Assessment of thermal performance improvement of GT-MHR by waste heat utilization in power generation and hydrogen production

The Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor (GT-MHR) uses two compression stages to compress the helium and a pre-cooler and an intercooler to reduce the compressors inlet temperature, that dissipate around 308.36 MW_th at the design operational conditions. This dissipated thermal energy can be used as an energy source to produce hydrogen. An energy analysis is conducted for a proposed system that includes GT-MHR combined with Organic Rankine Cycle (GT-MHR/ORC) and a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer (GT-MHR/ORC-PEM) for hydrogen production. The optimum operating parameters values of the new cycle are obtained using the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software. Thermal efficiency has been improved from 48.6% for the simple GT-MHR cycle to 49.8% for the new combined (GT-MHR/ORC-PEM) cycle including hydrogen production at a rate of 0.0644 kg/s at the same operating conditions. However, the thermal efficiency for the combined GT-MHR/ORC was higher and reaches 50.68%. Moreover, a parametric study is carried out over a wide range of some operating conditions such as turbine inlet temperature, Compressor pressure ratio and compressor inlet temperature to investigate their effect on the new cycle performance. Results revealed that increasing the low-pressure compressor inlet temperature increases the amount of hydrogen produced while decreasing thermal efficiencies for the three cycles. Furthermore, increasing compressor pressure ratio reduces the mass flow rate of hydrogen produced util it reaches a minimum value then it starts to increase slightly, on the contrary, an opposite relationship is observed between thermal efficiencies and compressor pressure ratio. Moreover, at low compressor pressure ratio, the rate of hydrogen produced increases with increasing turbine inlet temperature; however, it decreases by increasing the turbine inlet temperature at high compressor pressure ratio. Nevertheless, a direct correlation is noticed between thermal efficiencies and turbine inlet temperature.     

Acute obstructive renal failure. Analysis of 28 cases

This retrospective study is concerned 28 patients hospitalized with acute obstructive renal failure at the department of nephrology in UHC Ibn-Rochd between 1988 and 1995. The objective of this study was to determine the clinical, étiological, therapeutical and evolutive aspects of the acute obstructive renal failure. It concerned 21 men and 7 women, their mean age is 52 years old. The main symptoms were anuria (85%) and lumbar pain (75%), the mean delay of consultation was 42 days. The diagnosis of the acute obstructive renal function and the presence of obstacle on the upper urinary tract. The obstacle was a stone in 19 cases, cancer in 8 cases and one case of retroperitoneal fibrosis was noted. Treatment of the cause was done whenever possible. Treatment was often palliative in the tumoral pathology. We observed 3 deaths (10.5%), 16 recoveries (58%), 6 cases of residual renal failure (21%), 3 cases of terminal chronic renal failure (10.5%) and 4 cases of recurrence. The lithiasic etiology of acute obstructive renal failure led to a high short-term mortality (15.5%), an effective etiologic causative treatment (69.5%) and a high rate or restoration of the renal function (69.5%). On the other hand, in the neoplastic etiology, there were no short-term mortality, but a frequent course to chronic renal failure.     

Bandwidth Overlap Factor for Feasible Coexistence of LTE-A and Point to Multipoint LMDS Systems

The necessity to share the radio spectrum becomes highly significant in the recent time due to emerging new wireless technologies and, the cost and difficulty in attaining new frequency spectrum licenses. However, spectrum sharing leads to substantial interference between the close systems especially in the same frequency band. In this paper, we present a spectrum sharing scheme to investigate coexistence feasibility results in interference from orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) into point to multipoint (P-MP) local multipoint distribution service (LMDS). This method proposes a spectrum frequency mask for the OFDM-based LTE-A according to bandwidth overlapping method with the P-MP LMDS system. The relative power spectral density of the proposed spectrum emission mask due to bandwidth overlap has been mathematically derived in a more compact closed-form. It shows smoother and 1.7 dB less than that of traditional OFDM mask in the main spectrum bandwidth which in turn leads to reduce the interference effects to LMDS system. The coexistence coordination studies are made at the frequency of 3500 MHz, on the base of co-primary operation and co-located systems. The numerical results demonstrate that the difference in amount of the required carrier frequency for safe coexistence increases as LMDS sector size increases. In addition, OFDM system with small channel bandwidth is much more affected than the wider channel bandwidth in terms of the necessary minimum guard bandwidth for harmless coexistence when the LMDS cell size changes from 0.5 to 3 km².     

Electron transport in dye-sanitized solar cell with tin-doped titanium dioxide as photoanode materials

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Pure and tin-incorporated TiO2 (Sn-TiO2) nanoparticles were prepared utilizing photolysis method. Field emission-scanning electron...     

Identification of Proteins of Altered Abundance in Oil Palm Infected with Ganoderma boninense

Basal stem rot is a common disease that affects oil palm, causing loss of yield and finally killing the trees. The disease, caused by fungus Ganoderma boninense, devastates thousands of hectares of oil palm plantings in Southeast Asia every year. In the present study, root proteins of healthy oil palm seedlings, and those infected with G. boninense, were analyzed by 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). When the 2-DE profiles were analyzed for proteins, which exhibit consistent significant change of abundance upon infection with G. boninense, 21 passed our screening criteria. Subsequent analyses by mass spectrometry and database search identified caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase, caffeic acid O-methyltransferase, enolase, fructokinase, cysteine synthase, malate dehydrogenase, and ATP synthase as among proteins of which abundances were markedly altered.     

Association between spinal loads and the psychophysical determination of maximum acceptable force during pushing tasks

The objective of this study was to investigate potential associations between an individual's psychophysical maximum acceptable force (MAF) during pushing tasks and biomechanical tissue loads within the lumbar spine. Ten subjects (eight males, two females) pushed a cart with an unknown weight at one push every two minute for a distance of 3.9 m. Two independent variables were investigated, cart control and handle orientation while evaluating their association with the MAF. Dependent variables of hand force and tissue loads for each MAF determination and preceding push trial were assessed using a validated, electromyography-assisted biomechanical model that calculated spinal load distribution throughout the lumbar spine. Results showed no association between spinal loads and the MAF. Only hand forces were associated with the MAF. Therefore, MAFs may be dependent upon tactile sensations from the hands, not the loads on the spine and thus may be unrelated to risk of low back injury.

Practitioner Summary: Pushing tasks have become common in manual materials handling (MMH) and these tasks impose different tissue loads compared to lifting tasks. Industry has commonly used the psychophysical tables for job assent and decision of MMH tasks. However, due to the biomechanical complexity of pushing tasks, psychophysics may be misinterpreting risk.