Techno-economic study of different alternatives for biodiesel production

Biodiesel has become an attractive diesel fuel substitute due to its environmental benefits since it can be made from renewable resource. However, the high costs surrounding biodiesel production remains the main problem in making it competitive in the fuel market either as a blend or as a neat fuel. More than 80% of the production cost is associated with the feedstock itself and consequently, efforts are focused on developing technologies capable of using lower-cost feedstocks, such as recycled cooking oils and wastes from animal or vegetable oil processing operations.     

Hydrogen production in solid electrolyte membrane reactors (SEMRs)

In the present work, the prospects and trends of solid electrolyte membrane reactors (SEMRs) towards hydrogen production, are discussed. Initially, an overview of the principles, the properties and the techniques related to the usage of the SEMRs, are presented. In the following, a literature survey covering earlier and recent developments of the various methods (e.g. reforming or partial oxidation or dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons, steam electrolysis) employed in the SEMRs for the production of hydrogen, is performed. Finally, the current status of this research field is analyzed and future research topics are proposed.     

国内外采油污水软化技术研究进展

介绍了当前国内外采油污水软化技术的研究现状,及几种常用的软化技术的软化机理及其应用。提出各油田应根据采油污水水质情况,选择合适的污水软化处理工艺,研制新设备及药剂、开发新工艺、应用新技术是采油污水处理技术今后的重点。     

山西沁南煤层气井试气工艺分析

对山西沁南地区三口煤层气井试气施工工艺进行总结分析，改进了注入压降测试管柱，采用电潜泵法对煤层排采测气。对今后煤层气井的施工具有一定的指导意义。     

管线钢的发展趋势及生产工艺评述

对超纯净管线钢、高强度高韧性管线钢、易焊管线钢和高抗腐蚀管线钢的发展趋势进行了论述，分别介绍了宝钢、武钢、鞍钢管线钢的生产工艺、技术开发、化学成分和力学性能，认为中国应研制开发在酸性环境下使用的管线钢和X70高强度高韧性管线钢，并为X80高钢级管线钢的前期研究工作做技术准备。     

电子级过氧化氢的质量标准、市场和生产技术

介绍了目前电子级过氧化氢的质量标准;分析了市场状况及其发展趋势;简述了工业生产中常用的几种生产方法.     

合成氨催化剂的生产和技术

介绍了世界合成氨催化剂发展历程、新开发的合成氨催化剂种类 ,同时评述了我国化肥催化剂研发和生产近况 ,对我国化肥催化剂性能进行了评价。     

Modeling alternative zoning strategies in forest management

To satisfy public demands for environmental values, forest companies are facing the prospect of a reduction in wood supply and increases in costs. Some Canadian provincial governments have proposed intensifying silviculture in special zones dedicated to timber production as the means for pushing out the forest possibility frontiers. In this paper, we compare the traditional two‐zone land allocation framework which includes ecological reserves and integrated forest management zones with the triad — a three‐zone scheme which adds a zone dedicated to intensive timber production. We compare the solutions of the mixed‐integer linear programs formulated under both land‐allocation frameworks. We explore through sensitivity analysis the conditions under which the triad regime can offset the impact on timber production from increased environmental demands. We show that under the realistic conditions characteristic to Coastal British Columbia, higher environmental demands may be satisfied under the triad regime without increasing the financial burdens on the industry or reducing its wood supply. This occurs, however, only if regulatory constraints in timber production zone are flexible.     

A multi-agent architecture for dynamic scheduling of steel hot rolling

Steel production is a complex process and finding coherent and effective schedules for the wide variety of production steps, in a dynamic environment, is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent architecture for integrated dynamic scheduling of the hot strip mill (HSM) and the continuous caster. The scheduling systems of these processes have very different objectives and constraints, and operate in an environment where there is a substantial quantity of real-time information concerning production failures and customer requests. Each process is assigned to an agent which independently, seeks an optimal dynamic schedule at a local level taking into account local objectives, real-time information and information received from other agents. Each agent can react to real-time events in order to fix any problems that occur. We focus here, particularly, on the HSM agent which uses a tabu search heuristic to create good predictive–reactive schedules quickly. The other agents simulate the production of the coil orders and the real-time events, which occur during the scheduling process. When real-time events occur on the HSM, the HSM agent might decide whether to repair the current schedule or reschedule from scratch. To address this problem, a range of schedule repair and complete rescheduling strategies are investigated and their performance is assessed with respect to measures of utility, stability and robustness, using an experimental simulation framework.     

Investigation of the use of ram horn hydrolysate for fungal protein production

Production of the fungus Aspergillus niger NRRL 330 was studied in submerged fermentation with ram horn hydrolysate (RHH) as substrate. The characteristics of RHH have been reported previously. The RHH was enriched by addition of glucose and KH₂PO₄. The effects of kinetic parameters on the biomass yield of the fungus were investigated. The optimal conditions for growth of A niger on RHH were initial pH 6.5, temperature 30 °C, fermentation time 96 h and agitation speed 150 rpm. Under these optimal conditions the initial carbohydrate content of RHH was reduced from 1.52 to 0.2% and the biomass yield was 8.9 g l^?1. The biomass contained about 48.1% protein, 5.2% fat and 9.4% ash (on a dry weight basis). The amino acid content of the biomass was compared with Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and animal feed standards. The protein produced contained all the essential amino acids for animal feed, but the amounts of these amino acids were somewhat lower than those of FAO and soybean reference protein. However, the amino acid composition of the biomass was better than that of animal feed. The results with RHH were also compared with previously reported data on fungal mycelium grown on waste liquor substrate. In conclusion, it was found that RHH could be used as a substrate in the production of fungal protein for use as animal feed. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry