Process Safety for Sustainable Applications

Author(s):  
Alexander Stolar ◽  
Anton Friedl

Process safety techniques have been used in industry for decades to make processes and systems safer and to optimize them, and thus to improve sustainability. Their main aim is to prevent damage to people, equipment and the environment. In this overview, process safety and risk management techniques are shown that can be applied in the different life cycle phases of an application without much implementation effort. A broad and universal applicability in a wide range of business sectors is set as the main focus. In addition to the application of system improvement techniques, a number of additional considerations, such as maintenance and the consideration of abnormal operating conditions, are included in order to be able to comprehensively improve a system or application.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 4220
Author(s):  
Abualkasim Bakeer ◽  
Andrii Chub ◽  
Dmitri Vinnikov ◽  
Argo Rosin

The series resonant DC-DC converter (SRC) can regulate the input voltage in a wide range at a fixed switching frequency. In this work, the bridgeless rectifier, which is utilized intensively in the applications of the power factor correction, has been integrated into the SRC as a voltage step-up cell at the output-side of the SRC. It is shown that the conventional overlapping pulse-width modulation (PWM) of the two metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors MOSFETs in this rectification cell limits the input voltage regulation range of the converter due to excessive power losses in abnormal operating conditions. The abnormal operating conditions occur when the instantaneous voltage across the resonant capacitor is larger than the secondary voltage of the isolation transformer. This happens at high values of the DC voltage gain, i.e., low input voltages and high currents, which causes the resonant current to flow in the reverse direction in the same half-cycle through a parasitic path formed by overlapping PWM of the rectifier MOSFETs. The abnormal operation results in additional conduction loss in the converter as the MOSFETs of the bridgeless boost rectifier turn on at high current at the beginning of each half of the switching period. Accordingly, the overall efficiency of the converter significantly deteriorates. This paper proposes the hybrid PWM aiming to improve the efficiency of the SRC with a bridgeless boost rectifier in a wide input voltage regulation range. The converter swaps between the overlapping and the proposed short-pulse PWM schemes to drive the MOSFETs in the bridgeless boost rectifier. The transition between the two PWM schemes is defined according to the boundary condition that relies upon the operating point of the converter power and the input voltage. The proposed hybrid PWM scheme is analyzed and compared to the overlapping PWM at different levels of the input voltage and the load power. A 300 W prototype was studied in the laboratory to show the feasibility of the proposed hybrid PWM scheme with the closed-loop control system to switch between the two PWM schemes.


Author(s):  
David A. Ansley

The coherence of the electron flux of a transmission electron microscope (TEM) limits the direct application of deconvolution techniques which have been used successfully on unmanned spacecraft programs. The theory assumes noncoherent illumination. Deconvolution of a TEM micrograph will, therefore, in general produce spurious detail rather than improved resolution.A primary goal of our research is to study the performance of several types of linear spatial filters as a function of specimen contrast, phase, and coherence. We have, therefore, developed a one-dimensional analysis and plotting program to simulate a wide 'range of operating conditions of the TEM, including adjustment of the:(1) Specimen amplitude, phase, and separation(2) Illumination wavelength, half-angle, and tilt(3) Objective lens focal length and aperture width(4) Spherical aberration, defocus, and chromatic aberration focus shift(5) Detector gamma, additive, and multiplicative noise constants(6) Type of spatial filter: linear cosine, linear sine, or deterministic


2013 ◽  
pp. 35-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Michelon

The aim of this paper is to study if and how impression management varies during different phases of the legitimation process, in particular during the legitimacy building and legitimacy repairing phases (Suchman, 1995). We aim at understanding whether and how the disclosure tone adopted by a company in the two different moments is diverse and thus functional to the intrinsic objective of the each phase. The empirical analysis focuses on the case of British Petroleum Plc. We investigated the impression management practices undertaken by the company both during the preparation of the rebranding operation, i.e. a situation in which the company is trying to build legitimacy; and during the happenings of two legitimacy crises, like the explosion of the refinery in Texas City and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The evidence appears in line with the theoretical prediction of legitimacy theory. Results show that while the company tends to privilege image enhancement techniques during the legitimacy-building phase, it uses more obfuscation techniques when managing a legitimacy-repairing process. Moreover, the analysis suggests that the company makes more extensive use of impression management techniques in the disclosures addressed to shareholders, investors and other market operators than in the disclosures addressed to the wide range of other stakeholders.


2020 ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
B. O. Bolshakov ◽  
◽  
R. F. Galiakbarov ◽  
A. M. Smyslov ◽  
◽  
...  

The results of the research of structure and properties of a composite compact from 13 Cr – 2 Мо and BN powders depending on the concentration of boron nitride are provided. It is shown that adding boron nitride in an amount of more than 2% by weight of the charge mixture leads to the formation of extended grain boundary porosity and finely dispersed BN layers in the structure, which provides a high level of wearing properties of the material. The effect of boron nitride concentration on physical and mechanical properties is determined. It was found that the introduction of a small amount of BN (up to 2 % by weight) into the compacts leads to an increase in plasticity, bending strength, and toughness by reducing the friction forces between the metal powder particles during pressing and a more complete grain boundary diffusion process during sintering. The formation of a regulated structure-phase composition of powder compacts of 13 Cr – 2 Mо – BN when the content of boron nitride changes in them allows us to provide the specified physical and mechanical properties in a wide range. The obtained results of studies of the physical and mechanical characteristics of the developed material allow us to reasonably choose the necessary composition of the powder compact for sealing structures of the flow part of steam turbines, depending on their operating conditions.


1984 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
D. Prasad ◽  
J.G. Henry ◽  
P. Elefsiniotis

Abstract Laboratory studies were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of diffused aeration for the removal of ammonia from the effluent of an anaerobic filter treating leachate. The effects of pH, temperature and air flow on the process were studied. The coefficient of desorption of ammonia, KD for the anaerobic filter effluent (TKN 75 mg/L with NH3-N 88%) was determined at pH values of 9, 10 and 11, temperatures of 10, 15, 20, 30 and 35°C, and air flow rates of 50, 120, and 190 cm3/sec/L. Results indicated that nitrogen removal from the effluent of anaerobic filters by ammonia desorption was feasible. Removals exceeding 90% were obtained with 8 hours aeration at pH of 10, a temperature of 20°C, and an air flow rate of 190 cm3/sec/L. Ammonia desorption coefficients, KD, determined at other temperatures and air flow rates can be used to predict ammonia removals under a wide range of operating conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8620
Author(s):  
Sanaz Salehi ◽  
Kourosh Abdollahi ◽  
Reza Panahi ◽  
Nejat Rahmanian ◽  
Mozaffar Shakeri ◽  
...  

Phenol and its derivatives are hazardous, teratogenic and mutagenic, and have gained significant attention in recent years due to their high toxicity even at low concentrations. Phenolic compounds appear in petroleum refinery wastewater from several sources, such as the neutralized spent caustic waste streams, the tank water drain, the desalter effluent and the production unit. Therefore, effective treatments of such wastewaters are crucial. Conventional techniques used to treat these wastewaters pose several drawbacks, such as incomplete or low efficient removal of phenols. Recently, biocatalysts have attracted much attention for the sustainable and effective removal of toxic chemicals like phenols from wastewaters. The advantages of biocatalytic processes over the conventional treatment methods are their ability to operate over a wide range of operating conditions, low consumption of oxidants, simpler process control, and no delays or shock loading effects associated with the start-up/shutdown of the plant. Among different biocatalysts, oxidoreductases (i.e., tyrosinase, laccase and horseradish peroxidase) are known as green catalysts with massive potentialities to sustainably tackle phenolic contaminants of high concerns. Such enzymes mainly catalyze the o-hydroxylation of a broad spectrum of environmentally related contaminants into their corresponding o-diphenols. This review covers the latest advancement regarding the exploitation of these enzymes for sustainable oxidation of phenolic compounds in wastewater, and suggests a way forward.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Du ◽  
Zixin Xiong ◽  
Luis Delgado ◽  
Weizhi Liao ◽  
Joseph Peoples ◽  
...  

AbstractThermal switches have gained intense interest recently for enabling dynamic thermal management of electronic devices and batteries that need to function at dramatically varied ambient or operating conditions. However, current approaches have limitations such as the lack of continuous tunability, low switching ratio, low speed, and not being scalable. Here, a continuously tunable, wide-range, and fast thermal switching approach is proposed and demonstrated using compressible graphene composite foams. Large (~8x) continuous tuning of the thermal resistance is achieved from the uncompressed to the fully compressed state. Environmental chamber experiments show that our variable thermal resistor can precisely stabilize the operating temperature of a heat generating device while the ambient temperature varies continuously by ~10 °C or the heat generation rate varies by a factor of 2.7. This thermal device is promising for dynamic control of operating temperatures in battery thermal management, space conditioning, vehicle thermal comfort, and thermal energy storage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Gillard ◽  
Ian M. Griffiths ◽  
Gautham Ragunathan ◽  
Ata Ulhaq ◽  
Callum McEwan ◽  
...  

AbstractCombining external control with long spin lifetime and coherence is a key challenge for solid state spin qubits. Tunnel coupling with electron Fermi reservoir provides robust charge state control in semiconductor quantum dots, but results in undesired relaxation of electron and nuclear spins through mechanisms that lack complete understanding. Here, we unravel the contributions of tunnelling-assisted and phonon-assisted spin relaxation mechanisms by systematically adjusting the tunnelling coupling in a wide range, including the limit of an isolated quantum dot. These experiments reveal fundamental limits and trade-offs of quantum dot spin dynamics: while reduced tunnelling can be used to achieve electron spin qubit lifetimes exceeding 1 s, the optical spin initialisation fidelity is reduced below 80%, limited by Auger recombination. Comprehensive understanding of electron-nuclear spin relaxation attained here provides a roadmap for design of the optimal operating conditions in quantum dot spin qubits.


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