Universität Stuttgart
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Item Open Access Adjustable polystyrene nanoparticle templates for the production of mesoporous foams and ZnO inverse opals(2020) Abitaev, Karina; Qawasmi, Yaseen; Atanasova, Petia; Dargel, Carina; Bill, Joachim; Hellweg, Thomas; Sottmann, ThomasThe manifold applications of porous materials, such as in storage, separation, and catalysis, have led to an enormous interest in their cost-efficient preparation. A promising strategy to obtain porous materials with adjustable pore size and morphology is to use templates exhibiting the appropriate nanostructure. In this study, close-packed polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles, synthesized by emulsion polymerization, were used to produce porous PS and ZnO inverse opals. The size and distribution of the polystyrene nanoparticles, characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), were controlled via the concentration of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Systematic measurements of the water/styrene-interfacial tension show that the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the ternary water–styrene–SDS system, which determines whether monodisperse or polydisperse PS particles are obtained, is considerably lower than that of the binary water–SDS system. The assemblies of close-packed PS nanoparticles obtained via drying were then studied by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and SEM. Both techniques prove that PS nanoparticles synthesized above the CMC result in a significantly unordered but denser packing of the particles. The polystyrene particles were subsequently used to produce porous polystyrene and ZnO inverse opals. While the former consists of micrometer-sized spherical pores surrounded by extended open-cellular regions of mesopores (Rpore ≈ 25 nm), the latter are made of ZnO-nanoparticles forming a structure of well-aligned interconnected pores.Item Open Access Lab-scale investigation of palm shell char as tar reforming catalyst(2020) Chen, Yen-Hau; Schmid, Max; Chang, Chia-Chi; Chang, Ching-Yuan; Scheffknecht, GünterThis research investigated the application of palm shell char as a catalyst for the catalytic steam reforming of tar after the sorption enhanced gasification (SEG) process. The catalytic activities of palm shell char and metal-supported palm shell char were tested in a simulated SEG derived syngas with tar model compounds (i.e., toluene and naphthalene) at a concentration of 10 g m-3 NTP. The results indicated that palm shell char had an experimentally excellent catalytic activity for tar reforming with toluene and naphthalene conversions of 0.8 in a short residence time of 0.17 s at 900 °C. A theoretical residence time to reach the complete naphthalene conversion was 1.2 s at 900 °C for palm shell char, demonstrating a promising activity similar to wood char and straw char, but better than CaO. It was also found that potassium and iron-loaded palm shell chars exhibited much better catalytic activity than palm shell char, while the parallel reaction of gasification of K-loaded palm shell char influenced the conversion with its drastic mass loss. Moreover, contrary to CaO, palm shell char presented relatively low selectivity to benzene, and its spontaneous gasification generated extra syngas. In summary, the present study demonstrated that the low-cost material, palm shell char, can successfully be used as the tar-reforming catalyst after SEG process.Item Open Access Impact of combined sewer systems on the quality of urban streams : frequency and duration of elevated micropollutant concentrations(2020) Dittmer, Ulrich; Bachmann-Machnik, Anna; Launay, Marie A.Water quality in urban streams is highly influenced by emissions from WWTP and from sewer systems particularly by overflows from combined systems. During storm events, this causes random fluctuations in discharge and pollutant concentrations over a wide range. The aim of this study is an appraisal of the environmental impact of micropollutant loads emitted from combined sewer systems. For this purpose, high-resolution time series of river concentrations were generated by combining a detailed calibrated model of a sewer system with measured discharge of a small natural river to a virtual urban catchment. This river base flow represents the remains of the natural hydrological system in the urban catchment. River concentrations downstream of the outlets are simulated based on mixing ratios of base flow, WWTP effluent, and CSO discharge. The results show that the standard method of time proportional sampling of rivers does not capture the risk of critical stress on aquatic organisms. The ratio between average and peak concentrations and the duration of elevated concentrations strongly depends on the source and the properties of the particular substance. The design of sampling campaigns and evaluation of data should consider these characteristics and account for their effects.Item Open Access Patterns of autologous and nonautologous interactions between core nuclear egress complex (NEC) proteins of α-, β- and γ-herpesviruses(2020) Häge, Sigrun; Sonntag, Eric; Borst, Eva Maria; Tannig, Pierre; Seyler, Lisa; Bäuerle, Tobias; Bailer, Susanne M.; Lee, Chung-Pei; Müller, Regina; Wangen, Christina; Milbradt, Jens; Marschall, ManfredNuclear egress is a regulated process shared by α-, β- and γ-herpesviruses. The core nuclear egress complex (NEC) is composed of the membrane-anchored protein homologs of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) pUL50, murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) pM50, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) BFRF1 or varicella zoster virus (VZV) Orf24, which interact with the autologous NEC partners pUL53, pM53, BFLF2 or Orf27, respectively. Their recruitment of additional proteins leads to the assembly of a multicomponent NEC, coordinately regulating viral nucleocytoplasmic capsid egress. Here, the functionality of VZV, HCMV, MCMV and EBV core NECs was investigated by coimmunoprecipitation and confocal imaging analyses. Furthermore, a recombinant MCMV, harboring a replacement of ORF M50 by UL50, was analyzed both in vitro and in vivo. In essence, core NEC interactions were strictly limited to autologous NEC pairs and only included one measurable nonautologous interaction between the homologs of HCMV and MCMV. A comparative analysis of MCMV-WT versus MCMV-UL50-infected murine fibroblasts revealed almost identical phenotypes on the levels of protein and genomic replication kinetics. In infected BALB/c mice, virus spread to lung and other organs was found comparable between these viruses, thus stating functional complementarity. In conclusion, our study underlines that herpesviral core NEC proteins are functionally conserved regarding complementarity of core NEC interactions, which were found either virus-specific or restricted within subfamilies.Item Open Access The zero gravity curve and surface and radii for geostationary and geosynchronous satellite orbits(2017) Sjöberg, L. E.; Grafarend, Erik W.; Joud, M. S. S.A geosynchronous satellite orbits the Earth along a constant longitude. A special case is the geostationary satellite that is located at a constant position above the equator. The ideal position of a geostationary satellite is at the level of zero gravity, i.e. at the geocentric radius where the gravitational force of the Earth equals the centrifugal force. These forces must be compensated for several perturbing forces, in particular for the lunisolar tides. Considering that the gravity field of the Earth varies not only radially but also laterally, this study focuses on the variations of zero gravity not only on the equator (for geostationary satellites) but also for various latitudes. It is found that the radius of a geostationary satellite deviates from its mean value of 42164.2 km only within ±2 m, mainly due to the spherical harmonic coefficient J22, which is related with the equatorial flattening of the Earth. Away from the equator the zero gravity surface deviates from the ideal radius of a geosynchronous satellite, and more so for higher latitudes. While the radius of the former surface increases towards infinity towards the poles, the latter decreases about 520 m from the equator to the pole. Tidal effects vary these radii within ±2.3 km.Item Open Access Shape-dependent guidance of active Janus particles by chemically patterned surfaces(2018) Uspal, William E.; Popescu, Mihail Nicolae; Tasinkevych, Mykola; Dietrich, SiegfriedSelf-phoretic chemically active Janus particles move by inducing-via non-equilibrium chemical reactions occurring on their surfaces-changes in the chemical composition of the solution in which they are immersed. This process leads to gradients in chemical composition along the surface of the particle, as well as along any nearby boundaries, including solid walls. Chemical gradients along a wall can give rise to chemi-osmosis, i.e., the gradients drive surface flows which, in turn, drive flow in the volume of the solution. This bulk flow couples back to the particle, and thus contributes to its self-motility. Since chemi-osmosis strongly depends on the molecular interactions between the diffusing molecular species and the wall, the response flow induced and experienced by a particle encodes information about any chemical patterning of the wall. Here, we extend previous studies on self-phoresis of a sphere near a chemically patterned wall to the case of particles with rod-like, elongated shape. We focus our analysis on the new phenomenology potentially emerging from the coupling-which is inoperative for a spherical shape-of the elongated particle to the strain rate tensor of the chemi-osmotic flow. Via detailed numerical calculations, we show that the dynamics of a rod-like particle exhibits a novel ‘edge-following’ steady state: the particle translates along the edge of a chemical step at a steady distance from the step and with a steady orientation. Moreover, within a certain range of system parameters, the edge-following state co-exists with a ‘docking’ state (the particle stops at the step, oriented perpendicular to the step edge), i.e., a bistable dynamics occurs. These findings are rationalized as a consequence of the competition between the fluid vorticity and the rate of strain by using analytical theory based on the point-particle approximation which captures quasi-quantitatively the dynamics of the system.Item Open Access Modeling of biocatalytic reactions: a workflow for model calibration, selection, and validation using Bayesian statistics(2019) Eisenkolb, Ina; Jensch, Antje; Eisenkolb, Kerstin; Kramer, Andrei; Buchholz, Patrick C. F.; Pleiss, Jürgen; Spiess, Antje; Radde, NicoleWe present a workflow for kinetic modeling of biocatalytic reactions which combines methods from Bayesian learning and uncertainty quantification for model calibration, model selection, evaluation, and model reduction in a consistent statistical frame-work. Our workflow is particularly tailored to sparse data settings in which a considerable variability of the parameters remains after the models have been adapted to available data, a ubiquitous problem in many real-world applications. Our workflow is exemplified on an enzyme-catalyzed two-substrate reaction mechanism describing the symmetric carboligation of 3,5-dimethoxy-benzaldehyde to (R)-3,3',5,5'-tetramethoxybenzoin catalyzed by benzaldehyde lyase from Pseudomonas fluorescens. Results indicate a substrate-dependent inactivation of enzyme, which is in accordance with other recent studies.Item Open Access Magnetic and structural properties of barium hexaferrite BaFe12O19 from various growth techniques(2017) Vinnik, Denis A.; Tarasova, Aleksandra Yu.; Zherebtsov, Dmitry A.; Gudkova, Svetlana A.; Galimov, Damir M.; Zhivulin, Vladimir E.; Trofimov, Evgeny A.; Nemrava, Sandra; Perov, Nikolai S.; Isaenko, Ludmila I.; Niewa, RainerBarium hexaferrite powder samples with grains in the m-range were obtained from solid-state sintering, and crystals with sizes up to 5 mm grown from PbO, Na2CO3, and BaB2O4 fluxes, respectively. Carbonate and borate fluxes provide the largest and structurally best crystals at significantly lower growth temperatures of 1533 K compared to flux-free synthesis (1623 K). The maximum synthesis temperature can be further reduced by the application of PbO-containing fluxes (down to 1223 K upon use of 80 at % PbO), however, Pb-substituted crystals Ba1-xPbxFe12O19 with Pb contents in the range of 0.23(2) x 0.80(2) form, depending on growth temperature and flux PbO content. The degree of Pb-substitution has only a minor influence on unit cell and magnetic parameters, although the values for Curie temperature, saturation magnetization, as well as the coercivity of these samples are significantly reduced in comparison with those from samples obtained from the other fluxes. Due to the lowest level of impurities, the samples from carbonate flux show superior quality compared to materials obtained using other methods.Item Open Access Effects of chemical modifications on the rheological and the expansion behavior of polylactide (PLA) in foam extrusion(2019) Standau, Tobias; Castellón, Svenja Murillo; Delavoie, Agathe; Bonten, Christian; Altstädt, VolkerIt is well known that polylactide (PLA) is difficult to foam due to its low melt strength. Thus, many ways were described in the literature to enhance the foamability. However, the melt strength was actually determined only in a limited number of publications. In this study, the addition of chemical modifiers was used to change the rheological behavior of PLA and thereby improve its foamability in foam extrusion process. For the first time the use of dicumyl peroxide modified PLA in foam extrusion is described. Both modifications lead to a distinct increase in melt strength. Here, the highest increase was shown for the PLA modified with dicumyl peroxide. Furthermore, strain hardening was observed for PLA modified with the peroxide. Low density foams were achieved for neat and modified PLA in foam extrusion. Neat PLA showed a density of 45 kg/m 3 , while the peroxide modified PLA showed the highest expansion with a density reduction down to 32 kg/m 3 . Both modifications result in a more uniform cell structure and an improved compression strength. Here, the foamed, peroxide modified PLA showed outstanding performance compared to neat PLA foam with twice the compression strength (151 Pa) even at a 30% lower density.Item Open Access IEA Wind Task 32: Wind Lidar : identifying and mitigating barriers to the adoption of wind lidar(2018) Clifton, Andrew; Clive, Peter; Gottschall, Julia; Schlipf, David; Simley, Eric; Simmons, Luke; Stein, Detlef; Trabucchi, Davide; Vasiljevic, Nikola; Würth, InesIEA Wind Task 32 exists to identify and mitigate barriers to the adoption of lidar for wind energy applications. It leverages ongoing international research and development activities in academia and industry to investigate site assessment, power performance testing, controls and loads, and complex flows. Since its initiation in 2011, Task 32 has been responsible for several recommended practices and expert reports that have contributed to the adoption of ground-based, nacelle-based, and floating lidar by the wind industry. Future challenges include the development of lidar uncertainty models, best practices for data management, and developing community-based tools for data analysis, planning of lidar measurements and lidar configuration. This paper describes the barriers that Task 32 identified to the deployment of wind lidar in each of these application areas, and the steps that have been taken to confirm or mitigate the barriers. Task 32 will continue to be a meeting point for the international wind lidar community until at least 2020 and welcomes old and new participants.