formation of AgNRs. The rod length varied from 5 nm to 100 nm, depending on the molarity of solute.
Effect of DC micro-plasma treatment on bacteria in its vegetative bacteria
Authors: Naeem M , Bashir W , Altaf N U H , Naz M Y , Shukrullah S , Rehman S U , Shahid M 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Argon gas plasma consists of discharge pattern of micro hollow cathode. The pattern is used to inactivate the two main kinds of bacteria. The Culture of Escherichia Coli (gram positive) and Staphylococcus aureus (gram negative) are subjected to the plasma exposure. The micro-plasma jet (MPJ) discharge was generated in the voltage range of 2-10 kV with an operating current of 20-35 mA. Under such conditions, a MPJ of approximately 1 cm visible length was produced. The power efficiency of this device was approximately 80%. The efficacy of MPJ to inactivate the bacteria is determined by observing colony forming unit (CFU) counts before and after plasma exposure. The Colony counter is used here to find the CFU/plate. The effect of plasma exposure is observed by varying the time at 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 seconds. An efficient reduction in CFU is observed after plasma exposure, particularly for 120 seconds. Approximate 50% decay of both cultures is observed after treatment time of 120 seconds.
Performance assessment of stratified chilled water thermal energy storage tank at district cooling plant
Authors: Majid M A A , Hui P S , Soomro A A 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Thermal energy storage (TES) is the key component of the district cooling (DC) plants. Its performance is important to be analysed. Various works have been carried out to analyse the TES tank performance. Among the methods, the most common are thermocline thickness and figure of merit. In this study nonlinear regression is used to analyse the temperature profiles of a stratified TES tank at DC plant at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. The TES performance was also evaluated using thermocline thickness and 1/2FOM. Results indicate curve fitting approach is enabled to plot temperature profiles during charging. The plots assist in understanding the development of thermocline within the TES tank during charging process. Results on the thermocline thickness and 1/2FOM during the understudy charging period indicate increased of thermocline thickness and decreased of 1/2FOM values respectively during the study period. Hence it can be concluded that deterioration occurred to the TES tank during the study period.
Investigation of the effect of annealing temperature on photophysical properties of manganese dioxide nanostructure prepared via co-precipitation route
Authors: Iqbal M S , Iqbal M , Haseeb M , Aftab M , Amin A , Anwar H 
Published: June 2020

Abstract
Co-precipitation method was used to synthesize Manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanostructures. The synthetization of Manganese dioxide (MnO2) requires Manganese dichloride tetrahydrate (MnCl2.4H2O), Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and distilled water. Manganese dioxide nanostructures were synthesized by taking suitable amount of manganese dichloride tetrahydrate and mixing it with 100 mL of distilled water. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was added into the precursor solution to adjust pH 12 and stirred for 18 hours. The prepared MnO2 nanoparticles were characterized through various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD results revealed that MnO2 had tetragonal single phase. Average crystallite size for prepared samples is found in the range 39 to 45 nm. It is increased with increasing of annealing temperature. Volume and density of unit cell are found to be 258.83 Å3 and 4.522 g/cm3 respectively. SEM results showed that the annealing temperature has affected the shape of MnO2. The morphology of MnO2 changed from spherical to rod-like shape as annealing temperature increase. Absorption peaks are obtained between 362 nm to 366 nm of wavelength. These Manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanoparticles can be applied as catalysts, permeable of toxic metals, ion/molecular-sieves, component of dry cell, inorganic pigment, electrodes for electrochemical batteries, electrodes for supercapacitors and cleaning of water.
Microwave plasma assisted sol-gel technique for synthesis of TiO2nanoparticles
Authors: Ayyaz M , Naz M Y , shoukat A , Marriam M , Akram M U , Hussain Z , Shukrullah S , Toqeer I 
Published: June 2020

AbstractTitanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles have attracted the attention of research community due to their novel functionalities as compared to the bulk material. TiO2is an excellent photocatalyst due to its high photosensitivity, nontoxicity, high refractive index, strong oxidizing ability, high stability, wide band gap and high resistance to photochemical. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of microwave (MW) plasma treatment on TiO2nanoparticles synthesized using sol-gel method. TiO2nanoparticles were obtained through sol-gel method at ambient temperature. The suspension was heated at 300 °C for 2 hours to evaporate the organic content. The obtained nanoparticles were placed in partially vacuumized chamber for MW plasma treatment. The plasma treatment is a promising technique for oxidation of nanomaterials. Both plasma treated and untreated samples were evaluated with X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-Visible spectroscopy for crystallite size, crystal phases, band gap energy and surface morphology. The obtained results confirmed the existence of anatase and rutile phases of TiO2with smaller particle size within the range of 0.2 to 14 nm. The particles were of aggregated and trigonal shapes. The MW Plasma treatment improved the photocatalytic activity of TiO2nanoparticles by raising their band gap energy and reducing the grain size.