Performance improvement of PDMS/PES membrane by adding silicalite-1 nanoparticles: separation of xenon and krypton

The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mixed matrix membrane with dispersed phase of nanozeolite silicalite-1 has been synthesized on polyethersulphone (PES) as a support, and its performance in the gas separation of xenon and krypton has been studied. For this purpose, nanozeolite silicalite-1 is synthesized by the hydrothermal clear solution method and is characterized by XRD and SEM analysis. In this research, the separation performance of MMM has also been compared with the polymeric PDMS membrane. Furthermore, the effect of feed pressure and loading percentage of nanozeolite in the polymeric matrix are evaluated. The results indicate that the addition of nanozeolite to the polymeric matrix improves its separation performance, and that the changes of the feed pressure have no major effect. The average permeability of the krypton and xenon gases through the PDMS polymeric membrane is calculated as 1.25 × 10^?9 and 1.78 × 10^?9 cm mol/(cm² s kPa), respectively, while by adding only 5 wt% of nanosilicalite-1 to the polymeric matrix of the membrane, this amount increased to 1.82 × 10^?9 and 8.07 × 10^?9 cm mol/(cm² s kPa), respectively. In addition, the presence of nanosilicalite-1 as the filler leads to an increase in the selectivity of xenon to krypton up to 4.38.     

Batch and continuous fixed-bed column biosorption of thorium(IV) from aqueous solutions: equilibrium and dynamic modeling

Biosorption of thorium(IV) from aqueous solution by Cystoseira indica alga was investigated in batch and fixed-bed column experiments. In the batch study the effects of pH and initial concentration were investigated. The optimum pH for Th(IV) biosorption was found to be 3.5. The experimental isotherms obtained at different pH conditions were analyzed using three two-parameter models and three three-parameter models. Among the two-parameter models the Langmuir model and among the three-parameter models the Redlich–Peterson model vividly described the equilibrium data. The results showed that C. indica alga is a homogeneous biosorbent and Th(IV) biosorption is a favorable and physical process. The maximum biosorption capacity from the Langmuir model was 151.3, 195.7 and 120.6 mg/g at pH 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5, respectively. The continuous isotherm obtained from the column data was modeled by the Langmuir model and the maximum biosorption capacity was 283.8 mg/g. The experimental data were fitted by the use of an analytical and a numerical model, namely Clark and mass transfer models. The results showed that the mass transfer model adequately described the experimental data. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the value of k _in has more effect than the axial dispersion coefficient (D _z) on the shape of breakthrough curve.     

Acid Gas Converting to Organosulfur and Hydrogen in Methanol Thiolation Using Alkali Promoted Catalysts: Case Study

Catalysis Surveys from Asia - An acid gas stream was utilized instead of pure H2S as feedstock in the methanol thiolation reaction with Alkali/W/γ-Al2O3 catalysts. The catalysts were...     

Comparison of the prediction power of 23 generalized equations of state: Part II — Parametric evaluation

The parameters contained in the 23 generalized equations of state (EOSs) studied in the first part of this research have been evaluated in the current study in order to determine conditions at which they should not be used. At first, for the studied generic van der Waals (vdW)-type EOSs it has been illustrated that what kind of temperature-dependence for the parameters involved such as the co-volume leads to infinite or negative isochoric and isobaric heat capacities at high pressures and how large the pressures are at which negative heat capacities occur. In the next step, the temperature-dependence and limiting behavior of the attraction parameters applied in the studied generic vdW-type EOSs have been investigated. Furthermore, the dominant trend of the second Virial coefficient in terms of the temperature has been explored for a generic vdW-type EOS taking into account the temperature-dependence of the attraction parameter and the prediction power of the studied EOSs for the second Virial coefficient have been tested against the experimental data. Thereafter, some useful remarks about the constraints in the solution of the EOS and the critical reduced pressure-reduced volume isotherm predicted by the studied EOSs have been presented. Finally, the main parameters of the studied EOSs, namely the thermal cohesion function and the co-volume of the studied generic vdW-type EOSs together with the second and third Virial coefficients of the studied truncated Virial-type EOSs have been examined for anomalies caused by particular conditions of the variables used to define them, i.e. the characteristic properties and the reduced temperature.     

Dynamics modelling and Hybrid Suppression Control of space robots performing cooperative object manipulation

Dynamics modelling and control of multi-body space robotic systems composed of rigid and flexible elements is elaborated here. Control of such systems is highly complicated due to severe under-actuated condition caused by flexible elements, and an inherent uneven nonlinear dynamics. Therefore, developing a compact dynamics model with the requirement of limited computations is extremely useful for controller design, also to develop simulation studies in support of design improvement, and finally for practical implementations. In this paper, the Rigid–Flexible Interactive dynamics Modelling (RFIM) approach is introduced as a combination of Lagrange and Newton–Euler methods, in which the motion equations of rigid and flexible members are separately developed in an explicit closed form. These equations are then assembled and solved simultaneously at each time step by considering the mutual interaction and constraint forces. The proposed approach yields a compact model rather than common accumulation approach that leads to a massive set of equations in which the dynamics of flexible elements is united with the dynamics equations of rigid members. To reveal such merits of this new approach, a Hybrid Suppression Control (HSC) for a cooperative object manipulation task will be proposed, and applied to usual space systems. A Wheeled Mobile Robotic (WMR) system with flexible appendages as a typical space rover is considered which contains a rigid main body equipped with two manipulating arms and two flexible solar panels, and next a Space Free Flying Robotic system (SFFR) with flexible members is studied. Modelling verification of these complicated systems is vigorously performed using ANSYS and ADAMS programs, while the limited computations of RFIM approach provides an efficient tool for the proposed controller design. Furthermore, it will be shown that the vibrations of the flexible solar panels results in disturbing forces on the base which may produce undesirable errors and perturb the object manipulation task. So, it is shown that these effects can be significantly eliminated by the proposed Hybrid Suppression Control algorithm.     

Piston scuffing fault and its identification in an IC engine by vibration analysis

In this paper, the effects of piston scuffing fault on engine performance and vibrations are investigated. A procedure based on vibration analysis is also presented to identify piston scuffing fault. To this end, an internal combustion (IC) engine ran under a specific test procedure. The engine parameters and vibration signals were measured during the experiments. To produce piston scuffing fault, three-body abrasive wear mechanism was employed. The experimental results showed that piston scuffing fault caused the engine performance to reduce significantly. The vibration signals were analyzed in time-domain, frequency-domain and time–frequency domain. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to obtain time–frequency representations. “dmey” wavelet was selected as the optimum wavelet type for this research among different wavelet types using the three criteria of energy, Shannon entropy and energy to Shannon entropy ratio. The results of CWT analysis by “dmey” wavelet showed that piston scuffing fault excited the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz in which the frequency of 3.7 kHz was affected more. Finally, seven different features were extracted from the engine vibration signals related to the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz. The results indicated that maximum, mean, RMS, skewness, kurtosis and impulse factor of the engine vibration related to the found frequency band increased significantly due to piston scuffing fault. The obtained results showed that the proposed method identified piston scuffing fault and discovered the vibration characteristics of this fault like frequency band. The results also demonstrated the possibility of using engine vibrations in piston scuffing fault identification.