Aerobic granulation for wastewater bioremediation: A review

Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation releases numerous toxic compounds into natural water bodies, polluting these pristine fresh water resources. This is a subject of great concern, and the attention of environmentalists around the world has been increased towards this problem in recent years. Several techniques have been proposed for efficient wastewater treatment, most of them presenting some limitations, such as poor capacity, the generation of waste products, incomplete mineralisation and a high operating cost. Currently, aerobic granulation treatments are considered to be the most effective and economic alternative. Aerobic granulation is a process of microbial self‐immobilisation that results into a cell‐structured shape, characterised by dense biomass. Aerobic granules have a number of advantages over conventional bioflocs, such as a round and compact structure, good settling ability, high biomass retention and the ability to withstand high organic loading rates. Aerobic granulation technology has been demonstrated to be useful for a wide variety of wastewaters, including industrial, nutrient‐rich and toxic. This paper presents a state‐of‐the‐art review of effective aerobic granulation technology for wastewater treatment selected from the point‐of‐view of basic concepts of aerobic granulation, characterisation and factors that affect aerobic granulation, demonstrating the effectiveness of the cell‐immobilisation (aerobic granulation) technique. © 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering     

Dynamic state estimator using ANN based bus load prediction

This paper presents an algorithm for dynamic state estimation of a power systems. The method uses ANN based bus load prediction for the prediction step in the DSE. The proposed DSE uses rectangular coordinate formulation for measurement equations. A second order dynamic state estimator which incorporates the full nonlinearities of the measurement function is used for the filtering step. The inclusion of nonlinearities makes the proposed state estimator perform better in case of sudden large changes in load/generation     

Characterization of an Endolysin Targeting Clostridioides difficile That Affects Spore Outgrowth

Clostridioides difficile is a spore-forming enteric pathogen causing life-threatening diarrhoea and colitis. Microbial disruption caused by antibiotics has been linked with susceptibility to, and transmission and relapse of, C. difficile infection. Therefore, there is an urgent need for novel therapeutics that are effective in preventing C. difficile growth, spore germination, and outgrowth. In recent years bacteriophage-derived endolysins and their derivatives show promise as a novel class of antibacterial agents. In this study, we recombinantly expressed and characterized a cell wall hydrolase (CWH) lysin from C. difficile phage, phiMMP01. The full-length CWH displayed lytic activity against selected C. difficile strains. However, removing the N-terminal cell wall binding domain, creating CWH_351—656, resulted in increased and/or an expanded lytic spectrum of activity. C. difficile specificity was retained versus commensal clostridia and other bacterial species. As expected, the putative cell wall binding domain, CWH_1—350, was completely inactive. We also observe the effect of CWH_351—656 on preventing C. difficile spore outgrowth. Our results suggest that CWH_351—656 has therapeutic potential as an antimicrobial agent against C. difficile infection.     

A low power MEMS gas sensor based on nanocrystalline ZnO thin films for sensing methane

Nanocrystalline ZnO based sensor using micromachined silicon substrate has been reported for efficient detection of methane as opposed to conventional SnO₂ based micromachined sensors for its higher compatibility to silicon IC technology and greater response. A suitably designed nickel microheater has been fabricated on to the micromachined Si platform. The optimum temperature for highest response magnitude and lowest response time were found to be 250 °C although relatively high (76.6%) response is obtained even at as low as 150 °C. Our study showed quite high response magnitude (87.3%), appreciably fast response time (8.3 s) and recovery time (17.8 s) to 1.0% methane at 250 °C. The sensor showed appreciably fast response (14.3 s) and recovery time (28.7 s) at 150 °C. The power consumption at an operating temperature of 250 °C was 120 mW and at 150 °C is only ～70 mW. Moreover, this type of sensor was found to give fairly appreciable response for lower methane concentrations (0.01%) also. For higher methane concentrations (>0.5%) response is detectable even at 100 °C where the power consumption is only ～40 mW.     

An Analytical Gate Tunneling Current Model for MOSFETs Having Ultrathin Gate Oxides

In this paper, we present a completely analytical model for the gate tunneling current, which can be used to get a first-order estimate of this parameter in present-generation MOSFETs, having ultrathin gate oxides and high substrate doping concentrations. The model has been developed from first principles, and it does not use any empirical fitting and/or correction parameters. It takes into account the quantization of the electron energy levels within the inversion layer of a MOSFET, which behaves similar to a potential well. Several interesting simplifications regarding this well structure have been made, and all these assumptions have been rigorously justified, both based on physical arguments as well as through numerical quantifications. An extremely interesting and important outcome of this procedure is a nonzero value of the wavefunction at the semiconductor-insulator interface, which is physically justified, however, contrary to what other existing literatures in this area assume. This procedure also led to a closed-form analytical expression for the inversion layer thickness. The interface wavefunction was used, in association with the tunneling probability through the gate oxide, and the carriers in transit model in the gate metal, to find the resultant gate tunneling current density as a function of the applied gate-to-body voltage. The results obtained from our simple and completely analytical model were compared with the experimental results reported in the literature, and the match is found to be excellent for varying oxide thicknesses and substrate doping concentrations, which justifies the authenticity of the model developed in this work here.     

Design of Dual-Band Bandpass Filters Using Stub-Loaded Open-Loop Resonators

In this paper, open-loop resonators loaded by shunt open stubs are proposed to design compact dual-band bandpass filters with improved out-of-band rejection characteristics. The second passband of the dual-band filter is obtained by tuning higher resonant modes of the open-loop resonator by the stub length and position. A tapped-line input/output feed structure is used for external coupling. Required external coupling is obtained by adjusting the tapping position and dimension of the stub-loaded resonator. A lossless transmission line model is used to determine the resonance properties of the resonator and the external quality factor. Theoretical predictions are verified by the experimental results of three dual-band filters.     

Wear Behavior of Harmonic Structured 304L Stainless Steel

Wear behavior of a harmonic structured 304L austenitic stainless steel with periodically distributed fine and coarse grains was examined and compared with a sintered non-harmonic structured 304L stainless steel and a low carbon conventional 304 stainless steel using fretting wear tests at varying loads in ball-on-flat contact configuration. Characterization was accomplished using scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, optical profilometry and Raman spectroscopy. Coefficient of friction and wear volume were minimum at intermediate normal load of 5 N, whereas maximum at 10 N for the harmonic stainless steel compared to other two steels. Harmonically distributed fine- and coarse-grained structure attributes to the higher wear rate of the harmonic structured steel at higher load because of differential interaction of the ball with the harmonically distributed hard (fine) and relatively soft (coarse) regions.