A Method for Assessing the Sustainability of Design in Developing World Projects

Projects for the developing world usually find themselves at the bottom of an engineer’s priority list. There is often very little engineering effort placed on creating new products for the poorest people in the world. This trend is beginning to change now as people begin to recognize the potential for these projects. Engineers are beginning to try and solve some of the direst issues in the developing world and many are having positive impacts. However, the conditions needed to support these projects can only be maintained in the short term. There is now a need for greater sustainability. Sustainability has a wide variety of definitions in both business and engineering. These concepts are analyzed and synthesized to develop a broad meaning of sustainability in the developing world. This primarily stems from the “triple bottom line” concept of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Using this model and several international standards, this thesis develops a metric for guiding and evaluating the sustainability of engineering projects. The metric contains qualitative questions that investigate the sustainability of a project. It is used to assess several existing projects in order to determine flaws. Specifically, three projects seeking to deliver eyeglasses are analyzed for weaknesses to help define a new design approach for achieving better results. Using the metric as a guiding tool, teams designed two pieces of optometry equipment: one to cut lenses for eyeglasses and the other to diagnose refractive error, or prescription. These designs are created and prototyped in the developed and developing worlds in order to determine general feasibility. Although there is a recognized need for eventual design iterations, the whole project is evaluated using the developed metric and compared to the existing projects. Overall, the success demonstrates the improvements made to the long-term sustainability of the project resulting from the use of the sustainability metric

Synthesis and Application of Imidazolium and Phosphonium Ionic Liquids

离子液体（ILs）是完全由阴、阳离子构成的在室温或室温附近呈液态的有机盐类物质，其结构特点决定了离子液体的种类繁多，潜在的数目高达1018。伴随着新型离子液体的不断涌现和相关研究的逐步深化，离子液体已不再仅仅是一种绿色溶剂，更是一类性能优良的功能材料，已被广泛地应用于催化反应、有机合成、分离过程和电化学等领域。开发新型离子液体和拓展离子液体新的应用始终是离子液体研究的主要方向。 鉴于此，本文针对咪唑类和季鏻类离子液体的合成及应用做了如下工作： （1）合成了系列常规咪唑类离子液体，提出并验证了高效液相色谱法（HPLC）是测定该系列离子液体含量和纯度的一种通用、快捷、精确的方法，并把该方法很好地用于常规咪唑类离子液体大规模制备过程中产品的质量控制。 （2）研究了常规咪唑类离子液体（[Bmim]Cl、[Bmim]Br和[Bmim]BF4）-果糖-水体系，发现只有[Bmim]BF4和果糖能很好地形成双水相体系。系统地测定了[Bmim]BF4和果糖双水相体系的相平衡随温度（25~45 ℃）的变化，包括浊点线、连结线和临界点，结果表明[Bmim]BF4和果糖的两相区范围很宽，且随温度的升高而减小，当果糖质量组成在3~40％时减小明显。用Othmer-Tobias和Bancroft方程关联了连结线，关联系数均大于0.99，并对体系的成相机理进行了合理地解释。 （3）研究了常规咪唑类离子液体[Bmim]BF4分散原始的和羧基修饰的碳纳米管（CNTs），结果表明[Bmim]BF4可以很好地分散羧基修饰的CNTs，[Bmim]BF4和CNTs之间的静电和氢键作用明显地提高了分散体系的稳定性。此外，发现高压CO2对该分散体系中的CNTs具有抗溶作用，可作为CNTs回收利用的一种绿色方法。 （4）合成了阴、阳离子都带功能化氨基的咪唑类和季鏻类离子液体，系统地表征了得到的20种双氨基功能化季鏻离子液体（[aP4443][AA]）的结构，并测定了其物化性质（密度、粘度、电导率、玻璃转化温度和热分解温度），结果表明得到的[aP4443][AA]在热化学性质方面明显优于相应的咪唑类、吡啶类和季铵类离子液体。 （5）研究了双氨基功能化季鏻离子液体[aP4443][Gly]和[aP4443][Ala]对CO2的吸收，结果表明，[aP4443][Gly]和[aP4443][Ala]负载SiO2吸收CO2克服了直接用离子液体吸收CO2效率低的缺点，能在100 min内达到CO2吸收平衡，且化学吸收量接近1 mol CO2/1 mol IL。吸收的CO2可在60 ℃、负压下解吸，解吸后的[aP4443][Gly]和[aP4443][Ala]重复4次循环使用对CO2吸收速率和吸收量没有明显减弱

“自燃”离子液体的设计合成

自燃推进剂,是指在火箭发动机使用条件下液体氧化剂和液体燃料相互接触后能自燃的双组元推进剂。使用自燃推进剂不需要点火系统,从而极大地简化了火箭发动机设计,而且更加可靠。目前,自燃推进剂的燃料主要是强挥发、易致癌的肼类物质。离子液体几乎没有蒸汽压,可以克服肼类物质固有的强挥发的缺陷,同时离子液体较肼类物质也有密度上的优势。鉴于已知的离子液体中绝大多数不能与氧化剂(如HNO3,N2O4,H2O2等)发生自燃反应,因此,设计合成能够与氧化剂发生自燃反应的离子液体成为研究的难点。本研究拟从设计自燃官能团出发,分别考察了阳离子自燃功能化、阴离子自燃功能化和阴阳离子协同自燃功能化作用,并合成了肼类、叠氮类和..

Covalent Amide-based Framework with Pd Nanoparticles Catalytic Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation to Formic Acid

Covalent Amide-based Framework with Pd Nanoparticles Catalytic Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation to Formic Aci