TSDC (thermally stimulated depolarization current) is one of the most important and popular technique for investigating electret materials. TSDC technique can indicate the magnitude of polarization and depolarization, relaxation time, charge-storage, glass transition, and activation energy. To fully investigate polarization and relaxation for pure epoxy and filled epoxy materials, a TSDC system was built and verified by the research. The article describes the building processes and verification of the TSDC system. TSDC, TSPC, and TWC tests data for epoxy and filled epoxy samples are presented in the article. To compare TSDC technique with other related techniques, DEA (dielectric analysis), DMA (dynamic mechanical analysis), and DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) tests are introduced.

Corpus Christi among of the largest industrialized coastal urban areas in Texas. The strategic location of the city along the Gulf of Mexico allows for many important industries and an international business to be located. The cluster of industries and businesses in the region contribute to the air pollution from emissions that are harmful to the environment and to the people living in and visiting the area. Volatile organic compounds (VOC) constitute an important class of pollutants measured in the area. The automated gas chromatography (Auto GC) data was collected from Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and source apportionment analysis was conducted on this data to identify key sources of VOC affecting this study region. EPA PMF 3.0 was employed in this sources apportionment study of measured VOC concentration during 2005 - 2012 in Corpus Christi, Texas. The study identified nine optimal factors (Source) that could explain the concentration of VOC at two urbane monitoring sites in the study region. Natural gas was found to be the largest contributor of VOC in the area, followed by gasoline and vehicular exhaust. Diesel was the third highest contributor with emissions from manufacturing and combustion processes. Refineries gases and evaporative fugitive emissions …

A recent trend in the development of renewable and biodegradable materials has led to the development of composites from renewal sources such as natural fibers. This agricultural activity generates a large amount of waste in the form of peanut shells. The motivation for this research is based on the utilization of peanut shells as a viable source for the manufacture of biocomposites. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is a plastic largely used in the industry due to its durability, high strength to density ratio, and thermal stability. This research focuses in the mechanical and thermal properties of HDPE/peanut shell composites of different qualities and compositions. The samples obtained were subjected to dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and mechanical tensile strength tests. TO prepare the samples for analysis, the peanut shells were separated into different mesh sizes and then mixed with HDPE at different concentrations. The results showed that samples with fiber size number 10 exhibited superior strength modulus of 1.65 GPa versus results for HDPE alone at 1.32 GPa. The analysis from the previous experiments helped to determine that the fiber size number 10 at 5%wt. ratio in HDPE provides the most optimal mechanical and thermal results. From tensile …

In the past decade, the condensation on superhydrophobic surfaces has been investigated abundantly to achieve dropwise condensation. There is not a specific approach in choosing the size of the roughness of the superhydrophobic surfaces and it was mostly selected arbitrarily to investigate the behavior of condensates on these surfaces. In this research, we are optimizing the size of the roughness of the superhydrophobic surface in order to achieve dropwise condensation. By minimizing the resistances toward the transition of the tails of droplets from the cavities of the roughness to the top of the roughness, the size of the roughness is optimized. It is shown that by decreasing the size of the roughness of the superhydrophobic surface, the resistances toward the transition of the tails of droplets from Wenzel state to Cassie state decrease and consequently dropwise condensation becomes more likely.

In several areas around the world, clean water is a precious asset that at anytime, and mainly due to circumstances of weather and climate, can become scarce. Mainly in the dry and remote places, people suffer with lack of water. A solution for this suffering can be a water desalination system, which makes water potable and usable for industry. That solution inherently, brings the problem of power requirement, which is sometimes arduous to accomplish in such remote areas of difficult access and long distances to overcome to build the infrastructure required to operate an electric power plant. Texas and the USA also face this scenario for many regions, for which the government has been creating some programs and driving forward incentives, looking for solutions to support water desalination. Water desalination has future applications for municipalities water-consuming or for arid and remote regions, as well as for industries that rely on heavy water usage, such as natural gas drilling operations, for which millions of gallons are trucked overland to the site and also hauled away afterwards, when the waste water produced must be treated. This thesis created the concept of autonomy for water desalination plants replacing the actual power supply from …