Evaluation of particle recovery from microalgae

Coccoliths are micro-structured biomineral particles found in cell protective covering layers of coccolithophore species. They are mainly composed of CaCO₃ and their individual crystal entities are arranged in such a way that they construct complex and unique structures. This complexity is found down to the individual particle level and appears to have promising properties to offer. This study focuses on the essential step prior to any kind of implementation, which is the recovery of the material. It summarizes cleaning protocols found in literature, compares them for the first time for the same freshly cultivated material and addresses challenges that still need to be overcome. Further, it highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the best cleaning protocols, suggests optimizations with promising results and uses size distribution measurements to analyse the recovery efficiency. To that end, further characterization techniques, new for coccoliths, are introduced and used to improve our current knowledge of the particles behaviour.     

A novel multiscale approach to brittle fracture of nano/micro‐sized components

Principles and advantages of a new concept based on the ab initio aided strain gradient elasticity theory are shown in comparison with the classical Barenblatt cohesive model. The method is applied to the theoretical prediction of the critical energy release rate and the crack tip opening displacement at the crack instability in nanopanels made of germanium and molybdenum crystals. The necessary length scale parameter l₁ is determined for germanium and molybdenum by the best gradient elasticity fits of ab initio computed screw dislocation displacements and phonon dispersions. Values of ab initio computed critical energy release rates and crack opening profiles revealed that the length l₁ is related to inflexion points of profiles. A novel ab initio method in combination with continuum mechanics was successfully tested to replace molecular statics dependent of availability of interatomic potentials. The asymptotic strain gradient elasticity solution for displacement components near the crack tip in materials with cubic lattice was also derived.     

Improved low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy and its optimum cluster head selection

ABSTRACT

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a vital role in present-day world, which are being used in different types of applications and occupy an important part in networking domain. The main objective of WSNs is to sense and collect the information from a given area of interest and provide the gathered data to the sink. WSN comprises of number of sensor nodes with batteries of limited energy for communication and computational activities, which are not possible to recharge the batteries after their deployment in the region of interest. Therefore, saving battery energy and utilising the limited power to the optimum level for extending network lifetime became the main factor of WSN. Hence, optimum cluster head (CH) selection will make the network to support longer lifetime and balanced energy consumption during its lifetime. Our proposed protocol selects the optimum CH and found out to be more efficient than the existing low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy. The simulated output shows better network lifetime and in some other performance metric.     

The control of paracetamol particle size and surface morphology through crystallisation in a spray dryer

The parameters governing the crystallisation of paracetamol using various conventional techniques has been extensively studied, however the factors influencing the drug crystallisation using spray drying is not as well understood. The aim of this work was to investigate the crystallisation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient through evaporative crystallisation using a spray dryer to study the physicochemical properties of the drug and to use semi-empirical equations to gain insight into the morphology and particle size of the dried powder. Paracetamol solutions were spray dried at various inlet temperatures ranging from 60 °C to 120 °C and also from a series of inlet feed solvent compositions ranging from 50/50% v/v ethanol/water to 100% ethanol and solid-state characterisation was done. The size and morphology of the dried materials were altered with a change in spray drying parameters, with an increase in inlet temperature leading to an increase in particle Sauter mean diameter (from 3.0 to 4.4 µm) and a decrease in the particle size with an increase in ethanol concentration in the feed (from 4.6 to 4.4 µm) as a result of changes in particle density and atomised droplet size. The morphology of the dried particles consisted of agglomerates of individual crystallites bound together into larger semi-spherical agglomerates with a higher tendency for particles having crystalline ridges to form at higher ethanol concentrations of the feed.     

石英砂粒径大小对甲烷水合物形成及分布的影响

为了研究不同粒径多孔介质体系中甲烷水合物的形成，本文采用粒径分别为0.075~0.5mm、0.5~1mm、1~2mm和2~3mm的石英砂作为多孔介质，在初始压力7.0MPa、温度0.5℃条件下进行水合物形成实验并进行取样观察、分层分解，得出不同粒径大小石英砂中甲烷水合物形成及分布的特征。结果表明：随着石英砂粒径的增大，石英砂砂体中的水合物形成量和初始水合物形成速率在逐渐减小；在粒径为0.075~0.5mm、1~2mm和2~3mm石英砂中，充气过程中水合物便开始形成，且并未出现明显的水合物大量形成阶段，而在粒径为0.5~1mm石英砂体系中出现了水合物大量形成的阶段；通过计算发现，0.5~1mm石英砂体系的气体消耗量最大，为0.47mol，2~3mm石英砂体系的气体消耗量最小，仅为0.05mol；在这4种粒径的石英砂体表面的甲烷水合物主要以分散状均匀分布于颗粒之间或胶结成块，但这一观察结果与通过分解的方法所得到的石英砂上部水合物形成量大于下部的结果存在差异；重复实验也发现，仅在粒径为0.5~1mm石英砂顶部出现了水合物大量富集的现象，因此推断认为在一定粒径的介质体系同时上部存在较大空隙时，水合物有可能会在空隙中大量富集存在。这一实验结果对自然环境中水合物的赋存区域及形态的预测具有一定的参考价值。     

Investigation of precipitation selectivity and particle size concentration dependences in supercritical antisolvent method via online supercritical fluid chromatography

Supercritical antisolvent (SAS) precipitation technique, although being versatile and ecologically friendly, suffers from the lack of convenient methods for necessary thermodynamic parameters measurement. Recently we have proposed a method for solubility measurement in binary fluids based on an online hyphenation of supercritical antisolvent method and supercritical fluid chromatography (SAS-SFC). In this paper, we demonstrate the applicability of this method to the investigation of both selective precipitation from solution and particle size tuning in SAS using lower dicarboxylic acids as model objects. Measured solubility values adequately reflect selective crystallization from solution. SAS precipitation was observed only for those components, which concentration was above solubility in CO₂-solvent mixture as predicted by SAS-SFC method. Also, concentration dependences of particle size plotted in supersaturation coordinates instead of direct concentration in initial solution give additional insight into crystallization behaviour in SAS.     

Silica-supported carboxylated cellulose nanofibers for effective lysozyme adsorption: Effect of macropore size

Engineering hierarchical macro/mesoporous structures that offer an abundance of accessible binding sites are highly desirable in protein adsorption processes. However, numerous significant challenges remain. Herein, cellulose nanofiber (CNF)-loaded macroporous silica (CNF-MPS) particles were successfully synthesized with a high degree of accessible binding sites by tuning the macropore size of the silica particles and loading a highly carboxylated CNF via smart and rational design. The as-prepared CNF-MPS particles exhibited a high negative charge (~−59 mV) and excellent protein adsorption ability (>1000 mg/g) in <5 min. Furthermore, tuning the macropore size influenced the CNF deposition either to the external surface or penetrating within the pores. As a result, the optimum macropore successfully enhances the adsorption capability to >1500 mg/g as a result of improved interconnectivity between the channels. Here exposed macropores of >100 nm allows ingress of protein to the interior structure that houses an abundance of binding sites comprising the dispersed CNF. Additionally, the adsorption kinetics, thermodynamics, and isothermal parameters were studied to analyze the mechanism of lysozyme adsorption. The adsorption process is confirmed to occur spontaneously at any temperature with a pseudo-second-order model describing the kinetic model, and CNF deposition affecting the heterogeneity of the binding sites.     

Taguchi Optimization of Solvent-Antisolvent Crystallization to Prepare Ammonium Perchlorate Particles

The sphericity and size of ammonium perchlorate (AP) particles significantly influence the properties of composite propellants. As the AP particles become more spherical, the accumulation coefficient increases, the viscosity during casting decreases, and the particle loading and burning rate increase. Hence, the production of micronized AP particles with an average size between 1 and 20 μm is important to increase the loading percentage of AP in the composite propellant. Here, the Taguchi experimental design was used to optimize the solvent-antisolvent crystallization (SAC) process for the preparation of micronized AP particles with higher sphericity. SAC parameters such as the type of antisolvent, the solvent-to-antisolvent ratio, the antisolvent temperature, the stirring speed, and the retention time were investigated at four levels. The type of antisolvent and the solvent-to-antisolvent ratio were found to mainly contribute to improving the sphericity and size of the AP particles, respectively.     

Grain size effect on cyclic deformation behavior and springback prediction of Ni-based superalloy foil

In order to clarify the influence of grain size on cyclic deformation response of superalloy sheets and springback behavior, cyclic loading–unloading and shearing tests were performed on the superalloy foils with 0.2 mm in thickness and diverse grain sizes. The results show that, the decline ratio of elastic modulus is weakened with increasing grain size, and the Bauschinger effect becomes evident with decreasing grain size. Meanwhile, U-bending test results determine that the springback is diminished with increasing grain size. The Chaboche, Anisotropic Nonlinear Kinematic (ANK) and Yoshida-Uemori (Y-U) models were utilized to fit the shear stress–strain curves of specimens. It is found that Y-U model is sufficient of predicting the springback. However, the prediction accuracy is degraded with increasing grain size.     

Effect of the particle size ratio on macro- and mesoscopic shear characteristics of the geogrid-reinforced rubber and sand mixture interface

As a new type of material for civil engineering projects, the rubber and sand mixture is widely used in roadbed fillers, offering environmental benefits over traditional tyre disposal methods. This study uses a large-scale direct shear apparatus to examine the interface shear properties of the geogrid-reinforced rubber and sand mixture, considering different particle size ratios (r), rubber contents, and normal stresses. Based on indoor tests, direct shear models of the mixture with different values of r are established in PFC^3D, revealing the meso-mechanical mechanism of the mixture in the direct shear process. The results show that when r is greater than 1, incorporating a certain amount of rubber particles can increase the shear strength of the mixture. The r values of 15.78, 7.63, and 3.98 correspond to an optimal rubber content of 30%, 10%, and 20%, respectively. When r is less than 1, mixing rubber particles can only reduce the shear strength of the mixture. When the rubber content is low, the smaller the value of r, the greater is the thickness of the shear band. Furthermore, the normal and tangential contact forces are greater. The fabric anisotropy evolution law of the mixture is consistent with the change in the contact force distribution.