Desalination is a well-established technology used all over the world to mitigate freshwater scarcity. Wind-powered reverse osmosis plants are one of the most promising alternatives for renewable energy desalination, particularly for coastal areas and islands. Wind energy can satisfy the high energy consumption of desalination while reducing costs and CO2 emissions. However, the mismatch between the intermittent availability of the wind resource and the desalination’s power demand makes the integration between the two technologies critical. This paper presents a review of wind-powered desalination systems, focusing on the existing topologies and technological advances. An overview of the advantages and disadvantages are analysed based on the theoretical and experimental cases available in the scientific literature. The goal of this work is to show the current status of wind-powered desalination and to present the technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to ensure a sustai... [more]

In this study, hydrothermally produced Fe-doped Co3O4 nanostructured particles are investigated as electrocatalysts for the water-splitting process and electrode materials for supercapacitor devices. The results of the experiments demonstrated that the surface area, specific capacitance, and electrochemical performance of Co3O4 are all influenced by Fe3+ content. The FexCo3-xO4 with x = 1 sample exhibits a higher BET surface (87.45 m2/g) than that of the pristine Co3O4 (59.4 m2/g). Electrochemical measurements of the electrode carried out in 3 M KOH reveal a high specific capacitance of 153 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g for x = 0.6 and 684 F/g at a 2 mV/s scan rate for x = 1.0 samples. In terms of electrocatalytic performance, the electrode (x = 1.0) displayed a low overpotential of 266 mV (at a current density of 10 mA/cm2) along with 52 mV/dec Tafel slopes in the oxygen evolution reaction. Additionally, the overpotential of 132 mV (at a current density of 10 mA/cm2) and 109 mV wi... [more]

Large eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulation (RANS) of leakage flow in straight-through and stepped labyrinth seals were performed in order to compare their performances in sealing the secondary flow passage of the gas turbine based on the respective discharge coefficients. The results indicate a 17.8% higher leakage prevention performance for the stepped seal relative to that of the straight seal. Further, while the LES predicts an ~7% reduction in the discharge coefficient due to shaft rotation, this effect is underestimated by the RANS. Moreover, the LES correctly predicts a laminarized flow pattern in the clearance, whereas the RANS overestimates the turbulence kinetic energy. In addition, a turbulence kinetic energy spectrum analysis was performed based on the vorticity at selected points in order to identify the flow structure that has a dominant influence on the oscillation of the discharge coefficient. This analysis also enabled identification of t... [more]

The necessity of economical and rational use of natural energy sources caused a rapid development of research on the possibilities of using non-conventional energy resources. Taking the above into account, a new technological process of thermochemical conversion of biomass and communal waste, commonly known as High Temperature Air/Steam Gasification (HTA/SG) and Multi-Staged Enthalpy Extraction Technology (HTAG-MEET), was developed. In relation to traditional techniques of gasification or combustion of hydrocarbon fuels, the presented concept is characterized by higher thermal efficiency of the process, low emission of harmful compounds of carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, dioxins, furans and heavy metals. The use of a high-temperature gasification factor causes an increased thermochemical decomposition of solid fuels, biomass and municipal waste into gaseous fuel (syngas), also with increased hydrogen content and Lower Calorific Value (LCV). In this study, the possibility of using a batch typ... [more]

Oil and Gas plants consist of a set of heat exchangers, which are used in recovering the waste heat from product streams to preheat the oil. The heat transfer coefficient of exchangers declines considerably during the operation period due to fouling. Fouling in heat exchangers is a complex phenomenon due to the acceleration of many layers of chemical substances across tubes of heat exchangers resulting from chemical reactions and surface roughness. In this paper, the fouling process was determined as a critical failure in the heat exchanger. Failure is an accelerated fouling layer across the heat exchanger tubes, which can be the reason for the clogging of tubes. Hence, a risk assessment was conducted using the Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) approach to estimate the probability of fouling in heat exchangers. The results showed that the RBI approach can be used successfully to predict the suitable time to shut down the plant and conduct the fouling cleaning process.

In 2009, the first Italian offshore LNG terminal, located approximately 12 km from the coast of Italy in the Northern Adriatic Sea, started its operation phase. Even if the active chlorine concentration in the discharged seawater is within limits set by Italian regulations (0.2 mg/L), to verify the environmental impact of disinfection by-products (DBPs) on the ecosystem, a specific monitoring program was scheduled from 2010 to 2015. The present study is the first displaying results of DBPs in marine waters of the Adriatic Sea. During the first two years of monitoring activities, DBPs were slightly above limit of quantifications (LOQs) in all investigated matrices and limited to the nearest area around the terminal. In these surveys, bromoform was the most frequently detected compound in seawaters, while haloacetic acid presence, as well as transplanted mussels and fish fauna, mostly characterized sediments. In the following surveys, levels were mostly negligible in all matrices investi... [more]

This study was aimed at evaluating the effect of a nanoemulsion containing the bioactive compounds of orange essential oil and xoconostle (Opuntia oligacantha C.F. Först) on maintaining and improving the quality of the shelf life of tomato fruits. The nanoemulsion was applied as a coating on the whole fruits during physiological maturity; the treatments were thus: Control 1 without coating (C1); Control 2 with food-grade mineral oil coating (C2); and nanoemulsions that were diluted with mineral oil at 2.5% (DN2.5), 5% (DN5), 10% (DN10), and 20% (DN20). Further, the following parameters were determined for 21 days: the percentage weight loss, firmness, colour, pH, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid content, total phenols, flavonoids, tannins, antioxidant activities DPPH and ABTS, and the histological evaluation of the pericarp of the fruits. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed during the treatments; DN10 and DN20 obtained the best weight loss results... [more]

In modern society, environmental sustainability is always a top priority, and thus electric vehicles (EVs) equipped with lithium-ion batteries are becoming more and more popular. As a key component of EVs, the remaining useful life of battery directly affects the demand of the EV supply chain. Accurate prediction of the remaining useful life (RUL) benefits not only EV users but also the battery inventory management. There are many existing methods to predict RUL based on state of health (SOH), but few of them are suitable for real-world data. There are several difficulties: (1) battery capacity is not easy to obtain in the real world; (2) most of these methods use the individual data for each battery, and the computing processes are difficult to perform in the cloud; (3) there is a lack of approaches for real-time SOH estimating and RUL predicting. This paper adopts several statistical methods to perform the prediction and compars the results of different models on experimental data (N... [more]

Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing science and is applied in a variety of diagnostic and treatment technologies. Colorectal cancer is one of the deadliest human diseases, and hence, wide research is underway regarding its preventative measures. This review demonstrated that “nano” drug delivery systems have successfully transferred pharmaceutical drug particles at the nanoscale as compared to larger particles. Research has shown a higher rate of disease progression among patients who receive conventional drugs compared to those who were given nanoscale drugs. However, the behavior of the cellular components differs from the performance of larger cellular components of the same type; these differences are due to the physical interactions between the nanoparticles (NPs). The review aimed to discuss several recent research studies focused on delivering NPs for the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC). The reviewed experiments have primarily compared the use of NPs alone or with the ad... [more]

Intelligent Transportation system are becoming an interesting research area, after Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensors have been effectively incorporated in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). The optimal route discovery in a VANET plays a vital role in establishing reliable communication in uplink and downlink direction. Thus, efficient optimal path discovery without a loop-free route makes network communication more efficient. Therefore, this challenge is addressed by nature-inspired optimization algorithms because of their simplicity and flexibility for solving different kinds of optimization problems. NIOAs are copied from natural phenomena and fall under the category of metaheuristic search algorithms. Optimization problems in route discovery are intriguing because the primary objective is to find an optimal arrangement, ordering, or selection process. Therefore, many researchers have proposed different kinds of optimization algorithm to maintain the balance between intensifica... [more]

The promising angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides derived from corn protein usually have strong bitterness and thus limit their use among consumers. To prepare ACE inhibitory peptides with low bitterness, two energy-efficient types of ultrasound pretreatment were introduced into the multi-enzymatic system of corn gluten meal. The results showed that Flavourzyme−Protamex sequential enzymolysis produced the peptides with high ACE inhibitory activity and the lowest bitterness compared with other enzymolysis conditions. During the optimized sequential enzymolysis, the divergent ultrasound pretreatment with a frequency of 40 kHz for 60 min exhibited higher ACE inhibitory activity (65.36%, accounting for 73.84% of the highest ACE inhibitory activity) and lower bitterness intensity of peptides, compared with an energy-gathered ultrasound. The results of the study showed that, on the one hand, divergent ultrasound pretreatment induced the highest intrinsic fluorescence of p... [more]

Measurements of external mass-transfer coefficients for dissolution have been made with benzoic acid tablets with a diameter of 13 mm and approximately 3 mm thick, using two different dissolution systems. One system has been a beaker with a platform for the tablet and either 80 mL or 120 mL of water, with three different types of stirrers, and the other has been a USP dissolution apparatus 2 (paddle) with either 200 mL or 900 mL water. Various stirring speeds have also been used in the different pieces of equipment. The same mass-transfer coefficient may potentially be obtained from the same tablet by adjusting the operating conditions in the two different devices. The ranges of the external mass-transfer coefficients measured in both devices overlapped significantly, with the range being 0.193−4.48 × 10−5 m s−1 in the beaker and stirrer system and 0.222−3.45 × 10−5 m s−1 in the USP dissolution apparatus 2. Dimensional analysis of the results, using Sherwood and Reynolds numbers, shows... [more]

In this work, a classical linear control approach for the peroxide (H2O2) dosage in a photo-Fenton process is presented as a suitable solution for improving the efficiency in the treatment of recalcitrant organic compounds that cannot be degraded by classical wastewater treatment processes like anaerobic digestion. Experiments were carried out to degrade Lignin, Melanoidin, and Gallic acid, which are typical recalcitrant organic compounds present in some kinds of effluents such as vinasses from the Tequila and Cachaça industries. Experiments were carried in Open-Loop mode for obtaining the degradation model for the three compounds in the form of a Transfer Function, and in Closed-Loop mode for controlling the concentration of each compound. First-order Transfer Functions were obtained using the reaction curve method, and then, based on these models, the parameters of Proportional Integral controllers were calculated using the direct synthesis method. In the Closed-Loop experiments, the... [more]

(1) Background: The striped rice stem borer (SRSB), Chilo suppressalis, has severely diminished the yield and quality of rice in China. A timely and accurate prediction of the rice pest population can facilitate the designation of a pest control strategy. (2) Methods: In this study, we applied multiple linear regression (MLR), gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT), and deep auto-regressive (DeepAR) models in the dynamic prediction of the SRSB population occurrence during the crop season from 2000 to 2020 in Hunan province, China, by using weather factors and time series of related pests. (3) Results: This research demonstrated the potential of the deep learning method used in integrated pest management through the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of a reasonable validating dataset (the average coefficient of determination Rmean2 for the DeepAR, GBDT, and MLR models were 0.952, 0.500, and 0.166, respectively). (4) Conclusions: The DeepAR model with integrated ground-based meteor... [more]

The growing interest in intensified process units that improve efficiency by combining several phenomena into one unit, has led to a loss in degrees of freedom when addressing the control scheme of these units. Previous work demonstrated that a novel module-based design approach to membrane reactors could improve the operability index of membrane reactor systems. This approach sought to decouple the phenomena to regain some degrees of freedom for the control system. However, the computational time to determine such an optimal module design made this class of design problems intractable to solve in a reasonable amount of time. This work proposes a set of design heuristics for a new module-based design approach for membrane reactors. These heuristics are used in combination with a genetic algorithm formulation to produce a novel, two-staged algorithm for the design and control of membrane reactor systems. This algorithm is developed in Python and uses rigorous membrane reactor models bui... [more]

A transient model to simulate the temperature and pressure in CO2 injection wells is proposed and solved using the finite difference method. The model couples the variability of CO2 properties and conservation laws. The maximum error between the simulated and measured results is 5.04%. The case study shows that the phase state is primarily controlled by the wellbore temperature. Increasing the injection temperature or decreasing the injection rate contributes to obtaining the supercritical state. The variability of density can be ignored when the injection rate is low, but for a high injection rate, ignoring this may cause considerable errors in pressure profiles.

Oily sludge (OS) contains a large number of hazardous materials, and froth flotation can achieve oil recovery and non-hazardous disposal of OS simultaneously. The influence of flotation parameters on OS treatment and the flotation mechanism were studied. OS samples were taken from Shengli Oilfield in May 2017 (OSS) and May 2020 (OST), respectively. Results showed that Na2SiO3 was the suitable flotation reagent treating OSS and OST, which could reduce the viscosity between oil and solids. Increasing flotation time, impeller speed and the ratio of liquid to OS could enhance the pulp shear effect, facilitate the formation of bubble and reduce pulp viscosity, respectively. Under the optimized parameters, the oil content of OST residue could be reduced to 1.2%, and that of OSS could be reduced to 0.6% because of OSS with low heavy oil components and wide solid particle size distribution. Orthogonal experimental results showed that the impeller speed was the most significant factor of all pa... [more]

Cotton dyeing is a very complex process with many variables in which different phenomena occur simultaneously. This study aimed to describe the cotton dyeing process by natural dye, using a mathematical model that consists of three mass conservation equations that depict dyeing cotton in cones, taking a representative volume element at the micro, meso, and macroscales. The first equation describes the concentration changes of the dye in the solution, taking into account the diffusive, convective, adsorptive, and reactive effects. The second equation describes the changes in dye concentration in cotton fiber, considering the diffusive, adsorptive, and reactive effects within an intermediate scale. The last equation describes changes in the concentration of dye in the solution on the macroscale, based on the characteristics of the equipment and the difference in concentration before and after passing through the fiber. In addition, a fluid continuity equation was incorporated, taking int... [more]

This paper presents a semi-analytic rigid/plastic solution for the expansion/contraction of a hollow cylinder at large strains. The constitutive equations comprise the yield criterion and its associated flow rule. The yield criterion is pressure-independent. The yield stress depends on the equivalent strain rate and the equivalent strain. No restriction is imposed on this dependence. The solution is facilitated using the equivalent strain rate as an independent variable instead of the polar radius. As a result, it reduces to ordinary integrals. In the course of deriving the solution above, the transformation between Eulerian and Lagrangian coordinates is used. A numerical example illustrates the solution for a material model available in the literature. A practical aspect of the solution is that it readily applies to the preliminary design of tube hydroforming processes.

The removal of pharmaceuticals from wastewater is critical due to their considerable risk on ecosystems and human health. Additionally, they are resistant to conventional chemical and biological remediation methods. Two-dimensional nanomaterials are a promising approach to face this challenge due to their combination of high surface areas, high electrical conductivities, and partially optical transparency. This review discusses the state-of-the-art concerning their use as adsorbents, oxidation catalysts or photocatalysts, and electrochemical catalysts for water treatment purposes. The bibliographic search bases upon academic databases including articles published until August 2021. Regarding adsorption, high removal capacities (>200 mg g−1) and short equilibrium times (<30 min) are reported for molybdenum disulfide, metal-organic frameworks, MXenes, and graphene oxide/magnetite nanocomposites, attributed to a strong adsorbate-adsorbent chemical interaction. Concerning photocatalysis... [more]

A major obstacle in utilising pyrolysis bio-oil as biofuel is its relatively low heating value, high viscosity, and non-homogeneity. Solvent addition is a simple yet practical approach in upgrading pyrolysis bio-oil. However, most solvents are often manufactured as specialty chemicals, and thus, this leads to a high production cost of solvents. It is crucial for the designed solvent-oil blend to achieve both fuel functionality and economic targets to be competitive with the conventional diesel fuel. Hence, the objective of this work is to generate feasible solvent candidates by solving this multi-objective optimisation (MOO) problem via a computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) approach. Initially, an optimisation model was developed to identify potential solvents that satisfied the predefined targeted properties. Next, a MOO model was developed via a fuzzy optimisation approach to identify the trade-off between profitability and heating value of the solvent-oil blend. A pricing model w... [more]

Supplier network collaborative efficiency evaluation is important content in the transformation and upgrading of intelligent manufacturing enterprises. Aiming at the shortcomings of existing methods, this paper proposes a new method to evaluate the collaborative efficiency of internal members of a complex supplier network based on complex network theory. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of the complex supplier network, from the perspective of the system, the macro supplier network is divided into multiple multi-level supplier micro subsystems with manufacturing enterprises as the core. In order to reasonably quantify the collaboration relationship of members in the subsystem structure model, the collaboration entropy is introduced as a measurement tool, and combined with the hesitation fuzzy scoring function, and the collaborative evaluation model of the complex supplier network is constructed. By quantifying the collaboration relationship among the members in the subsystem... [more]

(1) Background: Functional abdominal pain disorders (FAPDs) represent one of the main etiologies of chronic abdominal pain in the pediatric population. A wide spectrum of probiotic or prebiotic mixtures has been evaluated in trials regarding benefits in patients with FAPDs, mainly in the adult population. (2) Methods: This study was interested in evaluating the effect of oral supplementation with a symbiotic mixture on intestinal microbiota in children with functional dyspepsia (FD), irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D), and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C). A combination of six bacterial strains (Lactobacillus rhamnosus R0011, Lactibacillus casei R0215, Bifidobacterium lactis BI-04, Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14, Bifidobacterium longum BB536, Lactobacillus plantarum R1012) and 210 mg of fructo-oligosaccharides-inulin were administered orally, daily, for 12 weeks and patients were scored for severity of symptoms and fecal microbiota before and after the tr... [more]

This work explores the technical possibilities of increasing the efficiency of a standard solar chimney power plant (SCPP) by integrating it with photovoltaic (PV) panels. The integration is possible by using the collector circumference to install the PV collectors, which provide a heat sink, allow for the better harvesting of the solar radiation, and increase energy production. The new design led to an increase in the annual electricity production from 380 to 494 MWh and water production from 278 to 326 k tons/year compared with the standard SCPP, marking an increase of 30% and 17%, respectively. The results also show that the integration reduced the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), the localized cost of energy, and the capital cost of investment by 30%, 36%, and 20%, respectively. The proposed design supports the sustainable replacement of the existing desalination plants with zero operational costs and an excellent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Zeolites are microporous tectosilicates characterized by a three-dimensional network of tetrahedral (Si, Al)O4 units with the general formula: Mx+Ly2+[Al(x+2y)Si1−(x+2y)O2n]·mH2O where M+ and L2+ are monovalent and divalent cations [...]