Search results for: contamination mixture.
345 Risk Assessment of Lead in Egyptian Vegetables and Fruits from Different Environments
Authors: A. A. K. Abou-Arab, M. A. Abou Donia, Sherif R. Mohamed, A. K. Enab
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Lead being a toxic heavy metal that mankind is exposed to the highest levels of this metal. There are different sources of environmental pollution with lead as lead alkyl additives in petrol and manufacturing processes. The contaminated atmosphere in urban and industrial areas by lead in Egypt may lead to the contamination of foods beside the other different sources. The present investigation studied the risk assessment of lead in some Egyptian edible vegetables and fruits collected from different environments in Greater Cairo Governorate, i.e. industrial, heavy traffic and rural areas. A total of 325 leafy and fruity vegetables and fruits samples belonging to 11, 6 and 4 different species, respectively were randomly collected from markets of the three main models. Data indicated the variation of lead levels in different three areas. The highest levels of lead were detected in the samples collected from industrial and traffic areas. However, the lowest levels were found in the rural areas. It could be concluded that determination of lead levels in foods from different localities and environments at regularly is very important.Keywords: Heavy metals, Lead, Vegetables, Fruits, Environments.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1972344 Effect of Passive Modified Atmosphere in Different Packaging Materials on Fresh-Cut Mixed Fruit Salad Quality during Storage
Authors: I. Krasnova, L. Dukalska, D. Seglina, K. Juhnevica, E. Sne, D. Karklina
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Experiments were carried out at the Latvia State Institute of Fruit-Growing in 2011. Fresh-cut minimally processed apple and pear mixed salad were packed by passive modified atmosphere (MAP) in PP containers, which were hermetically sealed by breathable conventional BOPP PropafreshTM P2GAF, and Amcor Agrifresh films. Biodegradable NatureFlexTM NVS INNOVIA Films and VC999 BioPack PLA films coated with a barrier of pure silicon oxide (SiOx) were used to compare the fresh-cut produce quality with this packed in conventional packaging films. Samples were cold stored at temperature +4.0±0.5 °C up to 10 days. The quality of salad was evaluated by physicochemical properties – weight losses, moisture, firmness, the effect of packaging modes on the colour, dynamics in headspace atmosphere concentration (CO2 and O2), titratable acidity values, as well as by microbiological contamination (yeasts, moulds and total bacteria count) of salads, analyzing before packaging and after 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 storage days.Keywords: Biodegradable packaging, conventional, fresh-cut fruit salad
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3937343 Radiation Usage Impact of on Anti-Nutritional Compounds (Antitrypsin and Phytic Acid) of Livestock and Poultry Foods
Authors: Mohammad Khosravi, Ali Kiani, Behroz Dastar, Parvin Showrang
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Review was carried out on important anti-nutritional compounds of livestock and poultry foods and the effect of radiation usage. Nowadays, with advancement in technology, different methods have been considered for the optimum usage of nutrients in livestock and poultry foods. Steaming, extruding, pelleting, and the use of chemicals are the most common and popular methods in food processing. Use of radiation in food processing researches in the livestock and poultry industry is currently highly regarded. Ionizing (electrons, gamma) and non-ionizing beams (microwave and infrared) are the most useable rays in animal food processing. In recent researches, these beams have been used to remove and reduce the anti-nutritional factors and microbial contamination and improve the digestibility of nutrients in poultry and livestock food. The evidence presented will help researchers to recognize techniques of relevance to them. Simplification of some of these techniques, especially in developing countries, must be addressed so that they can be used more widely.
Keywords: Antitrypsin, gamma anti-nutritional components, phytic acid, radiation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1200342 Effect of Incorporating Silica Fume in Fly Ash Geopolymers
Authors: Suresh Thokchom, Debabrata Dutta, Somnath Ghosh
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This paper presents results of an experimental study performed to investigate effect of incorporating silica fume on physico-mechanical properties and durability of resulting fly ash geopolymers. Geopolymer specimens were prepared by activating fly ash incorporated with additional silica fume in the range of 2.5% to 5%, with a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate solution having Na2O content of 8%. For studying durability, 10% magnesium sulphate solution was used to immerse the specimens up to a period of 15 weeks during which visual observation, weight changes and strength changes were monitored regularly. Addition of silica fume lowers performance of geopolymer pastes. However, in mortars, addition of silica fume significantly enhanced physico-mechanical properties and durability.
Keywords: Fly ash, silica fume, geopolymer, apparent porosity, sorptivity, compressive strength, durability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3694341 Time Series Forecasting Using Independent Component Analysis
Authors: Theodor D. Popescu
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The paper presents a method for multivariate time series forecasting using Independent Component Analysis (ICA), as a preprocessing tool. The idea of this approach is to do the forecasting in the space of independent components (sources), and then to transform back the results to the original time series space. The forecasting can be done separately and with a different method for each component, depending on its time structure. The paper gives also a review of the main algorithms for independent component analysis in the case of instantaneous mixture models, using second and high-order statistics. The method has been applied in simulation to an artificial multivariate time series with five components, generated from three sources and a mixing matrix, randomly generated.Keywords: Independent Component Analysis, second order statistics, simulation, time series forecasting
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1768340 Migration and Accumulation of Artificial Radionuclides in the System Water-Soil-Plants Depending on Polymers Applying
Authors: Anna H. Tadevosyan, Stepan K. Mayrapetyan, Michael P. Schellenberg, Laura M. Ghalachyan, Albert H. Hovsepyan, Khachatur S. Mayrapetyan
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The possibility of radionuclides-related contamination of lands at agricultural holdings defines the necessity to apply special protective measures in plant growing. The aim of researches is to elucidate the influence of polymers applying on biological migration of man-made anthropogenic radionuclides 90Sr and 137Cs in the system water - soil – plant. The tests are being carried out under field conditions with and without application of polymers in root-inhabited media in more radioecological tension zone (with the radius of 7 km from the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant). The polymers on the base of K+, Caµ, KµCaµ ions were tested. Productivity of pepper depending on the presence and type of polymer material, content of artificial radionuclides in waters, soil and plant material has been determined. The character of different polymers influence on the artificial radionuclides migration and accumulation in the system water-soil-plant and accumulation in the plants has been cleared up.Keywords: accumulation of artificial radionuclides, pepper, polymer, water-soil-plant system
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1622339 Measurement and Prediction of Speed of Sound in Petroleum Fluids
Authors: S. Ghafoori, A. Al-Harbi, B. Al-Ajmi, A. Al-Shaalan, A. Al-Ajmi, M. Ali Juma
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Seismic methods play an important role in the exploration for hydrocarbon reservoirs. However, the success of the method depends strongly on the reliability of the measured or predicted information regarding the velocity of sound in the media. Speed of sound has been used to study the thermodynamic properties of fluids. In this study, experimental data are reported and analyzed on the speed of sound in toluene and octane binary mixture. Three-factor three-level Box-Benhkam design is used to determine the significance of each factor, the synergetic effects of the factors, and the most significant factors on speed of sound. The developed mathematical model and statistical analysis provided a critical analysis of the simultaneous interactive effects of the independent variables indicating that the developed quadratic models were highly accurate and predictive.
Keywords: Experimental design, octane, speed of sound, toluene.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1391338 CFD Predictions of Dense Slurry Flow in Centrifugal Pump Casings
Authors: Krishnan V. Pagalthivarthi, Pankaj K. Gupta, Vipin Tyagi, M. R. Ravi
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Dense slurry flow through centrifugal pump casing has been modeled using the Eulerian-Eulerian approach with Eulerian multiphase model in FLUENT 6.1®. First order upwinding is considered for the discretization of momentum, k and ε terms. SIMPLE algorithm has been applied for dealing with pressurevelocity coupling. A mixture property based k-ε turbulence model has been used for modeling turbulence. Results are validated first against mesh independence and experiments for a particular set of operational and geometric conditions. Parametric analysis is then performed to determine the effect on important physical quantities viz. solid velocities, solid concentration and solid stresses near the wall with various operational geometric conditions of the pump.Keywords: Centrifugal pump casing, Dense slurry, Solidsconcentration, Wall shear stress, Pump geometric parameters.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4888337 Removal of Chromium from Aqueous Solution using Synthesized Polyaniline in Acetonitrile
Authors: Majid Riahi Samani, Seyed Mehdi Borghei
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Absorptive characteristics of polyaniline synthesized in mixture of water and acetonitrile in 50/50 volume ratio was studied. Synthesized polyaniline in powder shape is used as an adsorbent to remove toxic hexavalent chromium from aqueous solutions. Experiments were conducted in batch mode with different variables such as agitation time, solution pH and initial concentration of hexavalent chromium. Removal mechanism is the combination of surface adsorption and reduction. The equilibrium time for removal of Cr(T) and Cr(VI) was about 2 and 10 minutes respectively. The optimum pH for total chromium removal occurred at pH 7 and maximum hexavalent chromium removal took place under acidic condition at pH 3. Investigating the isothermal characteristics showed that the equilibrium adsorption data fitted both Freundlich-s and Langmuir-s isotherms. The maximum adsorption of chromium was calculated 36.1 mg/g for polyanilineKeywords: Polyaniline, Chromium, acetonitrile, Adsorption
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2210336 The Effect of CaO Addition on Mechanical Properties of Ceramic Tiles
Authors: Lucie Vodova, Radomir Sokolar, Jitka Hroudova
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Stoneware clay, fired clay (as a grog), calcite waste and class C fly ash in various mixing rations were the basic raw materials for the mixture for production of dry pressed ceramic tiles. Mechanical properties (water absorption, bulk density, apparent porosity, flexural strength) as well as mineralogical composition were studied on samples with different source of calcium oxide after firing at 900, 1000, 1100 and 1200°C. It was found that samples with addition of calcite waste contain dmisteinbergit and anorthite. This minerals help to improve the strength of the body and reduce porosity fired at lower temperatures. Class C fly ash has not significantly influence on properties of the fired body as calcite waste.
Keywords: Ceramic tiles, class C fly ash, calcite waste, calcium oxide, anorthite.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3639335 Influence of Silica Fume on Ultrahigh Performance Concrete
Authors: Vitoldas Vaitkevičius, Evaldas Šerelis
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Silica fume, also known as microsilica (MS) or condensed silica fume is a by-product of the production of silicon metal or ferrosilicon alloys. Silica fume is one of the most effective pozzolanic additives which could be used for ultrahigh performance and other types of concrete. Despite the fact, however is not entirely clear, which amount of silica fume is most optimal for UHPC. Main objective of this experiment was to find optimal amount of silica fume for UHPC with and without thermal treatment, when different amount of quartz powder is substituted by silica fume. In this work were investigated four different composition of UHPC with different amount of silica fume. Silica fume were added 0, 10, 15 and 20% of cement (by weight) to UHPC mixture. Optimal amount of silica fume was determined by slump, viscosity, qualitative and quantitative XRD analysis and compression strength tests methods.
Keywords: Compressive strength, silica fume, ultrahigh performance concrete, XRD.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4590334 Comparison Ageing Deterioration of Silicone Rubber Outdoor Polymer Insulators in Artificial Accelerated Salt Fog Ageing Test
Authors: S.Thong-Om, W. Payakcho, J. Grasaesom, A. Oonsivilai, B. Marungsri
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This paper presents the experimental results of silicone rubber outdoor polymer insulators in salt fog ageing test based on IEC 61109. Specimens made ofHTV silicone rubber with ATH content having three different configurations, straight shedsalternated sheds, and incline and alternate sheds, were tested continuously 1000 hrs.in artificial salt fog chamber. Contamination level, reduction of hydrophobicity and hardness measurement were used as physical damaged inspection techniques to evaluate degree of surface deterioration. In addition, chemical changing of tested specimen surface was evaluated by ATR-FTIRto confirm physical damaged inspection. After 1000 hrs.of salt fog test, differences in degree of surface deterioration were observed on all tested specimens. Physical damaged inspection and chemical analysis results confirmed the experimental results as well.
Keywords: Ageing deterioration, Silicone rubber, Polymer Insulator, Salt fog ageing test.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2527333 Terrain Classification for Ground Robots Based on Acoustic Features
Authors: Bernd Kiefer, Abraham Gebru Tesfay, Dietrich Klakow
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The motivation of our work is to detect different terrain types traversed by a robot based on acoustic data from the robot-terrain interaction. Different acoustic features and classifiers were investigated, such as Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient and Gamma-tone frequency cepstral coefficient for the feature extraction, and Gaussian mixture model and Feed forward neural network for the classification. We analyze the system’s performance by comparing our proposed techniques with some other features surveyed from distinct related works. We achieve precision and recall values between 87% and 100% per class, and an average accuracy at 95.2%. We also study the effect of varying audio chunk size in the application phase of the models and find only a mild impact on performance.Keywords: Terrain classification, acoustic features, autonomous robots, feature extraction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1114332 Energy Saving Stove for Stew Coconut Sugar
Authors: Ruedee Niyomrath
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The purposes of this research is aim to build the energy saving stove for stew coconut sugar. The research started from explores ceramic raw materials in local area, create the appropriate mixture of ceramic raw materials for construction material of stove, and make it by ceramic process. It includes design and build the energy saving stove, experiment the efficiency of energy saving stove as to thermal efficiency, energy saving, performance of time, and energy cost efficiency, transfer the knowledge for community, stove manufacturers, and technicians. The findings must be useful to the coconut sugar enterprises producing, to reduce the cost of production, preserve natural resources, and environments.
Keywords: Ceramic raw material, Energy saving stove, Stove design, Performance of stove, Stove for stew coconut sugar.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1627331 Region Based Hidden Markov Random Field Model for Brain MR Image Segmentation
Authors: Terrence Chen, Thomas S. Huang
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In this paper, we present the region based hidden Markov random field model (RBHMRF), which encodes the characteristics of different brain regions into a probabilistic framework for brain MR image segmentation. The recently proposed TV+L1 model is used for region extraction. By utilizing different spatial characteristics in different brain regions, the RMHMRF model performs beyond the current state-of-the-art method, the hidden Markov random field model (HMRF), which uses identical spatial information throughout the whole brain. Experiments on both real and synthetic 3D MR images show that the segmentation result of the proposed method has higher accuracy compared to existing algorithms.Keywords: Finite Gaussian mixture model, Hidden Markov random field model, image segmentation, MRI.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2091330 Computational Modeling of Combustion Wave in Nanoscale Thermite Reaction
Authors: Kyoungjin Kim
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Nanoscale thermites such as the composite mixture of nano-sized aluminum and molybdenum trioxide powders possess several technical advantages such as much higher reaction rate and shorter ignition delay, when compared to the conventional energetic formulations made of micron-sized metal and oxidizer particles. In this study, the self-propagation of combustion wave in compacted pellets of nanoscale thermite composites is modeled and computationally investigated by utilizing the activation energy reduction of aluminum particles due to nanoscale particle sizes. The present computational model predicts the speed of combustion wave propagation which is good agreement with the corresponding experiments of thermite reaction. Also, several characteristics of thermite reaction in nanoscale composites are discussed including the ignition delay and combustion wave structures.
Keywords: Nanoparticles, Thermite reaction, Combustion wave, Numerical modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2431329 The Effect of Soil Contamination on Chemical Composition and Quality of Aronia (Aronia melanocarpa) Fruits
Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Sava G. Tabakov, Aleksander B. Peltekov, Krasimir I. Ivanov
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A field study was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition and quality of the Aronia fruits, as well as the possibilities of Aronia cultivation on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The experiment was performed on an agricultural field contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works (NFMW) near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The study included four varieties of Aronia; Aron variety, Hugin variety, Viking variety and Nero variety. The Aronia was cultivated according to the conventional technology on areas at a different distance from the source of pollution NFMW- Plovdiv (1 km, 3.5 km, and 15 km). The concentrations of macroelements, microelements, and heavy metals in Aronia fruits were determined. The dry matter content, ash, sugars, proteins, and fats were also determined. Aronia is a crop that is tolerant to heavy metals and can successfully be grown on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The increased content of heavy metals in the soil leads to less absorption of the nutrients (Ca, Mg and P) in the fruit of the Aronia. Soil pollution with heavy metals does not affect the quality of the Aronia fruit varieties.
Keywords: Aronia, chemical composition, fruits, quality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1120328 Effect of Curing Profile to Eliminate the Voids / Black Dots Formation in Underfill Epoxy for Hi-CTE Flip Chip Packaging
Authors: Zainudin Kornain, Azman Jalar, Rozaidi Rasid, Fong Chee Seng
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Void formation in underfill is considered as failure in flip chip manufacturing process. Void formation possibly caused by several factors such as poor soldering and flux residue during die attach process, void entrapment due moisture contamination, dispense pattern process and setting up the curing process. This paper presents the comparison of single step and two steps curing profile towards the void and black dots formation in underfill for Hi-CTE Flip Chip Ceramic Ball Grid Array Package (FC-CBGA). Statistic analysis was conducted to analyze how different factors such as wafer lot, sawing technique, underfill fillet height and curing profile recipe were affected the formation of voids and black dots. A C-Mode Scanning Aqoustic Microscopy (C-SAM) was used to scan the total count of voids and black dots. It was shown that the 2 steps curing profile provided solution for void elimination and black dots in underfill after curing process.Keywords: black dots formation, curing profile, FC-CBGA, underfill, void formation,
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4057327 Effect of Boric Acid on a-Hydroxy Acids Compounds in Thin Layer Chromatography
Authors: Elham Moniri, Homayon Ahmad Panahi, Ahmad Izadi, Mohamad Mehdi Parvin, Atyeh Rahimi
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In this investigation Salicylic acid, Sulfosalicylic acid and Acetyl salicylic acid were chosen as a sample for thin layer chromatography (TLC) on silica gel plates. Bicarbonate buffer at different pH containing different amounts of boric acid was applied as mobile phase. Specific interaction of these substances with boric acid has effect on Rf in thin layer chromatography. Regular and similar trend was observed in variations of Rf for mentioned compounds in TLC by altering of percentages of boric acid in mobile phase in pH range of 8-10. Also effect of organic solvent, mixture of water/ organic solvent and organic solvent containing boric acid as mobile phase was studied.Keywords: Thin layer chromatography (TLC), Aspirin, Salicylic acid, Sulfosalycylic acid, Boric acid.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2314326 Valorization of the Algerian Plaster and Dune Sand in the Building Sector
Authors: S. Dorbani, F. Kharchi, F. Salem, K. Arroudj, N. Chioukh
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The need for thermal comfort of buildings, with the aim of saving energy, has always generated a big interest during the development of methods, to improve the mode of construction. In the present paper, which is concerned by the valorization of locally abundant materials, mixtures of plaster and dune sand have been studied. To point out the thermal performances of these mixtures, a comparative study has been established between this product and the two materials most commonly used in construction, the concrete and hollow brick. The results showed that optimal mixture is made with 1/3 plaster and 2/3 dune sand. This mortar achieved significant increases in the mechanical strengths, which allow it to be used as a carrier element for buildings, of up to two levels. The element obtained offers an acceptable thermal insulation, with a decrease the outer-wall construction thickness.
Keywords: Local materials, mortar, plaster, dune sand, compaction, mechanical performance, thermal performance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 797325 Vermicomposting of Textile Industries’ Dyeing Sludge by Using Eisenia foetida
Authors: Kunwar D. Yadav, Dayanand Sharma
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Surat City in India is famous for textile and dyeing industries which generate textile sludge in huge quantity. Textile sludge contains harmful chemicals which are poisonous and carcinogenic. The safe disposal and reuse of textile dyeing sludge are challenging for owner of textile industries and government of the state. The aim of present study was the vermicomposting of textile industries dyeing sludge with cow dung and Eisenia foetida as earthworm spices. The vermicompost reactor of 0.3 m3 capacity was used for vermicomposting. Textile dyeing sludge was mixed with cow dung in different proportion, i.e., 0:100 (C1), 10:90 (C2), 20:80 (C3), 30:70 (C4). Vermicomposting duration was 120 days. All the combinations of the feed mixture, the pH was increased to a range 7.45-7.78, percentage of total organic carbon was decreased to a range of 31-33.3%, total nitrogen was decreased to a range of 1.15-1.32%, total phosphorus was increased in the range of 6.2-7.9 (g/kg).Keywords: Cow dung, Eisenia foetida, textile sludge, vermicompost.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1048324 Electric Field and Potential Distributions along Surface of Silicone Rubber Polymer Insulators Using Finite Element Method
Authors: B. Marungsri, W. Onchantuek, A. Oonsivilai
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This paper presents the simulation the results of electric field and potential distributions along surface of silicone rubber polymer insulators. Near the same leakage distance subjected to 15 kV in 50 cycle salt fog ageing test, alternate sheds silicone rubber polymer insulator showed better contamination performance than straight sheds silicone rubber polymer insulator. Severe surface ageing was observed on the straight sheds insulator. The objective of this work is to elucidate that electric field distribution along straight sheds insulator higher than alternate shed insulator in salt fog ageing test. Finite element method (FEM) is adopted for this work. The simulation results confirmed the experimental data, as well.Keywords: Electric field distribution, potential distribution, silicone rubber polymer insulator, finite element method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2096323 Hybrid Modeling Algorithm for Continuous Tamil Speech Recognition
Authors: M. Kalamani, S. Valarmathy, M. Krishnamoorthi
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In this paper, Fuzzy C-Means clustering with Expectation Maximization-Gaussian Mixture Model based hybrid modeling algorithm is proposed for Continuous Tamil Speech Recognition. The speech sentences from various speakers are used for training and testing phase and objective measures are between the proposed and existing Continuous Speech Recognition algorithms. From the simulated results, it is observed that the proposed algorithm improves the recognition accuracy and F-measure up to 3% as compared to that of the existing algorithms for the speech signal from various speakers. In addition, it reduces the Word Error Rate, Error Rate and Error up to 4% as compared to that of the existing algorithms. In all aspects, the proposed hybrid modeling for Tamil speech recognition provides the significant improvements for speechto- text conversion in various applications.
Keywords: Speech Segmentation, Feature Extraction, Clustering, HMM, EM-GMM, CSR.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2129322 Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production on TiO2 by Using Carbon Materials
Authors: Bashir Ahmmad, Kensaku Kanomata, Fumihiko Hirose
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The effect of carbon materials on TiO2 for the photocatalytic hydrogen gas production from water / alcohol mixtures was investigated. Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), carbon nanofiber (CNF), fullerene (FLN), graphite (GP), and graphite silica (GS) were used as co-catalysts by directly mixing with TiO2. Drastic synergy effects were found with increase in the amount of hydrogen gas by a factor of ca. 150 and 100 for SWNTs and GS with TiO2, respectively. Moreover, the increment factor of hydrogen production reached to 180, when the mixture of SWNTs and TiO2 were smashed in an agate mortar before photocatalytic reactions. The order of H2 gas production for these carbon materials was SWNTs > GS >> MWNTs > FLN > CNF > GP. To maximize the hydrogen production from SWNTs/TiO2, various parameters of experimental condition were changed. Also, a comparison between Pt/TiO2, SWNTs/TiO2 and GS/TiO2 was made for the amount of H2 gas production. Finally, the recyclability of SWNTs/TiO2or GS/TiO2 was tested.
Keywords: Photocatalysis, carbon materials, alcohol reforming, hydrogen production, titanium oxide.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3974321 Development of a Water-Jet Assisted Underwater Laser Cutting Process
Authors: Suvradip Mullick, Yuvraj K. Madhukar, Subhranshu Roy, Ashish K. Nath
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We present the development of a new underwater laser cutting process in which a water-jet has been used along with the laser beam to remove the molten material through kerf. The conventional underwater laser cutting usually utilizes a high pressure gas jet along with laser beam to create a dry condition in the cutting zone and also to eject out the molten material. This causes a lot of gas bubbles and turbulence in water, and produces aerosols and waste gas. This may cause contamination in the surrounding atmosphere while cutting radioactive components like burnt nuclear fuel. The water-jet assisted underwater laser cutting process produces much less turbulence and aerosols in the atmosphere. Some amount of water vapor bubbles is formed at the laser-metal-water interface; however, they tend to condense as they rise up through the surrounding water. We present the design and development of a water-jet assisted underwater laser cutting head and the parametric study of the cutting of AISI 304 stainless steel sheets with a 2 kW CW fiber laser. The cutting performance is similar to that of the gas assist laser cutting; however, the process efficiency is reduced due to heat convection by water-jet and laser beam scattering by vapor. This process may be attractive for underwater cutting of nuclear reactor components.Keywords: Laser, underwater cutting, water-jet.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4646320 The Synergistic Effects of Using Silicon and Selenium on Fruiting of Zaghloul Date Palm (Phoenix dectylifera L.)
Authors: M. R. Gad El- Kareem, A. M. K. Abdel Aal, A. Y. Mohamed
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During 2011 and 2012 seasons, Zaghloul date palms received four sprays of silicon (Si) at 0.05 to 0.1% and selenium (Se) at 0.01 to 0.02%. Growth, nutritional status, yield as well as physical and chemical characteristics of the fruits in response to application of silicon and selenium were investigated. Single and combined applications of silicon at 0.05 to 0.1% and selenium at 0.01 to 0.02% was very effective in enhancing the leaf area, total chlorophylls, percentages of N, P and K in the leaves, yield, bunch weight as well as physical and chemical characteristics of the fruits in relative to the check treatment. Silicon was superior to selenium in this respect. Combined application was favorable than using each alone in this connection. Treating Zaghloul date palms four times with a mixture of silicon at 0.05% + selenium at 0.01% resulted in an economical yield and producing better fruit quality.
Keywords: Date Palms, Zaghloul, Silicon, Selenium, leaf area.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2978319 FHOJ: A New Java Benchmark Framework
Authors: Vinh Quang La, Dirk Jansen
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There are some existing Java benchmarks, application benchmarks as well as micro benchmarks or mixture both of them,such as: Java Grande, Spec98, CaffeMark, HBech, etc. But none of them deal with behaviors of multi tasks operating systems. As a result, the achieved outputs are not satisfied for performance evaluation engineers. Behaviors of multi tasks operating systems are based on a schedule management which is employed in these systems. Different processes can have different priority to share the same resources. The time is measured by estimating from applications started to it is finished does not reflect the real time value which the system need for running those programs. New approach to this problem should be done. Having said that, in this paper we present a new Java benchmark, named FHOJ benchmark, which directly deals with multi tasks behaviors of a system. Our study shows that in some cases, results from FHOJ benchmark are far more reliable in comparison with some existing Java benchmarks.
Keywords: Java Virtual Machine, Java benchmark, FHOJ framework.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1513318 Application of a Time-Frequency-Based Blind Source Separation to an Instantaneous Mixture of Secondary Radar Sources
Authors: M. Tria, M. Benidir, E. Chaumette
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In Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) systems, it is more difficult to locate and recognise aircrafts in the neighbourhood of civil airports since aerial traffic becomes greater. Here, we propose to apply a recent Blind Source Separation (BSS) algorithm based on Time-Frequency Analysis, in order to separate messages sent by different aircrafts and falling in the same radar beam in reception. The above source separation method involves joint-diagonalization of a set of smoothed version of spatial Wigner-Ville distributions. The technique makes use of the difference in the t-f signatures of the nonstationary sources to be separated. Consequently, as the SSR sources emit different messages at different frequencies, the above fitted to this new application. We applied the technique in simulation to separate SSR replies. Results are provided at the end of the paper.Keywords: Blind Source Separation, Time-Frequency Analysis, Secondary Radar
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1676317 Microwave Plasma Dry Reforming of Methane at High CO2/CH4 Feed Ratio
Authors: Nabil Majd Alawi, Gia Hung Pham, Ahmed Barifcani
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Dry reforming of methane that converts two greenhouses gases (CH4 and CO2) to synthesis gas (a mixture of H2 and CO) was studied in a commercial bench scale microwave (MW) plasma reactor system at atmospheric pressure. The CO2, CH4 and N2 conversions; H2, CO selectivities and yields, and syngas ratio (H2/CO) were investigated in a wide range of total feed flow rate (0.45 – 2.1 L/min), MW power (700 – 1200 watt) and CO2/CH4 molar ratio (2 – 5). At the feed flow rates of CH4, CO2 and N2 of 0.2, 0.4 and 1.5 L/min respectively, and the MWs input power of 700 W, the highest conversions of CH4 and CO2, selectivity and yield of H2, CO and H2/CO ratio of 79.35%, 44.82%, 50.12, 58.42, 39.77%, 32.89%, and 0.86, respectively, were achieved. The results of this work show that the product ratio increases slightly with the increasing total feed flow rate, but it decreases significantly with the increasing MW power and feeds CO2/CH4 ratio.
Keywords: Atmospheric pressure, methane dry reforming, microwave plasma, synthesis gas production.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 945316 Characterization and Detection of Cadmium Ion Using Modification Calixarene with Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes
Authors: Amira Shakila Razali, Faridah Lisa Supian, Muhammad Mat Salleh, Suraini Abu Bakar
Abstract:
Water contamination by toxic compound is one of the serious environmental problems today. These toxic compounds mostly originated from industrial effluents, agriculture, natural sources and human waste. These studies focus on modification of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) with nanoparticle of calixarene and explore the possibility of using this modification for the remediation of cadmium in water. The nanocomposites were prepared by dissolving calixarene in chloroform solution as solvent, followed by additional multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) then sonication process for 3 hour and fabricated the nanocomposites on substrate by spin coating method. Finally, the nanocomposites were tested on cadmium ion (10 mg/ml). The morphology of nanocomposites was investigated by FESEM showing the formation of calixarene on the outer walls of carbon nanotube and cadmium ion also clearly seen from the micrograph. This formation was supported by using energy dispersive x-ray (EDX). The presence of cadmium ions in the films, leads to some changes in the surface potential and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).The nanocomposites MWCNTs-calixarene have potential for development of sensor for pollutant monitoring and nanoelectronics devices applications.
Keywords: Calixarene, Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes, Cadmium, Surface Potential.
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