In this study, a new Biomass-Gas-Nuclear heat-To-Liquid fuel (BGNTL) process is presented which uses high-temperature nuclear heat as the heat source for steam methane reforming (SMR). This process co-produces liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol and DME) and power. The BGNTL process was simulated using a combination of different software packages including gPROMS, MATLAB, ProMax, and Aspen Plus. This included the use of a rigorous multi-scale model for the nuclear-heat-powered SMR reactor which was developed in a prior work in gPROMS. Energy efficiency and cradle-to-grave life cycle inventory and life-cycle impact analyses of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were accomplished to analyze the environmental impacts of the BGNTL system. Plant performance was compared with a base case Biomass-Gas-To-Liquid (BGTL) process at the same size. In both processes, a carbon capture and storage (CCS) option is considered. It has been found that both processes result in negative total life... [more]

These are Aspen Plus simulation files for a Biomass-Gas-and-Nuclear-To-Liquids chemical plant (a conceptional design), which uses the Copper-Chloride route for hydrogen production. This is a part of a larger work (see linked LAPSE record for pre-print and associated publication in Canadian J Chem Eng). Process sections and major units in this simulation include: Gasification, Integrated-Gasification-Methane-Reforming, Pre-Reforming, Water Gas Shift, Autothermal Reforming, Syngas Blending and Upgrading, Solid Oxide Fuel Cell power islands, Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, Methanol Synthesis, Dimethyl Ether Synthesis, Heat Recovery and Steam Generation, CO2 Compression for Sequestration, Cooling Towers, and various auxiliary units for heat and pressure management. See the linked work for a detailed description of the model.

New polygeneration processes for the co-production of liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol, and dimethyl ether) and electricity are presented. The processes use a combination of biomass, natural gas, and nuclear energy as primary energy feeds. Chemical process models were created and used to simulate candidate versions of the process, using combinations of models ranging from complex multi- scale models to standard process flowsheet models. The simulation results are presented for an Ontario, Canada case study to obtain key metrics such as efficiency and product conversions. Sample Aspen Plus files are provided in the supplementary material to be used by others.

Traditionally used herbal medicines are deep in the consciousness of patients for the treatment of only minor diseases by self-medication. However, manufacturers of herbal medicinal products suffer from major problems such as increasing market pressure by e.g., the food supplement sector, increasing regulations, and costs of production. Moreover, due to more stringent regulation and approval processes, innovation is hardly observed, and the methods used in process development are outdated. Therefore, this study aims to provide an approach based on modern process engineering concepts and including predictive process modelling and simulation for the extraction of traditional herbal medicines as complex extracts. The commonly used solvent-based percolation is critically assessed and compared to the so-called pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) as a new possible alternative to replace organic solvents. In the study a systematic process design for the extraction of hawthorn (Crataegus m... [more]

Considering the issue caused by the tail gas of viscous oil fire flooding, which carries a large amount of jeopardizing liquid, the Liaohe Oilfield No. 56 desulfurization station applies the vertical processing separator as the main dehumidification equipment for moisture elimination. However, the lack of study on the separator’s gas⁻liquid separation mechanism leads to unclear recognition of the equipment’s processing capability, which easily causes the desulfurization tower to water out, and the tail gas gathering network system to get frozen and blocked. To result in a solution to the problems above, numerical simulation software is applied in this paper based on the oil field’s actual operation data to establish a mathematical model for calculation, which may assist in simulating the gas⁻liquid separating process, in analyzing the flow field distribution within the separator, and in studying the dehumidification mechanism in terms of influencing factors and laws of equipment dehumi... [more]

The growing demand for lithium necessitates the development of an efficient process to recover it from three kinds of solutions, namely brines as well as acid and alkaline leach liquors of primary and secondary resources. Therefore, the separation of lithium(I) from these solutions by solvent extraction was reviewed in this paper. Lithium ions in brines are concentrated by removing other metal salts by crystallization with solar evaporation. In the case of ores and secondary resources, roasting followed by acid/alkaline leaching is generally employed to dissolve the lithium. Since the compositions of brines, alkaline and acid solutions are different, different commercial extractants are employed to separate and recover lithium. The selective extraction of Li(I) over other metals from brines or alkaline solutions is accomplished using acidic extractants, their mixture with neutral extractants, and neutral extractants mixed with chelating extractants in the presence of ferric chloride (F... [more]

Shale gas production is associated with significant usage of fresh water and discharge of wastewater. Consequently, there is a necessity to create proper management strategies for water resources in shale gas production and to integrate conventional energy sources (e.g., shale gas) with renewables (e.g., solar energy). The objective of this study is to develop a design framework for integrating water and energy systems including multiple energy sources, the cogeneration process and desalination technologies in treating wastewater and providing fresh water for shale gas production. Solar energy is included to provide thermal power directly to a multi-effect distillation plant (MED) exclusively (to be more feasible economically) or indirect supply through a thermal energy storage system. Thus, MED is driven by direct or indirect solar energy and excess or direct cogeneration process heat. The proposed thermal energy storage along with the fossil fuel boiler will allow for the dual-purpos... [more]

Gob-side entry retaining (GER) employed in a thin coal seam (TCS) can increase economic benefits and coal recovery, as well as mitigate gas concentration in the gob. In accordance with the caving style of a limestone roof, the gas concentration and air pressure in the gob were analyzed, and a roof-cutting mechanical model of GER with a roadside backfill body (RBB) was proposed, to determine the key parameters of the GER-TCS, including the roof-cutting resistance and the width of the RBB. The results show that if the immediate roof height is greater than the seam height, the roof-cutting resistance and width of the RBB should meet the requirement of the immediate roof being totally cut along the gob, for which the optimal roof-cutting resistance and width of RBB were determined by analytical and numerical methods. The greater the RBB width, the greater its roof-cutting resistance. The relationship between the supporting strength of the RBB and the width of the RBB can be derived as a co... [more]

Columns are widely used as packed-bed or fixed-bed reactors in the chemical process industry. Packed columns are also used for carrying out chemical separation techniques such as adsorption, distillation, extraction and chromatography. A combination of the variability in flow path lengths, and the variability of velocity along these flow paths results in significant broadening in solute residence time distribution within columns, particularly in those having low bed height to diameter ratios. Therefore, wide packed-column reactors operate at low efficiencies. Also, for a column of a particular bed height, the ratio of heat transfer surface area to reactor volume varies inversely as the radius. Therefore, with wide columns, the available heat transfer area could become a limiting factor. In recent papers, box-shaped or cuboid packed-bed devices have been proposed as efficient alternatives to packed columns for carrying out chromatographic separations. In this paper, the use of cuboid pa... [more]

To recover the filtered residues on a gel layer in a column, the method using the elasticity of the gel layer and flowing water in a cross-flow manner is proposed. Polymerized spherical gel (40 μm) was packed in a column to a set height of 0.7 cm. The suspensions of graphene oxide at various sizes and shapes were injected on the top of the gel layer and then water was flowed at a flow rate of 1000 mL·h−1 until 0.10 MPa. By releasing the applied pressure, the elastic gel layer rose up, and the filtered graphene oxide also rose above the layer. This rise of the gel layer is due to the difference of pressure between the gel layer, including the filtered graphene oxide, and the open bottom of the column, using the flow of water. The cross flow of water through the column carried away the larger-sized filtered graphene oxide floating above the gel layer. The elasticity of the gel layer and cross flow through the column has the potential to recover the filtered particles.

This study investigated the heterogeneous Fenton treatment to process coalbed methane-produced water containing fracturing fluid and chose the development region of coalbed methane in the Southern Qinshui Basin as a research area. We synthesized the catalyst of Fe-Co/γ-Al₂O₃ by homogeneous precipitation method and characterized it by BET, XRD, SEM-EDS, FTIR, and XPS. Based on the degradation rate, we studied the influences of the heterogeneous Fenton method on the coalbed methane output water treatment process parameters, including initial pH, H₂O₂ concentration, and the catalyst concentration. We also investigated the impacts of overall reaction kinetics of heterogeneous catalytic oxidation on coalbed methane-produced water containing fracturing fluid. Results showed that Fe-Co/γ-Al₂O₃ as a Fenton catalyst has a good catalytic oxidation effect and can effectively process coalbed methane-produced water. This reaction also followed first-order kinetics. The optimal conditions were as fo... [more]

Cyanide recovery in the gold-mining industry is a crucial step in terms of the cost of operation. Currently, a process such as AVR (acidification, volatilization and recycling), based on packed towers for stripping and absorption stages, addresses this issue with high levels of investment and operational costs. Gas-filled membrane absorption (GFMA) emerges then as an attractive alternative because the stripping and absorption stages can be performed in a single stage, reducing associated investment and operational costs. Despite the advantages of this technology, applications at industrial scale are still emerging. A possible reason is the lack of clear scaling-up methodologies where experimental data can be taken to select the optimum industrial hollow-fiber membrane contactor module (HFMC). The present study proposes a methodology to select adequately between available industrial Liqui-CelTM modules to design a process under optimal operational conditions. The methodology is based on... [more]

Although continuous production processes are often desired, many processing industries still work in batch mode due to technical limitations. Transitioning to continuous production requires an in-depth understanding of how each unit operation is affected by the shift. This contribution reviews the scientific understanding of similarities and differences between emulsification in turbulent rotor-stator mixers (also known as high-speed mixers) operated in batch and continuous mode. Rotor-stator mixers are found in many chemical processing industries, and are considered the standard tool for mixing and emulsification of high viscosity products. Since the same rotor-stator heads are often used in both modes of operation, it is sometimes assumed that transitioning from batch to continuous rotor-stator mixers is straight-forward. However, this is not always the case, as has been shown in comparative experimental studies. This review summarizes and critically compares the current understandin... [more]

A process consisting of ball milling followed by NaOH leaching was developed to selectively dissolve alumina from black dross. From the ball milling treatment, it was found that milling speed greatly affected the leaching behavior of silica and the oxides of Ca, Fe, Mg, and Ti present in dross. The leaching behavior of the mechanically activated dross was investigated by varying NaOH concentration, leaching temperature and time, and pulp density. In most of the leaching conditions, only alumina and silica were dissolved, while the leaching percentage of other oxides was negligible. The leaching percentage of silica decreased rapidly to nearly zero as pulp density increased to 100 g/L. At the optimum leaching conditions (5 M NaOH, 50 °C, 2 h, pulp density of 100 g/L), the purity of Al in the leaching solution was higher than 98%, but the leaching percentage of alumina was only 35%.

This study is conducted to investigate the characteristics of outflow wastewater of the 1 m³ on-site wastewater treatment unit on the basis of the testing and measurement data of the samples that were taken during the study monitored period (August 2017 to January 2018). For this purpose, samples were taken on a weekly basis from the treated wastewater effluent and five quality parameters (biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), pH, E-coli counts) were monitored and measured. The average values of the five parameters were compared with the Jordanian standard maximum values, and water reuse in irrigation of plants classifications have been assessed and investigated. Average values of BOD, COD, TSS, pH, and E-coli in treated wastewater were 11 mg/L, 104 mg/L, 15 mg/L, 7.51, and 387 counts, respectively. The installation of in-line ultraviolet (UV) unit in recirculating delivery system played a vital role in the reduction of counts far... [more]

Fuel gas network (FGN) synthesis is a systematic method for reducing fresh fuel consumption in a chemical plant. In this work, we address FGN synthesis problems using a block superstructure representation that was originally proposed for process design and intensification. The blocks interact with each other through direct flows that connect a block with its adjacent blocks and through jump flows that connect a block with all nonadjacent blocks. The blocks with external feed streams are viewed as fuel sources and the blocks with product streams are regarded as fuel sinks. An additional layer of blocks are added as pools when there exists intermediate operations among source and sink blocks. These blocks can be arranged in a I × J two-dimensional grid with I = 1 for problems without pools, or I = 2 for problems with pools. J is determined by the maximum number of pools/sinks. With this representation, we formulate FGN synthesis problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear... [more]

In this research, an ANOVA analysis and a response surface methodology are applied to analyze the equilibrium of methanol reaction from pure carbon dioxide and hydrogen. In the ANOVA analysis, carbon monoxide composition in the feed, reaction temperature, recycle and water removal through a zeolite membrane are the analyzed factors. Carbon conversion, methanol yield, methanol productivity and methanol selectivity are the analyzed responses. Results show that main factors have the same effect on responses and a common significant interaction is not present. Carbon monoxide composition and water removal have a positive effect, while temperature and recycle have a negative effect on the system. From central composite design, an optimal solution is found in order to overcome thermodynamic limit: the reactor works with a membrane at lower temperature with carbon monoxide composition in the feed equal to 10 mol % and without recycle. In these conditions, carbon conversion, methanol yield, me... [more]

This paper discusses the techno-economic assessment of hydrogen production from biogas with conventional systems. The work is part of the European project BIONICO, whose purpose is to develop and test a membrane reactor (MR) for hydrogen production from biogas. Within the BIONICO project, steam reforming (SR) and autothermal reforming (ATR), have been identified as well-known technologies for hydrogen production from biogas. Two biogases were examined: one produced by landfill and the other one by anaerobic digester. The purification unit required in the conventional plants has been studied and modeled in detail, using Aspen Adsorption. A pressure swing adsorption system (PSA) with two and four beds and a vacuum PSA (VPSA) made of four beds are compared. VPSA operates at sub-atmospheric pressure, thus increasing the recovery: results of the simulations show that the performances strongly depend on the design choices and on the gas feeding the purification unit. The best purity and reco... [more]

Centrifugal pumps are widely used in the industry, especially in the oil and gas sector for fluids transport. Classically, these are designed to transfer single phase fluids (e.g., water) at high flow rates and relatively low pressures when compared with other pump types. As part of their constructive feature, centrifugal pumps rely on seals to prevent air entrapment into the rotor during its normal operation. Although this is a constructive feature, water should pass through the pump inlet even when the inlet manifold is damaged. Modern pumps are integrated in pumping units which consist of a drive (normally electric motor), a transmission (when needed), an electronic package (for monitoring and control), and the pump itself. The unit also has intake and outlet manifolds equipped with valves. Modern systems also include electronic components to measure and monitor pump working parameters such as pressure, temperature, etc. Equipment monitoring devices (vibration sensors, microphones)... [more]

Equipment throughput is one of the most critical parameters for production planning and scheduling, which is often derived by optimization techniques to achieve business goals. However, in semiconductor manufacturing, up-to-date and reliable equipment throughput is not easy to estimate and maintain because of the high complexity and extreme amount of data in the production systems. This article concerns the development and implementation of a throughput management system tailored for a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant (Fab). A brief overview of the semiconductor manufacturing and an introduction of the case Fab are presented first. Then, we focus on the system architecture and some concepts of crucial modules. This study also describes the project timescales and difficulties and discusses both tangible and intangible benefits from this project.

A process improvement in a tablet manufacturing process within a pharmaceutical industry was carried out based on an eco-efficiency approach. As it is one of the most energy consuming processes in the production line, the tablet manufacturing process was considered. It has the highest production volume with a complicated and long manufacturing product life cycle. Data were collected on energy inputs and emissions data for the stages of powder direct mixing, particle size reduction, and tableting. A straightforward approach was then used to analyze environmental impacts in terms of GHG emissions. Non- added value steps were removed from the product life cycle process, which has led to significant time and cost savings, as well as to a reduction in the emission. Annual economic savings have been achieved, a time reduction of approximately 71% was attained, and the reduction in GHG emissions and energy cost were 73.2%. The g CO₂eq per tablet reduction has been calculated within the proces... [more]

Dry reforming is a very interesting process for synthesis gas generation from CH 4 and CO 2 but suffers from low hydrogen yields due to the reverse water⁻gas shift reaction (WGS). For this reason, membranes are often used for hydrogen separation, which in turn leads to coke formation at the process temperatures suitable for the membranes. To avoid these problems, this work shows the possibility of using nickel self-supported membranes for hydrogen separation at a temperature of 800 ∘ C. The higher temperature effectively suppresses coke formation. The paper features the analysis of the dry reforming reaction in a nickel membrane reactor without additional catalyst. The measurement campaign targeted coke formation and conversion of the methane feedstock. The nickel approximately 50% without hydrogen separation. The hydrogen removal led to an increase in methane conversion to 60⁻90%.

Calculation of evaporation requires accurate thermophysical properties of the liquid. Such data are well-known for conventional fossil fuels. In contrast, e.g., thermal conductivity or dynamic viscosity of the fuel vapor are rarely available for modern liquid fuels. To overcome this problem, molecular models can be used. Currently, the measurement-based properties of n-heptane and diesel oil are compared with estimated values, using the state-of-the-art molecular models to derive the temperature-dependent material properties. Then their effect on droplet evaporation was evaluated. The critical parameters were liquid density, latent heat of vaporization, boiling temperature, and vapor thermal conductivity where the estimation affected the evaporation time notably. Besides a general sensitivity analysis, evaporation modeling in a practical burner ended up with similar results. By calculating droplet motion, the evaporation number, the evaporation-to-residence time ratio can be derived. A... [more]

The moisture content of biomass affects its processing for applications such as electricity or steam. In this study, the effects of variation in moisture content of banagrass and energycane was evaluated using techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessments. A 25% loss of moisture was assumed as a variation that was achieved by field drying the biomass. Techno-economic analysis revealed that high moisture in the biomass was not economically feasible. Comparing banagrass with energycane, the latter was more economically feasible; thanks to the low moisture and ash content in energycane. About 32 GWh/year of electricity was produced by field drying 60,000 dry MT/year energycane. The investment for different scenarios ranged between $17 million and $22 million. Field-dried energycane was the only economically viable option that recovered the investment after 11 years of operation. This scenario was also more environmentally friendly, releasing 16-gCO₂ equivalent/MJ of electricity prod... [more]

Mineral calcination worldwide accounts for some 5⁻10% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per year. Roughly half of the CO₂ released results from burning fossil fuels for heat generation, while the other half is a product of the calcination reaction itself. Traditionally, the fuel combustion process and the calcination reaction take place together to enhance heat transfer. Systems have been proposed that separate fuel combustion and calcination to allow for the sequestration of pure CO₂ from the calcination reaction for later storage/use and capture of the combustion gases. This work presents a new tube-in-tube helical system for the calcination of minerals that can use different heat transfer fluids (HTFs), employed or foreseen in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. The system is labeled ‘flameless’ since the HTF can be heated by other means than burning fossil fuels. If CSP or high-temperature nuclear reactors are used, direct CO₂ emissions can be divided in half.... [more]