Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Silver Nanoparticle Transport Through Soil: Illuminating The Governing Pore-Scale Processes, Ian L. Molnar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Engineered nanoparticles are widely used and will eventually be released to the subsurface environment and contaminate groundwater resources. However, the transport of engineered nanoparticles through soil is currently not well understood and cannot be modelled in any fundamental manner, placing groundwater resources at risk from nanoparticle contamination. This inability to accurately simulate transport is due to a lack of experimental information on nanoparticle interactions in the pore spaces of real soils.

This thesis illuminates the pore-scale processes governing silver nanoparticle transport through soil. In addition, it examines the influence of surface chemistry and grain/pore distributions on those processes. For the …

Charging Level And Deposition Of Droplets In Electrostatic Painting, Husam Osman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The process of electrostatic painting has become a very important method of coating in a wide range of industrial applications including those used in the automobile industry. The general principle of spray coating is to deposit liquid droplets or solid powder particles on coated targets having various shapes. The electrostatic coating process consists of three main stages: droplet formation and charging, transportation and deposition. The complication of this process is caused by various factors, such as the physical properties of the material to be used, the appropriate electrical and mechanical conditions and the target surface to be coated, which affects …

Secondary Electrohydrodynamic Flow Generated By Corona And Dielectric Barrier Discharges, Mohammadreza Ghazanchaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the main goals of applied electrostatics engineering is to discover new perspectives in a wide range of research areas. Controlling the fluid media through electrostatic forces has brought new important scientific and industrial applications. Electric field induced flows, or electrohydrodynamics (EHD), have shown promise in the field of fluid dynamics. Although numerous EHD applications have been explored and extensively studied so far, most of the works are either experimental studies, which are not capable to explain the in depth physics of the phenomena, or detailed analytical studies, which are not time effective. The focus of this study is …

Tropical Cyclone Wind Hazard Assessment For Southeast Part Of Coastal Region Of China, Sihan Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Tropical cyclone (TC) or typhoon wind hazard and risk are significant for China. The return period value of the maximum typhoon wind speed is used to characterize the typhoon wind hazard and assign wind load in building design code. Since the historical surface observations of typhoon wind speed are often scarce and of short period, the typhoon wind hazard assessment is often carried out using the wind field model and TC track model. For a few major cities in the coastal region of mainland China, simple or approximated wind field models and a circular subregion method (CSM) have been used …

Field Scale Application Of Nanoscale Zero Valent Iron: Mobility, Contaminant Degradation, And Impact On Microbial Communities, Chris M.D. Kocur

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis began by verifying that nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) synthesis methods could be scaled up and implemented at the field scale in a safe manner. This led to successful demonstration of nZVI injection and mobility under constant head gravity injection into a contaminated utility corridor in Sarnia, Ontario. Where field studies have fallen short in the past was linking the somewhat qualitative field geochemical parameters to other evidence of nZVI transport. Definitive nZVI detection was elusive in previous field studies due to the highly reactive nature of the particles caused by their high surface area. nZVI was detected …

Studies Of Periodic And Quasiperiodic Gold Nanohole Arrays And Their Applications, Zhaoliang Yang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Wavelength to refractive index sensitivity and resonance wavelength position are two very important performance characteristics for nanohole array based surface plasmon resonance sensors while these characteristics are mostly researched on periodic nanohole arrays, instead of quasiperiodic nanohole arrays. This thesis deduces theoretical equations about the wavelength to refractive index sensitivity and resonance wavelength position of quasiperiodic nanohole arrays. Theoretical analysis shows that wavelength to refractive index sensitivity is not associated with geometry pattern, hole size or pitch but with the wavelength. A novel surface plasmon resonance platform is built by transferring gold films patterned with quasiperiodic nanohole arrays to the …

Exploring The Chemistry Of Phosphorus For Photopolymer Applications, Ryan Guterman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prior to this thesis, phosphorus-containing polymers and photopolymerization represented two distinct, non-overlapping fields of study. This thesis examined the prospect of combining these two approaches to create a system possessing the benefits of both techniques. By exploiting the chemistry of phosphorus, and using photopolymerization as a fabrication method, new materials were developed and assessed for their use in various applications.

Among the many phosphorus compounds that may be used in polymer science, phosphonium salts and primary phosphines were of specific focus. First, highly fluorinated phosphonium monomers were developed to create photopolymerized hydrophobic surfaces. A structure-activity relationship was established, as both …