Adsorption onto fluidized powdered activated carbon flocs-pACF

This work presents a new adsorption technique where the adsorbent (powdered activated carbon-PAC) is in the form of suspended flocs formed with water-soluble polymer flocculants. Thus, the adsorption of a typical dye, methylene blue (MB), was studied onto polyacrylamide flocs of PAC (PACF) in a fluidized bed reactor. The technique is based on the fact that the adsorption capacity of PAC does not decrease after flocculation because the adsorbed polymer occupies only a few surface sites, in the form of trains, loops, and tails. Moreover, the adsorption was found to proceed through a rapid mass transfer of MB to the adsorbing PAC flocs, in the same extent as onto PAC. Because of the rapid settling characteristics of the aggregates formed, the two phase separations, loaded PAC and solution, become easier. Thus, the technique offers the advantages of conducting simultaneously both adsorption and solid/liquid separation all in one single stage. Results obtained showed that high MB removal values can be attained in a fluidized bed reactor (>90%) and that PACF presents a much higher adsorption capacity (breakthrough points) than granulated activated carbon (GAC) in the same adsorbing bed. It is believed that this technique highly broadens the potential of the use of powdered activated carbon or other similar ultrafine adsorbents.     

LiF enhanced nucleation of the low temperature microcrystalline silicon prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition

A 15-nm lithium fluoride (LiF) thin film evaporated on glass substrate is shown to enhance the nucleation of microcrystalline Si grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition at the amorphous/microcrystalline boundary conditions. The effect is more pronounced at low substrate temperatures, nucleation density being 10 times higher at ∼ 80 °C. The effect is ascribed to the ionic chemical nature of LiF, the low work function material used in organic electronic devices, and we propose its use for micro patterning crystalline Si regions in otherwise amorphous Si film.     

Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection

Is it possible that a measurement of a spin component of a spin-1/2 particle yields the value 100? In 1988 Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman argued that upon pre-and...     

Effects of solid retention time on anaerobic digestion of dewatered-sewage sludge in mesophilic and thermophilic conditions

Anaerobic digestion of dewatered-sewage sludge using continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) in duplicates was evaluated under thermophilic (50 °C) and mesophilic (37 °C) conditions over a range of nine solid retention times (SRTs). The 35- and 30-day SRTs were designed to simulate a full-scale plant operation while 25-, 20-, 15- and 12-day SRTs were planned to evaluate process performance at the various SRTs. The 9-, 5- and 3-day SRTs were performed to push the reactors to extend their degradation capacity and test the threshold for process imbalance. The corresponding organic loading rates (OLR) varied from 1.6 to 20.5 kg VS m^?3 day^?1. Biogas production rate could be tripled when the SRT was shortened from 30 to 12 days and more than doubled from 35- to 15-day SRT because of a concomitant increase in OLR. In general, higher biogas productivity was realized under thermophilic, but methane yields were comparable due to the higher methane content in the biogas under mesophilic digestion. The methane content in biogas fluctuated between 55 and 65% and the methane yield ranged from 0.314 to 0.348 Nm³ CH₄ kg VS_added^?1 day^?1 for both thermophilic and mesophilic digestion. The VS-reduction at 12- and 15-day SRT ranged from 45 to 52% and there was no accumulation of VFAs. Increasing concentrations of VFAs, decreasing concentration of partial alkalinity and decrease in pH were noted as signs of reactor instability. Process imbalance started at 9-day SRT, souring of the reactors, cell wash-out and foaming was noted as the principal causes of process failure under both thermophilic and mesophilic conditions. This study projected the possibility of using CSTRs in treating dewatered-sewage sludge at a shorter SRT to achieve reasonable biogas production and VS-reduction without encountering adverse operation conditions as foaming and wash-out of cells.     

Recording of holographic diffraction gratings in photopolymers: Theoretical modelling and real-time monitoring of grating growth

Abstract

Recording of holographic volume diffraction gratings in Du Pont's photopolymer HRS-150 is studied theoretically and experimentally. Particular attention is paid to the dynamics of the recording process. The temporal evolution of holographic gratings is monitored for a range of illumination intensities in two ways: (i) by means of a multiple-exposure approach when intensity profiles of recording beams are uniform, many holographic exposures are necessary and each exposure is carried out for a particular value of the total illumination intensity; (ii) by means of a single-exposure approach when intensity profiles of recording beams are strongly Gaussian and a volume grating with spatially distributed diffraction efficiency arises, depending on a local (average) value of the total illumination intensity. The second approach proves to be a useful tool providing us very quickly with qualitative information about the dynamics of the recording process while the first one, which is much more time-consuming, is more reliable for quantitative evaluations. The grating evolution is analysed theoretically by means of the well known photopolymerization-diffusion model. Discrepancies are found between the model and experimental results for low illumination intensities while qualitative agreement is found for higher intensities. For a given grating period, the discrepancies are interpreted in terms of insufficient change of the refractive index due to photopolymerization for low illumination intensities.     

Integrodifferential approach to solution of eddy currents in linear structures with motion

A nonstandard integrodifferential approach to computation of eddy currents in linear structures with motion is presented. Described is a general continuous 3D model of the problem, together with the possibilities of forming corresponding numerical schemes. The methodology is illustrated by two examples.     

Identification of quasi-optimal regions in the design space using surrogate modeling

The use of Surrogate Based Optimization (SBO) is widely spread in engineering design to find optimal performance characteristics of expensive simulations (forward analysis: from input to optimal output). However, often the practitioner knows a priori the desired performance and is interested in finding the associated input parameters (reverse analysis: from desired output to input). A popular method to solve such reverse (inverse) problems is to minimize the error between the simulated performance and the desired goal. However, there might be multiple quasi-optimal solutions to the problem. In this paper, the authors propose a novel method to efficiently solve inverse problems and to sample Quasi-Optimal Regions (QORs) in the input (design) space more densely. The development of this technique, based on the probability of improvement criterion and kriging models, is driven by a real-life problem from bio-mechanics, i.e., determining the elasticity of the (rabbit) tympanic membrane, a membrane that converts acoustic sound wave into vibrations of the middle ear ossicular bones.     

Using non-food information to identify food-choice segment membership

Food companies, governments, and societal organizations use an increasing number of food-choice motives to persuade consumers to buy food products, and the question which combinations of motives matter for which type of consumer has become of central relevance. In this study, we use a concomitant mixture-modeling approach to uncover consumer segments in terms of food-choice motives, using a nationwide sample in the Netherlands. The results reveal seven segments with distinct profiles and demonstrate that age and membership of environmental organizations play an essential role in segment membership probabilities. Our findings support the idea that information about non-food-related consumer behavior improves the identification of segments. In an additional analysis, we demonstrate how organizational membership also provides an effective way to access consumer segments as compared to diverse media outlets. We discuss the implications of our findings for segmentation practice.