A soil moisture deficiency is causing warning conditions in 47% of Europe (2022). Due to the exponential growth of the world's population and ecological degradation, which has resulted in climate change, soil infertility, and water scarcity, future food shortages, food… Leggi tutto security is a worldwide concern. Additionally, an excessive reliance on dry inorganic fertilizers (DIF) in continuous agricultural cycles has resulted in a decline in the primal nutrient content of the soil, which has decreased agricultural output (depleted crop quality and food yield) and environmental nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) losses from volatilization, denitrification, leaching, and runoff. There are several alternative polymer coated fertilizers (PCF) in the market, however they have drawbacks such unpredictable nutrient release, ageing effects, excessive coating material consumption, potential for hazardous waste production after coating, etc. To ensure a controlled release of NPK, we wish to develop a novel coating method for DIFs using non thermal plasma in this proposed study (PFSA). PFSA will thus build a Rotating Pulsed Plasma Reactor (RPPR) with internal baffles. The coating will be achieved by using Methacrylic acid (MAA) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) as the two main acrylic monomer vapors that will be delivered into the plasma regime to produce a complex chemistry of acrylic molecule fragmentations that would attach to the DIF surface during the OFF time of the pulse. The plasma I-V, diagnostics evaluation will be performed and pulsed plasma coated DIF release kinetics as well as their physico-chemical characterizations are planned to understand their pre-applications. The suggested coatings would emulate hydrogel-type coatings that swell in the humid environment and retain moisture in addition to acting as pH sensitive barriers. Finally, the environmental losses will be evaluated for the pulsed plasma coated DIFs by collecting samples from the farm and analyzed in lab.

My project will enable unprecedented measurements for cosmology and fundamental physics, thanks to a prototype calibrator for a novel method to measure the angle of the polarization plane of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Polarization orientation systematics currently limit our ability… Leggi tutto to constrain cosmological parameters. PROTOCALC will provide a prototype calibration source to overcome this limit, dramatically improving instrumental accuracy. This experimental method will also enable us to discover (or place extremely tight limits on) paradigm shifting phenomena through Cosmic Birefringence, a departure from Standard Model. During the 2-year program I will develop, build and deploy a prototype for a novel precision calibrator making use of microwave sources between 40 and 150 GHz coupled to precise polarizing filters. The orientation of the source polarization plane will be measured by star cameras and gyroscopes with arcsecond accuracy. PROTOCALC will take advantage of my and the supervisor's ongoing participation in the Simons Observatory which already includes the AdvACTPol and Simons Array projects, and will operate from the same site in the Atacama desert in Chile. Our project will operate from from a drone flying in sight of the telescope, allowing high elevation, far field measurements. This project will show the feasibility for polarization angle and beam calibrators for future CMB polarimeters.