The detailed investigation of the chemical structure of vitrinite-rich Karharbari coal was performed utilizing advanced analytical techniques. The salient objective of this work is the evaluation of various structural properties of coal, which is necessary for identifying the chemical and physical interactions between coal and various reactants during its utilization. Karharbari coal is a poorly organized coal with high aromatic content. The value of corrected aromaticity (f a’) was found to be 0.82 by 13C NMR spectroscopy and was also confirmed by XRD (aromaticity = 0.84) and FT-IR analysis (aromaticity = 0.82). The average molecular weight of the aromatic cluster was found to be 507 amu by the NMR result, which is closer to the result obtained by HRTEM (MW = 530 amu). The structural and lattice parameters of Karharbari coal were obtained by NMR spectroscopy and then compared with the similar rank Argonne Premium coal. The molecular weight distribution was obtained by LD-TOF-MS and compared with HRTEM fringe model analysis. The presence of different heteroatoms like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur with their functionalities was determined by using the XPS technique. Different carbon/oxygen functionalities present in the Karharbari coal were found to be (C–C) and (C–H) 68.5%, (C–O) 23.4%, (COO–) 1.9%, and (CO) 6.0%. Nitrogen functionalities such as pyridine, pyrrolic, quaternary, and oxidized nitrogen and their compositions (mol %) were 19.3, 45.6, 31.2, and 3.7%, respectively. Different forms of sulfur were also found to be present, namely, thiophenes, sulfones, sulfuric acid, and sulfates with the molar contents of 16.4, 41.6, 21.3, and 20.5%, respectively. This information will be useful in improvising coal utilization techniques.

In this article, investigated Ni-based Ni 2 CuCrFeAl x (0.5x 2.5) alloys were prepared by powder metallurgy route. On varying x, the alloy changes from single FCC to single BCC with a transition duplex in FCC/BCC region. The severe scattering effect of lattice in these high-entropy alloys was observed by weak x-ray diffraction intensities. Also, owing to this lattice effect, the observed electrical and thermal conductivity are much smaller than those of pure metal components. On a contrary, because of additional scattering effect of FCC/BCC phase boundaries in the alloys, both conductivity values are even higher than those in the duplex phase region. Present work explains the properties of temperature dependant High-Entropy alloys (HEA's) as a potential new class of thermoelectric materials. The thermoelectric properties can be controlled significantly by changing the valence electron concentration via appropriate substitutional elements. Both the electrical and thermal properties were found to decrease with a lower VEC number. These findings highlight the possibility to exploit HEA's as a new class of futuristic high temperature TE materials.where, S is the Seebeck coefficients, s m = = r ne 1 is the resistivity, T is the absolute temperature (in K) and κ tot is total thermal heat conductivity. In thermoelectric materials, the main drawback is its high thermal conductivity. The prime strategy for achieving high performance in thermoelectric materials is determined by maximizing the power factor and minimizing the thermal conductivity. However, these two fundamental quantities are inter-related by three physical quantities (S, σ, and κ tot ) and quantified by a figure of merit (z).To optimize the thermoelectric material's performance, dopants are introduced in the parent compound and simultaneously enhances the scattered heat-carrying phonons via phonon-glass paradigm [2]. The scattering of phonon at the atomic length scale from the rattling of atoms, vacancies, impurities, or the presence of interstitial or substitutional could meets the requirement of high electrical conductivity. For this, glassy structure or disorder structure is mainly required so as to furnish the need of low lattice thermal conductivity as much as possible. The density of disorder can be determined from phonon scattering, and the more disordered, more is the phonon scattering. Moreover, the materials become more substituted from the atoms, and it just raises the complexity in phonon scattering. Subsequently, in crystalline parent compounds, substitutional doping yields site occupational disorder that changes the lattice symmetry.These findings highlight the possibility to exploit High Entropy Alloy's (HEA's) as a new class of futuristic high-temperature TE materials. Crystalline HEA's consists of five constituent elements in equimolar ratios to maximize the configurational entropy [3][4][5]. Generally, crystalline materials are proven thermoelectric materials because of more number of available scattering phonon without anysignificant l...

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BackgroundTuberculosis (TB) is a disease of global concern, especially in countries like India. Pulmonary TB (PTB) and extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) differ a lot when it comes to presentations, treatment, and outcomes. The biochemical and hematological test can serve as a marker reflecting the response to treatment in various types of TB, resulting in a better prognosis. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the biochemical and hematological profiles in patients of extrapulmonary and pulmonary tuberculosis in adults and children. MethodsTB cases were divided into four categories: PTB adult, EPTB adult, PTB pediatrics, and EPTB pediatrics. Forty-nine patients in each category were selected, resulting in a total of 196 patients. The sample size was met via convenience sampling. A total of 27 parameters were compared. Mann-Whitney U tests were used for statistical analysis. ResultsIt was observed that serum calcium levels in PTB cases (11.65, 1.15; median and inter-quartile range (IQR), respectively) were significantly different from those in EPTB cases (9.18, 1.03; p<0.001). The median serum sodium levels in EPTB cases (139.49, 6.86) were higher than in PTB cases (130.10, 5.77; p<0.001). For total platelet count levels, a significant difference was observed between PTB (337.00, 180.75) and EPTB cases (278, 159.25; p=0.006). In EPTB cases, the total red blood count (RBC) count levels (4.47, 0.96) were higher than in PTB cases (4.24, 0.89; p=0.036). Biochemical and hematological parameters between pediatrics and adult age groups were compared, and it was observed that the median values (IQR) of serum phosphorus, total white blood cells (WBC), and platelet count in pediatric cases were 5.16 (1.09), 14.75 (6.03), and 350.00 (155.75), respectively, and were higher from those in adult cases 3.78 (0.97); 8.35 (6.66) and 264 (181.5), respectively (p<0.001). For serum creatinine levels, a significant rise was observed between PTB 0.54 (0.19) and EPTB cases 0.57 (0.16) (p<0.001). It was also observed that alanine transaminase (ALT) levels were higher in adults (18.90 (17.83)) than in the pediatric age group (24.70 (28.67); p=0.042) while alkaline phosphatase (ALP) was higher in the pediatric age group (108.95 (78.37)) than in adults (94.25 (47.92); p=0.003). ConclusionSerum calcium levels and total WBC counts were higher in PTB cases, while the levels of serum sodium and total RBC counts were higher in EPTB cases. ALT, serum phosphorus, total WBC counts, and total platelet counts were higher in the pediatric age group, while ALP, serum urea, and creatinine levels were higher in adults. Increased tissue damage and severity of disease in the pediatric age group, reactive thrombocytosis due to biogenesis in lungs, and abnormal anti-diuretic hormone secretion in PTB cases may be possible explanations for these findings. These findings may help clinicians in the early identification of potential complications, and further studies on these parameters should be conducted.