<p>A photocatalytic microreactor is defined as a microfluidic device, which is integrated with a photocatalytic coating of TiO₂ deposited on the inner surface of microchannels. This device is capable of degradation of organic dye solution in water in a continuous flow under the action of ultraviolet light. The objectives of this work were to present a rapid and economically viable approach for the prototyping photocatalytic microfluidic devices and to evaluate their photodegradation capability for organic dyes by ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry. Prototyping of polydimethylsiloxane PDMS/TiO₂/glass microreactors includes several procedures such as mold preparation, microchannel confection on PDMS surface, deposition of TiO₂ on these microchannels, O₂ plasma treatment of PDMS/TiO₂ and glass surface for sealing these two parts. The efficiency of the photocatalytic microreactors was evaluated by fluxing two organic dye solutions, rhodamine B and methylene blue, with different flow rates of between 2 and 4 mL h^-1. When the flow rate at 2 mL h^-1was applied, discoloration of ~ 65% was achieved for both dye solutions, while PDMS/glass microchannels, without TiO₂ film, demonstrated much lower discoloration of between 24 and 42% for rhodamine B and methylene blue, respectively. This confirmed that TiO₂ was successfully deposited onto PDMS microchannels.</p>

The 2.25Cr<FONT FACE=Symbol>¾</FONT>1.0Mo steel is widely used in petroleum refining units, for example, in pressure vessels, working under severe operational conditions. Due to the high temperatures of some processes, many phenomena such as precipitation of carbides and their coarsening occur during service, resulting in changes of material microstructure. Such changes may modify the mechanical properties, which are responsible for the performance of the pressure vessels. Using a software for thermodynamic calculations, the thermodynamically stable carbides over the temperature range of interest (700-1040 K) were evaluated, supposing ferrite as the original microstructure. The theoretical carbide nucleation sequence was also established. Moreover, the theoretical amount of thermodynamically stable carbides and the fraction of Fe, Cr and Mo in the metallic sublattice of M23C6 were determined as a function of temperature. These theoretical calculations were compared to some experimental results on carbide precipitation in the 2.25Cr<FONT FACE=Symbol>¾</FONT>1.0Mo steel and two approaches for evaluating the service degradation were proposed. The first one is based on the amount of precipitated M23C6 and the other on the Fe/Cr ratio in the M23C6 carbide.

The production of bulk Bi2+xSr3-yCa yCu 2O8+delta (Bi-2212) superconductors for fault current limiter application was developed via a partial-melting route. Aiming high Ic (critical current), which is the essential superconducting characteristic for application of this material in the construction of Fault Current Limiters (FCL), the produced blocks have predominance of Bi-2212 phase (83 wt%), which characterizes with high values of zero and onset transport critical temperature of 92K and 97.5K, respectively. A relatively low transition width, deltaT, from the superconducting to the normal state of 5.5K, revealed a good intergrain connectivity. Consequently, current measurements on the blocks of Bi-2212 show promising Ic values of 230A and 850A for direct and alternate current, respectively. It is expected that further increases in the Ic values will depend on the elimination of an observed amorphous phase and further reduction of amount and grain sizes of secondary phases, still present in the blocks obtained by the proposed partial-melting route. This may be achieved by a further optimization of the partial-melting processing parameters.