Combustion and Thermal Decomposition of a Binary Oxidiser System: Ammonium Perchlorate-Potassium Perchlorate

Combustion behaviour of ammonium perchlorate-potassium perchlorate pellets is studied using Crawford strand burners. At low concentrations of potassium perchlorate (up to 30 percent potassium perchlorate) the burning rate of ammonium perchlorate-potassium perchlorate condensed mixtures increases with potassium perchlorate content. Above 40 percent potassium perchlorate content, combustion sustenance becomes difficult. Decomposition products of ammonium perchlorate sensitize the melting and subsequent decomposition of potassium perchlorate. The results are explained in terms of the melt layer thickness, flame temperature and the resultant surface temperature, and heat wave penetration into the solid. The study suggests the importance of melt layer on the burning surface in the deflagration behaviour of ammonium perchlorate-potassium perchlorate condensed mixtures

Temperature sensitivity of soil organic matter decomposition in boreal soils

The temperature sensitivity of decomposition of different soil organic matter (SOM) fractions was studied with laboratory incubations using 13C and 14C isotopes to differentiate between SOM of different age. The quality of SOM and the functionality and composition of microbial communities in soils formed under different climatic conditions were also studied. Transferring of organic layers from a colder to a warmer climate was used to assess how changing climate, litter input and soil biology will affect soil respiration and its temperature sensitivity. Together, these studies gave a consistent picture on how warming climate will affect the decomposition of different SOM fractions in Finnish forest soils: the most labile C was least temperature sensitive, indicating that it is utilized irrespective of temperature. The decomposition of intermediate C, with mean residence times from some years to decades, was found to be highly temperature sensitive. Even older, centennially cycling C was again less temperature sensitive, indicating that different stabilizing mechanisms were limiting its decomposition even at higher temperatures. Because the highly temperature sensitive, decadally cycling C, forms a major part of SOM stock in the organic layers of the studied forest soils, these results mean that these soils could lose more carbon during the coming years and decades than estimated earlier. SOM decomposition in boreal forest soils is likely to increase more in response to climate warming, compared to temperate or tropical soils, also because the Q10 is temperature dependent. In the northern soils the warming will occur at a lower temperature range, where Q10 is higher, and a similar increase in temperature causes a higher relative increase in respiration rates. The Q10 at low temperatures was found to be inversely related to SOM quality. At higher temperatures respiration was increasingly limited by low substrate availability.

Mechanism of the thermal decomposition of polystyrene peroxide

The thermal degradation of polystyrene peroxide was carried out using differential scanning calorimetry. The activation energy (E) was found to be 136 kJ mole–1 at all extents of decomposition. TheE value was found to correspond to-O-O-dissociation. The order of reaction was found to decrease from 2 to 1 as the decomposition progresse.

Kinetics of thermal decomposition of barium zirconyl oxalate

Kinetics of the thermal decomposition of anhydrous barium zirconyl oxalate and a carbonate intermediate have been studied. Decomposition of the anhydrous oxalate, though it could be explained based on a contracting-cube model, is quite complex. Kinetics of decomposition of the intermediate carbonate Ba2Zr2O5CO3 is greatly influenced by thermal effects during its formation. (agr-t) curves are sigmoidal and obey a power law equation followed by first order decay. Presence of carbon in the vacuum-prepared carbonate has a strong deactivating effect. Decomposition of the carbonate is accompanied by growth in particle size of the product barium zirconate.

Thermal decomposition of ethyl and isopropyl amine perchlorates

Thermal decomposition of ethyl and isopropyl amine perchlorates has been studied by methods such as DTA, TG, isothermal weight loss measurements and the decomposition products have been analyzed in a mass spectrometer. Activation energy values for thermal decomposition have been calculated fromagr-t plots. The proton transfer dissociation mechanism proposed for the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP) has been extended to explain the decomposition products of these twosubstituted amine perchlorates.

Thermal decomposition of doped calcium hydroxide for chemical energy storage

Thermal decomposition of Ca(OH)2 with and without additives has been experimentally investigated for its application as a thermochemical energy storage system. The homogeneous reaction model gives a satisfactory fit for the kinetic data on pure and Ni(OH)2---, Zn(OH)2--- and Al(OH)3---doped Ca(OH)2 and the order of reaction is 0.76 in all cases except for the Al(OH)3-doped sample for which the decomposition is zero order. These additives are shown not only to enhance the reaction rate but also to reduce the decomposition temperature significantly. Some models for solid decomposition reactions, and possible mechanisms in the decomposition of solids containing additives, are also discussed.

Silica from rice husk through thermal decomposition

The thermal decomposition characteristics of rice husk have been investigated by dynamic thermoanalytical techniques: DTA, TG, DTG and isothermal heating. The observed thermal behaviour is explained on the basis of a superposition of the decomposition of cellulose and lignin, which are the major organic constituents of rice husk. Morphological features of silica in husk as well as the ash are examined by scanning electron microscopy. Silica in the residual ash has been characterised by X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy. Controlled thermal decomposition of rice husk has been shown to be a convenient method for the liberation of silica.

Thermal decomposition and ignition of coal

A study of the thermal decomposition and ignition of coal as functions of pelletizing pressure and dwell time has revealed that: (1) ignition and thermal behaviour are related to the apparent density of the pelletized coal; (2) for a given apparent density of pelletized coal, the ignition temperature is related to the rate constants of thermal decomposition. Isothermal decomposition in air at 550 °C has been shown to fit the Avrami-Erofeev equation for three-dimensional growth of nuclei.

Thermal decomposition of hydrazinium aluminium sulfate hydrate and hydrazinate

As a part of our research programme on hydrazine derivatives [I-4]. we have prepared a number of hydrazinium metal sulfates [ 1.S] (N2 H5), M(SO4)2, where M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu. Zn, Cd and Mg and their hydrazine adducts [2] of the type (N2H5)2M(SO4)2 . 3 N2H4. where M = Fe, Co and Ni, as well as N2H5AI(SO4)2 . 6N2H4. Recently, we reported [5.6] the thermal analysis of these compounds. Our .literature survey on the thermal analysis of alums [7] and aluminium salts [8] indicated that, although the preparation of hydrazinium aluminium sulfate dodecahydrate, N2H5Al(SO4)2 . 12 H2O, has been reported [9], there appears to be no report on its thermal analysis. Here, we report the results df the thermal analysis of N2H5Al(SO4)2 . 12 H2O and N2H5Al(SO4)2 . 2N2H4.

Decomposition of silane on solid P4O10

Silane undergoes thermal decomposition on the surface of “phosphorus pentoxide” ( P4O10) into its elements around 200–400°C. The hydrogen formed partially reduces the P4O10 forming lower oxides of phosphorus and water. Elemental silicon is precipitated as reddish-brown solid, which is separated by dissolving out the phosphorus oxides. Silica and disiloxane are not formed in the reaction.

Influence of the electric field on the low-temperature thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate/polystyrene propellant

An electric field (100 V/cm at 230°C and 150°C) has been applied to ammonium perchlorate (AP)/polystyrene (PS) propellant mixtures in order to understand the low temperature decomposition behavior of the propellant. The charge-carrying species is anionic in nature at 230°C, which could be ClO4−, but is cationic at 150°C, which could be either NH4+ or H+. These results are parallel to that observed for pure ammonium perchlorate (AP) pellets [1]. The burning rate (Image ) of the propellant was found to follow the same trend as that for the thermal decomposition of the propellant on application of an electric field. At 150°C Image was higher at the −ve electrode than at the +ve electrode, but at 230°C just the opposite was observed. Kinetic studies have confirmed that the decomposition of the orthorhombic AP follows two mechanism corresponding to E = 30 kcal mol−1 (180–230°C) and E = 15 kcal mol−1 (150–180°C).

Thermal decomposition and combustion of ammine: AP pellets

Thermal decomposition and combustion of lithium perchlorate ammine:ammonium perchlorate (LPA:AP) and magnesium perchlorate ammine:ammonium perchlorate (MPA:AP) pellets have been studied using DTA, TG, and strand burner techniques. The DTA results of the ammine:AP pellets show that the addition of ammines lowers the ignition temperature of AP. However, isothermal TG of the ammine:AP pellets show that in the case of LPA:AP pellets the extent of decomposition increases with the increase in the concentration of LPA; whereas in the case of MPA:AP pellets the extent of decomposition decreases with the increase in the concentration of MPA. Similarly, LPA:AP pellets show higher burning rates compared to AP pellets. On the other hand, MPA:AP pellets show lower burning rates compared to AP pellets. Increasing the concentration of MPA in MPA:AP pellets completely suppresses the combustion. These results are explained on the basis of the thermal characteristics of the additives and their decomposition products.

Adaptive frequency scaled wavelet packet decomposition for frog call classification

Environmental changes have put great pressure on biological systems leading to the rapid decline of biodiversity. To monitor this change and protect biodiversity, animal vocalizations have been widely explored by the aid of deploying acoustic sensors in the field. Consequently, large volumes of acoustic data are collected. However, traditional manual methods that require ecologists to physically visit sites to collect biodiversity data are both costly and time consuming. Therefore it is essential to develop new semi-automated and automated methods to identify species in automated audio recordings. In this study, a novel feature extraction method based on wavelet packet decomposition is proposed for frog call classification. After syllable segmentation, the advertisement call of each frog syllable is represented by a spectral peak track, from which track duration, dominant frequency and oscillation rate are calculated. Then, a k-means clustering algorithm is applied to the dominant frequency, and the centroids of clustering results are used to generate the frequency scale for wavelet packet decomposition (WPD). Next, a new feature set named adaptive frequency scaled wavelet packet decomposition sub-band cepstral coefficients is extracted by performing WPD on the windowed frog calls. Furthermore, the statistics of all feature vectors over each windowed signal are calculated for producing the final feature set. Finally, two well-known classifiers, a k-nearest neighbour classifier and a support vector machine classifier, are used for classification. In our experiments, we use two different datasets from Queensland, Australia (18 frog species from commercial recordings and field recordings of 8 frog species from James Cook University recordings). The weighted classification accuracy with our proposed method is 99.5% and 97.4% for 18 frog species and 8 frog species respectively, which outperforms all other comparable methods.

A Framework for Detecting Glaucomatous Progression in the Optic Nerve Head of an Eye Using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. Often, the optic nerve head (ONH) glaucomatous damage and ONH changes occur prior to visual field loss and are observable in vivo. Thus, digital image analysis is a promising choice for detecting the onset and/or progression of glaucoma. In this paper, we present a new framework for detecting glaucomatous changes in the ONH of an eye using the method of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). A baseline topograph subspace was constructed for each eye to describe the structure of the ONH of the eye at a reference/baseline condition using POD. Any glaucomatous changes in the ONH of the eye present during a follow-up exam were estimated by comparing the follow-up ONH topography with its baseline topograph subspace representation. Image correspondence measures of L-1-norm and L-2-norm, correlation, and image Euclidean distance (IMED) were used to quantify the ONH changes. An ONH topographic library built from the Louisiana State University Experimental Glaucoma study was used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) was used to compare the diagnostic performance of the POD-induced parameters with the parameters of the topographic change analysis (TCA) method. The IMED and L-2-norm parameters in the POD framework provided the highest AUC of 0.94 at 10 degrees. field of imaging and 0.91 at 15 degrees. field of imaging compared to the TCA parameters with an AUC of 0.86 and 0.88, respectively. The proposed POD framework captures the instrument measurement variability and inherent structure variability and shows promise for improving our ability to detect glaucomatous change over time in glaucoma management.