Study on Drying Organic Sludges by Thermal Jet Dryer—Part 1: Drying Performance of Thermal Jet Dryer

The authors are developing a thermal jet dryer (TJD), with a vertical disc-shaped drying tank, for the purpose of weight and volume reduction of solid wastes with high water content, such as organic sludges. In order to obtain the drying performance of TJD, drying experiments using three kinds of solid wastes were carried out. The following results were obtained: (1) Drying performance depended most on the disintegration characteristics of sample. (2) There was little influence of the samples' properties on the gas-solid multiphase flow in the tank. (3) There was a critical feed rate at which the drying performance changed drastically.     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation on Heat Propagation Through Composite Sinter Bed With Non-Uniform Voidage:Part Ⅰ Mathematical Model and Its Experimental Verification

The mechanisms of heat transfer through the sinter beds of the MEBIOS process are discussed and their comprehensive mathematical model is proposed.The MEBIOS process,the concept of which has been proposed earlier by the authors,allows using both coarse and fine particles of iron ores in the same sinter bed.The study includes two parts.The first part describes the model content and the results of its experimental verification.The model accounts for coal combustion,limestone decomposition,moisture evaporation...     

In situ localization of cell wall alpha-1,3-glucan in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

The yeast cell walls of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are well studied and the results show the existence of a framework composed of beta-1,3-glucan. It is reported that the cell wall of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has different components and our analysis by 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy also showed there is alpha-1,3-glucan in its cell wall. To refine our understanding of the architecture of the yeast cell wall, we re-examined the cell wall glucans of S. pombe by NMR spectroscopy and prepared antibody against alpha-1,3-glucan, which is a characteristic component of this yeast. By the competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) system, specificity of the antibody was restricted to alpha-1,3-glucan, which did not take a highly ordered structure. We analysed the localization of the cell wall glucans by immunoelectron microscopy. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images showed that most of the alpha-1,3-glucan was along the cell membrane and appeared to enclose the cytoplasm, supporting previous reports that this glucan is synthesized on the cell membrane.     

Effect of SMP-500, a novel ACAT inhibitor,on hepatic cholesterol disposition in rats

The effects of SMP-500, a novel ACAT inhibitor, on serum lipid levels, hepatic lipid secretion rate, and hepatic lipid disposition in rats were studied to clarify its lipid-lowering action. SMP-500 reduced the serum cholesterol level in a dose-dependent manner in rats fed a hypercholesterolemic diet. SMP-500 also reduced hepatic free cholesterol content in addition to hepatic total and esterified cholesterol contents. Biliary concentrations of cholesterol and bile acid were increased by SMP-500; however, the bile flow and lithogenic index were not affected. SMP-500 increased cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase mRNA level. Therefore, it is suggested that the increase in concentrations of cholesterol and bile acid in bile is due to both the increase of bile acid production through the increase of cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase and the decrease of hepatic free cholesterol content. An inhibitory effect of SMP-500 both on the cholesterol secretion and on the TG secretion from liver was observed. SMP-500 reduced the serum TG level in sucrose-fed rats. From these results, one may hypothesize that the suppression of hepatic VLDL secretion probably plays an important role on both cholesterol- and TG-lowering effects of SMP-500.     

Effect of the Sonophotocatalytic Pretreatment on the Volume Reduction of Sewage Sludge and Enhanced Recovery of Methane and Phosphorus

In this study, the sonophotocatalytic process, i.e., combination of ultrasonic irradiation (US) and photocatalytic reaction, was proposed as a pretreatment process for the anaerobic digestion of organic sludge in order to drastically reduce the amount of sludge and promote the recovery of methane and phosphorus. Several series of experiments employing different techniques, i.e., sonophotocatalysis (SPC), US, photocatalysis (PC), and thermal treatment, were conducted by using a batch type apparatus. The results of the SPC treatment showed a decrease in sludge volume by about 50% and the synergetic effects of US and PC treatments which were clearly observed as increases in dissolved chemical oxygen demand of sludge filtrate and in phosphorus compounds dissolution from sludge particles. In the SPC process of sewage sludge, the photocatalytic reaction was enhanced by the sufficient disintegration of sludge flocks due to the US treatment. Any pretreatments applied promoted the anaerobic digestion process, however, there was little synergetic effect and the long time SPC treatment resulted in a decrease in the reaction rate.     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation on Heat PropagationThrough Composite Sinter Bed With Non-Uniform Voidage:Part Ⅱ Prediction of Process Efficiency

This paper introduces the results of numerical simulation of the MEBIOS sintering process according to the model presented in the first part of the study. The main objective of the second part is the elucidation of key factors influencing the process efficiency, particularly the sintering completeness, velocity of the heat wave propagation and maximum temperature achievable in the pellet during the wave propagation. Numerical results reveal that the mass fraction of coal, diameter of coal particles and air inlet velocity are of prime importance in determining efficiency of the MEBIOS sintering process.     

Polycrystalline silicon films with nanometer-sized dense fine grains formed by flash-lamp-induced crystallization

Flash lamp annealing (FLA) with millisecond-order pulse duration can crystallize microm-order-thick a-Si films on glass substrates through explosive crystallization (EC), and flash-lamp-crystallized (FLC) poly-Si films consist of densely-packed nanometer-sized fine grains. We investigate the impact of the hydrogen concentration and the defect density of precursor a-Si films on crystallization mechanism and the microstructures of FLC poly-Si films, by comparing chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) and sputtered precursor a-Si films. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation reveals that FLC poly-Si films with similar periodic microstructures are formed by the FLA of the two kinds of precursor films, meaning no significant influence of hydrogen atoms and defect density on crystallization mechanism. This high flexibility of the properties of precursor a-Si films would contribute to a wide process window to reproducibly form FLC poly-Si films with the particular periodic microstructures.     

Toward Mega-pixel Neutron Imager Using Current-Biased Kinetic Inductance Detectors of Nb Nanowires with ^{10}B Converter

We present not the results but the idea of a superconducting nanowire detector with \(^{10}\) B conversion layer for sensing a single neutron. We use \(^{7}\) Li ion and \(^{4}\) He ion emitted as two independent heat sources, which appear in opposite direction associated with nuclear reaction \(^{10}\) B(n, \(^{4}\) He) \(^{7}\) Li. We probe a change in the kinetic inductance \(L_\mathrm{k}\) coming from inertia of the Cooper pairs. Our detector is different from a conventional kinetic inductance detector (KID), but is named as a current-biased KID. We use two sets of Nb nanowires with superconducting readout taps to monitor the local signal. In between the X meander and the Y meander, we inserted a \(^{10}\) B layer acting as a conversion layer from neutrons to charged particles. We plan to fabricate a mega-pixel neutron imager by coupling 10 bit linear position-sensitive arrays along the X and Y directions with the single flux quantum readout circuits.     

Phase Stability and Thermoelectric Properties of CuFeS2-Based Magnetic Semiconductor

Recently, based on measurement results below 400 K, we suggested that chalcopyrite CuFeS₂-based alloys hold promise as thermoelectric materials. In this study, we have investigated the phase stability of such compounds and measured their thermoelectric properties at temperatures above 400 K. Thermogravimetric data indicate that the samples synthesized by a spark plasma sintering method were stable up to 700 K, above which sulfur deficiency becomes prominent. The electrical resistivity of the electron-doped samples showed metallic behavior up to 700 K. The Seebeck coefficients show large negative values of about ?300 μV/K above 400 K. As a result, the power factor of Cu_0.97Fe_1.03S₂ is ~1 mW/K²m in the temperature range of 400 K to 600 K.     

Evaluations of OpenCL-written tsunami simulation on FPGA and comparison with GPU implementation

When a tsunami occurred on a sea area, prediction of its arrival time is critical for evacuating people from the coastal area. There are many problems related to tsunami to be solved for reducing negative effects of this serious disaster. Numerical modeling of tsunami wave propagation is a computationally intensive problem which needs to accelerate its calculations by parallel processing. The method of splitting tsunami (MOST) is one of the well-known numerical solvers for tsunami modeling. We have developed a tsunami propagation code based on MOST algorithm and implemented different parallel optimizations for GPU and FPGA. In the latest study, we have the best performance of OpenCL kernel which is implemented tsunami simulation on AMD Radeon 280X GPU. This paper targets on design and evaluation on FPGA using OpenCL. The performance on FPGA design generated automatically by Altera offline compiler follows the results of GPU by several kernel modifications.