The in-plane permeability is an important property of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell. It governs the transport of reactants and water vapor from the channel to the GDL regions under the land of the bipolar plate, and the bulk mass transport in the case of interdigitated flow fields. The current focus in literature has been on studying the effect of porosit...

Biodegradable chitosan can be applied as a coating on the surface of kraft paper in order to improve its barrier properties against water vapor and air. The food packaging industry can benefit from the addition of chitosan to its current packaging, and in turn reduce pollution from plastic packaging plants. This paper discusses the film formation of chitosan, the permeability of paper coated wi...

Edible films and coatings in foods can be used to increase shelf-life and improve organoleptic characteristics of foods by avoiding deterioration of food components and therefore promoting preservation of the final product. This study is the first to investigate the use of different size fillers for the purpose of preparing edible composite films with fillers < 1.0 microm in size. For this purp...

A comprehensive literature review was performed to create an inventory of thermal-physiological quantities for fabrics from different fiber materials, material blends, and fabric structures. The goal derive over-arching concepts that cannot be seen by the individual studies alone. Equations best fits suggest non-linear changes thickness, thermal water-vapor resistance with in blend ratio. Air p...

Direct contact membrane distillation process has been studied using microporous polytetrafluoroethylene and polyvinylidene fluoride membranes. The membranes were characterized in terms of their non-wettability, pore size distribution and porosity. The mean pore sizes and pore size distributions were obtained by means of wet/ dry flow method. The mean pore size and the e¤ective porosity of the m...

The objective of the present study was to apply the polysaccharides from different nontraditional sources for cheese coatings. Chitosan, galactomannan from Gleditsia triacanthos, and agar from Glacilaria birdiae were tested, with different formulations and with the addition of plasticizer and corn oil. The surface properties of the cheese and the wetting capacity of the coatings on the cheese w...

Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to clothing and equipment designed to protect individuals from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive hazards. The materials used to provide this protection may exacerbate thermal strain by limiting heat and water vapor transfer. Any new PPE must therefore be evaluated to ensure that it poses no greater thermal strain than the curre...

Gas and vapor transport properties were studied in mixed matrix membranes containing elastomeric ethylene-octene copolymer (EOC or poly(ethylene-co-octene)) with three types of carbon fillers: virgin or oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon fibers (CFs). Helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide were used for gas permeation rate measurements. Vapor trans...

Understanding the mode of transport of water vapor through the film is important for improving the moisture barrier properties of wheat gluten (WG) films. Effective permeability (Peff), solubility (Seff), and diffusion (Deff) coefficients of a hydrophilic cast WG film were determined at 25°C within the relative humidity (RH) range of 0–84% (with a 9–13% RH gradient between upstream and downstre...