Kunal Wazarkar, Anagha Sabnis*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.6, No.4, pp. 438-449, 2018, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634159

Abstract The research work presented in this article deals with the synthesis of cardanol-based polyol and its curing with hexabutoxymethyl melamine (HBMM) for application in coatings. Cardanol-based polyol was prepared via thiol-ene click reaction using thioglycerol. Unsaturation present in the long chain of cardanol was successfully utilized to synthesize polyol via thiol-ene coupling. The reaction was carried out between cardanol and thioglycerol in the presence of Irgacure 184 (photoinitiator) and 1,8-Diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (catalyst) under UV light for 12 h at 80 °C. After completion of the reaction, one mole of thioglycerol was successfully added across the double More >

Ragab E. Abou-Zeid^1*, Mohamed A. Diab¹, Salah A. A. Mohamed², Ahmed Salama¹, Hind Abdullah Aljohani³, Kamel Rizq Shoueir⁴

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.6, No.4, pp. 394-401, 2018, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634156

Abstract The current article addresses a new strategy for the preparation of polylactic acid/cellulose nanocrystal (PLA/CNCs) nanobiocomposite films with improved structural morphology, mechanical and barrier properties for food packaging applications. The addition of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) as cationic and anionic surfactants respectively, was found to play a crucial role in preventing re-aggregation of the CNCs during drying and improving the dispersion of CNCs in the PLA. The coated paper was characterized using mechanical tests, water vapor permeability (WVP), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and air permeability. The results showed More >

A. M. Borrero-López¹, F. J. Santiago-Medina¹, C. Valencia^1,2*, M. E. Eugenio³, R. Martin-Sampedro³, J. M. Franco^1,2

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.6, No.4, pp. 347-361, 2018, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634160

Abstract It is known that large amounts of residual lignin are generated in the pulp and paper industry. A new alternative for Kraft lignin valorization, which consists of first a chemical modification using a diisocyanate and then the efficient dispersion in castor oil to achieve stable gel-like systems, is proposed in this work. Rheological properties and microstructure of these materials were determined by means of small amplitude oscillatory shear tests and viscous flow measurements and atomic force microscopy observations, respectively. Moreover, both standardized penetration tests and tribological assays, usually performed in the lubricant industry, were carried More >

Lars Helmlinger¹, Yejun Zhu¹, Julia Gensel¹, Thomas Neumeyer¹, Stefan Thäter², Franziska Strube², Christoph Bauer², Bernd Rosemann², Volker Altstädt^1*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.6, No.3, pp. 219-225, 2018, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634161

Abstract Due to a lack of technology, smaller breweries simply dump excess CO2 into the atmosphere, fueling the greenhouse effect and global warming. State-of-the-art CO2 capture technologies using nanofibrillated cellulose are expensive and require laborious freeze-drying. Consequently, there is a high demand for affordable alternatives in order to reduce the environmental impact in this industry sector. This work describes a novel route for a quick and cost-efficient synthesis of amine-functionalized cellulose pellets by a surfactant-assisted steam explosion process. Typical values with this method were porosity of 92% and density of 67 g/cm³. Investigations on polyethylenimine (PEI) More >

Ibtissem Moussa¹, Noureddine Baaka¹, Ramzi Khiari^1,2,3*, Ali Moussa⁴, Gérard Mortha³, Mohamed Farouk Mhenni¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.6, No.1, pp. 55-67, 2018, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634141

Abstract Natural dyes have become an interesting subject of study because of their better ecological properties in comparison to their synthetic counterparts. This article concerns the dyeing of wool, silk, and polyamide fabrics with natural dyes extracted from almond shells and stems. The developed method of dyeing by these extracts is interesting and very attractive for several reasons: firstly, the extracts used are the black liquor discharged from the industries of delignification, which is a chemical process for removing lignin from agricultural wastes to produce a cellulosic fiber; (ii) these natural dyes are renewable and available More >

Shurong Li^1,*, Yulei Ge², Renlin Zang²

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.114, No.1, pp. 95-116, 2018, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2018.114.095

Abstract In this paper, an interacting multiple-model (IMM) method based on data-driven identification model is proposed for the prediction of nonlinear dynamic systems. Firstly, two basic models are selected as combination components due to their proved effectiveness. One is Gaussian process (GP) model, which can provide the predictive variance of the predicted output and only has several optimizing parameters. The other is regularized extreme learning machine (RELM) model, which can improve the over-fitting problem resulted by empirical risk minimization principle and enhances the overall generalization performance. Then both of the models are updated continually using meaningful… More >

Wenqi Zhang¹, Yunqing Gu^1,*, Jiegang Mou¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.14, No.4, pp. 243-258, 2018, DOI:10.32604/fdmp.2018.03836

Abstract It is of great significance for the production of micro robots and new sensors to develop actuators with “muscle” properties. As a kind of electroactive polymers (EAPs), IPMC (ionic polymer-metal composite) can exhibit significant deformation for very low electrical excitation. These composites, known as the “artificial muscle”, can be regarded as intelligent bionic materials. With regard to the mechanism of deformation of IPMC, a large number of experimental studies have proved that the variety of electrodes and water contents relating to IPMC have great influence on its electro-mechanical and mechanical properties. Recent research results about… More >

V. Gopinath¹, R. S. Bhuvaneswaran²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.57, No.2, pp. 341-352, 2018, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2018.04006

Abstract Cloud computing is the highly demanded technology nowadays. Due to the service oriented architecture, seamless accessibility and other advantages of this advent technology, many transaction rich applications are making use of it. At the same time, it is vulnerable to hacks and threats. Hence securing this environment is of at most important and many research works are being reported focusing on it. This paper proposes a safe storage mechanism using Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for the Transaction Rich Applications (TRA). With ECC based security scheme, the security level of the protected system will be increased More >

Jinhua Cui^1,2, Yuanyuan Zhang³, Zhiping Cai^1,*, Anfeng Liu⁴, Yangyang Li⁵

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.55, No.1, pp. 17-35, 2018, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2018.055.017

Abstract While smart devices based on ARM processor bring us a lot of convenience, they also become an attractive target of cyber-attacks. The threat is exaggerated as commodity OSes usually have a large code base and suffer from various software vulnerabilities. Nowadays, adversaries prefer to steal sensitive data by leaking the content of display output by a security-sensitive application. A promising solution is to exploit the hardware visualization extensions provided by modern ARM processors to construct a secure display path between the applications and the display device. In this work, we present a scheme named SecDisplay More >

A. El Mansouri^a,b, M. Hasnaoui^a,*, A. Amahmid^a , Y. Dahani^a , M. Alouah^a , S. Hasnaoui^a , R. Khaoula^a , M. Ouahas^a, R. Bennacer^b

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol.9, pp. 1-14, 2017, DOI:10.5098/hmt.9.28

Abstract A two-dimensional numerical simulation is conducted to study natural convection flow and heat transfer characteristics in a square cavity filled with a micropolar fluid. The lower and upper walls of the cavity are respectively subject to isothermal heating and cooling while the temperatures of both vertical sides decrease linearly in the upwards direction. The Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM), with the multi-relaxation time (MRT) scheme for the collision process, is used to solve the problem with the objective to assess the ability and efficiency of this numerical method to describe the micropolar fluid behavior under the effect… More >