Phase transformation behavior, micro structural development, mechanical and tribological properties of electroless Ni-B coating was characterized using different characterization techniques. As deposited electroless Ni-B coating containing 94 wt. % of NI and 6 wt. % of B is amorphous. It crystallizes via two exothermic reactions one at 3000C and another at 430˚C. It has been observed that there is also slow evolution of the heat in between this two exothermic reactions. XRD studies display that as deposited coating undergoes multi-stage crystallization events. At the first exothermic peak NI3B phases crystallizes, in between two a phase mixture of Ni and Ni3B and at the second exothermic peak NI2B + Ni3B crystallizes. Evolution of the free Ni in the complete crystalline coating is not predicted by the equilibrium phase diagram of the Ni-B system. Microscopic observation of the as deposited coating displays a novel compositionally modulated microstructure comprises of different length scales ranging from micrometer to nanometer level. In situ TEM study along with composition analysis were carried out in order to track the crystallization pathway and microstructural development. This kind of composition fluctuation of the coating is intrinsic to the deposition process. In best of our knowledge this kind of microstructure is the first time reported example of phase separation in a binary metal-metalloid system without spinoidal decomposition. Effect of this kind of microstructure and phase evolution on the mechanical and tribological properties of the coating is very profound. Increase in the nanocrystalline borides content of the coating increases the hardness value of the coating as well as improved tribological properties of the coating. In the low load regime (5 N and less) wear resistance of the coating is provided by the oxide layer formed on the wear track by preventing the direct contact between the coating and counterface. Local temperature rise due to friction and nancrystalline nature of the coating enhances the tendency of oxide layer formation. Characterization of the oxide layer was carried out using SEM, EPMA, Nanoindenation and Raman Spectroscopy. Whereas in case high load regime (above 5 N) this oxide layer breaks off and direct contact between the coating and counterface is established. This increases the wear rate of the coating. Material is removed from the coating through subsurface crack formation and propagation by low cycle fatigue mechanism. Effect of amorphous phase and free Ni on the tribological properties of the coating is detrimental by promoting a strong adhesion between the coating and steel counter face, whereas nanocrystalline borides shows opposite effect. A nano tribological studies using lateral force microscopy shows that nanocrystalline borides decreases the coefficient of friction of the coating. Phase evolution and microstructural characterization also shows that above 450˚C there is a significant diffusion of the boron from the coating to the steel substrate. This restrict the high temperature tribological studies of the coating up to a temperature range of 450˚C. Wear data along with worn track characterization demonstrate the fact that above 100˚C even in low load regime wear rate is very high. Wear of the coating is mainly governed by the plastic deformation of the coating and breakage of the protective oxide layer. Analytical calculation as well experimental observation shows that during the time of wear the temperature at the local contact region reaches a very high value even up to 1100˚C. This may soften the coating and causes the wear though plastic deformation of the coating.

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Entwicklung einer Synthesestrategie einphasiger intermetallischer Verbindungen des Systems Molybdän-Nickel als Volumenmaterial. Anhand dieser Materialien soll aufgeklärt werden, ob geordnete intermetallische Verbindungen eine höhere Aktivität in der elektrokatalytischen Wasserstoffbildung aus Wasser besitzen als nicht geordnete Substitutionslegierungen. Des Weiteren soll der Grund für die veränderte Aktivität identifiziert werden. Dazu wurden die Verbindungen mittels elektrochemischer Charakterisierungsmethoden und zwei verschiedenen Stabilitätstests in der Wasserstoffbildungsreaktion untersucht. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass die Verbindungen unter den Reaktionsbedingungen nicht stabil sind. Bei Molybdängehalten ≤25 At.-% und Potentialen unterhalb des reversiblen Wasserstoffpotentials kann sich jedoch eine passivierende Nickelhydroxidschicht ausbilden, sodass eine fortschreitende Korrosion unter kathodischen Stromflüssen verhindert werden kann. Diese Nickelhydroxidschicht ist jedoch auch für die Desaktivierung der Mo-Ni Materialien verantwortlich. Es konnte weiterhin festgestellt werden, dass die elektrochemisch aktive Oberfläche, in Folge der Auslaugung von Molybdän, proportional zum Molybdängehalt steigt, was sich in vermeintlich höheren Aktivitäten der Mo-Ni Materialien äußert.

A new powder processing approach to produce oxidation resistant molybdenum alloys for high temperature use has been developed. Oxidation protection is provided by fine dispersion of silica glass particles within a molybdenum matrix. As the molybdenum oxidizes, the glass is exposed and melts to form a self-healing protective oxide coating. Additionally, homogeneously dispersed Mo5SiB2 and/or Mo2B provide boria upon oxidation which reduces glass viscosity and allows flowing glass to coat the surface while remaining solid internally. This is similar to the oxidation protection used in Mo-3Si-1B (wt%) systems; however embedding the glass directly into the Mo matrix and eliminating the Mo3Si (A15) phase provides the same volume of glass at lower volume fractions of brittle phases and also without embrittling Si impurities in solution in Mo. Additionally the glass composition can be tailored for different applications and different temperatures beyond that achievable in Mo-Si-B based systems. A variety of microstructures, compositions and additional components for improved oxidation protection are also explored, and mechanisms of the oxidation protection are discussed.

Nowadays the rapid developments of wireless communication technologies there are more and more ways to look into the RF measurements and designs in detail such as Universal Software Radio Peripheral(USRP) from LabVIEW, Advance Design System(ADS),etc.Moreover a lack of measurements what compared with different digital modulation schemes is becoming a problem. In this thesis by building the simulations of communication system in NI-USRP system and measuring the results then compare with the different PSK system in order to give a deeper insight of this new software of USRP from LabVIEW. and in the end analyze bit error rate varus signal to noise ratio from the PSK system. To get the characterizations of NI-USRP system the first step is to build multiple simulations such as FM receiver, PSK wireless communication systems. By performing the FM receiver is to analyze the quality of the receiving and baseband FM signal. And from the simulation of different PSK communications through the analysis of the performance of BPSK,QPSK,OQPSK and compared with bit error rate it could give an insight of characterization of NI-USRP system and in the end the conclusions give in which kind of prototype or simulation that suit the best of NI-USRP system.

Carbon dioxide reforming, or drying reforming, of methane can now be used in new applications such as landfill gas utilization where CO and CH need to be converted to a mixture of CO and H, called synthesis gas or syn-gas. A novel Ni-Co/AlMgO bimetallic powder catalyst was developed in previous research for dry reforming of methane (DRM) process which can eliminate carbon deposition. But it is difficult242x to apply this loose-powder catalyst in industrial scale. The procedure of making spherical Ni-Co/AlMgOx bimetallic catalyst supported on BASF CSS-350 alumina balls (BASF Catalysts LLC) using impregnation method with different impregnation steps and calcination steps is explained in this thesis. For every batch of preparation, the concentration of metal solution was calculated based on different impregnation steps. BET (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller) analysis, compressive strength test, XANES (X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure) measurement and ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) analysis are conducted to understand the physical and chemical properties of the catalyst. It is found that both impregnation steps and calcination steps have great influence on the performance of the prepared catalyst samples. Among all the catalysts prepared, BF-4-0.25(MgNiCo)-C, which was made by using 4 impregnation-calcination cycles, shows the best activity and stability for 160 h time-on stream (TOS) under the reaction condition of 0.10 g catalyst loading, 750 oC, ambient pressure, GHSV=100,000 ml/gc·h, and CH4/CO2/N2 = 1/1/1. The CH4 conversion started at 66.7% and slowly dropped to 52.8% after 160 hours. I I BF-4-0.25(MgNiCo)-C spherical catalyst shows lower reaction rate compared to the loose powder format but shows compatible or higher activity to other two reported catalysts in similar compositions. Most importantly, it is a shaped catalyst ready for industrial use.

High-throughput sequencing is a powerful tool to study diverse aspects of biology and applies to genome, transcriptome, and small RNA profiling. Ever increasing sequencing throughput and more specialized sequencing assays demand more sophisticated bioinformatics approaches. In this thesis, I present 4 studies for which I developed computational methods to handle high-throughput sequencing data to gain insights into biology. The first study describes the genome of High Five (Hi5) cells, originally derived from Trichoplusia ni eggs. The chromosome-level assembly (scaffold N50 = 14.2 Mb) contains 14,037 predicted protein-coding genes. Examination and curation of multiple gene families, pathways, and small RNA-producing loci reveal species- and order-specific features. The availability of the genome sequence, together with genome editing and single-cell cloning protocols, enables Hi5 cells as a new tool for studying small RNAs. The second study focuses on just one type of piRNAs that are produced at the pachytene stage of mammalian spermatogenesis. Despite their abundance, pachytene piRNAs are poorly understood. I find that pachytene piRNAs cleave transcripts of protein-coding genes and further target transcripts from other pachytene piRNA loci. Subsequently, systematic investigation of piRNA targeting by integrating different types of sequencing data uncovers the piRNA targeting rule. The third study describes computational procedures to map splicing branchpoints using high-throughput sequencing data. Screening >1.2 trillion RNA-seq reads determines >140,000 BPs for both human and mouse. Such branchpoints are compiled into BPDB (BranchPoint DataBase) to provide a comprehensive branchpoint catalog. The final study combines novel experimental and computational procedures to handle PCR duplicates that are prevalent in high-throughput sequencing data. Incorporation of unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) to tag each read enables unambiguous identification of PCR duplicates. Both simulated and experimental datasets demonstrate that UMI incorporation increases the reproducibility of RNA-seq and small RNA-seq. Surveying 7 common variables in high-throughput sequencing reveals that the amount of starting material and sequencing depth, but not the number of PCR cycles, determine the PCR duplicate frequency. Finally, I show that removing PCR duplicates without UMIs leads to substantial bias into data analysis. / 2020-12-11T00:00:00Z

In Sweden, among other countries, a deep multi-barrier geological repository, KBS-3, is planned for the burial of nuclear waste. One of the barriers is identified as the grantic bedrock itself and in this environment chlorite is present at surfaces in fracture zones. This thesis is focused on characterisation of chlorite samples and studies of their dissolution and sorption behaviour, in order to verify chlorites capacity to retard possible radionuclide migration in the case of leaking canisters. Chlorite dissolution of has been studied in the pH interval 2-12, and as expected the dissolution is highest at acidic pH and at most alkaline pH, whereas dissolution is lowest at near neutral pH values. Chemical and physical properties of chlorites clearly influence the dissolution rates, and at steady-state dissolution rates in the interval 10-12 ‑ 10-13 mol g-1 s-1 was observed. Sorption studies were performed since Ni(II) is one of the important activation products in spent nuclear fuel and sorption data on minerals like chlorite are lacking. Ni(II) sorption onto chlorite was studied using batch technique as a function of; pH, concentration of Ni(II), ionic strength and solid concentrations. As expected, the sorption of Ni(II) onto chlorite was pH dependent, but not ionic strength dependent, with a sorption maximum at pH ~ 8, and with a Kd of ~ 103 cm3/g. This confirms that the Ni(II) sorption onto chlorite is primarily acting through surface complexation. The acid-base properties were determined by titrations and described by a non-electrostatical surface complexation model in FITEQL. Further, the sorption results were fit with a 2-pK NEM model and three surface complexes, Chl_OHNi2+, Chl_OHNi(OH)+ and Chl_OHNi(OH)2, gave the best fit using FITEQL. / Sverige är ett av de länder som planerar ett geologiskt slutförvar kallad KBS-3, bestående av ett antal barriärer, för placering utav det använda kärnbränslet. En av dessa barriärer är identifierad som själva berggrunden där det tilltänkta förvaret kommer att byggas och i denna miljö förekommer klorit på granitytor i sprickzoner. Denna doktorsavhandling karakteriserar kloriter och studerar deras upplösnings- och sorptionsbeetende, för att kunna bestämma huruvida kloriter är utav betydelse som naturlig barriär för eventuell radionuklidtransport från det använda kärnbränslet. Upplösning av klorit har undersökts i pH intervallet 2-12 och graden av upplösningen är som förväntat högst vid sura respektive mest basiska pH och lägst där pH är neutralt. Denna studie bekräftar att den kemiska sammansättning och de fysikaliska egenskaper hos kloriterna påverkar upplösningshastigheterna och vid steady‑state har upplösningshastighet bestämts till 10-12 ‑ 10-13 mol g-1 s-1. Sorptionsstudier genomfördes då Ni(II) är en viktig aktiveringsprodukt och data rörande Ni(II) sorption till klorit saknas. Ni(II) sorption till klorit har studerats i; varierande pH, olika initiala Ni(II) koncentrationen, olika jonstyrka och olika fastfas förhållanden där individuella satser i serie har nyttjats. Som förväntat är sorptionen av Ni(II) till klorit pH beroende men inte jonstyrkeberoende och ett sorpions maximum observerades vid pH ~ 8, med ett Kd‑värde på ~ 103 cm3/g. Från detta dras slutsatsen att sorptionen av Ni(II) till klorit sker mestadels genom ytkomplexering. Syra-bas egenskaperna hos kloriterna bestämdes genom titreringar och bekrevs med en icke‑elektrostatisk modell i FITEQL. Vidare har passning av sorptionsresultaten utförts med en 2-pK NEM-modell och tre ytkomplex, Chl_OHNi2+, Chl_OHNi(OH)+ och Chl_OHNi(OH)2, vilket gav den bästa passningen av data med FITEQL. / QC 20100819

Sol-gel (solution-gelation) method was used to prepare Ni-Ti and Ni-Ti-Al catalysts for reforming of methane with carbon dioxide. This method, after optimizing the parameters such as hydrolysis and acid/alkoxide ratio, is able to make a Ni-Ti catalyst with a surface area as high as 426m2/g when calcined at 473K; but calcination at higher temperature lead to dramatic decrease in surface area. XRD, XPS, TEM and SEM were used to understand this change. Using a packed bed reactor, the catalysts were evaluated with the reforming reaction. It was found that the activity of the Ni-Ti catalyst increases with the Ni loading in the range of 1-10wt%. The reduction temperature has strong effect on activity of the reduced catalyst. Up to 973K, the activity increases with the reduction temperature; but after 973K, the activity decreases and become 0 when the temperature is over 1023K. The Ni-Ti catalyst also deactivated as 15% after 4h of time on stream. The XRD analysis shows that Ti3O5 formed in the catalyst after higher-temperature reduction as well as after the reaction for a period of time. The formation of Ti3O5 may render the catalyst to loss its activity. However, further study is expected to understand the mechanism. TG/DTA analysis shows that both Ni-Ti and Ni-Ti-Al catalysts had carbon deposition; but the latter maintained higher activity in a longer period of time.

The Seamless Stressometer® roll (Seamless STR) is used to measure the flatness of aluminum and steel strip when there is an extreme demand on the surface finish. To protect the roll and strip, the roll is coated with two layers deposited by high velocity oxygen fueled spraying (HVOF), Cr-Ni(Si,B) closest to the roll and WC-Co on top. This solution has several disadvantages; high cost and complicated logistics, corrosion sensitivity and high residual stresses creates the need for two coatings which in turn complicates the process. Cobalt is, in addition, sensitive to low pH coolants and environmentally unfriendly. These problems have given rise to the idea of switching both the method and material of the coating. In the first part of this work, high velocity air fueled spraying (HVAF) was evaluated as an alternative deposition method. Three materials, Cr3C2-NiCr, WC-Co and WC-CrC-Ni were deposited on steel coupons with varying chamber pressure, powder feed rate and distance from the nozzle, in order to evaluate if HVAF can be a valid technique for use in this application and to optimize the spraying recipe. The objectives were to get a sufficiently high thickness per sweep, to be able to make the depositions in a manageable number of sweeps, and to get low porosity, since the coatings need to be dense to be hard and possible to polish smooth. The tests showed that all three materials can be sprayed with the high settings on the parameters to obtain coatings that exceeded the set limits of the objectives. In the second part of this work, the recipe obtained from the first part was used to deposit samples for further analysis. The coatings were compared regarding cost, hardness, friction, wear and pick-up properties to evaluate if a switch in material from WC-Co was possible. The coatings showed both similarities and differences. The friction was very similar for the three materials. Cr3C2-NiCr was substantially cheaper than the other two, had lower hardness and higher porosity, but still probably acceptable values, and was satisfactory regarding wear and pick-up. WC-Co and WC-CrC-Ni were very similar to each other regarding cost, hardness and porosity but WC-Co was the best regarding wear and pick-up, where WC-CrC-Ni was the worst. The only clear advantage of WC-CrC-Ni over WC-Co is the lack of cobalt. Taking everything into consideration, including the fact that the wear and pick-up tests in this work was quite exaggerated, Cr3C2-NiCr is an interesting option for this application due to its low cost and acceptable test results, WC-Co had the best results but is expensive and contains cobalt and WC-CrC-Ni had as good results as WC-Co except for the wear and pick-up tests and does not contain cobalt.

Partial oxidation of CH4, CO2 reforming of CH4, and oxidative CO2 reforming of CH4 to produce synthesis gas at 700°C over supported Ni catalysts have been studied. A Ni/Mg-Al catalyst was prepared by the solid phase crystallization (spc-) method starting from a hydrotalcite-type (HT) anionic precursor. From XRD analysis, only Ni0.5Mg2.5Al catalyst consists of the layered hydrotalcite-type structure; not Ni0.5Ca2.5Al and Ni/Al2O3 catalysts. By TPR test, the Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT catalyst requires a high reduction temperature than the Ni0.5Ca2.5Al catalyst. It implies that the Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT which has a layered structure shows the stronger interaction strength between the molecules. It might increase the resistance of coke formation on the surface of the catalyst. For the reaction tests, the Ni0.5Ca2.5Al showed the highest initial activity for synthesis gas production for all reactions; but, its activity was decreased quickly due to coke formation except during the partial oxidation of CH4. The Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT showed a relatively higher reactivity compared to the equilibrium level than Ni/Al2O3 catalyst; and it shows very stable reactivity than other catalysts. By TPO test, the Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT has the lower amount of coke formed during the reaction than the Ni0.5Ca2.5Al catalyst. It confirms that the Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT catalyst has stronger resistance to coke formation; and it leads to provide stable reactivity in any reforming conditions at high temperature. Therefore, the Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT catalyst was the most promising catalyst in terms of activity and stability for partial oxidation, CO2 reforming, and oxidative CO2 reforming of CH4. The Ni0.5Mg2.5Al-HT catalyst was used to investigate the CO2 reforming of CH4 kinetics. With increasing CH4 partial pressures at constant CO2 partial pressure, the rates of CH4 consumption were increased. However, with increasing CO2 partial pressure at constant CH4 partial pressure, CH4 consumption rates was increased at lower CO2 partial pressure, but turned to independent at higher CO2 partial pressure. When the partial pressure of H2 was increased, the CO formation rate was decreased; it confirmed that the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction was occurring during the CO2 reforming of CH4 reaction. In addition, the reaction kinetic expression was proposed when the CH4 dissociation step was considered as a rate-limiting step.