Development of a novel LED-IoT photoreactor for enhanced removal of carbamazepine waste driven by solar energy.

This study introduces an innovative LED-IoT photoreactor, representing a significant advancement in response to the demand for sustainable water purification. The integration of LED-IoT installations addresses the challenge of intermittent sunlight availability, employing LEDs with a spectrum mimicking natural sunlight. Passive Infra-Red (PIR) sensors and Internet of things (IoT) technology ensure consistent radiation intensity, with the LED deactivating in ample sunlight and activating in its absence. Utilizing a visible light-absorbing photocatalyst developed through sol-gel synthesis and mild-temperature calcination, this research demonstrates a remarkable carbamazepine removal efficiency exceeding 95% under LED-IoT system illumination, compared to less than 90% efficiency with sunlight alone, within a 6-h exposure period. Moreover, the designed photocatalytic system achieves over 60% mineralization of carbamazepine after 12 h. Notably, the photocatalyst demonstrated excellent stability with no performance loss during five further cycles. Furthermore, integration with renewable energy sources facilitated continuous operation beyond daylight hours, enhancing the system's applicability in real-world water treatment scenarios. A notable application of the LED-IoT system at an operating sewage treatment plant showed nearly 80% efficiency in carbamazepine removal from sewage in the secondary settling tank after 6 h of irradiation, coupled with nearly 40% mineralization efficiency. Additionally, physicochemical analyses such as XPS and STA-FTIR confirm that the carbamazepine photooxidation process does not affect the surface of the photocatalyst, showing no adsorption for degradation products.

New Gd3+ and Mn2+-Co-Doped Scheelite-Type Ceramics-Their Structural, Optical and Magnetic Properties.

New Gd3+- and Mn2+-co-doped calcium molybdato-tungstates with the chemical formula of Ca1−3x−yMny▯xGd2x(MoO4)1−3x(WO4)3x (labeled later as CaMnGdMoWO), where ▯ denotes vacant sites in the crystal lattice, 0 < x ≤ 0.2500 and y = 0.0200 as well as 0 < y ≤ 0.0667 and x = 0.1667 were successfully synthesized by high-temperature solid-state reaction method and combustion route. Obtained ceramic materials crystallize in scheelite-type structure with space group I41/a. Morphological features and grain sizes of powders under study were investigated by SEM technique. Spectroscopic studies within the UV-vis spectral range were carried out to estimate the direct band gap (Eg) and Urbach energy (EU) of obtained powders. EPR studies confirmed the existence of two types of magnetic objects, i.e., Mn2+ and Gd3+ ions, and significant antiferromagnetic (AFM) interactions among them.

Applying the FMR Technique to Analyzing the Influence of Nitriding on the Magnetic Properties of Steel.

This paper presents the relationship between the chemical composition and size of steel balls, the parameters of the nitriding process, and their magnetic properties, defined in this study by ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and SQUID. Balls made from AISI 1010 and AISI 52100 steels, with diameters of 2.5 and 3 mm, respectively, were investigated. On samples made of AISI 1010 and AISI 52100 steel, single-phase layers of iron nitrides γ' with a thickness of gmp = 50 and 37 µm, respectively, were produced. Then, the samples were annealed at a temperature of 520 °C for 4 h in an inert atmosphere (N2/Ar) at a pressure of 200 Pa. After the nitriding processes, steel balls were subjected to standard physical metallurgy and X-ray examinations. During annealing of nitrided layers with a two-phase layer of iron nitrides, at first, the transformation of the ε phase into the γ' phase with the release of nitrogen into the atmosphere takes place. The FMR signals did not originate from isolated ions, but from more magnetically complex systems, e.g., Fe-Fe pairs or iron clusters, while the observed FMR line position is normally even lower and occurs for a magnetic induction below 200 mT. The fact that the magnetic centers did not contain mainly isolated Fe ions, additionally confirmed the abnormal increase in resonance signal intensity as a function of temperature, which is a behavior inconsistent with the Curie-Weiss law. The results obtained from measurements by the SQUID method, recording variations in magnetization as a function of temperature, confirm the untypical reinforcement of the magnetic conditions of the samples with the increase in temperature. For the samples tested, the magnetization was relatively weaker when the tests were conducted in a stronger magnetic field.