An iterative code to investigate heat pump performance improvement by exhaust gases heat recovery

The race between the development of technologies and energy demand has drawn the guidelines of energy strategies for the next two decades. Indeed, the governmental organizations as well as the private sectors are spending huge effort to come up with new adequate strategies that allow to decrease energy consumption. Having said that, heat pump becomes an essential system in our daily life not only in residential building but also in hospital, industrial and touristic building. Nonetheless, (HP)s have very high energy consumption rate. Thus, and to be in line with the new trends in energy strategies, it is convenient to find new methods to enhance the performance of heat pump in order to reduce energy consumption. In this frame, the present paper suggests an approach to enhance the performance the heat pumps using the heat recovery from generators. For this purpose, an in-house code is developed allowing to simulate two new proposed systems (condenser upstream exhaust gases heat recovery system (CU-EGHRS) and condenser downstream exhaust gases heat recovery system (CD-EGHRS). It has been shown that the increase in the performance of the heat pump depends on the capacity of the generator. Also, the CD-EGHRS is shown to be the best. For instance, in the case of a 15 kVA generator, the enhancement could reach 42% for the CD-EGHRS. This enhancement increases to 5640% in the case of a 180 kVA generator.     

Influence of design and operating conditions on the performance of tandem photoelectrochemical reactors

Solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting technology is a promising avenue for a sustainable hydrogen production. In this work, a comprehensive 2-dimensional model is developed and numerically simulated with hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) as the principal photoelectrode. The model evaluates light absorption, charge transport and electrochemical reactions to elucidate the effects of light transmitting materials, electrolyte height and electrolyte velocity on hydrogen and oxygen gas production. Results indicated that major losses in photocurrents are attributed to the transparent conducting oxide while losses due to the electrolyte increase with its height. Gas concentrations increase with increasing photocurrent densities and also in the direction of the flow. Gas bubbles however decrease with increasing electrolyte velocity. From these results, light reception in the reactor is uneven and poses a bigger challenge due to the bias in gas bubble distribution. Prospects of upscaling tandem schemes hence not only lie in the semiconductor material combinations but rather in the proper integration of system components and operating conditions.     

Simulation of Magnetocaloric Properties of Antiperovskite Structural Ga1−X Al X CMn3

In this work, low-enhanced magnetic field magnetocaloric effect for Ga_1?X Al _X CMn₃ (X = 0, 0.05, 0.07, 0.12, and 0.15) system near a second-order phase transition from a ferromagnetic to a paramagnetic state is investigated theoretically. It is found that magnetic entropy change distribution is much more uniform than that of gadolinium, which is desirable for an Ericson-cycle magnetic refrigerator. Moreover, the results show that the magnetocaloric effect in this system is tunable by Al doping, which is beneficial for manipulating magnetocaloric refrigeration that occurs in various temperature ranges including room temperature. This makes the Ga_1?X Al _X CMn₃ samples potential candidates for practical applications.     

Optimisation and modelling green bean's ultrasound blanching

Using of ultrasound in food processing is a novel and interesting technique, which is often complementary to classical methods. This study reports on the ultrasound blanching (USB) of green bean. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to study the effect of process variables on the USB. Three independent variables including temperature (50–90 °C), time (45–225 s) and duty cycle (0.2–0.8 s) were examined. The optimal USB conditions were obtained with a temperature of 90 °C, USB time of 58.27 s and duty cycle of 0.79 s. At these conditions, the residual peroxidase activity (RPA) determined as 9.64% and the vitamin C loss as 8.92%. The experimental values under optimal condition were in good consistent with the predicted values. According to the results, the USB process is more efficient process and as well as less damage to the product compared to the conventional blanching method.     

Influence of Lattice Defects on the Grain Growth Kinetics of Nanocrystalline Fluorite

The growth process of nanocrystalline fluorite was studied by in situ synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction. The two studied samples had comparable crystalline domain size, but quite different content of lattice defects as a result of the different preparation procedures: ball milling of coarse CaF₂ powder or coprecipitation of CaCl₂ and NH₄F. It is shown that the high dislocation density in the ball-milled fluorite is responsible for a recrystallization process above 773 K (500 °C), which is not observed in the chemically synthesized fluorite. The linear thermal expansion coefficients of both nanocrystalline powders, as obtained and also from the in situ X-ray diffraction data, show a smaller increase with temperature than suggested by the literature on coarse-grained fluorite.     

TQM consultant selection in SMEs with TOPSIS under fuzzy environment

Although much has been written about TQM in SMEs, little attention has been paid to the role of external consultant in the successful implementation of a TQM program in this kind of firms. Sometimes there are some candidates and companies have to select the best one. In general, many factors affect this problem which adheres to uncertain and imprecise data, and usually several people from different functional areas of the company are involved in this process. This study aims to improve the quality of decision in this area. In this paper a systematic decision process for selecting external consultant is proposed. The proposed method is based on TOPSIS method in fuzzy environment. Decision criteria are obtained from the nominal group technique (NGT). Additionally, a real case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed method.     

Copper corrosion in sodium dodecyl sulphate solutions and carbon nanotube nanofluids: A modified Koutecky–Levich equation to model the agitation effect

Copper corrosion in sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) solutions and carbon nanotube (CNT) nanofluids were studied by potentiodynamic polarization. For the corrosion current densities calculations, Koutecky–Levich equation was modified to model the combined charge and mass transport. 0.005 M SDS reduced the copper corrosion current density by 81%. Higher SDS concentrations enhanced corrosion. Stirring SDS solutions increased the corrosion current density by ∼75%. By adding CNT to SDS solution, the corrosion current density first decreased and then remained constant. Stirring CNT nanofluids didn’t change the corrosion current density. An adsorbed CNT layer on copper controlled the corrosion process in CNT nanofluids.