The social profitability of rural roads in a small open economy: Do urban agglomeration economies matter?

The effects of a rural roads programme depend on labour mobility, how the programme is financed, and agglomeration economies. If financed by a rural poll tax and cross-price effects and agglomeration economies are sufficiently small, the wage will rise, with some return migration. Taxes on trade act as countervailing distortions, yielding urban households some relief. Rural-urban commuting promotes the exploitation of agglomeration economies; taxes on international trade are then inferior to a poll tax. The change in the value, at producer prices, of the rural sector's net supply vector can be a poor measure of the programme's social profitability.     

水力空化改质对重质原油沥青质及性质的影响

利用水力空化过程产生局部的高温、高压、高射流以及强大的剪切力等极端化学物理条件改质处理沙特重质原油，试验结果表明：沙特重质原油经过水力空化改质后粘度由13.61降低至7.22mm2/s，残碳由7.16%降低至6.48%，实沸点蒸馏后减压渣油降低1个百分点。进一步采用APPI FT-IR MS、XRD、FT-IR、SEM和粒度分布等技术研究了水力空化改质对沙重原油分子组成，沥青质团聚体微晶结构、沥青质胶束粒径分布、沥青质官能团、沥青质形貌等方面的影响，从分子角度阐述空化改质重油的机理。研究结果表明：水力空化改质后沙重原油分子量分布、芳烃类化合物缔合作用变小；沥青质对低DBE化合物吸附性能降低；沥青质团聚体微晶结构更加松散；沥青质胶束粒度分布降低；沥青质分子相互团聚作用力减弱。进一步考察了水力空化改质前后减压渣油延迟焦化性能，改质处理后焦炭产率降低1.85个百分点，液体收率和气体产率分别增加1.52和0.33个百分点，水力空化改质对沥青质性质、结构特点的改善能够有效的提高其加工性能。     

Bench-scale bubbling fluidized bed systems around the world - Bed agglomeration and collapse: A comprehensive review

Thermochemical conversion by gasification process is one of the most relevant technologies for energy recovery from solid fuel, with an energy conversion efficiency better than other alternatives like combustion and pyrolysis. Nevertheless, the most common technology used in the last decades for thermochemical conversion of solid fuel through gasification process, such as coal, agriculture residues or biomass residues are the fluidized bed or bubbling fluidized bed system. For these gasification technologies, an inert bed material is fed into reactor to improve the homogenization of the particles mixture and increase the heat transfer between solid fuel particles and the bed material. The fluidized bed reactors usually operate at isothermal bed temperatures in the range of 700–1000 °C, providing a suitable contact between solid and gas phases. In this way, chemical reactions with high conversion yield, as well as an intense circulation and mixing of the solid particles are encouraged. Moreover, a high gasification temperature favours carbon conversion efficiency, increasing the syngas production and energy performance of the gasifier. However, the risk of eutectic mixtures formation and its subsequent melting process are increased, and hence the probability of bed agglomeration and the system collapse could be increased, mainly when alkali and alkaline earth metals-rich biomasses are considered. Generally, bed agglomeration occurs when biomass-derived ash reacts with bed material, and the lower melting temperature of ash components promotes the formation of highly viscous layers, which encourages the progressive agglomerates creation, and consequently, the bed collapse and system de-fluidization. Taking into account the relevance of this topic to ensure the normal gasification process operating, this paper provides several aspects about bed agglomeration, mostly for biomass gasification systems. In this way, chemistry and mechanism of bed agglomeration, as well as, some methods for in-situ detection and prediction of the bed agglomeration phenomenon are reviewed and discussed.     

Scalable classification of nanoparticles: A proof of principle for process design

Nanoparticles like quantum confined ZnS semiconductor nanocrystals, exhibit unique structure-property relationships. Narrow particle size distributions (PSDs) become one of the most important factors to tailor product performance. Size selective precipitation has already been proven to be an effective post processing strategy for ZnS nanoparticles. It is based on the titration of a poor liquid into a stable dispersion, which leads to the preferred flocculation of larger particles. Afterwards, these flocks must be separated from the continuous phase. While on lab scale the formed flocks can be easily separated by centrifugation from the fine fraction, for larger scale production using continuous processes, new concepts are urgently needed. Herein we developed a filtration process for flock removal that allows the handling of larger quantities. For process design, we first investigated the flock properties in order to know how stable the generated flocks are and how the flock properties can be controlled. Then, we replaced the classical flock separation by centrifugation through separation by surface filtration under the constraint that the underlying separation efficiency was not affected. By the future use of properly controlled, alternating filtration modules, our work opens the door for establishing an urgently needed, scalable post-processing for sub-10 nm nanoparticles.     

扬子江城市群工业能源碳排放与经济增长脱钩水平及驱动因素

扬子江城市群地处长江经济带的下游重要门户地区，是江苏省“1+3”重点功能区发展的龙头引擎，打造扬子江城市群的绿色生态走廊对建设“强富美高”新江苏和落实长江大保护均具有重要战略意义。论文聚焦扬子江城市群工业能源碳排放脱钩及其驱动因素分析，研究得出：1）扬子江城市群整体工业碳排放量呈现波动上升的变化趋势，其中南京市和苏州市的碳排放增量明显大于其他城市；2）扬子江城市群工业能源碳排放脱钩大致经历了扩张连接、强脱钩以及弱脱钩3个阶段，整体上脱钩水平逐渐提高，但稳定性不高，各城市工业能源碳排放脱钩水平差异较大，但在逐步优化中；3）从驱动因素看，碳排放强度效应和能源强度效应对脱钩水平有促进作用，工业经济规模效应、区域经济比重和能源结构则相反。基于此，论文提出加强低碳城市试点建设、探索构建全域碳权交易市场、调整优化能源结构、推动科技创新等建议，以促进扬子江城市群工业建设高质量发展。     

Nanoparticle evolution in flame spray pyrolysis—Process design via experimental and computational analysis

In flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), the evolution of metal oxide nanoparticles relies on quite a number of droplet (liquid) and vapor phase related physical mechanism as for instance precursor evaporation, oxidation, nucleation via gas-to-particle conversion mechanism, and subsequent particle (solid) growth mechanisms based on coagulation, sintering/coalescence, and agglomeration. The liquid precursor and dispersion oxygen feed rates are relevant control parameters of the FSP process for tailoring the nanoparticle size (diameter) and structure as well as the atomizer nozzle configuration. Sophisticated nonintrusive, laser-based in situ and ex situ diagnostics with multiscale spatial resolution (micrometer to meter range) are applied for analyzing droplet formation and size, gas velocity, temperature, species concentration, as well as primary and agglomerate diameters along the flow direction. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are coupled with population balance modeling (PBM) to elucidate the nanoparticle dynamics within the reactive spray. It is found that the CFD-PBM approach allows estimations of primary and agglomerate nanoparticle diameters within 80 and 75% accuracy compared to experimental data, suggesting that the methods presented could pave the way for designing next-generations of flame reactors.     

使用不同催化剂转产过程中淤浆法HDPE脱气仓结块原因分析

在英力士淤浆环管工艺高密度聚乙烯(HDPE)装置上,由采用钛系催化剂生产PE100级管材专用HDPE转换成用铬系催化剂生产的过程中,使用钛系催化剂的停车期间以及使用铬系催化剂的开车期间,粉料输送至低压闪蒸脱气仓都会产生块状的聚乙烯,严重影响装置的正常运行;通过对块状聚乙烯进行密度与凝胶渗透色谱分析,发现结块的聚乙烯主要为低相对分子质量、低密度的聚乙烯粉料黏结物。停车期间,将第一反应器氢气进料量降低50%,提前终止1-己烯进料,从而完全消除结块的形成。     

Innovene工艺聚丙烯装置反应器结块原因分析与控制

对Innovene聚丙烯工艺进行分析,探讨了导致粉料结块的原因,并分别从催化剂类型、反应控制、催化剂分散性、催化剂喷嘴问题、共聚牌号生产和牌号切换等进行了分析,列举了各种原因导致的结块。从生产实际出发,针对性地采取措施,对工艺控制、设备设施、生产操作和检修维护等进行优化,减少或者消除反应器结块现象,保障Innovene工艺聚丙烯装置生产的顺利进行。     

The co-location of innovation and production in clusters

ABSTRACT

This paper quantifies the extent of co-location of innovation and production for industry clusters with varying knowledge intensity. If input-output, knowledge, and skill linkages are interdependent and geographically bounded, then we would expect innovation and production to be co-located in regional clusters. However, theory predicts that the degree of agglomeration benefits associated with co-location may vary across economic activities with different knowledge intensity. Using data from the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project, I develop measures of the co-location of innovation and production for 27 industry clusters, examining patterns across regions and over time (1998–2015) in the United States. I find that there is a significant co-location of innovation and production for many clusters, especially for those with higher knowledge intensity. This paper focuses on the Information Technology and Analytical Instruments cluster and the Automotive cluster to illustrate the co-location measures and the micro-geography of innovation and production.