scholarly journals Rapid microwave-assisted seeding and secondary growth synthesis of ZIF-8 membrane for propylene/propane separation

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (8) ◽  
pp. 44-48
Author(s):  
Kim Minh Nguyen ◽  
◽  
Nguyen Tien Tran ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Growth ◽  
Separation Performance ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework ◽  
Alumina Support ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Microwave Assisted ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Seeding Strategy ◽  
Separation Performances

Owing to their permanent porosity, diverse topology structures, and coordination factors combined with chemical tunability, the zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) has shown great potential for the effective separation of hydrocarbon mixtures. In this work, the authors presented a simple microwave-assisted seeding strategy to rapidly prepare a seed layer for the synthesis of high-quality ZIF-8 membranes for propylene/propane separation. The resulted membranes grown on planar alumina support displayed excellent separation performances for a wide range of propylene/propane mixtures. The membrane displayed a propylene/propane separation factor of 70 and propylene permeance of 105×10-10 mol.m-2s-1Pa-1. Long-term stability test also showed stable gas permeance and separation performance of the ZIF-8 membranes in both atmospheric conditions and propylene/propane mixture stream.

scholarly journals Formation Process of Columnar Grown (101)-Oriented Silicalite-1 Membrane and Its Separation Property for Xylene Isomer

Crystals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 949
Author(s):  
Motomu Sakai ◽  
Takuya Kaneko ◽  
Yukichi Sasaki ◽  
Miyuki Sekigawa ◽  
Masahiko Matsukata
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Growth ◽  
Microscopic Analysis ◽  
Separation Performance ◽  
Membrane Thickness ◽  
Alumina Support ◽  
Separation Factors ◽  
Growth Method ◽  
Thin Part ◽  
Xylene Separation ◽  
Xylene Isomer

Silicalite-1 membrane was prepared on an outer surface of a tubular α-alumina support by a secondary growth method. Changes of defect amount and crystallinity during secondary growth were carefully observed. The defect-less well-crystallized silicalite-1 membrane was obtained after 7-days crystallization at 373 K. The silicalite-1 membrane became (h0l)-orientation with increasing membrane thickness, possibly because the orientation was attributable to “evolutionally selection”. The (h0l)-oriented silicalite-1 membrane showed high p-xylene separation performance for a xylene isomer mixture (o-/m-/p-xylene = 0.4/0.4/0.4 kPa). The p-xylene permeance through the membrane was 6.52 × 10−8 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 with separation factors αp/o, αp/m of more than 100 at 373 K. As a result of microscopic analysis, it was suggested that a very thin part in the vicinity of surface played as effective separation layer and could contribute to high permeation performance.

scholarly journals Preservation of protein expression systems at elevated temperatures for portable therapeutic production

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (129) ◽  
pp. 20161039 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Karig ◽  
Seneca Bessling ◽  
Peter Thielen ◽  
Sherry Zhang ◽  
Joshua Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Protein Expression ◽  
Elevated Temperatures ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Efficient Production ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Expression Systems ◽  
Burn Wound ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Application Potential

Many biotechnology capabilities are limited by stringent storage needs of reagents, largely prohibiting use outside of specialized laboratories. Focusing on a large class of protein-based biotechnology applications, we address this issue by developing a method for preserving cell-free protein expression systems for months above room temperature. Our approach realizes unprecedented long-term stability at elevated temperatures by leveraging the sugar alcohol trehalose, a simple, low-cost, open-air drying step, and strategic separation of reaction components during drying. The resulting preservation capacity enables efficient production of a wide range of on-demand proteins under adverse conditions, for instance during emergency outbreaks or in remote locations. To demonstrate application potential, we use cell-free reagents subjected to months of exposure at 37°C and atmospheric conditions to produce sufficient concentrations of a pyocin protein to kill Pseudomonas aeruginosa , a troublesome pathogen for traumatic and burn wound injuries. Our work makes possible new biotechnology applications that demand ruggedness and scalability.

scholarly journals Hybrid ZnO/MoS2 Core/Sheath Heterostructures for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Applied Nano ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-161
Author(s):  
Katerina Govatsi ◽  
Aspasia Antonelou ◽  
Labrini Sygellou ◽  
Stylianos G. Neophytides ◽  
Spyros N. Yannopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Wide Band ◽  
Nanowire Arrays ◽  
Maximum Efficiency ◽  
Light Illumination ◽  
Wide Band Gap ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Visible Light Illumination ◽  
Nanowire Surface ◽  
Wide Range

The rational synthesis of semiconducting materials with enhanced photoelectrocatalytic efficiency under visible light illumination is a long-standing issue. ZnO has been systematically explored in this field, as it offers the feasibility to grow a wide range of nanocrystal morphology; however, its wide band gap precludes visible light absorption. We report on a novel method for the controlled growth of semiconductor heterostructures and, in particular, core/sheath ZnO/MoS2 nanowire arrays and the evaluation of their photoelectrochemical efficiency in oxygen evolution reaction. ZnO nanowire arrays, with a narrow distribution of nanowire diameters, were grown on FTO substrates by chemical bath deposition. Layers of Mo metal at various thicknesses were sputtered on the nanowire surface, and the Mo layers were sulfurized at low temperature, providing in a controlled way few layers of MoS2, in the range from one to three monolayers. The heterostructures were characterized by electron microscopy (SEM, TEM) and spectroscopy (XPS, Raman, PL). The photoelectrochemical properties of the heterostructures were found to depend on the thickness of the pre-deposited Mo film, exhibiting maximum efficiency for moderate values of Mo film thickness. Long-term stability, in relation to similar heterostructures in the literature, has been observed.

scholarly journals Molecularly Imprinted Polymer-Based Sensors for Priority Pollutants

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 2406
Author(s):  
Mashaalah Zarejousheghani ◽  
Parvaneh Rahimi ◽  
Helko Borsdorf ◽  
Stefan Zimmermann ◽  
Yvonne Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Selective Adsorption ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Priority Pollutants ◽  
Molecularly Imprinted ◽  
Innovative Strategies ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Wide Range

Globally, there is growing concern about the health risks of water and air pollution. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a list of priority pollutants containing 129 different chemical compounds. All of these chemicals are of significant interest due to their serious health and safety issues. Permanent exposure to some concentrations of these chemicals can cause severe and irrecoverable health effects, which can be easily prevented by their early identification. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) offer great potential for selective adsorption of chemicals from water and air samples. These selective artificial bio(mimetic) receptors are promising candidates for modification of sensors, especially disposable sensors, due to their low-cost, long-term stability, ease of engineering, simplicity of production and their applicability for a wide range of targets. Herein, innovative strategies used to develop MIP-based sensors for EPA priority pollutants will be reviewed.

scholarly journals Airborne measurements of trace gas and aerosol particle emissions from biomass burning in Amazonia

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 2989-3002 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Guyon ◽  
G. P. Frank ◽  
M. Welling ◽  
D. Chand ◽  
P. Artaxo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Particle Number ◽  
Aerosol Particles ◽  
Secondary Growth ◽  
Combustion Efficiency ◽  
Vertical Transport ◽  
Airborne Measurements ◽  
Sampling Campaign ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Emission Ratios

Abstract. As part of the LBA-SMOCC (Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia - Smoke, Aerosols, Clouds, Rainfall, and Climate) 2002 campaign, we studied the emission of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and aerosol particles from Amazonian deforestation fires using an instrumented aircraft. Emission ratios for aerosol number (CN) relative to CO (ERCN/CO) fell in the range 14-32 cm-3 ppb-1 in most of the investigated smoke plumes. Particle number emission ratios have to our knowledge not been previously measured in tropical deforestation fires, but our results are in agreement with values usually found from tropical savanna fires. The number of particles emitted per amount biomass burned was found to be dependent on the fire conditions (combustion efficiency). Variability in ERCN/CO between fires was similar to the variability caused by variations in combustion behavior within each individual fire. This was confirmed by observations of CO-to-CO2 emission ratios (ERCO/CO2), which stretched across the same wide range of values for individual fires as for all the fires observed during the sampling campaign, reflecting the fact that flaming and smoldering phases are present simultaneously in deforestation fires. Emission factors (EF) for CO and aerosol particles were computed and a correction was applied for the residual smoldering combustion (RSC) fraction of emissions that are not sampled by the aircraft, which increased the EF by a factor of 1.5-2.1. Vertical transport of smoke from the boundary layer (BL) to the cloud detrainment layer (CDL) and the free troposphere (FT) was found to be a very common phenomenon. We observed a 20% loss in particle number as a result of this vertical transport and subsequent cloud processing, attributable to in-cloud coagulation. This small loss fraction suggests that this mode of transport is very efficient in terms of particle numbers and occurs mostly via non-precipitating clouds. The detrained aerosol particles released in the CDL and FT were larger than in the unprocessed smoke, mostly due to coagulation and secondary growth, and therefore more efficient at scattering radiation and nucleating cloud droplets. This process may have significant atmospheric implications on a regional and larger scale.

scholarly journals Water Filtration Membranes Based on Non-Woven Cellulose Fabrics: Effect of Nanopolysaccharide Coatings on Selective Particle Rejection, Antifouling, and Antibacterial Properties

Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1752
Author(s):  
Blanca Jalvo ◽  
Andrea Aguilar-Sanchez ◽  
Maria-Ximena Ruiz-Caldas ◽  
Aji P. Mathew
Keyword(s):  
Cellulose Nanofibers ◽  
Antibacterial Properties ◽  
Surface Characteristics ◽  
Water Filtration ◽  
Separation Performance ◽  
Nonwoven Fabrics ◽  
Filtration Membranes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
Cellulose Fabrics

This article presents a comparative study of the surface characteristics and water purification performance of commercially available cellulose nonwoven fabrics modified, via cast coating, with different nano-dimensioned bio-based carbohydrate polymers, viz. cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofibers (T-CNF), and chitin nanocrystals (ChNC). The surface-modified nonwoven fabrics showed an improvement in wettability, surface charge modification, and a slight decrease of maximum pore size. The modification improved the water permeance in most of the cases, enhanced the particle separation performance in a wide range of sizes, upgraded the mechanical properties in dry conditions, and showed abiotic antifouling capability against proteins. In addition, T-CNF and ChNC coatings proved to be harmful to the bacteria colonizing on the membranes. This simple surface impregnation approach based on green nanotechnology resulted in highly efficient and fully bio-based high-flux water filtration membranes based on commercially available nonwoven fabrics, with distinct performance for particle rejection, antifouling and antibacterial properties.

scholarly journals Combined Vapor Permeation and Continuous Solid-State Distillation for Energy-Efficient Bioethanol Production

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2266
Author(s):  
Hongshen Li ◽  
Hongrui Liu ◽  
Yufang Li ◽  
Jilin Nan ◽  
Chen Shi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Solid State ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Separation Performance ◽  
Flow Sheet ◽  
Bioethanol Production ◽  
Permeate Flux ◽  
Rectification Column ◽  
Vapor Permeation ◽  
Wide Range

Extracting ethanol by steam directly from fermented solid-state bagasse is an emerging technology of energy-efficient bioethanol production. With continuous solid-state distillation (CSSD) approach, the vapor with more than 25 wt% ethanol flows out of the column. Conventionally, the vapor was concentrated to azeotrope by rectification column, which contributes most of the energy consumption in ethanol production. As an alternative, a process integrating CSSD and vapor permeation (VP) membrane separation was tested. In light of existing industrial application of NaA zeolite hydrophilic membrane for dehydration, the prospect of replacing rectification operation with hydrophobic membrane for ethanol enriching was mainly analyzed in this paper. The separation performance of a commercial PDMS/PVDF membrane in a wide range of ethanol–water-vapor binary mixture was evaluated in the experiment. The correlation of the separation factor and permeate flux at different transmembrane driving force was measured. The mass and energy flow sheet of proposed VP case and rectification case were estimated respectively with process simulation software based on experimental data. Techno-economic analysis on both cases was performed. The results demonstrated that the additional VP membrane cost was higher than the rectification column, but a lower utilities cost was required for VP. The discount payback period of supplementary cost for VP case was determined as 1.81 years compared with the membrane service lifetime of 3 years, indicating that the hybrid CSSD-VP process was more cost effective and energy efficient.

Boundary Layer Flashback Limits of Hydrogen-Methane-Air Flames in a Generic Swirl Burner at Gas Turbine Relevant Conditions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Ebi ◽  
Peter Jansohn
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Wall Temperature ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Preheat Temperature ◽  
Swirl Burner ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract Operating stationary gas turbines on hydrogen-rich fuels offers a pathway to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the power generation sector. A key challenge in the design of lean-premixed burners, which are flexible in terms of the amount of hydrogen in the fuel across a wide range and still adhere to the required emissions levels, is to prevent flame flashback. However, systematic investigations on flashback at gas turbine relevant conditions to support combustor development are sparse. The current work addresses the need for an improved understanding with an experimental study on boundary layer flashback in a generic swirl burner up to 7.5 bar and 300° C preheat temperature. Methane-hydrogen-air flames with 50 to 85% hydrogen by volume were investigated. High-speed imaging was applied to reveal the flame propagation pathway during flashback events. Flashback limits are reported in terms of the equivalence ratio for a given pressure, preheat temperature, bulk flow velocity and hydrogen content. The wall temperature of the center body along which the flame propagated during flashback events has been controlled by an oil heating/cooling system. This way, the effect any of the control parameters, e.g. pressure, had on the flashback limit was de-coupled from the otherwise inherently associated change in heat load on the wall and thus change in wall temperature. The results show that the preheat temperature has a weaker effect on the flashback propensity than expected. Increasing the pressure from atmospheric conditions to 2.5 bar strongly increases the flashback risk, but hardly affects the flashback limit beyond 2.5 bar.

Unified, high resolution water quality retrievals from Earth Observation satellites

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Harding
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Earth Observation ◽  
Water Quality Parameter ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Optical Parameters ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Mixture Density ◽  
Wide Range

<p>Earth Observation (EO) satellites are drawing considerable attention in areas of water resource management, given their potential to provide unprecedented information on the condition of aquatic ecosystems. Despite ocean colours long history; water quality parameter retrievals from shallow and inland waters remains a complex undertaking. Consistent, cross-mission retrievals of the primary optical parameters using state-of-the-art algorithms are limited by the added optical complexity of these waters. Less work has acknowledged their non- or weakly optical parameter counterparts. These can be more informative than their vivid counterparts, their potential covariance would be regionally specific. Here, we introduce a multi-input, multi-output Mixture Density Network (MDN), that largely outperforms existing algorithms when applied across different bio-optical regimes in shallow and inland water bodies. The model is trained and validated using a sizeable historical database in excess of 1,000,000 samples across 38 optical and non-optical parameters, spanning 20 years across 500 surface waters in Scotland. The single network learns to predict concurrently Chlorophyll-a, Colour, Turbidity, pH, Calcium, Total Phosphorous, Total Organic Carbon, Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen and Suspended Solids from real Landsat 7, Landsat 8, and Sentinel 2 spectra. The MDN is found to fully preserve the covariances of the optical and non-optical parameters, while known one-to-many mappings within the non-optical parameters are retained. Initial performance evaluations suggest significant improvements in Chl-a retrievals from existing state-of-the-art algorithms. MDNs characteristically provide a means of quantifying the noise variance around a prediction for a given input, now pertaining to real data under a wide range of atmospheric conditions. We find this to be informative for example in detecting outlier pixels such as clouds, and may similarly be used to guide or inform future work in academic or industrial contexts. </p>

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