Resumo em Inglês:

Research in convective heat transfer using suspensions of nanometer-sized solid particles in base liquids started only over the past decade. Recent investigations on nanofluids, as such suspensions are often called, indicate that the suspended nanoparticles markedly change the transport properties and heat transfer characteristics of the suspension. This first part of the review summarizes recent research on theoretical and numerical investigations of various thermal properties and applications of nanofluids.

Resumo em Inglês:

Research in convective heat transfer using suspensions of nanometer-sized solid particles in base liquids started only over the past decade. Recent investigations on nanofluids, as such suspensions are often called, indicate that the suspended nanoparticles markedly change the transport properties and heat transfer characteristics of the suspension. This second part of the review covers fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids in forced and free convection flows and potential applications of nanofluids. Opportunities for future research are identified as well.

Resumo em Inglês:

A novel system, the membrane gradostat reactor (MGR), designed for the continuous production of secondary metabolites, has been shown to have higher production per reactor volume than batch culture systems. The MGR system mimics the natural environment in which wild occurring microorganism biofilms flourish. The biofilms are immobilised on the external surface of an ultrafiltration membrane where substrate distribution gradients are established across the biofilm. The hypothesis that, dissolved oxygen (DO) mass transfer parameters obtained in submerged pellets can be used to describe and model DO mass transfer parameters in the MGR, was refuted. Phanerochaete chrysosporium biofilms, immobilised on ultrafiltration capillary membranes in the MGR systems were used to quantify DO distribution using a Clark-type microsensor. The DO penetration depth decreased with increasing biofilm thickness, which resulted in the formation of anaerobic zones in the biofilms. Oxygen flux values of 0.27 to 0.7 g/(m².h) were obtained during the MGR operation. The consumption of oxygen and the Monod saturation constants used in the modelling of oxygen distribution in immobilised biofilms were in the range of 894.53 to 2739.70 g/(m³.h) and 0.041 to 0.999 g/m³, respectively.

Resumo em Inglês:

A moving bed bioreactor containing cubes of polyether foam immersed in a synthetic wastewater (an aqueous mixture of meat extract, yeast extract, dextrose, meat peptone, ammonium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, potassium mono-hydrogen-phosphate and magnesium sulphate) was used to evaluate bacterial growth and biomass yield parameters based on Monod's equation. The wastewater was supplied in the bottom of the equipment flowing ascending in parallel with a diffused air current that provided the mixing of the reactor content. Suspended and attached biomass concentration was measured through gravimetric methods. Good agreement was found between experimental kinetic parameters values and those obtained by other researchers. The only significant difference was the high global biomass content about 2 times the values obtained in conventional processes, providing high performance with volumetric loading rates up to 5.5 kg COD/m³/d.

Resumo em Inglês:

The solar driven photo-Fenton process for treating water containing phenol as a contaminant has been evaluated by means of pilot-scale experiments with a parabolic trough solar reactor (PTR). The effects of Fe(II) (0.04-1.0 mmol L-1), H2O2 (7-270 mmol L-1), initial phenol concentration (100 and 500 mg C L-1), solar radiation, and operation mode (batch and fed-batch) on the process efficiency were investigated. More than 90% of the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was removed within 3 hours of irradiation or less, a performance equivalent to that of artificially-irradiated reactors, indicating that solar light can be used either as an effective complementary or as an alternative source of photons for the photo-Fenton degradation process. A non-linear multivariable model based on a neural network was fit to the experimental results of batch-mode experiments in order to evaluate the relative importance of the process variables considered on the DOC removal over the reaction time. This included solar radiation, which is not a controlled variable. The observed behavior of the system in batch-mode was compared with fed-batch experiments carried out under similar conditions. The main contribution of the study consists of the results from experiments under different conditions and the discussion of the system behavior. Both constitute important information for the design and scale-up of solar radiation-based photodegradation processes.

Resumo em Inglês:

Air quality data (ground level ozone (O3), NO, NOx, SO2, CO, H2S and NH3) of two Kuwaiti urban areas adjacent to petroleum processing facilities, Fahaheel and Al-Riqa, were analyzed and compared to evaluate: (1) the exceedances of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority (KUEPA) air quality limits, (2) primary air pollution sources and their contribution to the ambient load, (3) diurnal patterns of air pollutants and (4) the "weekend effect"on O3 levels. High O3 levels, above the threshold limit for human health, were observed in both urban areas. CO, NOx and NO levels in Fahaheel were higher than in Al-Riqa. Combustion sources (which exist close to Fahaheel) drive both NOx and NO diurnal patterns in both areas. Emissions from downstream facilities and the activity of Fahaheel highway affect the CO levels in the areas. Concentration roses were plotted for annual durations to examine the primary dominant sources of air pollution in both study areas. By establishing a Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) model around the two receptor points in both areas, it was revealed that the downstream facilities sector was the main contributor of air pollutants in Fahaheel. CMB model gave a 70% average contribution of the sector to the Fahaheel receptor point. However, 70% of the total contribution of the studied sources in Al-Riqa urban area was from the traffic and line sources side. The examination of the rate of O3 accumulation, during the high O3 period in Kuwait (April-October), revealed the occurrence of two phases, a fast and a slow one, with different durations in each urban area. Regression equations were used to study the midweek effect of O3 levels. This study supports the hypothesis that O3 weekend variation is due to an NOx emission difference between weekends and weekdays and VOCs sensitivity.

Resumo em Inglês:

This work focuses on the fluidization of three types of TiO2 powders: Anatase (99% TiO2), Rutile 1 (95% TiO2 and 5% Al) and Rutile 2 (96.5% TiO2 and 3.5% Al and Si); the average diameters of the powders are 204 nm, 159 nm and 167 nm, respectively. These powders belong to group C of the Geldart classification and are characterized as cohesive powders with a non-free flow and a difficult fluidization. The fluidization of the powders was carried out in a glass column of 103 mm inner diameter and 1500 mm height. The experiments and analysis performed included measurements of the physical properties of the powders such as the particle size, density, specific surface area and the flow properties of the powders like the Hausner's index, the angle of repose, the angle of slide, consolidation and shearing (via shear cell testing). The results obtained with the nanometric TiO2 powders show a more complex behavior than the micronic powders; with a low strength value (Hausner index, angle of repose and angle of slide), the TiO2 powders have a free flow or intermediate-flow and a non-free-flow for higher strength intensities (consolidation and shearing). This behavior is related to the structure of the nanometric particles in the packed bed; the evolution of this structure is made up of individualized and spherical agglomerate shapes and is not perturbed by stresses of low intensities. Indeed, the latter seems to modify the structure of the powder (group C of Geldart classification) to acquire a behavior typical of group A, B or D in the Geldart classification. With high stress values, the individualized agglomerates are disintegrated and the powder is reduced to a more compact structure. The fluidization of TiO2 powders seems to evolve in a more homogeneous way than the micronic powders. This behavior is related to the initial structure being made up of stable agglomerates. Thus, this fluidization is made by agglomerates with a gas velocity of 3×10(6) to 4.6×10(6) times the gas velocity for fluidizing the primary particles.A numerical approach based on a force balance in agglomerating fluidized beds was developed in order to estimate the agglomerates sizes.

Resumo em Inglês:

Deformability modulus, hardness, cohesiveness and adhesiveness of cassava dough reconstituted from precooked flour were evaluated using a lubricated compression test and texture profile analysis. Cassava parenchyma processed under different cooking conditions and left at either -5ºC or -20ºC for 24 h was used to make flour, which was reconstituted into dough. As temperature decreased to -20ºC during the storage period of cooked parenchyma, deformability modulus, hardness and cohesiveness of dough increased significantly. The temperature during the storage period was the most important factor affecting the textural properties of cassava dough.

Resumo em Inglês:

Vacuum pyrolysis bagasse bio-oil collected in a series of sequential fractions was analyzed for total percentage of phenols and levoglucosan components. It was established that the ratio total phenols- to-levoglucosan could be used as an indicator of the performance of alkaline solutions of bio-oil fractions (SABO) when they are used as foaming agents to benefit flotation of sulfured cupper minerals. A high total phenol-to-levoglucosan ratio results in high percentages of Cu in cupper flotation concentrates, L Cu. A closer look at the role of individual phenols reveals that p-cresol is the main phenol, although not the only one, responsible for the observed behavior. Additionally it was noted that rather high doses of these foaming agents must be used to obtain desirable results in flotation processes. A production cost estimate allows consideration of SABO as an alternative to others commercial foaming agents, especially if an optimization study reduces doses of SABO.

Resumo em Inglês:

The hydrodynamic behaviour of a short Kühni column was investigated under no mass transfer conditions using the binary system water (continuous phase) and Exxsol D-80 (dispersed phase). The counter-current flow pattern of the liquid phases was characterised regarding the Sauter mean drop diameter, drop size distribution and hold-up; a photographic method was used to assess drop sizes. The following operating variables were studied: rotor speed, flow rate of both liquid phases and column stage. The log-normal probability density function was found to be adequate to fit the experimental drop size distributions along the column. As expected, smaller drops and more uniform drop size distributions were obtained with the increase of rotor speed and column stage number, thus indicating the predominance of drop breakage phenomena in short columns. The total hold-up was influenced mainly by rotor speed and flow rate of the dispersed phase. Recommended correlations available in the literature were found to be inadequate for predicting experimental drop sizes and hold-up, so alternative expressions, valid only for short Kühni columns, were proposed.

Resumo em Inglês:

Techniques that employ 15N have proved to be an important tool in many areas of the agronomic and biomedical sciences. Nevertheless, their use is limited by methodological difficulties and by the price of compounds in the international market. Nitric compounds (15NO3-) have attracted the interest of researchers. However, these compounds are not currently produced in Brazil. Thus, in the present work H15NO3 was obtained from the oxidation of anhydrous 15NH3. The method we used differs from the industrial process in that the absorption tower is replaced with a polytetrafluoroethylene-lined, stainless-steel hydration reactor. The process output was evaluated based on the following parameters: reaction temperature; ratio of reagents; pressure and flow of 15NH3(g) through the catalyst (Pt/Rh). The results showed that, at the best conditions (500 ºC; 50 % excess O2; 0.4 MPa; and 3.39 g.min-1 of 15NH3), a conversion percentage (N-15NH3 to N-15NO3-) of 62.2 %, an overall nitrogen balance (N-15NH3 + N-15NO3-) of 86.8 %, and purity higher than 99 % could be obtained.

Resumo em Inglês:

Ulexite is one of the boron minerals used as a raw material in the production of boron compounds. It contains a substantial amount of hydration water. Using calcination methods, the B2O3 grade of ulexite can be increased. In this study, the effect of calcination temperature on dissolution kinetics of ulexite in ammonium chloride solutions was investigated in a batch reactor employing the parameters of concentration, solid-to-liquid ratio and reaction temperature. It was found that the dissolution rate increased with increasing concentration and reaction temperature and with decreasing solid-to-liquid ratio. The highest dissolution rate was obtained with the sample calcined at 413 K. It was determined that the dissolution rate fit to the second-order pseudo-homogeneous model. The activation energy of this dissolution process was found to be 64.3 kJ/moL.

Resumo em Inglês:

Recently, nanotechnology has developed to a stage that makes it possible to process magnetic nanoparticles for the site-specific delivery of drugs. To this end, it has been proposed as biomaterial for drug delivery system in which the drug release rates would be activated by a magnetic external stimuli. Alginate has been used extensively in the food, pharmaceutical and biomedical industries for their gel forming properties in the presence of multivalent cations. In this study, we produced iron oxide nanoparticles by coprecipitation of Fe(III) and Fe(II). The nanoparticles were entrapped in Ca alginate beads before and after alginate gelation. XRD analysis showed that particles should be associated to magnetite or maghemite with crystal size of 9.5 and 4.3 nm, respectively. Studies using Mössbauer spectroscopy corroborate the superparamagnetic behavior. The combination of magnetic properties and the biocompatibility of alginate suggest that this biomaterial may be used as biomimetic system.

Resumo em Inglês:

A mathematical model has been developed for describing the dynamic operation of the N-formylmorpholine extractive distillation column and the corresponding solvent recovery column in the benzene extraction plant. The NRTL equation was used to calculate the equilibrium and thermodynamic properties of the mixtures. The validity of the model in terms of temperature, pressure and split fraction was examined using actual plant data at steady-state conditions. Comparison between model results and plant data shows good consistency. In order to improve the control of the process and selection of the optimal control strategy, the model was used to find the optimum values of the constants of the controllers with Nelder-Mead algorithm during unsteady-state operation by minimizing the deviation from steady-state conditions. The outcome of this study could be used by operators and engineers to increase the productivity of the unit.

Resumo em Inglês:

This study presents a FDI strategy for nonlinear dynamic systems. It shows a methodology of tackling the fault detection and isolation issue by combining a technique based on the residuals signal and a technique using the multiple Kalman filters. The usefulness of this combination is the on-line implementation of the set of models, which represents the normal mode and all dynamics of faults, if the statistical decision threshold on the residuals exceeds a fixed value. In other cases, one Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is enough to estimate the process state. After describing the system architecture and the proposed FDI methodology, we present a realistic application in order to show the technique's potential. An algorithm is described and applied to a chemical process like a perfectly stirred chemical reactor functioning in a semi-batch mode. The chemical reaction used is an oxido reduction one, the oxidation of sodium thiosulfate by hydrogen peroxide.

Resumo em Inglês:

The efficiency of an air-slide pneumatic conveying system depends, first of all, on several basic elements chosen or calculated during the design of a plant: air-slide design parameters, air mover characteristics, as well as the physical and chemical properties of the material to be transported. However, during the exploitation of this type of system which is used for handling ash in thermal-power plants, either gradual and/or sudden changes in the operating conditions can arise. This may be due to changes both in the proportion of ash content, and in the flow characteristics of the porous membrane. The consequences of changes in these conditions on the performance of the ash handling system are analyzed, based upon the results of the experimental work carried out on the test rig at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, and upon the on-site measurements at the thermal-power plant "Nikola Tesla B".

Resumo em Inglês:

Designing an effective criterion and learning algorithm for find the best structure is a major problem in the control design process. In this paper, the fuzzy optimal control methodology is applied to the design of the feedback loops of an Exothermic Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor system. The objective of design process is to find an optimal structure/gains of the Robust and Optimal Takagi Sugeno Fuzzy Controller (ROFLC). The control signal thus obtained will minimize a performance index, which is a function of the tracking/regulating errors, the quantity of the energy of the control signal applied to the system, and the number of fuzzy rules. The genetic learning is proposed for constructing the ROFLC. The chromosome genes are arranged into two parts, the binary-coded part contains the control genes and the real-coded part contains the genes parameters representing the fuzzy knowledge base. The effectiveness of this chromosome formulation enables the fuzzy sets and rules to be optimally reduced. The performances of the ROFLC are compared to these found by the traditional PD controller with Genetic Optimization (PD_GO). Simulations demonstrate that the proposed ROFLC and PD_GO has successfully met the design specifications.

Resumo em Inglês:

A common problem in dynamic systems is to determine parameters in an equation used to represent experimental data. The goal is to determine the values of model parameters that provide the best fit to measured data, generally based on some type of least squares or maximum likelihood criterion. In the most general case, this requires the solution of a nonlinear and frequently non-convex optimization problem. Some of the available software lack in generality, while others do not provide ease of use. A user-interactive parameter estimation software was needed for identifying kinetic parameters. In this work we developed an integration based optimization approach to provide a solution to such problems. For easy implementation of the technique, a parameter estimation software (PARES) has been developed in MATLAB environment. When tested with extensive example problems from literature, the suggested approach is proven to provide good agreement between predicted and observed data within relatively less computing time and iterations.