Alternative to Conventional Solutions in the Development of Membranes and Hydrogen Evolution Electrocatalysts for Application in Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis: A Review.

Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) represents promising technology for the generation of high-purity hydrogen using electricity generated from renewable energy sources (solar and wind). Currently, benchmark catalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions in PEMWE are highly dispersed carbon-supported Pt-based materials. In order for this technology to be used on a large scale and be market competitive, it is highly desirable to better understand its performance and reduce the production costs associated with the use of expensive noble metal cathodes.

Synthesis and characterization of alkyl ester functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes.

Alkyl chains of different length were added onto surface of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). Oxidized multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT-COOH) were reacted with thionyl chloride (SOCl2) and further in esterification reaction with given alcohols gave corresponding methyl ester (MWCNT- COOCH3), n-butyl ester (MWCNT-COOC4H9) and n-dodecyl ester (MWCNT-COOC12H25) modified carbon nanotubes. Functionalization of MWCNTs was confirmed by FTIR, Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as well as by thermogravimetric analysis.

Development of Artificial Neural Network Model for Diesel Fuel Properties Prediction using Vibrational Spectroscopy.

This paper describes development of artificial neural network models which can be used to correlate and predict diesel fuel properties from several FTIR-ATR absorbances and Raman intensities as input variables. Multilayer feed forward and radial basis function neural networks have been used to rapid and simultaneous prediction of cetane number, cetane index, density, viscosity, distillation temperatures at 10% (T10), 50% (T50) and 90% (T90) recovery, contents of total aromatics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons of commercial diesel fuels. In this study two-phase training procedures for multilayer feed forward networks were applied.