Influence of oil phase concentration on droplet size distribution and stability of oil‐in‐water emulsions

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of oil phase concentration, at different emulsification conditions concerning homogenization time and emulsifier content, on droplet size distribution and stability of corn oil‐in‐water emulsions. Emulsions were prepared with 3, 5, 10, and 20% w/w triethanolamine oleate (calculated on oil amount), 0.53% w/w carboxymethylcellulose (calculated on water amount), and 5, 10, 20, 30, or 40% w/w oil, and homogenized 5, 10, 20, and 60 min. It was found that increase in oil phase concentration led to decrease in specific surface area and increase in polydispersity of emulsion at lower emulsifier concentration and less intense homogenization. At emulsifier concentrations ≤10% and homogenization time ranges of 20–60 min the non‐monotonous variation in droplet size parameters with oil concentration was observed, as a result of the interaction between triethanolamine oleate and carboxymethylcellulose, which were confirmed by viscosity measurements. However, at emulsifier concentration of 20% an increase in specific surface area and decrease in polydispersity with the increase in oil concentration occurred due to an increase in equilibrium concentration of emulsifier in the continuous phase. Further, influence of oil concentration on emulsion creaming stability was found to be independent on emulsifier concentration and homogenization time. Therefore, a decrease in creaming with increase in oil concentration was observed in all the examined triethanolamine oleate (TEAO) concentration and homogenization time ranges. Practical applications: Emulsions are colloidal systems which can be encountered in different industrial sectors, such as food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, oil industry, etc. Determination of the droplet size of emulsion is probably the most important way of their characterization, since it influences the properties of emulsion such as rheology, texture, shelf life stability, appearance, taste, etc. The size of the droplets depends on a wide range of parameters. One of them is certainly the concentration of the oil phase. However, since the impact of one parameter is often influenced with the intensity of the other variable involved in the emulsion generation, the aim of the present work was to examine the effect of corn oil concentration on droplet size parameters and stability of oil‐in‐water emulsions at different emulsification conditions. Therefore a step toward creation of emulsions with desired final properties was made.     

Synthesis and characterization of green urethane non-isocyanate from oleic acid for wood composite application

Conventional polyurethane (PU) is usually synthesized by a reaction between isocyanate and polyol. The use of isocyanate compounds is associated with significant health and environmental problems. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an environmentally friendly alternative method for manufacturing PUs without isocyanate routes. The aim of this research work was to synthesize green urethane from oleic acid, which included the following three stages: the synthesis of epoxidized oleic acid (EOA), the synthesis of carbonated oleic acid (COA), and the synthesis of green urethane from oleic acid (UOA). The resulting product was characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analyses, and by determining the iodine number, oxirane number, and hydroxyl value. The results of FTIR and NMR showed that EOA was successfully synthesized. The optimum COA synthesis process was obtained on TBAB catalyst usage of 1% (wt/wt) at 140°C for 48 h with a 500-rpm stirring rate and CO₂ gas flow rate of 0.2 mL/min with the resulting COA oxirane value of 0.00. The optimum condition of UOA synthesis through the aminolysis process resulted in the use of LiCl of 19.8% (wt/wt) at 70°C for 3 h with a stirring speed of 1200 rpm with a UOA hydroxyl number generated of 237.93 mg/mL.     

US-fluoroscopy registration for transcatheter aortic valve implantation

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation is a minimally invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for aortic stenosis in which a stent-based bioprosthetic valve is delivered into the heart on a catheter. Limited visualization during this procedure can lead to severe complications. Improved visualization can be provided by live registration of transesophageal echo (TEE) and fluoroscopy images intraoperatively. Since the TEE probe is always visible in the fluoroscopy image, it is possible to track it using fiducial-based single-perspective pose estimation. In this study, inherent probe tracking performance was assessed, and TEE to fluoroscopy registration accuracy and robustness were evaluated. Results demonstrated probe tracking errors of below 0.6 mm and 0.2°, a 2-D RMS registration error of 1.5 mm, and a tracking failure rate of below 1%. In addition to providing live registration and better accuracy and robustness compared to existing TEE probe tracking methods, this system is designed to be suitable for clinical use. It is fully automatic, requires no additional operating room hardware, does not require intraoperative calibration, maintains existing procedure and imaging workflow without modification, and can be implemented in all cardiac centers at extremely low cost.     

Measurement uncertainty of adaptive Chirp-z transform

In this paper analysis of measurement uncertainty of Adaptive Chirp-z transform (ACT) algorithm for power frequency measurement is presented. ACT is a new algorithm developed for real time monitoring of power frequency. Every element (hardware and software) of measurement chain is contributing to the total measurement uncertainty. The analysis of passive voltage dividers, analog-to-digital converters, numeric algorithms and processors (word length and type of arithmetic) are also presented. Estimated values of each contributing part of measurement chain are calculated to the final expression of measurement uncertainty.     

Adaptive Chirp Transform for frequency measurement

In this paper Adaptive Chirp Transform (ACT) algorithm for power frequency measurement is presented. It is adjusted for continuous monitoring of power frequency. Signal is first preprocessed with adaptive filter to minimize the error of non-linear model parameters. The resulting parameters are used to narrow the frequency range for CZT method to be effective. Algorithm code has been analyzed and computation complexity has been significantly decreased. Using this algorithm it is possible to measure frequency transients with sufficient accuracy and low execution time. Algorithm is verified through simulations and real-time data.     

Cognitive Mesh Network Under Interference from Primary User

In a commonly accepted usage scenario, a cognitive radio appears as a secondary user of certain spectrum which is licensed to another, primary system. A prominent example of cognitive system is a mesh network operating under the interference from primary system. For such a scenario, we propose techniques for efficient secondary usage of spectrum, which rely on the adaptive array antenna in order to reduce the interference between the primary and the cognitive system. In order to keep the hardware complexity as small as possible, the number of antennas at each cognitive node should be small. However, with the simplest 2-element linear adaptive array, the created antenna pattern can result in non-optimized pattern between cognitive nodes in the mesh network. In order to solve such a problem, this paper introduces a simple antenna pattern switching where each cognitive node is equipped with three antennas, and tries to select the antenna configuration constituting 2-element linear array with the best antenna pattern for each link. The proposed configuration requires three antennas but only two transceiver chains, which can reduce the hardware complexity. We also introduce 3-element linear array and design a simple procedure to heuristically select the pattern. Our numerical results show that the proposed techniques can significantly increase the available bandwidth and networking connectivity with small complexity when a cognitive mesh network is located inside the communication area of the primary system.

Effects of xanthan gum on physicochemical properties and stability of corn oil-in-water emulsions stabilized by polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monooleate

The influence of added xanthan gum on rheological and dispersion characteristics and stability of concentrated (50% w/w) corn oil-in-water emulsions, stabilized with 5% (percentage on oil amount) polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monooleate (Tween 80), have been investigated. Emulsion with no xanthan indicated coalescence and poor creaming stability. All emulsions, with and without xanthan, showed shear-thinning flow behavior. Addition of xanthan protected emulsions from coalescence during 15 days of storage. Increase in xanthan concentration led to decrease in droplet average radius and creaming index, and increase in elastic properties of emulsions. Decrease in the emulsions flow behavior indexes, which suggested the extent of non-Newtonian behavior of emulsions, was influenced by increase in xanthan concentration. Above 0.04% of xanthan concentration, G′ and G″ values indicated formation of weak gels. Gel structure existence arises from droplet network association, due to depletion flocculation. Standard deviation of emulsions droplet size mean diameter decreased while concentration of added xanthan increased.     

Short communication: Cheese supplemented with Thymus algeriensis oil,a potential natural food preservative

The essential oil of Thymus algeriensis was analyzed as a potential preservative in soft cheese. We developed a novel method to test the preserving properties of essential oil in soft cheese. Contamination incidence of Penicillium aurantiogriseum was absent after 30 d of storage at 4°C with 25 µL of essential oil added. The antimicrobial activity was tested against 8 bacteria and 8 fungi. Thymus algeriensis oil showed inhibitory activity against tested bacteria at 0.03 to 0.09 mg/mL, and bactericidal activity was achieved at 0.05 to 0.15 mg/mL. For antifungal activity, minimum inhibitory concentrations ranged between 0.01 and 0.04 mg/mL and minimum fungicidal concentrations between 0.01 and 0.04 mg/mL. Furthermore, the oil was also screened for antiradical activity using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl assay. The results showed that the oil was active and achieved half-maximal inhibitory activity at 0.132 mg/mL. We used gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry to investigate the volatile compounds from the oil. Carvacrol was identified as the main compound in the oil, represented by 80.9% of the total constituents, followed by p-cymene (7.7%).     

Process integration for energy and water saving,increasing efficiency and reducing environmental impact

This article provides an introduction to the current Special Issue of the journal of Applied Thermal Engineering, which contains eight carefully selected articles from the 12th Conference Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction – PRES’09. This issue builds upon the multi-year co-operation between the PRES conference planners and the journal. The articles cover important subjects of increased energy and resource efficiency in industrial production and emission reduction. The first paper is based on the conference plenary presentation and is providing an overview of the historical developments in the Process Integration (PI) area and the apparently significant contribution of the PRES series of conferences. This is followed by a second group of two papers dedicated to important PI topics – retrofit of Heat Exchanger Networks and simultaneous minimisation of water and energy consumption. The third group contains three contributions dedicated to energy savings via the application of PI in specific industrial sectors. The final fourth group of two papers is dedicated to the implementation of energy conversion technologies. Those papers are discussing environmental impact of waste-to-energy processes and heat exchanger improvements.     

Adaptive control of systems with unknown non-smooth non-linearities

In this paper we unify our recent results in adaptive control of systems with unknown non-smooth non-linearities such as dead-zone, backlash and hysteresis characteristics at the input or output of a linear dynamics. Our adaptive inverse approach employs an adaptive controller structure consisting of an adaptive inverse for cancelling the effect of an unknown non-linearity and a fixed (or adaptive) linear control law for a known (or unknown) linear dynamics. Despite the bilinear dependence on the unknown parameters, a linearly parametrized error system is constructed which enables us to design robust adaptive laws for updating the controller parameters to ensure closed loop signal boundedness and improve system tracking performance. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.