To promote the efficiency of waste heat recovery from granulated blast furnace (BF) slag, a novel method of catalyst-enhanced steam reforming of bio-oil to recover heat from slag is proposed. CaO is utilized as a superior catalyst for the process of catalyst-enhanced steam reforming. The thermodynamic production of the catalyst-enhanced steam reforming of bio-oil in granulated BF slag is obtained using HSC 6.0 software. The optimal conditions are mainly assessed according to the hydrogen yield, hydrogen concentration and carbon production. Through the thermodynamic production and industrial application, the temperature of 608 °C, S/C of eight and pressure of 1 bar are found as the optimal conditions. At the optimal conditions, the hydrogen yield, hydrogen concentration and carbon production are 95.25%, 76.89% and 0.28 mol/kg, respectively. Taking the temperature of 625 °C, S/C of eight and pressure of 1 bar as an example, the catalyst could improve the hydrogen yield and hydrogen conce... [more]

A breakthrough has been made in the recent exploration of the deep oil and gas bearing system in the eastern belt around the Penyijingxi sag of the Junggar Basin. These reservoirs are characterized by mixed sources and multi-stage accumulation. However, this process has not been thoroughly investigated, limiting our understanding of the fundamental rules of hydrocarbon migration and accumulation and making it difficult to determine exploration plans. This study mainly reconstructs this process using biomarkers, carbon isotopes, light hydrocarbons, and fluid inclusions. According to the biomarkers and carbon isotopes for oil-source correlation, Permian crude oil is a mixed-source oil from the Fengcheng Formation (P1f) and the Xiawuerhe Formation (P2w) source rocks, while Jurassic crude oil originates from the P2w source rock. The carbon isotope and light hydrocarbon data demonstrate that Jurassic natural gas has a mixed-gas characteristic with a preponderance of coal-type gas, in contra... [more]

Shale gas is mostly produced using horizontal wells, since shale gas reservoirs have low porosity and permeability. It is challenging to predict a horizontal well’s critical liquid-carrying gas flow rate because horizontal wells have more complicated well structures and gas−liquid two-phase pipe flows than vertical wells. In addition, there are significant differences between shale gas reservoirs and conventional natural gas reservoirs as well as dynamic changes in the liquid production rate. The majority of critical liquid-carrying models currently in use in engineering are based on the force analysis of droplets in the gas stream or liquid film on the pipe wall in annular-mist flow in the vertical wellbore. However, they do not take into account the impact of changes to the entire wellbore structure and dynamic changes in the liquid production rate on gas−liquid two-phase flow patterns and liquid carrying in the wellbore. In order to perform the critical gas velocity test for liquid... [more]

In order to ascertain the spatial and temporal changes in the air quality in Temuco City, Chile, we created and installed a network of inexpensive sensors to detect PM2.5 particulate matter. The 21 measurement points deployed were based on a low-cost Sensiron SPS30 sensor, complemented with temperature and humidity sensors, an Esp32 microcontroller card with LoRa and WiFi wireless communication interface, and a solar charging unit. The units were calibrated using an airtight combustion chamber with a Grimm 11-E as a reference unit. The calibration procedure fits the parameters of a calibration model to map the raw low-cost particle-material measurements into reliable calibrated values. The measurements showed that the concentrations of fine particulate material recorded in Temuco present a high temporal and spatial variability. In critical contamination episodes, pollution reaches values as high as 354 µg/m3, and at the same time, it reaches 50 µg/m3 in other parts of the city. The con... [more]

The use of dietary supplements (DSs) has dramatically increased in recent decades. However, around 20% of these products are reported to contain pharmacologically active undeclared compounds, most of which could expose consumers to serious side effects. According to recent data, some of the most commonly detected undeclared compounds are also considered doping and are prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). One of the most frequently detected undeclared substances in DSs used for promoting weight loss is sibutramine. In 2011, all medicines containing sibutramine were urgently withdrawn from Europe and US markets because of serious side effects. In the present study, in order to detect and quantify sibutramine in DSs, a rapid, sensitive, and reliable gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was developed. The method was validated according to the ICH guidelines and demonstrated good linearity, accuracy, precision, and robustness. The limits of detection and qu... [more]

Understanding the importance of extraction optimization processes of bioactive molecules in the food industry is fundamental in the choice of innovative extraction processes involving sustainable procedures and is essential in process design for the isolation of antioxidants, thus preserving their chemical integrity and biological properties [...]

Global warming has had a profound impact on human life, with animal husbandry being a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and playing a crucial role in the global greenhouse gas budget. Inner Mongolia is a major contributor to these emissions, making it vital to study the link between greenhouse gas emissions and animal husbandry in this region for the purpose of reducing emissions. In this study, the emissions of greenhouse gases (CH4, N2O, and CO2) from livestock and poultry breeding from 2010 to 2020 and the emissions of each city from 2020 were estimated, the emissions characteristics were analysed, and the low carbon emissions reduction technical measures were proposed. The results show that (1) the overall greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 to 2020 in Inner Mongolia showed a fluctuating trend; the main emissions sources were gastrointestinal fermentation and faecal management. The annual average CH4 emissions were 994,400 ta−1, and the annual average N2O emissions... [more]

In order to reduce the production cost of the methane carbon dioxide reforming reaction, and improve its actual production efficiency, in this paper, the optimal working parameters of the methane carbon dioxide reforming reaction are studied. The influence of different factors on methane conversion is studied via a single-factor numerical simulation analysis and the response surface methodology. Firstly, a numerical model of the methane carbon dioxide reforming reaction is established using Ansys Chemkin Pro software to analyze the influence of single factors (reactor temperature, reaction pressure, gas velocity) on methane conversion rate; secondly, the response surface model with the methane conversion rate as the response value is established using the BBD (Box−Behnken design) method; and finally, the order of influence of each variable on methane conversion and the optimal reaction conditions are determined using the response surface method. The factors are listed in order of their... [more]

As oil spills cause harm to the survival and environment of the ocean, the objective of the present paper is to study the oil migration range using the key indicator kv, which is defined as the ratio of oil spill speed to ocean current speed. The correctness of diffusion models created and estimated for subsea oil spills can be verified by experiments. We also considered the effect of key indicators on the horizontal and vertical dispersion ranges of oil spills. The study’s findings show that, under various kv settings, the horizontal and vertical spreading heights of oil spills both increase as kv rises. When kv is equal, the leakage velocity and water flow velocity increase synchronously, and over time, the horizontal distance and vertical diffusion height of the oil spill gradually increase. In the early stages of an oil spill, when kv = 50, 100, or 150, the vertical spreading velocity will rapidly decrease. The vertical spreading speed of spilled oil increases as kv rises when the... [more]

Lithium-ion batteries are widely utilized in various fields, including aerospace, new energy vehicles, energy storage systems, medical equipment, and security equipment, due to their high energy density, extended lifespan, and lightweight design. Precisely predicting the remaining useful life (RUL) of lithium batteries is crucial for ensuring the safe use of a device. In order to solve the problems of unstable prediction accuracy and difficultly modeling lithium-ion battery RUL with previous methods, this paper combines a channel attention (CA) mechanism and long short-term memory networks (LSTM) to propose a new hybrid CA-LSTM lithium-ion battery RUL prediction model. By incorporating a CA mechanism, the utilization of local features in situations where data are limited can be improved. Additionally, the CA mechanism can effectively mitigate the impact of battery capacity rebound on the model during lithium-ion battery charging and discharging cycles. In order to ensure the full valid... [more]

In response to the large-scale instability failure problem of designing coal pillars and support systems for gob-side entry driving (GSED) in high-stress soft coal seams in deep mines, the main difficulties in the surrounding rock control of GSED were analyzed. The relationship between the position of the main roof breaking line, together with the width of the limit equilibrium zone and a reasonable size for the coal pillar, were quantified through theoretical calculations. The theoretical calculations showed that the maximum and minimum widths of the coal pillar are 8.40 m and 5.47 m, respectively. A numerical simulation was used to study the distribution characteristics and evolution laws of deviatoric stress and plastic failure fields in the GSED surrounding rock under different coal pillar sizes. Theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and engineering practice were comprehensively applied to determine a reasonable size for narrow coal pillars for GSED in deep soft coal seams, w... [more]

To date, biochar bacteriostatic material has attracted much attention from researchers. The compact porous structure of fish-scale biochar provides good application prospects. In this study, silver-carrying biochar−polyvinyl alcohol−alginate gel beads (C/PVA/SA) were designed for suppressing bacteria. The biochar was loaded with nano silver particles as the filler, alginate as the substrate, and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the additive to enhance the mechanical properties. The composite gel beads were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR). The results indicated that adjusting the PVA concentration could retain the bacteriostatic performance of the gel beads in different pH value solutions. It was found that C/PVA/SA gel beads had a strong inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After ten consecutive antibacterial tests, the antibacterial rate remained high (above 99%) for 15 days. The adhesive effect of SA a... [more]

Multi-terminal DC transmission (MTDC) systems have attracted much attention due to their significant advantages in long-distance and high-capacity transmission. To improve their reliability and operation performance, a distributed fixed-time secondary control of frequency restoration and active power sharing is proposed under event-triggered communication, which only depends on the states of each AC grid and its neighbors. By utilizing Lyapunov theory, we prove that the MTDC system with the fixed-time secondary control can be stable in a settling time, and the conditions of the settling time are established for fixed-time algorithms. In addition, we simulate a five-terminal MTDC system in Matlab/Simulink. Several cases of MTDC systems are exhibited to showcase how well the suggested controller works when dealing with load changes and attacks. The comparison of the number of event-triggered instants shows that the proposed control method can effectively reduce communication resources.

Due to their unusual textural properties and semblance, gel foods have been welcomed by consumers. In this study, we designed a novel gel food, that is, broth jellies that enclosed particular food dices (shrimp, chicken, and potatoes). Briefly, various ratios of gelling molecules (gelatin and κ-carrageenan) were added to chicken broth, the food dices were placed in the center of the gels, and their characteristics and stabilities were verified during cold storage (4 °C) for 14 days. As a result, the mix of κ-carrageenan and gelatin led to the formation of firm cross-junctions with an elevated hardness compared to gelatin singular gel. In contrast, the gelatin sole gel showed different sensory attributes, such as a high chewiness and meltiness. The thick gel barriers of the products fairly increased the stability of the inner food ingredients. By blocking the loss of moisture, the texture and sensory traits were well preserved; moreover, the gelling molecules greatly impeded microbial d... [more]

The refractive index is an important physical property that is used to estimate the structural characteristics, thermodynamic, and transport properties of petroleum fluids, and to determine the onset of asphaltene flocculation. Unfortunately, the refractive index of opaque petroleum fluids cannot be measured unless special experimental techniques or dilution is used. For that reason, empirical correlations, and metaheuristic models were developed to predict the refractive index of petroleum fluids based on density, boiling point, and SARA fraction composition. The capability of these methods to accurately predict refractive index is discussed in this research with the aim of contrasting the empirical correlations with the artificial neural network modelling approach. Three data sets consisting of specific gravity and boiling point of 254 petroleum fractions, individual hydrocarbons, and hetero-compounds (Set 1); specific gravity and molecular weight of 136 crude oils (Set 2); and speci... [more]

A modified thermal Bhatnagar−Gross−Krook Lattice Boltzmann (BGK-LB) model was developed to study the convection phenomenon of non-Newtonian fluids (NNFs). This model integrates the local shear rate into the equilibrium distribution function (EDF) of the flow field and keeps the relaxation time from varying with fluid viscosity by introducing an additional parameter. In addition, a modified temperature EDF was constructed for the evolution equation of the temperature field to ensure the precise recovery of the convection−diffusion equation. To validate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed model, numerical simulations of benchmark problems were performed. Subsequently, we investigated the natural convection of power−law (PL) fluids and examined the impact of the PL index (n = 0.7−1.3) and Rayleigh number (Ra = 103−5 × 105) on the flow and temperature fields while holding the Prandtl number (Pr = 7) constant. The obtained results indicate that, for a given value of n, the convec... [more]

In the flexible manufacturing system deadlock prevention domain, researchers’ almost final target is to seek the maximally permissive controllers for solving the deadlock problems of flexible manufacturing systems. However, it seems a challenging work. Whatever you adopt, what kinds of methods, policies, and strategies, it seems complicated to obtain optimal controllers for deadlock prevention even if they claim their algorithms are optimal until the deadlock recovery is developed. Therefore, many experts, including us, have decided to design all kinds of actual maximally permissive recovery policies based on control transitions. It is a pity that these policies usually solve some particular flexible manufacturing systems’ deadlock problems. The controllers failed to recover the deadlock situation of flexible manufacturing systems once the idle or resource places were changed. In other words, these policies could never know or identify the real number of maximally permissive controller... [more]

The gastric cancer risk prediction model used for large-scale gastric cancer screening and individual risk stratification is an artificial intelligence tool that combines clinical diagnostic data with a classification algorithm. The ability to automatically make a quantitative assessment of complex clinical data contributes to increased accuracy for diagnosis with higher efficiency, significantly reducing the incidence of advanced gastric cancer. Previous studies have explored the predictive performance of gastric cancer risk prediction models, as well as the predictive factors and algorithms between each model, but have reached controversial conclusions. Thus, the performance of current machine-learning-based gastric cancer risk prediction models alongside the clinical relevance of different predictive factors needs to be evaluated to help build more efficient and feasible models in the future. In this systematic review, we summarize the current research progress related to the gastri... [more]

Feature data refer to direct measurements of specific features, while feature residuals represent the deviations between these measurements and their corresponding benchmark values. Both types of information offer unique insights into the system’s behavior. However, conventional diagnostic systems often struggle to effectively integrate and utilize both types of information concurrently. To address this limitation and improve diagnostic performance, a hybrid method based on the Bayesian network (BN) is proposed. This method enables the parallel fusion of feature residuals and feature data within a unified diagnostic model, and a comprehensive framework for developing this hybrid method is also given. In the hybrid BN, the symptom layer consists of residual nodes representing feature residuals and data nodes representing measured feature data. By applying the proposed method to two chillers and comparing it with state-of-the-art existing methods, we demonstrate its effectiveness and sup... [more]

Pressure hydrometallurgy has attracted much attention for its characteristics, such as the high adaptability of raw materials and environmental friendliness. Flashing (flash boiling or flash evaporation) refers to the phase change phenomenon from liquid to gas triggered by depressurization, which is an important connection between high-pressure processes and atmospheric ones in pressure hydrometallurgy. This paper takes the flashing process in zinc leaching and alumina Bayer processes as examples, describes the flashing process in pressure hydrometallurgy in detail for the first time, and shows the importance of the flashing process in energy recovery, solution concentration, and liquid balance, as well as increasing equipment life. According to solid holdup (the volume percentage of solid), this paper proposes to divide the flashing process into solution flashing (low solid holdup) and slurry flashing (high solid holdup). A further focus is put on reviewing the state of the art of rel... [more]

The current problems associated with the maintenance of hard coal longwall mining depend on the application or use of extraction technologies. In order to make the best use of these technologies, a new approach based on simulation studies is necessary. This paper aims to develop a mathematical model for the powered roof support’s operation. The three groups of professionals involved in the testing of the roof support were involved in the work on changing the hydraulic system of the powered roof support stand. These professionals were powered roof support’s designers, researchers and users. The research subject was the development of a mathematical model as a starting point for conducting simulations. The model is based on d’Alembert’s principle and the equation of the balance of flow rates. Based on the developed model, it is possible to determine the pressure in the space under the piston of the hydraulic prop. The results obtained in the simulations are the basic assumptions for the... [more]

In the process of underground engineering construction, rock mass often faces the dual influence of dynamic load disturbance and groundwater, it is therefore essential to investigate the mechanical response of the rock mass under the coupling effect of dynamic load disturbance and water content. In this paper, dynamic load impact tests were carried out on sandstone with bullet velocities of 5 m/s, 10 m/s, and 15 m/s and water content of 0, 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9, and the mechanical behavior and mechanism response of water content to sandstone were investigated. The research findings indicate that this study has made significant contributions in quantifying the along grain and trans-grain fractures of microcracks. It has explored the influence of water content and dynamic loading on the strength mechanism of sandstone. It was discovered that the dynamic loading and water content significantly affect the ratio of along grain and trans-grain fractures, thereby influencing the dynamic behavior... [more]

Coal is the primary energy source in China, and coal pyrolysis is considered an essential and efficient method for clean coal utilization. Three high arsenic coals collected from the southwestern Guizhou province of China were chosen in this study. Low-temperature ashing plus X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) was used to identify the minerals in coals. The three coals were pyrolyzed in a tube furnace in an N2 atmosphere at 950 °C, 1200 °C, and 1400 °C, respectively. Environment scanning electron microscope (ESEM), XRD, X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) were adopted to determine the morphology, mineral compositions, and element compositions and arsenic contents of the coal pyrolysis ashes, respectively. It can be found that minerals in coal are mainly composed of quartz, pyrite, muscovite, and rutile. The minerals in the ashes generated from coal pyrolysis mainly contain quartz, dehydroxylated muscovite, iron oxide minerals, mull... [more]

Wellbore instability mainly occurs in shale formations, and it is of great significance to deeply analyze the characteristics of shale-failure behavior to evaluate the stability of the shale surrounding the well wall during drilling. Through a uniaxial compression experiment and DIC technology, the whole strain field of shale specimens with prefabricated holes and cracks under uniaxial compression is measured. The experimental data of load, displacement and strain field are analyzed comprehensively. The results show that the fracture location and expansion path of shale are closely related to the evolution of the strain field. The evolution of the strain field directly affects the failure behavior of the rock. Under the action of load, local high strain will first appear around the initial shale defects (pores and fractures), and stress concentration will occur. With the increase of load, cracks and failures will first appear in the local high-strain zone, and the failure will spread a... [more]

A plant factory is typically considered to be an exceedingly advanced product management system characterized by higher crop yields and better quality control. The pH value of the nutrient solution is crucial for determining the health and productivity of crops. However, the nutrient solution process exhibits inherent complexity, such as parameters uncertainty, multi-disturbances, and strong nonlinearity. Therefore, the traditional control method cannot meet the necessary requirements. The main objective of this paper is to address the issues of parameter uncertainty, strong nonlinearity, and multiple disturbances in the regulation process of the nutrient solution while achieving accurate control of the nutrient solution pH in a plant factory. This is performed so that a dynamic model of a nutrient solution for pH is developed and a nonlinear adaptive controller is presented, which comprises a linear adaptive generalized predictive controller, a nonlinear adaptive generalized predictiv... [more]