Dzun Noraini Jimat^*, Sharifah Shahira Syed Putra, Parveen Jamal, Wan Mohd Fazli Wan Nawawi, Mohammed Saedi Jami

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.7, pp. 739-757, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.010357

Abstract Increasing usage of foams in various industry sectors had causing serious disposal problems once it reaches the end of its life-cycle. Herein, PVA-MFC foam was prepared by freeze-drying using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) as a reinforced material from sugarcane bagasse (SCB). In this study, the PVA-MFC foam was chemically silylated with Y-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (MPS) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). The wetting ability and mechanical strength of the silylated _2,20PVA-MFC foam was greatly enhanced compared with unmodified _2,20PVA-MFC foam. The silane chemicals (MPS and TEOS) had been confirmed grafted on _2,20PVA-MFC foam due to the presence of Si-C and Si-O-C stretching… More >

Fei Song^1,2, Puyou Jia^1,*, Caiying Bo¹, Xiaoli Ren¹, Lihong Hu¹, Yonghong Zhou^1,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.5, pp. 535-547, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.09304

Abstract In this study, we prepared a series of tung oil phenolic foams (TPF) by a one-pot method. The FT-IR and 1 H NMR spectra confirm the successful FriedelCrafts grafting of phenol to the long-chain alkyl group in tung oil. Modified TPFs exhibit enhanced mechanical properties, including compressive and flexural strengths of up to 0.278 ± 0.036 MPa and 0.450 ± 0.017 MPa, respectively, which represent increases of 68.75% and 86.72% over those of pure phenolic foam (PF). SEM spectra reveal the TPF microstructure to have uniform hexagonal cell morphology, narrower cell size distribution, and smaller mean cell size, suggesting enhanced… More >

Rui Hou¹, Zhihuang Zhang¹, Guangzhao Zhang¹, Donglin Tang^1,2,3,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.4, pp. 397-403, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.08912

Abstract It has been proved that introducing isocyanurate into polymer chains could improve the flame retardancy of polymers. We describe in this work the synthesis and the thermal property study of three thermoplastic polyisocyanurates, which are polyisocyanuratoamide (PICA-6), polyisocyanurato(ester amide) (PICEA-6) and polyisocyanurato(urea ester) (PICUE-6). These polymers show similar and improved thermal stability with the existence of isocyanurate rings. PICA-6 is more crystalizable than the rest two and the melting temperature is found to be around 240°C but it still crystalizes slowly. For PICEA-6 and PICUE-6, only glass transition can be observed on the DSC traces. The glass transition temperature follows… More >

Nadezhda Petkova^1,*, Radka Arabadzhieva¹, Dragomir Vassilev², Gergana Gencheva¹, Yulian Tumbarski³, Tsveteslava Ignatova-Ivanova⁴, Sevginar Ibryamova⁴, Mina Todorova¹, Milena Koleva², Panteley Denev¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.4, pp. 365-381, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.09292

Abstract Microwave-assisted irradiation was performed for esterification of chicory inulin with high degree of polymerization with acetic anhydride without a solvent only with a catalyst. The resulting esters were characterized by melting point, hydrophilic-lipophilic balance, thin-layer chromatography, ultraviolet spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Inulin acetate demonstrated a high degree of acetylation (2.5–3.0) and presented a white, water-insoluble substance with bitter taste. The FTIR and NMR spectra confirmed esterification and demonstrated the incorporation of hydrophobic residue to the water soluble inulin backbone. Swelling capacity, water holding, oil-holding capacities, the foamability, foam stability and emulsifying properties… More >

Ajay Veludurthi¹, Venkateshwarlu Bolleddu^2,*

Energy Engineering, Vol.117, No.2, pp. 49-61, 2020, DOI:10.32604/EE.2020.010666

Abstract This work focused on modal and harmonic analysis of small wind turbine blades taken from the NACA 63415 series. The sandwich structure type composite blade is fabricated from GFRP and epoxy with Uni-vinyl hard foams of different alignments as stiffeners. In this work, the modal and harmonic analysis of different varieties of blades like solid, hallow and rectangular alignment blades is carried out by the finite element method using ANSYS 18.1 software. From Finite Element Analysis, the natural frequencies, amplitudes and mode shapes are obtained. Based on the working principle of wind turbine blades, the boundary conditions are applied. The… More >

Yongtong Li¹, Liang Gong^{1, *}, Hui Lu¹, Dexin Zhang¹, Bin Ding¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.123, No.2, pp. 895-912, 2020, DOI:10.32604/cmes.2020.09009

Abstract In the present study, the thermal performance of metal foam heat sink was numerically investigated by adopting the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model and local thermal equilibrium (LTE) model. Temperature field distributions and temperature difference field distributions of solid and fluid phases were presented. Detailed thermal performance comparisons based on the LTE and LTNE models were evaluated by considering the effects of the relevant metal foam morphological and channel geometrical parameters. Results indicate that a distinct temperature difference exists between the solid and fluid phases when the LTNE effect is pronounced. The average Nusselt numbers predicted by both the LTE… More >

Lionel Fabian Fourie¹, Lynndle Square^2,*

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.16, No.2, pp. 225-235, 2020, DOI:10.32604/fdmp.2020.08771

Abstract A heat transfer study was conducted, in the framework of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), on a Hot-Wire Chemical Vapour Deposition (HWCVD) reactor chamber to determine a safe deposition distance for atomic hydrogen produced by HWCVD. The objective of this study was to show the feasibility of using heat transfer simulations in determining a safe deposition distance for deposition of this kind. All CFD simulations were set-up and solved within the framework of the CFD packages of OpenFOAM namely; snappyHexMesh for mesh generation, buoyantSimpleFoam and rhoSimpleFoam as the solvers and paraView as the post-processing tool. Using a standard set of deposition… More >

Yufeng Ma¹, Xuanang Gong¹, Puyou Jia^2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.1, pp. 45-55, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.08621

Abstract In order to improve the comprehensive performance of phenolic foam, 9, 10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide (DOPO) was grafted with itaconic acid (ITA) (DOPO-g-ITA) to modify microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). DOPO-g-ITA modified MCC (DIMMCC) was used to prepare composite phenolic foam (DCPF). The structures of DIMMCC were verified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The microstructure and crystalline property were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) respectively. Compared with MCC, the crystallinity of DIMMCC was dramatically decreased, but the diffraction peak positions were unchanged. Thermal stability was decreased, and T_i decreased by 45.0°C. The residual carbon (600°C) was increased by 22.34%.… More >

N. Elbers¹, C. K. Ranaweera¹, M. Ionescu², X. Wan², P. K. Kahol³, Ram K. Gupta^1,2*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.5, Suppl.1, pp. 74-83, 2017, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634137

Abstract The objective of this research is to prepare rigid polyurethane (PU) foams from α-phellandrene, a biobased compound. Two types of polyols were synthesized by reacting α-phellandrene with 2-mercaptoethanol and α-thioglycerol via thiol-ene chemistry route. The completion of the reaction was identified by using FTIR. PU foams from α-phellandrene polyols and commercial polyol were compared with regard to foam characteristics and properties. All the PU foams showed apparent density of 28–39 kg/m³ with closed-cell content above 90%. The highest glass transition temperature of 229 °C and compressive strength of 220 kPa were observed for the polyol synthesized by reacting α-phellandrene and… More >

C. K. Ranaweera¹, M. Ionescu², N. Bilic², X. Wan², P. K. Kahol³, Ram K. Gupta^1,2*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.5, Suppl.1, pp. 1-12, 2017, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2017.634105

Abstract Biobased polyol was synthesized using 1-thioglycerol and limonene, an extract of orange peel, via thiol-ene chemistry as an alternative to petrochemical-based polyol for preparation of rigid polyurethane foams (RPFs). Fire-retardant polyurethane foams were prepared by addition of different amounts of dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP) in the polyol. The effect of DMMP on the properties of RPFs was studied. All the biobased RPFs maintained a regular cell structure with uniform cell distribution and over 90% of closed cell. The RPFs showed excellent compressive strength of ~230 kPa without addition of DMMP. These RPFs almost retained their specific compressive strength even when… More >