This book offers a comprehensive overview of the design, mechanisms, and performance of metakaolin-based geopolymers (MKG), with a focus on uncovering the underlying mechanisms that differentiate MKG from ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Covering a wide range of topics surrounding MKG, from the early stages of geopolymerization to the final mechanical performance of MKG concrete, this book provides fundamental insights into the performance of MKG-based materials and their relationship with the composition and microstructure of MKG. The findings presented in this book may serve as a guide for the design and application of MKG in civil engineering constructions. Targeted at scientists and engineers in materials science and civil engineering, this book is intended for those interested in adopting MKG as a sustainable technology for a greener future.

Providing the quantum-mechanical foundations of chemical bonding, this unique textbook emphasizes key concepts such as superposition, degeneracy of states and the role of the electron spin. These quantum mechanical notions are usually oversimplified or meticulously circumvented in other books, to the frustration of serious readers who want to understand, for example, why two protons can be stably bound with only one electron to make the simplest molecule H2+. An initial, concise and compact presentation of the rudiments of quantum mechanics enables readers to progress through the book with a firm grounding. Experimental examples are included to illustrate how the abstract concepts are manifest in real systems.

This book presents an updated account on the status of the computational modeling of homogeneous catalysis at the beginning of the 21 st century. The development of new methods and the increase of computer power have opened up enormously the reliability of the calculations in this field, and a number of research groups from around the world have seized this opportunity to expand enormously the range of applications. This text collects a good part of their work.

This book brings together a wide range of current research to create a holistic understanding of fouling. It draws upon practical and laboratory experiences spanning many years. While offering an overview of various fouling types, the book's emphasis is on crystallization fouling, a facet seldom addressed in the existing literature. Furthermore, this book goes beyond theory by providing practical examples for heat exchanger design, incorporating the pivotal consideration of fouling's impact. It focuses especially on calcium salts such as calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate.

This thesis proposes useful tools, on-the-fly trajectory mapping method and Reaction Space Projector (ReSPer), to analyze chemical reaction mechanisms by combining the reaction route map and the ab initio molecular dynamics. The key concept for the proposed tools is the Cartesian distance between pairwise molecular structures, and a practical procedure to get the optimal distance is introduced. The on-the-fly trajectory mapping method tracks the distance function between reference structures and molecular structures along the trajectory. Although this method provides fruitful insight into dynamic reaction behaviors, the visualization of reaction routes into a low-dimensional space is still challenging because of the multi-dimensionality. ReSPer successfully constructs a low-dimensional reaction space defined by mathematically-selected principal coordinates representing mutual distance relationships in the full-dimensional space. ReSPer also enables us to project trajectories into the reaction space in the reduced dimension. In this thesis, these methods are applied to several reactions, including bifurcating and photochemical reactions, revealing dynamically-allowed reaction mechanisms. This thesis provides robust and versatile tools to elucidate dynamical reaction routes on the basis of the reduced-dimensionality reaction route map and will help control chemical reaction dynamics and select descriptors for machine learning.

This collection explores the methods and challenges of containing corrosive and abrasive materials at extreme temperatures, whether they are used across commodities or technology specific. There is much to be learned from cross-commodity and cross-technology perspectives and this collection creates a platform for the exchange of ideas on the challenges, solutions, failures, and successes in furnace containment designs and applications while bringing together perspectives from industry, design houses, and research institutions. Topics include, but are not limited to:

This book highlights the promising photocatalytic methods for synthesizing organic chemicals by simultaneously degrading the toxicity of raw substances used for organic synthesis. It presents various semiconducting materials with high catalytic activities in hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) and hydrogenation reactions, as well as the material characterizations for identifying semiconductor photocatalysts. The focus is on understanding the hydrogen dissociation and activation of substances in the process of hydrogenation and the fabrication of nanostructured catalysts with desired activity and selectivity. Recent works show photocatalytic hydrogenation reactions with in situ generated H+ on catalyst surfaces utilizing initial chemicals such as nitrophenol, nitrobenzene, azobenzene, and benzene for valorization. In addition, the photocatalytic valorization of waste glycerol is also discussed. Besides the hydrogenation reactions, the reduction of oxygen to form H2O2 can be done with a photocatalytic method in atmospheric conditions. Some related perspectives and outlooks are also discussed for possible future development.

This book elucidates fascinating electronic phenomena of unusual Bi2-square net in layered R2O2Bi (R: rare earth) compounds using two approaches: the fabrication of epitaxial thin films and the synthesis of bulk polycrystalline powders. The Bi2-square net compounds are a promising platform to explore exotic physical properties originating from the interplay between a two-dimensional electronic state and strong spin–orbit coupling; however, there are few reports on Bi2-square net compounds due to the instability of unusual electronic configurations.

This book presents the findings of a major research program investigating structural design and controllable preparation of function-directed crystalline materials. The program was launched by the National Natural Science Foundation of China during the 11th Five-Year Plan period, which was started in October 2008 and concluded at the end of 2016. This book first summarizes the overall scientific objectives and the current state of the art of crystalline materials research in China and the international frontier.

This book provides the most up-to-date, advanced methods and tools for risk assessment of onshore pipelines. These methods and tools are based primarily on information collected from ILI measurements and additional information about the soil surrounding the pipeline. The book provides a better understanding how the defects grow and interact (repulsion or attraction) and their spatial variability.

This book reports the establishment of a single-atomic layer metal of In and a novel (In, Mg) ultrathin film on Si(111) surfaces. A double-layer phase of In called “rect” has been extensively investigated as a two-dimensional metal. Another crystalline phase called “hex” was also suggested, but it had not been established due to difficulty in preparing the sample. The author succeeded in growing the large and high-quality sample of the hex phase and revealed that it is a single-layer metal. The author also established a new triple-atomic layer (In, Mg) film with a nearly freestanding character by Mg deposition onto the In double layer. This work proposes a novel method to decouple ultrathin metal films from Si dangling bonds.

The comprehensive reference and textbook serves as a timely, practical introduction to the principles of nanotribology and nanomechanics. Assuming some familiarity with macroscopic tribology, the book comprises chapters by internationally recognized experts, who integrate knowledge of the field from the mechanics and materials-science perspectives. They cover key measurement techniques, their applications, and theoretical modelling of interfaces, each beginning their contributions with macro- and progressing to microconcepts.

For several years, I have been responsible for organizing and teaching in the fall a short course on "Fundamentals of Adhesion: Theory, Practice, and Applications" at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Every spring I would try to assemble the most pertinent subjects and line up several capable lecturers for the course. However, there has always been one thing missing-an authoritative book that covers most aspects of adhe- sion and adhesive bonding. Such a book would be used by the participants as a main reference throughout the course and kept as a sourcebook after the course had been completed. On the other hand, this book could not pretend to be one of those "All you want to know about" volumes, simply because adhesion is an interdisciplinary and ever- growing field.

This book originates from the translation of an Italian textbook on the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. The idea for this earlier effort came to me after I published, in 1989, "L' Atmosfera", a popular science book. A few years later I discovered, to my great surprise, that it was adopted as a textbook by a few univer­ sities or university courses. The publication of the book coincided with the intro­ duction in Italy of a university curriculum on Environmental Science and a partial reform of the physics curriculum that allows the teaching of courses like Atmos­ pheric Physics, Meteorology and Environmental Physics.

This book documents the proceedings of the symposium "Fundamentals and Applications of Anion Separations" held during American Chemical Society National Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, August 25-30, 200I. Nearly 40 papers devoted to discussions on anion separation related to fundamental research and applications were presented. The symposium, sponsored by Osram Sylvania, BetzDearbom, and the Separation Science & Technology Subdivision of the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society was organized by Bruce A. Moyer, Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Building. 4500S, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6119, and Raj P. Singh, Chemicals and Powders R&D, Osram Sylvania, Chemical and Metallurgical Products Division, Towanda, PA 18848. It drew presenters from Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Separations constitute an integral part of chemical industry. Chemical products typically originate in resources that must be concentrated and purified, chemically transformed, and subjected to fmal purification. Effluent streams from the processes must be treated to recycle reusable components and to remove environmentally harmful species.