Enhancing Sustainability: Jute Fiber-Reinforced Bio-Based Sandwich Composites for Use in Battery Boxes.

The rising industrial demand for environmentally friendly and sustainable materials has shifted the attention from synthetic to natural fibers. Natural fibers provide advantages like affordability, lightweight nature, and renewability. Jute fibers' substantial production potential and cost-efficiency have propelled current research in this field. In this study, the mechanical behavior (tensile, flexural, and interlaminar shear properties) of plasma-treated jute composite laminates and the flexural behavior of jute fabric-reinforced sandwich composites were investigated. Non-woven mat fiber (MFC), jute fiber (JFC), dried jute fiber (DJFC), and plasma-treated jute fiber (TJFC) composite laminates, as well as sandwich composites consisting of jute fabric bio-based unsaturated polyester (UPE) composite as facing material and polyethylene terephthalate (PET70 and PET100) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as core materials were fabricated to compare their functional properties. Plasma treatment of jute composite laminate had a positive effect on some of the mechanical properties, which led to an improvement in Young's modulus (7.17 GPa) and tensile strength (53.61 MPa) of 14% and 8.5%, respectively, as well as, in flexural strength (93.71 MPa) and flexural modulus (5.20 GPa) of 24% and 35%, respectively, compared to those of JFC. In addition, the results demonstrated that the flexural properties of jute sandwich composites can be significantly enhanced by incorporating PET100 foams as core materials.

DFT studies of hydrocarbon combustion on metal surfaces.

Catalytic combustion of hydrocarbons is an important technology to produce energy. Compared to conventional flame combustion, the catalyst enables this process to operate at lower temperatures; hence, reducing the energy required for efficient combustion. The reaction and activation energies of direct combustion of hydrocarbons (CH → C + H) on a series of metal surfaces were investigated using density functional theory (DFT). The data obtained for the Ag, Au, Al, Cu, Rh, Pt, and Pd surfaces were used to investigate the validity of the Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi (BEP) and transition state scaling (TSS) relations for this reaction on these surfaces. These relations were found to be valid (R2 = 0.94 for the BEP correlation and R2 = 1.0 for the TSS correlation) and were therefore used to estimate the energetics of the combustion reaction on Ni, Co, and Fe surfaces. It was found that the estimated transition state and activation energies (ETS = -69.70 eV and Ea = 1.20 eV for Ni, ETS = -87.93 eV and Ea = 1.08 eV for Co and ETS = -92.45 eV and Ea = 0.83 eV for Fe) are in agreement with those obtained by DFT calculations (ETS = -69.98 eV and Ea = 1.23 eV for Ni, ETS = -87.88 eV and Ea = 1.08 eV for Co and ETS = -92.57 eV and Ea = 0.79 eV for Fe). Therefore, these relations can be used to predict energetics of this reaction on these surfaces without doing the time consuming transition state calculations. Also, the calculations show that the activation barrier for CH dissociation decreases in the order Ag ˃ Au ˃ Al ˃ Cu ˃ Pt ˃ Pd ˃ Ni > Co > Rh > Fe.