Search results for " fiber"
showing 10 items of 1776 documents
Effect of AlR3 (R = Me, Et, iBu) addition on the composition and microstructure of ethylene/1-olefin copolymers made with post-metallocene complexes …
2018
The effect of trialkylaluminum compound (AlR3, where R = Me, Et, iBu) addition on the performance of the [LigZrCl]2(μ-O)/AliBu3/Ph3CB(C6F5)4 and LigTiCl2/AliBu3/Ph3CB(C6F5)4 (Lig = Me2N(CH2)2N(CH2-2-O-3,5-tBu2-C6H2)2) catalysts in ethylene/1-olefin copolymerization was investigated. The presence of AlMe3 in the feed during the copolymerization process catalyzed by the diamine-bis(phenolate) zirconium catalyst greatly increases the amount of incorporated comonomer and leads to microstructural changes, e.g., the formation of blocky and alternating sequences of 1-olefin units. Moreover, the use of AlMe3 limits the reaction yield and decreases the molecular weight of the produced copolymers. Th…
Very Deep inside the SN 1987A Core Ejecta: Molecular Structures Seen in 3D
2017
Most massive stars end their lives in core-collapse supernova explosions and enrich the interstellar medium with explosively nucleosynthesized elements. Following core collapse, the explosion is subject to instabilities as the shock propagates outwards through the progenitor star. Observations of the composition and structure of the innermost regions of a core-collapse supernova provide a direct probe of the instabilities and nucleosynthetic products. SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is one of very few supernovae for which the inner ejecta can be spatially resolved but are not yet strongly affected by interaction with the surroundings. Our observations of SN 1987A with the Ataca…
Seasonal and habitat effects on the nutritional properties of savanna vegetation: Potential implications for early hominin dietary ecology.
2019
The African savannas that many early hominins occupied likely experienced stark seasonality and contained mosaic habitats (i.e., combinations of woodlands, wetlands, grasslands, etc.). Most would agree that the bulk of dietary calories obtained by taxa such as Australopithecus and Paranthropus came from the consumption of vegetation growing across these landscapes. It is also likely that many early hominins were selective feeders that consumed particular plants/plant parts (e.g., leaves, fruit, storage organs) depending on the habitat and season within which they were foraging. Thus, improving our understanding of how the nutritional properties of potential hominin plant foods growing in mo…
Lignin Inter-Diffusion Underlying Improved Mechanical Performance of Hot-Pressed Paper Webs
2021
Broader use of bio-based fibres in packaging becomes possible when the mechanical properties of fibre materials exceed those of conventional paperboard. Hot-pressing provides an efficient method to improve both the wet and dry strength of lignin-containing paper webs. Here we study varied pressing conditions for webs formed with thermomechanical pulp (TMP). The results are compared against similar data for a wide range of other fibre types. In addition to standard strength and structural measurements, we characterise the induced structural changes with X-ray microtomography and scanning electron microscopy. The wet strength generally increases monotonously up to a very high pressing tempera…
Mechanical properties of natural fiber composites produced using dynamic sheet former
2018
Composites formed from wood fibers and man-made cellulosic fibers in PLA (polylactic acid) matrix, manufactured using sheet forming technique and hot pressing, are studied. The composites have very low density (due to high porosity) and rather good elastic modulus and tensile strength. As expected, these properties for the four types of wood fiber composites studied here improve with increasing weight fraction of fibers, even if porosity is also increasing. On the contrary, for man-made cellulosic fiber composites with circular fiber cross-section, the increasing fiber weight fraction (accompanied by increasing void content) has detrimental effect on stiffness and strength. The differences …
Automatic measurement of wood fiber orientation and knot detection using an optical system based on heating conduction.
2015
In this paper, a new approach to computing the deviation of wood grain is proposed. To do this, the thermal conduction properties of timber are used (higher conduction in the fiber direction). Exciting the surface of the wood with a laser and capturing the thermal conduction using a thermal camera, an ellipse can be observed. Using a method similar to the tracheid effect, it is possible to extract information from this ellipse, such as the slope of grain and the presence of knots. With this method it is therefore possible to extend the mechanical model (assessing the mechanical properties of timber) to take certain singularities into account. Using this approach, the slope of grain can be e…
Grass leaves as potential hominin dietary resources
2018
Discussions about early hominin diets have generally excluded grass leaves as a staple food resource, despite their ubiquity in most early hominin habitats. In particular, stable carbon isotope studies have shown a prevalent C4 component in the diets of most taxa, and grass leaves are the single most abundant C4 resource in African savannas. Grass leaves are typically portrayed as having little nutritional value (e.g., low in protein and high in fiber) for hominins lacking specialized digestive systems. It has also been argued that they present mechanical challenges (i.e., high toughness) for hominins with bunodont dentition. Here, we compare the nutritional and mechanical properties of gra…
The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on streamside plant communities
2019
Background Riparian forests surrounding streams host high biodiversity values, but are threatened by clear-cut logging. Narrow buffer strips of about 15 m are commonly left between the stream and the clear-cut, but studies suggest that the buffer width should be at least 30 m to protect riparian plant communities. Moreover, selective logging is often allowed on the buffer strips in order to increase economic gain. We used an experiment of 43 riparian sites where buffer strip width and selective logging within the strip were manipulated and supplemented with unlogged control sites. We report the short-term changes in the community composition of vascular plants and mosses near the stream (0–…
Changes of bioactive compounds in barley industry by‐products during submerged and solid state fermentation with antimicrobial Pediococcus acidilacti…
2019
Abstract In this study, changes of bioactive compounds (crude protein (CP), crude fat (CF), dietary fiber (DF), fatty acids (FAs), free amino acids (FAAs), phenolic compounds (PCs), biogenic amines (BAs), lignans, and alkylresorcinols) in barley industry by‐products (BB) during submerged and solid state fermentation (SSF) with Pediococcus acidilactici were analyzed. It was established that both fermentation conditions reduce the CP and CF content in BB (by 25.8% and 35.9%, respectively) and increase DF content (on average by 25.0%). Fermentation increases the oleic, arachidic, eicosadienoic, behenic, and lignoceric FA in BB samples. The highest total BA content was found in untreated sample…
Ultrasonic Welding of PBT-GF30 (70% Polybutylene Terephthalate + 30% Fiber Glass) and Expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE)
2021
The ultrasonic welding of polymeric materials is one of the methods often used in practice. However, each couple of material subjected to ultrasonic welding is characterized by different values of technological parameters. Therefore, the main objective of the research presented in this paper is to optimize the parameters for the ultrasonic welding of two materials, namely PBT-GF30 (70% polybutylene terephthalate + 30% fiber glass) and expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE). In this sense, the research was carried out considering a plate-type part made of PBT-GF30, which had a thickness of 2.1 mm, and a membrane-type part made of e-PTFE, with a thickness of 0.3 mm. The condition imposed o…