Monitoring of Biopolymer Production Process Using Soft Sensors Based on Off-Gas Composition Analysis and Capacitance Measurement

This paper focuses on the design of soft sensors for on-line monitoring of the biotechnological process of biopolymer production, in which biopolymers are accumulated in bacteria as an intracellular energy storage material. The proposed soft sensors for on-line estimation of the biopolymer concentration represent an interesting alternative to the traditional off-line analytical techniques of limited applicability for real-time process control. Due to the complexity of biochemical reactions, which make it difficult to create reasonably complex first-principle mathematical models, a data-driven approach to the design of soft sensors has been chosen in the presented study. Thus, regression methods were used in this design, including multivariate statistical methods (PLS, PCR). This approach enabled the creation of soft sensors using historical process data from fed-batch cultivations of the Pseudomonas putida KT2442 strain used for the production of medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates (mcl-PHAs). Specifically, data from on-line measurements of off-gas composition analysis and culture medium capacitance were used as input to the soft sensors. The resulting soft sensors allow not only on-line estimation of the biopolymer concentration, but also the concentration of the cell biomass of the production bacterial culture. For most of these soft sensors, the estimation error did not exceed 5% of the measurement range. In addition, soft sensors based on capacitance measurement were able to accurately detect the end of the production phase. This study thus offers an innovative and practically relevant contribution to the field of monitoring of bioprocesses used for the production of medium-chain-length biopolymers.

Regulating oxygen vacancies in Co3O4 by combining solution reduction and Ni2+ impregnation for oxygen evolution reaction

Oxygen vacancies are considered to be an important factor to influence the electronic structure and charge transport of electrocatalysts in the field of energy chemistry. Various strategies focused on oxygen vacancy engineering are proved to be efficient for further improving the electrocatalytic performance of Co3O4. Herein, an optimal Co3O4 with rich oxygen vacancies have been synthesized via a two-step process combining solution reduction and Ni2+ impregnation. The as-prepared electrocatalyst exhibits an enhanced oxygen evolution performance with the overpotential of 330 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 in alkaline condition, which is 84 mV lower than that of pristine one. With the increasing of oxygen vacancies , the charge transfer efficency and surface active area are relatively enhanced reflected by the Tafel slope and double-layer capacitance measurement. These results indicate that combining solution reduction and heteroatom doping can be a valid way for efficient metal oxides-based electrocatalyst development by constructing higher concentration of oxygen vacancy.

Transition to Online Cable Insulation Condition Monitoring

Nuclear power plant cables were originally qualified for 40 year life and generally have not required specific test verification to assure service availability through the initial plant qualification period. However, license renewals to 60 and 80 years of operation require a cable aging management program that depends on some form of test and verification to assure fitness for service. Environmental stress (temperature, radiation, chemicals, water, and mechanical) varies dramatically within a nuclear power plant and, in some cases, cables have degraded and required repair or replacement before their qualified end-of-life period. In other cases, cable conditions have been mild and dependable cable performance confirmed to extend well beyond the initial qualified life. Most offline performance-based testing requires cables to be decoupled and de-energized for specially trained technicians to perform testing. These offline tests constitute an expensive operational burden that limits the economic viability of nuclear power plants. Although initial investment may be higher, new online test practices are emerging as options or complements to offline testing that avoid or minimize the regularly scheduled offline test burden. These online methods include electrical and fiber-optic partial discharge measurement, spread spectrum time or frequency domain reflectometry, distributed temperature profile measurements, and local interdigital capacitance measurement of insulation characteristics. Introduction of these methods must be supported by research to confirm efficacy plus either publicly financed or market driven investment to support the start-up expense of cost-effective instrumentation to monitor cable condition and assure reliable operation. This work summarizes various online cable assessment technologies plus introduces a new cable motor test bed to assess some of these technologies in a controlled test environment.

Experimental Characterization of Admittance Meter With Crude Oil Emulsions

Measuring water content is useful in the oil industry to quantify the actual amount of oil being produced. This extent is used in the processes of control and transfer of custody in tank farms, flow stations, and others. In this study, to determine the water content with an admittance measuring device, a characterization was performed with emulsions to identify the behavior of the sensor against this type of fluid. The device has facing electrodes parallel flat. Emulsions O/W and W/O were prepared in the laboratory with heavy oil at laboratory temperature conditions. The capacitance measurement is used to calculate the value of relative permittivity of the fluid (εm) and conductance is used to calculate the conductivity of the mixture (σm). The results of water content measurements showed the sensor response is related to the continuous phases of the emulsions. In addition, these measurements indicated that a characterization of the electrical behavior of the emulsions, as well as the effect of the formulation of the emulsion, can be made using this equipment.

The decreasing of the influence of parasitic inductance of tested object on the accuracy of its electrical capacitance measurement

This paper gives a description of measurement technique which can be used in practice of carrying out estimation of electrical capacitance of tested object with substantial stray inductance. Electrical capacitance is determined as a ratio of mean value of discharge current to the mean value of time derivative, taken from voltage on unknown capacitance. The decreasing of deleterious impact of stray inductance on accuracy of measurements is achieved by proper selection of the duration of analyzed signals. In proposed technique the duration is limited by instants of time that correspond to the maximum value of discharge current and to the termination of transient. The accuracy of described method for electrical capacitance estimation is affected by noisy components of obtained oscillograms. This deleterious impact can be alleviated by smoothing of time dependence by applying of least square method. Another reason for lost of accuracy is associated with possible influence of skin-effect in conductive elements of discharge circuit, which can cause time dependence of resistance and inner inductance of conductive parts of tested object and discharge circuit. Described technique, however, is based on taking into consideration independent on time parameters of equivalent lamped discharge circuit. Nevertheless, the example of practical implementation has shown that described approach allows to partially mitigate the influence of stray inductance on carried out measurements of electrical capacitance, as the value of relative error turned out to be equal to 2.04%

An Automatic Offset Calibration Method for Differential Charge-Based Capacitance Measurement

Charge-Based Capacitance Measurement (CBCM) technique is a simple but effective technique for measuring capacitance values down to the attofarad level. However, when adopted for fully on-chip implementation, this technique suffers output offset caused by mismatches and process variations. This paper introduces a novel method that compensates the offset of a fully integrated differential CBCM electronic front-end. After a detailed theoretical analysis of the differential CBCM topology, we present and discuss a modified architecture that compensates mismatches and increases robustness against mismatches and process variations. The proposed circuit has been simulated using a standard 130-nm technology and shows a sensitivity of 1.3 mV/aF and a 20× reduction of the standard deviation of the differential output voltage as compared to the traditional solution.

Detecting Effects of Low Levels of FCCP on Stem Cell Micromotion and Wound-Healing Migration by Time-Series Capacitance Measurement

Electric cell–substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) has been used as a real-time impedance-based method to quantify cell behavior in tissue culture. The method is capable of measuring both the resistance and capacitance of a cell-covered microelectrode at various AC frequencies. In this study, we demonstrate the application of high-frequency capacitance measurement (f = 40 or 64 kHz) for the sensitive detection of both the micromotion and wound-healing migration of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Impedance measurements of cell-covered electrodes upon the challenge of various concentrations of carbonyl cyanide 4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP), from 0.1 to 30 μM, were conducted using ECIS. FCCP is an uncoupler of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), thereby reducing mitochondrial ATP production. By numerically analyzing the time-series capacitance data, a dose-dependent decrease in hMSC micromotion and wound-healing migration was observed, and the effect was significantly detected at levels as low as 0.1 μM. While most reported works with ECIS use the resistance/impedance time series, our results suggest the potential use of high-frequency capacitance time series for assessing migratory cell behavior such as micromotion and wound-healing migration.