In recent years, the use of functional textiles has attained attention due to their advantageous health and safety issues. Therefore, this study investigated the flame retardancy on cotton (COT) and polyester-cotton (PC) fabrics treated with different concentrations of silica and zinc nanoparticles through a sol-gel finishing technique. FTIR, SEM, and TGA were conducted for the characterization of coated fabric samples. The FTIR and SEM of Pristine and Treated Cotton and PC fabrics illustrated that the SiO₂ (silica dioxide) and ZnO (Zinc oxide) nanoparticles were homogeneously attached to the fiber surface, which contributed to the enhancement of the thermal stability. The starting thermal degradation improved from 320 to 350 °C and maximum degradation was observed from 400 to 428 °C for the COT-2 cotton substrate. However, the initial thermal degradation improved from 310 to 319 °C and the highest degradation from 500 to 524 °C for the PC substrate PC-2. The outcomes revealed that the silica has a greater influence on the thermal properties of COT and PC fabric samples. Additionally, the tensile strength and flexural rigidity of the treated samples were improved with an insignificant decrease in air permeability.

The properties of 3 binary mixtures containing piperazine were investigated in this work. In a first step, the densities for the two binary mixtures (piperazine + methanol) and (piperazine + acetone) were measured in the temperature range of 293.15 to 328.15 K and 293.15 to 323.15 K, respectively, at atmospheric pressure by using a Rudolph research analytical density meter (DDM 2911). The concentration of piperazine in the (piperazine + methanol) mixture was varied from 0.6978 to 14.007 mol/kg, and the concentration of piperazine in the (piperazine + acetone) mixture was varied from 0.3478 to 1.8834 mol/kg. On the other hand, the density data for the (piperazine + water) mixture were taken from the literature in the temperature range of 298.15 to 328.15 K. In a second step, for the 3 investigated systems, the apparent molar volume (Vϕ) and the limiting apparent molar volume (Vϕ0) at infinite dilution were calculated using the Redlich–Mayer equation. The limiting apparent molar volumes (Vϕ0) were used to study the influence of the solute-solvent and solute-solute interactions. The temperature dependency of the apparent molar volumes was used to estimate the apparent molar expansibility, Hepler’s constant ∂2Vϕ0/∂T2P, and isobaric thermal expansion coefficients αP.

Co-liquefaction of Thar coal with waste plastic and waste oil was carried out to get high-quality fuel from waste. Four major variables, temperature, residence time, hydrogen pressure and coal: waste plastic ratio, oil: coal and oil: waste plastic ratios were investigated. According to results, maximum oil yield was obtained at 400°C temperature, 100psi pressure, 60 min residence time, and oil: coal: waste plastic ratios of 6:2:2. An FTIR result and ¹³C NMR analysis have shown extracted oil contains almost 84% aliphatic compounds and 16% aromatic compounds. Among aliphatic, there is more %age of diesel fraction. Extracted residue can also be used as a fuel in cement industry and in power generation plants because it contains almost 83–84% carbon with less than 1% sulfur.

In this work, the transesterification process was adopted to convert used vegetable oil into biodiesel, while using KOH as catalyst. Ethyl ester was produced with mixed feedstock of various waste cooking oils that had a free fatty acids (FFA) content of 2.5%. The catalyst concentration of 1.25% w/w and ethanol to oil molar ratio of 6:1 were found to be optimum at a temperature of 343.15 K. The blending of petroleum diesel with produced ethyl ester was found to be more advantageous as the densities and kinematic viscosities of mixtures are slightly increased compared with the petroleum-diesel. Important fuel parameters such as viscosity, density, flash point, pour point and higher heating value (HHV) were characterized according to ASTM standards.