Numerical study of the effect of turbulence on rate of reactions in the MILD combustion regime

In this paper, the importance of fluctuations in flow field parameters is studied under MILD combustion conditions. In this way, a turbulent non-premixed CH₄+H₂ jet flame issuing into a hot and deficient co-flow air is modeled using the RANS Axisymmetric equations. The modeling is carried out using the EDC model to describe the turbulence-chemistry interaction. The DRM-22 reduced mechanism and the GRI2.11 full mechanism are used to represent the chemical reactions of H₂/methane jet flame. Results illustrate that although the fluctuations in temperature field are small and the reaction zone volume are large in the MILD regime, the fluctuations in temperature and species concentrations are still effective on the flow field. Also, inappropriate dealing with the turbulence effect on chemistry leads to errors in prediction of temperature up to 15% in the present flame. By decreasing of O₂ concentration of hot co-flow air, the effect of fluctuations in flow field parameters on flame characteristics are still significant and its effect on species reaction rates does not decrease. On the other hand, although decreasing of jet inlet Reynolds number at constant inlet turbulence intensity addresses to smaller fluctuations in flow filed, it does not lead to lower the effect of turbulence on species distribution and temperature field under MILD combustion conditions.     

Development and application of SBA‐15 assisted electromembrane extraction followed by corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry for the determination of Thiabendazole in fruit juice samples

A new sample preparation method based on SBA‐15 assisted electromembrane extraction coupled with corona discharge ion mobility spectrometer was developed for the determination of Thiabendazole as a model basic pesticide in fruit juice samples. The addition of SBA‐15 in the supported liquid membrane in electromembrane extraction system not only can lead to enhancement of the effective surface area, but also introducing the negatively charged silanol groups into supported liquid membrane might improve migration of positively charged analytes toward the supported liquid membrane and finally into the acceptor solution. To investigate the effect of the presence of SBA‐15 in the supported liquid membrane on the extraction efficiency, a comparative study was carried out between the conventional electromembrane extraction and SBA‐15/electromembrane extraction methods. Under the optimized conditions, SBA‐15/electromembrane extraction method showed higher extraction efficiencies in comparison with conventional electromembrane extraction method. SBA‐15/electromembrane extraction method exhibited a low limit of detection (0.9 ng/mL), high preconcentration factor (167) and high recovery (83%). Finally, the applicability of SBA‐15/electromembrane extraction method was studied by the extraction and determination of Thiabendazole as a model basic pesticide in fruit juice samples.     

A Novel Bacterial Route to Synthesize Cu Nanoparticles and Their Antibacterial Activity

Journal of Cluster Science - This report focuses on a facile and one-pot way to synthesize stable Cu nanoparticles (NPs) through a bacterial approach using an inexpensive and non-toxic copper salt...     

Different binders in FCC catalyst preparation: impact on catalytic performance in VGO cracking

Research on Chemical Intermediates - In the present study, four different binders including two synthesized alumina-silica sol and two commercially available binders comprising LUDOX AS-30...     

Non-thermal Plasma Induced Expression of Heat Shock Factor A4A and Improved Wheat (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Triticum aestivum</Emphasis> L.) Growth and Resistance Against Salt Stress

There is a huge interest in making and applying innovating functional devices based on basic sciences (like physics) to improve plant growth and resistance against various stress conditions. This research was carried out in order to investigate effects of cold plasma on expressions of heat shock factor A4A (HSFA4A), plant growth and post reactions to salt stress. Wheat seedlings were treated with plasma (0.84 W/cm² surface power densities) at different exposure times. In both three and 6 h after plasma, inductions in expressions of HSFA4A were recorded in roots, compared to control. Six hours after treatments, plasma-induced the shoot expressions of HSFA4A in the treated seedlings, contrasted to 3 h. Plasma treatment caused not the only enhancement in shoot fresh and dry mass and total leaf area, but also alleviated adverse impacts of salinity. Destroying impacts of salinity on chlorophyll contents were mitigated by plasma. Peroxidase activity was decreased by 27% for salinity treatment alone over control, while it was increased by 15% for plasma and salinity-treated samples, compared to salinity control. The highest activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) were found in plasma treatment alone. PAL activity was found to be higher in plasma-pretreated seedlings counteracted to salt stress, relative to the salinity control. The plasma treatment may act as an effective elicitor to modify gene expression, thereby improving plant growth and resistance. Plasma technology should be considered as a new functional technology in plant sciences.     

Development and Validation of Salt Gradient CEX Chromatography Method for Charge Variants Separation and Quantitative Analysis of the IgG mAb-Cetuximab

Ion exchange chromatography is widely used for charge variant analysis of proteins, including monoclonal antibodies. In this study, a simple and robust salt gradient cation exchange chromatography was developed and validated for quantitative determination of cetuximab in biopharmaceutical formulations. For this purpose, we investigated the effect of various parameters including buffer composition, column temperature, pH, gradient volume and flow rate on chromatographic separation of charge variants to achieve the acceptable peak separation, and the optimum condition was selected. Validation of the method was done in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. The developed method was found to provide a linear regression over the concentration range of 0.06–2.00 mg mL^?1 yielding a correlation coefficient of 0.9972. The limits of detection and quantification for the developed method were 0.02 and 0.06 mg mL^?1, respectively. The intra-day and inter-day precision had relative standard deviation values?≤?2.7%. The robustness of the method was assessed by changes in the applied pH range of buffer, temperature, mobile phase composition, and flow rate. Specificity of the method was confirmed by evaluation of baseline resolution of the mAb variants from product excipients, which showed no interference between excipients and cetuximab. The stability indicating capability of this method was determined using photodegraded, and mechanically and thermally stressed samples. The proposed method could be applied as a simple, precise, and robust quantitative technique which can be reproduced in any labs for the high-throughput quality control and stability assessment of in-process and final product samples.     

Sol–gel coating of poly(ethylene glycol)‐grafted multiwalled carbon nanotubes for stir bar sorptive extraction and its application to the analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water

Poly(ethylene glycol) grafted onto carboxyl‐terminated multi‐walled carbon nanotubes were prepared by the sol–gel technique as a stationary phase for stir bars. The analytical methodology included stir bar sorptive extraction with micellar desorption followed by liquid chromatography. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were used as the model compounds to evaluate the extraction performance. The extraction efficiency, for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from water samples, was optimized based on a chemometrics approach. The effect of the experimental parameters on the extraction response was investigated and the optimum extraction conditions were selected. Under the optimum conditions, the proposed method showed a good linearity within the different ranges for different analytes (e.g. 0.05–500 ng/mL for phenanthrene), a square of the correlation coefficient was higher than 0.999, and an appropriate limit of detection in the range of 0.013–0.072 ng/mL. The recoveries in all cases were above 94%, with relative standard deviations below 2.4%.     

A hybrid EDC/Flamelet approach for modelling biomass combustion of grate-firing furnace

This paper proposes a new combustion model for the simulation of biomass combustion. It is developed based on the framework of the well-known Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) approach, which has the ability to incorporate chemical kinetics in turbulent reacting flows and thus makes it suitable for modelling gas-phase combustion. However, its high computational cost when using detailed chemistry has made it impractical for modelling large/industrial setups. To address this handicap, the proposed approach decouples the real-time calculation of chemical and mixing processes by importing a pre-calculated steady laminar flamelet library into EDC. The development of this new model is performed based on a modified version of EDC (called Extended EDC), which is capable of modelling the gas-phase of biomass combustion over a wide range of turbulent flow conditions. The proposed model is validated by simulating the well-documented experiment of the piloted jet flames of Barlow and Frank. The performance of the model is then evaluated by simulating a small-scale grate firing biomass furnace. The results show that, overall, the proposed model can be used to model biomass combustion at substantially low computational cost.