Thermal kinetic analysis of mustard biomass with equiatomic iron-nickel catalyst and its predictive modeling.

Mustard waste briquettes are commercially used as a fuel for power production in boilers, whereas the thermal kinetics of the biomass plays a vital role in deciding the process parameters. The pyrolysis process converts biomass to value-added products such as biochar, bio-oil, and hydrocarbon gases based on the heating rates and temperature. To enhance the pyrolytic activity of mustard biomass, magnetically separable and reusable FeNi alloy catalyst is investigated. The thermo-conversion properties are studied under variable heating rates with 2 and 10% FeNi particles prepared through a facile chemical reduction technique. Thermal kinetics is computed using Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FOW) and Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) methods. The activation energies calculated using FOW and KAS methods increase with FeNi addition in mustard while the calorific value decreases. The FeNi alloy particles with the spike-like morphology provide better metal-biomass binding resulting in higher activation energy and facilitates the easy decomposition of lignin. The 10% FeNi -mustard shows uniform conversion independent of heating rates, suitable for magnetically recoverable catalytic pyrolysis. Response surface methodology analysis predicts optimum conversion for 10% FeNi added mustard and less significance for the heating rates in concurrence with the experiments. Artificial neural network utilized to predict and validate mass loss for mustard biomass exhibits best fit for the three neural hidden layer and one output layered topology.

Facile synthesized novel hybrid graphene oxide/cobalt ferrite magnetic nanoparticles based surface coating material inhibit bacterial secretion pathway for antibacterial effect.

Nanomaterial based paints are in current demand in the area of surface protective coatings due to the significant advances made to improve their antibacterial and anticorrosion characteristics. In this work, we have developed magnetic graphene oxide (MGO) paint with the incorporation of cobalt ferrite (CF) and graphene oxide (GO) along with paint materials by using high energy ball milling (HEBM). Morphological, elemental and functional analysis of the MGO paint is studied with ESEM, AFM, Raman, FTIR spectroscopy. EDS and PIXE methods are used for elemental analysis. Thermal analysis shows that the MGO film was stable up to 100 °C. The saturation magnetization of CF MNP is observed as 76 emu/g and it is reduced to 12 emu/g for MGP paint. The detailed antibacterial study of the prepared MGO paint has performed with S. typhimurium and E. coli. The dead-live assessment shows the dead population for S. typhimurium is superior up to 82% whereas it is 20% for E. coli. The morphological damage of bacterial cells is studied using SEM technique. Flow cytometry analysis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation experiments and computational analysis supported the proposed mechanism of induced ROS for the damage of bacterial membrane via interaction of GO and CF with bacterial proteins leading to alteration in their functionality. The observed results indicate that the prepared MGO paint could be a better candidate in the area of nano paint for surface protective coatings.

Positron Annihilation Studies on Chemically Synthesized FeCo Alloy.

Equiatomic flower-like FeCo magnetic nanoparticles are synthesized through a modified one-pot polyol technique. The as-prepared samples are annealed at 700 and 800 °C under reducing atmosphere. The saturation magnetization and coercivity of the flower-like FeCo are found to be 198 (1) emu/g and 243 (10) Oe respectively. The magnetic properties of FeCo approach the bulk behavior with annealing. Positron lifetime studies on the chemically synthesized equiatomic FeCo magnetic nanoparticles with flower-like morphology are reported and compared with Fe, Co and FeCo annealed at various temperatures. The FeCo is characterized by different lifetime components corresponding to positron annihilation events in vacancies and various open volume defects due to their unique morphology. The studies suggest defects arising out of cluster vacancies and interpetal gap that reduce on annealing. The average pore size obtained from positron annihilation studies closely matches with the interpetal distance obtained from the electron microscopic analysis for the flower-like FeCo.