We demonstrate the first successful application of infrared laser spectrometry to the accurate, simultaneous determination of the relative (2)H/(1)H, (17)O/(16)O, and (18)O/(16)O isotope abundance ratios in water. The method uses a narrow line width color center laser to record the direct absorption spectrum of low-pressure gas-phase water samples (presently 10 μL of liquid) in the 3-μm spectral region. It thus avoids the laborious chemical preparations of the sample that are required in the case of the conventional isotope ratio mass spectrometer measurement. The precision of the spectroscopic technique is shown to be 0.7‰ for δ(2)H and 0.5‰ for δ(17)O and δ(18)O (δ represents the relative deviation of a sample's isotope abundance ratio with respect to that of a calibration material), while the calibrated accuracy amounts to about 3 and 1‰, respectively, for water with an isotopic composition in the range of the Standard Light Antarctic Precipitation and Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water international standards.
The transient and quasi-steady flame structure of reacting fuel sprays produced by single-hole injectors has been studied using chemiluminescence imaging and Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) in various constant-volume facilities at different research institutes participating in the Engine Combustion Network (ECN). The evolution of the high-temperature flame has been followed based on chemiluminescence imaging of the excited-state hydroxyl radical (OH *), and PLIF of ground-state OH. Regions associated with low-temperature chemical reactions are visualized using formaldehyde (CH 2 O) PLIF with 355-nm excitation. We compare the results obtained by different research institutes under nominally identical experimental conditions and fuel injectors. In spite of design differences among the various experimental facilities, the results are consistent. This lends confidence to studies of transient behavior and parameter variations performed by individual research groups. We present results of the transient flame structures at Spray A reference conditions, and include parametric variations around this baseline, involving ambient temperature, oxygen concentration and injection pressure. Key results are the observed influence of an entrainment wave on the transient flame behavior, model-substantiated explanations for the high-intensity OH * lobes at the lift-off length and differences with OH PLIF, and a general analogy of the flame structures with a spray cone along which the flame tends to locate for the applied parametric variations.
Combustion behavior of various oxygenated fuels has been studied in a DAF heavy-duty (HD) directinjection (DI) diesel engine. From these fuels, it is well-known that they lead to lower particle (PM) emissions; however, for a given fuel oxygen mass fraction, there are significant differences in PM reduction. Although this can be traced back to the specific molecular structure of the oxygenate in question, no consensus can be found in the literature as to the explanation hereof. In this study, the sooting tendency (smoke number) of three oxygenates [viz., tripropylene glycol methyl ether (TP), dibutyl maleate (DB), and cyclohexanone (X1)] was compared to that of commercial diesel fuel (EN590, D). The results suggest that the cetane number (CN) (i.e., fuel reactivity) may play an important role. More specifically, the low reactive oxygenate X1, with its cyclic carbon chain, was found to perform exceptionally well compared to the more reactive linear and branched oxygenates DB and TP, respectively. Cyclic oxygenates are abundant in nature. Cellulose, the most common organic compound on earth, is the best-known example. Although it is not trivial, liquid cyclic oxygenates can be made from lignocellulosic biomass. Particularly, the production of C 6 oxygenates (e.g., guaiacol, cyclohexanone, phenol, etc.), which can be derived from lignin, is the subject of current investigation. Fuels produced from such biomass (e.g., plant waste or the nonedible part of plants) are referred to as secondgeneration biofuels and are expected to play a pivotal role in the near future.
Nomenclatural type definitions are one of the most important concepts in biological nomenclature. Being physical objects that can be re-studied by other researchers, types permanently link taxonomy (an artificial agreement to classify biological diversity) with nomenclature (an artificial agreement to name biological diversity). Two proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), allowing DNA sequences alone (of any region and extent) to serve as types of taxon names for voucherless fungi (mainly putative taxa from environmental DNA sequences), have been submitted to be voted on at the 11th International Mycological Congress (Puerto Rico, July 2018). We consider various genetic processes affecting the distribution of alleles among taxa and find that alleles may not consistently and uniquely represent the species within which they are contained. Should the proposals be accepted, the meaning of nomenclatural types would change in a fundamental way from physical objects as sources of data to the data themselves. Such changes are conducive to irreproducible science, the potential typification on artefactual data, and massive creation of names with low information content, ultimately causing nomenclatural instability and unnecessary work for future researchers that would stall future explorations of fungal diversity. We conclude that the acceptance of DNA sequences alone as types of names of taxa, under the terms used in the current proposals, is unnecessary and would not solve the problem of naming putative taxa known only from DNA sequences in a scientifically defensible way. As an alternative, we highlight the use of formulas for naming putative taxa (candidate taxa) that do not require any modification of the ICN.
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