Browsing by Subject "Degradation"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16

Open Access
Characterization of degradation products of polyethylene oxide by pyrolysis mass spectrometry
(Pergamon Press, 1994) Fares, M. M.; Hacaloglu, J.; Süzer, Şefik
The techniques of direct and indirect (evolved gas analysis) pyrolysis MS are used to characterize the thermal degradation products of polyethylene oxide. Using direct pyrolysis MS technique the main degradation process is determined to be due to CO and CC scissions yielding fragments characteristic of the polymer. Evolved gas analysis indicates formation of small molecular stable compounds such as C2H5OC2H5, CH3CHO, CO2, CO and C2H4. © 1994.
Open Access
Complete dissipation of 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene by in-vessel composting
(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015) Gumuscu, B.; Cekmecelioglu, D.; Tekinay, T.
We demonstrate complete removal of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in 15 days using an in-vessel composting system, which is amended with TNT-degrading bacteria strains. A mixture of TNT, food waste, manure, wood chips, soil and TNT-degrading bacteria consortium are co-composted for 15 days in an aerobic environment. Variations in the TNT degradation rates are assessed when composting reactors are operated at different carbon/nitrogen ratios (C/N), aeration rates, TNT concentrations and TNT-degrading bacteria inoculum loads. Changes in TNT concentrations are measured using high performance liquid chromatography, and C/N are determined using elemental analysis every 5 days. Temperature and moisture of the system are measured every 6 hours. Optimum TNT degradation performance is achieved by combining C/N of 20/1 and a 5 L min-1 aeration rate. Complete removal is achieved for TNT concentrations of 2, 10, and 100 g kg-1 in 15 days by the help of Citrobacter murliniae STE10, Achromobacter spanius STE11, Kluyvera cryocrescens STE12, and Enterobacter amnigenus STE13 bacteria strains. The final products of composting are used to cultivate four different plant seedlings for 10 weeks and showed no toxic effect, which is promising for the potential agricultural use of TNT-contaminated lands after remediation. © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Open Access
Dynamic congestion control in interconnected computer networks
(IEEE, 1988-10) Ulusoy, Özgür; Baray, Mehmet
The authors evaluate a window-based congestion control mechanism in an internetwork environment. They also propose and study two dynamic-window congestion-control algorithms. These algorithms provide further control to the window mechanism by adjusting the window size in accordance with the availability of the network resources at the destination. A comparison of dynamic algorithms with fixed window control is provided in terms of throughput and delay performance. It is shown that dynamic algorithms have considerable performance advantages over fixed-window control.
Open Access
Efficiency and harmonic enhancement trends in GaN-based Gunn diodes: Ensemble Monte Carlo analysis
(American Institute of Physics, 2004) Sevik, C.; Bulutay, C.
Gallium nitride can offer a high-power alternative for millimeter-wave Gunn oscillators. Hence, an ensemble Monte Carlo-based comprehensive theoretical assessment of efficiency and harmonic enhancement in n-type GaN Gunn diodes is undertaken. First, the effects of doping notch/mesa and its position within the active channel are investigated which favors a doping notch positioned next to cathode. It is then observed that the width of the notch can be optimized to enhance the higher-harmonic operation without degrading its performance at the fundamental mode. Next, the effects of dc bias and channel doping density are investigated. Both of these have more significant effects on the higher-harmonic efficiency than the fundamental one. The lattice temperature is observed to have almost no influence up to room temperature but severely degrades the performance above room temperature. As a general behavior, the variations of temperature, channel doping, and the notch width primarily affect the phase angle between the current and voltage wave forms rather than the amplitude of oscillations. Finally, the physical origin of these Gunn oscillations is sought which clearly indicates that the intervalley scattering mechanism is responsible rather than the Γ valley nonparabolicity or the effective mass discrepancy between the Γ and the lowest satellite valleys.
Open Access
Heat-damage assessment of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer composites by diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005) Dara, I. H.; Ankara, A.; Akovali, G.; Süzer, Şefik
Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy was used to assess the effects of heat damage on carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer composites. Moisture-saturated graphite-epoxy laminates with a quasi-isotropic lay-up were heat-damaged above their upper service temperatures. The loss of matrix-dominated mechanical properties due to heat exposure was investigated in the laboratory under environmental testing conditions with mechanical tests, ultrasonic C-scanning, and DRIFT spectroscopy. The reduction of the mechanical strength of the composite materials was accompanied by an increase in the carbonyl band integral and a decrease in the phenyl ratio and hydroxyl and hydrocarbon band integrals, as shown by the DRIFT spectra. DRIFT was confirmed to be more effective than ultrasonic inspection in evaluating the extent of heat damage, and a good correlation was found between the mechanical test results and DRIFT spectra. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Open Access
High bandwidth-efficiency solar-blind AlGaN Schottky photodiodes with low dark current
(Pergamon Press, 2005-01) Tut, T.; Bıyıklı, Necmi; Kimukin, I.; Kartaloglu, T.; Aytur, O.; Unlu, M. S.; Özbay, Ekmel
Al0.38Ga0.62N/GaN heterojunction solar-blind Schottky photodetectors with low dark current, high responsivity, and fast pulse response were demonstrated. A five-step microwave compatible fabrication process was utilized to fabricate the devices. The solarblind detectors displayed extremely low dark current values: 30 μm diameter devices exhibited leakage current below 3fA under reverse bias up to 12V. True solar-blind operation was ensured with a sharp cut-off around 266nm. Peak responsivity of 147mA/W was measured at 256nm under 20V reverse bias. A visible rejection more than 4 orders of magnitude was achieved. The thermally-limited detectivity of the devices was calculated as 1.8 × 1013cm Hz1/2W-1. Temporal pulse response measurements of the solar-blind detectors resulted in fast pulses with high 3-dB bandwidths. The best devices had 53 ps pulse-width and 4.1 GHz bandwidth. A bandwidth-efficiency product of 2.9GHz was achieved with the AlGaN Schottky photodiodes. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Open Access
Investigating physical properties of hybrid hyaluronic acid and collagen compositions of GelMA microgels toward tissue engineering and organ-on-chip applications
(American Chemical Society, 2023-10-13) Çınar, Aslı Gizem; Munir, Iqra
Microgels are promising tools in biomedical sciences to be utilized as 3D cell culture scaffolds and cell-delivery or drug-delivery vehicles. Carrying the desired properties of hydrogels, they can be fabricated from various materials in different shapes and sizes. Additionally, due to their increased surface-to-volume ratio, they provide fast nutrient, waste, and species transport with altered solute–material interactions. Despite their micrometer size and the differentiated behaviors that come with these properties, the characterization methods utilized so far to investigate their physical and morphological properties are majorly carried out on their bulk versions, resulting in inaccurate estimates and somewhat missed information. Here, in this work, swelling, degradation, and morphological examination assays curated for microgels are proposed to reflect the actual behavior of microgels. Accordingly, gelatin methacryloyl, complemented with hyaluronic acid methacrylate and collagen to set an example of different types of polymer networks, was fabricated into microgels using a droplet microfluidic platform with in situ photopolymerization. An easy washing and drying process is proposed as a substitution for the harsh conditions of lyophilization for morphological analysis, resulting in a much more accurate picture of the porous structures. Swelling and enzymatic degradation assays, usually done by immersing a bulk hydrogel in a medium for an extended period, are substituted with swelling and degrading individual microgels in a custom-made platform that enables real-time, statistically significant data acquisition. Results showed that, due to their small size, swelling occurs in a matter of minutes, with different temporal profiles depending on the medium and microgel compositions, and enzymatic degradation takes place in a couple of hours with varying behaviors, changing due to the polymers, enzyme type, and concentration. Overall, this work highlights the necessity and importance of characterizing microgels in their respective sizes, hopefully advancing their utilization in microphysiological systems and biomedical applications.
Open Access
Multimode pumping of optical parametric oscillators
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1996-02) Marshall, L. R.; Kaz, A.; Aytur, O.
Calculations suggest that optical parametric oscillators (OPO's) can be efficiently pumped using multimode, divergent pump sources. The influence of pump beam divergence and mode structure upon OPO performance is measured for both noncritical phase-matching, and OPO's with walkoff. Multimode OPO pumping is shown to be efficient, provided appropriate nonlinear crystals and OPO cavities are employed; the nonlinear crystal must have sufficient angular acceptance to tolerate a divergent pump; the OPO cavity must support modes that match the divergence and spatial intensity characteristics of the pump, For low-order pump modes, the OPO can be made to match the mode of the pump. Higher order pump modes reduce the OPO efficiency, and cause a saturation of efficiency with increasing pump power. The efficiency is degraded in a similar fashion in the presence of walkoff. Multimode pumping is more difficult in longer OPO cavities due to increased buildup time of higher order OPO modes.
Open Access
Nanograined surface shell wall controlled ZnO–ZnS core–shell nanofibers and their shell wall thickness dependent visible photocatalytic properties
(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017) Ranjith, K. S.; Senthamizhan A.; Balusamy, B.; Uyar, Tamer
The core-shell form of ZnO-ZnS based heterostructural nanofibers (NF) has received increased attention for use as a photocatalyst owing to its potential for outstanding performance under visible irradiation. One viable strategy to realize the efficient separation of photoinduced charge carriers in order to improve catalytic efficiency is to design core-shell nanostructures. But the shell wall thickness plays a vital role in effective carrier separation and lowering the recombination rate. A one dimensional (1D) form of shell wall controlled ZnO-ZnS core-shell nanofibers has been successfully prepared via electrospinning followed by a sulfidation process. The ZnS shell wall thickness can be adjusted from 5 to 50 nm with a variation in the sulfidation reaction time between 30 min and 540 min. The results indicate that the surfaces of the ZnO nanofibers were converted to a ZnS shell layer via the sulfidation process, inducing visible absorption behavior. Photoluminescence (PL) spectral analysis indicated that the introduction of a ZnS shell layer improved electron and hole separation efficiency. A strong correlation between effective charge separation and the shell wall thickness aids the catalytic behavior of the nanofiber network and improves its visible responsive nature. The comparative degradation efficiency toward methylene blue (MB) has been studied and the results showed that the ZnO-ZnS nanofibers with a shell wall thickness of ∼20 nm have 9 times higher efficiency than pristine ZnO nanofibers, which was attributed to effective charge separation and the visible response of the heterostructural nanofibers. In addition, they have been shown to have a strong effect on the degradation of Rhodamine B (Rh B) and 4-nitrophenol (4-NP), with promising reusable catalytic efficiency. The shell layer upgraded the nanofiber by acting as a protective layer, thus avoiding the photo-corrosion of ZnO during the catalytic process. A credible mechanism for the charge transfer process and a mechanism for photocatalysis supported by trapping experiments in the ZnO-ZnS heterostructural system for the degradation of an aqueous solution of MB are also explicated. Trapping experiments indicate that h+ and OH are the main active species in the ZnO-ZnS heterostructural catalyst, which do not effectively contribute in a bare ZnO catalytic system. Our work also highlights the stability and recyclability of the core-shell nanostructure photocatalyst and supports its potential for environmental applications. We thus anticipate that our results show broad potential in the photocatalysis domain for the design of a visible light functional and reusable core-shell nanostructured photocatalyst.
Open Access
A new OMP technique for sparse recovery
(IEEE, 2012) Teke, Oğuzhan; Gürbüz, A.C.; Arıkan, Orhan
Compressive Sensing (CS) theory details how a sparsely represented signal in a known basis can be reconstructed using less number of measurements. However in reality there is a mismatch between the assumed and the actual bases due to several reasons like discritization of the parameter space or model errors. Due to this mismatch, a sparse signal in the actual basis is definitely not sparse in the assumed basis and current sparse reconstruction algorithms suffer performance degradation. This paper presents a novel orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm that has a controlled perturbation mechanism on the basis vectors, decreasing the residual norm at each iteration. Superior performance of the proposed technique is shown in detailed simulations. © 2012 IEEE.
Open Access
Optimal filtering in fractional Fourier domains
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1997-05) Kutay, M. A.; Özaktaş, Haldun M.; Arıkan, Orhan
For time-invariant degradation models and stationary signals and noise, the classical Fourier domain Wiener filter, which can be implemented in O(N log N) time, gives the minimum mean-square-error estimate of the original undistorted signal. For time-varying degradations and nonstationary processes, however, the optimal linear estimate requires O(N/sup 2/) time for implementation. We consider filtering in fractional Fourier domains, which enables significant reduction of the error compared with ordinary Fourier domain filtering for certain types of degradation and noise (especially of chirped nature), while requiring only O(N log N) implementation time. Thus, improved performance is achieved at no additional cost. Expressions for the optimal filter functions in fractional domains are derived, and several illustrative examples are given in which significant reduction of the error (by a factor of 50) is obtained.
Open Access
Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-based hybrid networks obtained via thiol-epoxy click chemistry
(Springer, 2017) Bekin Acar, S.; Ozcelik, M.; Uyar, Tamer; Tasdelen, M. A.
A series of hybrid networks based on polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) were prepared by thiol-epoxy click reaction using commercially available octakis-glycidyl-POSS (G-POSS), trimethylolpropane triglycidyl ether, and trimethylolpropane tris(3-mercaptopropionate) as monomers. The click reaction was simply catalyzed by lithium hydroxide which proceeded readily at ambient conditions in very good yields. The incorporation of G-POSS into the network was clearly determined by transmission electron microscopy, FTIR, and 1H-NMR spectroscopy techniques performed with a model study using 1-butane thiol and G-POSS molecules. The homogeneous distribution of G-POSS up to 5 wt% in the hybrid network was apparently confirmed by morphological investigations. By increasing G-POSS content higher than 5 wt%, the heterogeneous dispersion of G-POSS was determined from the tensile strength measurements. The significant decrease in tensile strength was possible due to the agglomeration of G-POSS. On the other hand, thermal properties of hybrid networks were compared together by thermogravimetric analyses, where all samples exhibited one-step degradation in the range of 220–500 °C. The thermal decomposition of hybrid network led to complete degradation of the organic part and favored the formation of stable carbonaceous and inorganic residues as char. Thus, the char yields of hybrid networks were increased to 6.2, 7.8, 10.1, 12.7, and 15.1% by G-POSS loadings from 0 to 15 wt%. This improvement was also a proof of the incorporation of G-POSS into the hybrid networks that resulted in high heat-resistant POSS-based hybrid networks compared to a sample without G-POSS.
Open Access
Rational synthesis of Na and S co-catalyst TiO2-based nanofibers: presence of surface-layered TiS3 shell grains and sulfur-induced defects for efficient visible-light driven photocatalysis
(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017) Ranjith, K. S.; Uyar, Tamer
Surface-modified TiO2 nanofibers (NFs) with tunable visible-light photoactive catalysts were synthesised through electrospinning, followed by a sulfidation process. The utilization of sodium-based sulfidation precursors effectively led to the diffusion and integration of sulfur impurities into TiO2, modifying its band function. The optical band function of the sulfur-modified TiO2 NFs can be easily manipulated from 3.17 eV to 2.28 eV through surface modification, due to the creation of oxygen vacancies through the sulfidation process. Sulfidating TiO2 NFs introduces Ti-S-based nanograins and oxygen vacancies on the surface that favor the TiO2-TiS3 core-shell interface. These defect states extend the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 NFs under visible irradiation and improve effective carrier separation and the production of reactive oxygen species. The surface oxygen vacancies and the Ti-S-based surface nanograins serve as charge traps and act as adsorption sites, improving the carrier mobility and avoiding charge recombination. The diffused S-modified TiO2 NFs exhibit a degradation rate of 0.0365 cm-1 for RhB dye solution, which is 4.8 times higher than that of pristine TiO2 NFs under visible irradiation. By benefiting from the sulfur states and oxygen vacancies, with a narrowed band gap of 2.3 eV, these nanofibers serve as suitable localized states for effective carrier separation.
Open Access
Reduced recombination and enhanced UV-assisted photocatalysis by highly anisotropic titanates from electrospun TiO2-SiO2 nanostructures
(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2014) Babu, V. J.; Vempati S.; Ramakrishna, S.
The surface areas of electrospun fibers/rice grain-shaped nanostructures of TiO2-SiO2 composites were further enhanced after transforming them into thorn or sponge shaped titanates via selective leaching of SiO2, which was reported by our group previously [RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 992]. In this study, we report on their application in photocatalytic activity (PCA) when juxtaposed with photoluminescence (PL). Two defect related bands are observed in PL and their origin is discussed in relation to calcination, crystallization and nucleation effects. The relative PL intensity for sponge shapes was the lowest and hence had the lowest radiative recombination, which suggests carrier trapping at defect centers. This enables the charge carriers to migrate to the surface and participate in the PCA. The results of PCA suggested that the sponge-shaped titanate exhibits the highest degradation rate among all samples. A plausible mechanism for the differences in PCA is proposed based on the variation in the defect-densities. This journal is © the Partner Organisations 2014.
Open Access
StyleRes: transforming the residuals for real ımage editing with StyleGAN
(IEEE, 2023-07-22) Pehlivan, Hamza; Dalva, Yusuf; Dündar, Aysegül
We present a novel image inversion framework and a training pipeline to achieve high-fidelity image inversion with high-quality attribute editing. Inverting real images into StyleGAN’s latent space is an extensively studied problem, yet the trade-off between the image reconstruction fidelity and image editing quality remains an open challenge. The low-rate latent spaces are limited in their expressiveness power for high-fidelity reconstruction. On the other hand, high-rate latent spaces result in degradation in editing quality. In this work, to achieve high-fidelity inversion, we learn residual features in higher latent codes that lower latent codes were not able to encode. This enables preserving image details in reconstruction. To achieve high-quality editing, we learn how to transform the residual features for adapting to manipulations in latent codes. We train the framework to extract residual features and transform them via a novel architecture pipeline and cycle consistency losses. We run extensive experiments and compare our method with state-of-the-art inversion methods. Qualitative metrics and visual comparisons show significant improvements. Code: https://github.com/hamzapehlivan/StyleRes
Open Access
Trap levels in layered semiconductor Ga2SeS
(Elsevier, 2004) Aydınlı, Atilla; Gasanly, N. M.; Aytekin, S.
Trap levels in nominally undoped Ga2SeS layered crystals have been characterized by thermally stimulated current (TSC) measurements. During the measurements, current was allowed to flow along the c-axis of the crystals in the temperature range of 10-300 K. Two distinct TSC peaks were observed in the spectra, deconvolution of which yielded three peaks. The results are analyzed by curve fitting, peak shape and initial rise methods. They all seem to be in good agreement with each other. The activation energies of three trapping centers in Ga2SeS are found to be 72, 100 and 150 meV. The capture cross section of these traps are 6.7×10-23, 1.8×10-23 and 2.8×10-22cm2 with concentrations of 1.3×1012, 5.4×1012 and 4.2×1012cm-3, respectively.