Detection and Diagnosis of Plant‐Wide Oscillations

This paper presents some emerging techniques for detection and root‐cause diagnosis of plant‐wide oscillations, and demonstrates their efficacy through a successful industrial case study. The recently proposed autocorrelation function based method (Thornhill et al., J. Proc. Control 13, 91–100, 2003a) is used for detection of oscillations in the process measurements. Signals having common oscillations are analyzed for the presence of valve stiction using higher order statistical methods (Choudhury et al., Automatica 40, 1719–1728, 2004b) . A method employing changes in controller gain is proposed for distinguishing an internally generated oscillation from an external oscillatory disturbance. This method of changing controller gain is used to confirm the presence of control valve stiction. The proposed techniques have been used successfully to identify the root cause of plant‐wide oscillations in an industrial case study using routine operating data.     

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Hybrid River Training Works using OpenFOAM

Water Resources Management - Riverbank erosion is widespread in alluvial rivers in India and elsewhere. River training works are frequently used to aid in the prevention of these losses by...     

Simulation of ternary ammonia–water–salt absorption refrigeration cyclesSimulation des cycles frigorifiques à absorption à ammoniac / eau / sel

This paper proposes a new working fluid for refrigeration cycles utilizing low temperature heat sources. The proposed working fluid consists of the ammonia–water working fluid mixture and a salt. The salt is used to aid the removal of ammonia from the liquid solution. This effect is a manifestation of the well known “salting-out” effect. While the addition of salt improves the generator performance, it also has a detrimental effect on the absorber. The overall effects on the performance of three absorption cycles using the NH₃–H₂O–NaOH working fluid have been investigated using computer simulations. The results indicated that salting out can lower the generator operating temperature while simultaneously improving the cycle performance. Furthermore, limiting the salt to the generator suggests potential for further improvement in cycle performance.     

Hysteresis in cloud heights during solid suspension in stirred tank reactor: Experiments and CFD simulations

Solid suspension in stirred tank reactor is widely used in process industries for catalytic reactions, dissolution of solids, crystallization, and so on. Suspension quality is a key issue in design and operation of stirred reactor and its determination is not straight forward. Cloud height measurements of solid suspension provide a relatively simple way to quantify quality of suspension. In this work, experiments were carried out to quantify variation of cloud heights with impeller speed and particle characteristics. These measurements were carried out using visual observations, image analysis, and ultrasound velocity profiler techniques. The obtained data demonstrated the existence of hysteresis in cloud heights with respect to impeller speed. Apart from possible applications in reducing power required for achieving desired solid suspension quality, the existence of hysteresis also provides a new way to evaluate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of solid–liquid flows in stirred vessels. An attempt was made to capture observed hysteresis in cloud heights in CFD simulations. The simulated results were compared with the experimental data. The presented models and results (experimental and computational) will be useful for simulating complex solid–liquid flows in stirred reactors. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2010     

Restricted dynamics of molecular hydrogen confined in activated carbon nanopores

Quasi-elastic neutron scattering was used for characterization of dynamics of molecular hydrogen confined in narrow nanopores of two activated carbon materials: a carbon derived from polyfurfuryl alcohol and an ultramicroporous carbon. Fast, but incomplete ortho–para conversion was observed at 10 K, suggesting that scattering originates from the fraction of unconverted ortho isomer which is rotation-hindered because of confinement in nanopores. Hydrogen molecules entrapped in narrow nanopores (<7 Å) were immobile below 22–25 K. Mobility increased rapidly with temperature above this threshold, which is higher than the melting point of bulk hydrogen (13.9 K). Diffusion obeyed fixed-jump length mechanism, indistinguishable between 2D and 3D processes. Thermal activation of diffusion was characterized between ～22 and 37 K, and structure-dependent differences were found between the two carbons. Activation energy of diffusion was higher than that of bulk solid hydrogen. Classical notions of liquid and solid do not longer apply for H₂ confined in narrow nanopores.     

Green Synthesis of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) for Effective Degradation of Dye,Polyethylene and Antibacterial Performance in Waste Water Treatment

At present, there is a vital need for river water purification by developing new approaches to eliminate bacterial biofilms, textile dyes, and Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) plastics that pose severe threats to human and environmental health. The current work put forward the construction of an eco-friendly green strategy to synthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) using areca nut (Areca catechu) extract and their application to tackle the challenges in water purification. Prepared biogenic NPs were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR), Energy Diffraction Spectroscopy (EDS), Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis, confirmed the spherical shape in 20 nm and UV–vis spectroscopy. The characteristic absorption band exhibited at 326 nm confirmed the formation of ZnO NPs using UV–vis spectroscopy. Among all the tested bacterial pathogens, the E. coli at 50 µg/mL concentration showed the highest inhibition of biofilm activity, followed by the highest growth curve, cellular leakage, and potassium ion efflux. The ZnO NPs observed with photo-degradation of Rhodamine-B (Rh-B), Methylene Blue (MB), and Nigrosine dyes under sunlight irradiation at different time intervals. Finally, the photocatalytic activity of LDPE-ZnO NPs nanocomposite film showed the highest degradation under solar light irradiation were confirmed through photo-induced weight loss, SEM, FTIR, and MALDI-TOF analysis. This study demonstrates ZnO NPs exhibit efficacy against biofilm formation, degradation of photocatalytic textile dyes, and low-density LDPE film under solar light irradiation, which can be a step forward in water purification.

     

Clay‐Assisted dispersion of carbon black in thermoplastic nanocomposites

The poor dispersion of carbon black (CB) in thermoplastic polymers has provided a space for improving the various properties of nanocomposites. In this study, nanoclay (NC) was introduced into CB/thermoplastic composites to improve the dispersion of CB and, finally, to improve the thermal or mechanical performance. We noticed that there was a simultaneous enhancement in the mechanical and thermal performances of the nanocomposites because of the combination of the NC and CB. The information obtained from the mechanical and thermal studies indicated that the properties were improved to an appreciable extent because of the plastic–plastic/CB/NC combination. The tensile strength of polycarbonate (PC) was observed to be enhanced by 9.4% only because of the addition of CB, although when poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) was used as a matrix material along with PC, the tensile strength improved by 25%, although the tensile strength of PMMA is much lower than that of PC. This confirmed that the tensile properties of the polymer composites also depended on the plastic–plastic interaction phenomenon. Moreover, the tensile strengths of the different blended nanocomposites system increased by around 42.5% with the addition of NC. A significant improvement of 22% was achieved in the thermal stability of the PMMA composites with the addition of CB. However, the addition of NC provided further improvement in the thermal decomposition temperature by only 3.7%. This showed that the thermal stability of the polymer nanocomposites was slightly affected by the addition of NC. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41477.     

Thermal,electrical, and mechanical properties of tween 80/span 80–based organogels and its application in iontophoretic drug delivery

The present study describes the preparation and characterization of the Tween 80/Span 80 and sunflower oil–based organogels. Organogels were characterized using microscopy, X‐ray diffraction, thermal, mechanical, and electrical techniques. The properties were found to be dependent on the proportion of the water : surfactant mixture. The in vitro drug release studies were performed under electrical potential. The drug release in the presence of electrical current was compared with the passive drug release. The drug release from the organogels followed the zero‐order kinetics suggesting diffusion mediated release. The preliminary results suggested that the organogels may be used as drug carriers in iontophoretic drug delivery. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41419.