Thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems are coating systems containing a metallic bond coat and a ceramic top coat. TBCs are used in gas turbines for thermal insulation and oxidation resistance. Life prediction of TBCs is important as high-temperature exposure degrades the coatings through mechanisms such as thermal fatigue and the formation and growth of thermally grown oxides (TGOs). This thesi...

Harvesting cultivated macrophages for tissue engineering purposes by enzymatic digestion of cell adhesion molecules can potentially result in unintended activation, altered function, or behavior of these cells. Thermo-responsive polymer is a promising tool that allows for gentle macrophage detachment without artificial activation prior to subculture within engineered tissue constructs. We there...

There is a growing interest in modulating the temperature under the illumination of light. As a heat source, metal nanoparticles (NPs) have played an important role to pave the way for a new branch of plasmonics, i.e., thermo-plasmonics. While thermo-plasmonics have been well established in photo-thermal therapy, it has received comparatively less attention in materials science and chemistry. H...

Microwave heating is a dielectric heating process, in which heat is generated via the interaction of dielectric materials with electromagnetic radiation. The dielectric constant is a measure of the material’s capacity to retard microwave energy as it passes through, while the loss factor is a measure of the material’s capacity to dissipate the energy. The materials with high loss factor are eas...

The influence of the unsaturation degree of different triacylglycerols (tristearin, triolein, trilinolein and trilinolenin) on cholesterol oxidation at 180 °C, was evaluated. Cholesterol degraded faster when heated alone than in the presence of triacylglycerols; moreover, the more unsaturated the matrix, the slower the degradation of cholesterol. Both cholesterol and triacylglycerols degradatio...

Thermochemcial characteristics of powder fabricated using oxidation treatment of spent PWR fuel and SIMFUEL were evaluated for recycling of spent fuel such as DUPIC process. Especially, the influence of spent fuel burn-ups on the powder fabrication characteristics was experimentally evaluated, ranging from 27,300 to 65,000 MWd/tU. Densities of powder manufactured from an oxidation, OREOX and th...

The temporal evolution of atoms and molecules in a laser-produced plasma was investigated using optical emission spectroscopy for several metal targets (i.e., Al, Ti, Fe, Zr, Nb, Ta). Plasmas from were generated by focusing 1064 nm, 6 ns pulses an Nd:YAG laser. Gas-phase oxidation/plasma chemistry initiated adding O2 (partial pressures up to ≈20%) N2 environment where the total background press...

Using the general theory developed by the author in the previous paper, the problems of thermophoresis and diffusio-phoresis have been examined with a view to elucidating the effect of a general gas-surface scattering law on the associated forces. It is found that, in thermo-phoresis, there exists a close coupling between the first anisotropic moment of the gas-surface scattering law and the so...

A model for the simulation of gas flow in clayey rocks and clays is described. Gas migration is associated with the development of preferential paths along existing or pressure-dependent discontinuities. The model handles the combined phenomena of two-phase (air and liquid) flow and the generation of discrete paths. Aperture of discrete paths is the main variable to account for permeability and...

The Neogene eolian deposits in the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) are one of the most useful continental deposits for understanding climatic changes. To decipher Late Neogene paleoclimatic changes in the CLP, we present a terrestrial mollusk record spanning the time interval between 7.1 and 3.5 Ma from the western CLP. The results indicate four stages of paleoclimatic evolution: From 7.1 to 6.2 Ma...