Determination of Synthetic Food Colorants in Water-Soluble Beverages Individually by HPLC and Totally by Ce(IV)-Oxidative Spectrophotometry

Food colorants are an important class of food additives that give the first impression to consumers about the quality of food. Ce(IV)-reducing antioxidant capacity assay originally developed in our laboratories was adapted to the determination of synthetic food colorants for the first time. This method allowing for total antioxidant capacity assay of dietary polyphenols, flavonoids, and ascorbic acid in plant extracts is based on the room temperature oxidation of antioxidant compounds with Ce(IV) sulfate in dilute H₂SO₄ solution and measurement of the absorbance of unreacted Ce(IV) at 320?nm. The results of the proposed method were correlated with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) findings. Individual standard solutions, synthetic mixtures of synthetic colorants, and colorant extracts were identified and quantified with HPLC on a C₁₈ column equipped with a diode array detector, and slight modifications on the existing HPLC method were made to analyze synthetic colorant mixtures. This work proposes Ce(IV)-oxidative spectrophotometry as a complementary technique to HPLC in the analysis of food colorants.     

Thermophilic aerobic granular biomass for enhanced settleability

Aerobic biological wastewater treatment at thermophilic (ca. 55 degrees C) temperatures notoriously produces biomass that flocculates poorly or not at all. Contrary to this, thermophilic aerobic biomass that settled well in sequencing batch reactors was cultured with sludge volume index (SVI) values as low as 60mL/g. A mixture of granular and flocculant biomass resulted when closed reactors were sparged with recirculated reactor headspace gas containing some air, whereas a conventionally aerated control reactor sparged with air alone contained dispersed growth that did not flocculate. Maximum granule diameter was from 1.2 to 1.9mm, and granule resistance to disintegration was comparable to aerobic mesophilic granules. Two bacteria were isolated and identified as Anoxybacillus flavothermus and Pseudoxanthomonas taiwanensis as determined by partial 16S rDNA sequencing. Anoxybacilli species are alkaliphilic or alkalitolerant, with the type species having an obligate requirement for carbonate, even when grown on glucose. We postulate that high alkalinity and CO(2) may select for a population of aerobic thermophilies that flocculates and granulates.     

Regional-Specific Numerical Models of Evapotranspiration Using Gene-Expression Programming Interface in Sahel

An accurate and simple Reference Evapotranspiration (ETo) numerical model eases to use for supporting irrigation planning and its effective management is highly desired in Sahelian regions. This paper investigates the performance ability of the Gene-expression Programming (GEP) for modeling ETo using decadal climatic data from a Sahelian country; Burkina Faso. For the study; important data are collected from six synoptic meteorological stations located in different regions; Gaoua, P?, Boromo, Ouahigouya, Bogandé and Dori. The climatic data combinations are used as inputs to develop the GEP models at regional-specific data basis for estimating ETo. GEP performances are evaluated with the root mean square error (RMSE), and coefficient of correlation (R) between estimated and targeted Penman-Monteith FAO56 set as the true reference values. Obviously; from the statistical viewpoint; GEP computing technique has showed a good ability for providing numerical models on a regional data basis. The performances of GEP based on temperatures data are quite good able to substitute empirical equations at regional level to some extent. It is found that the models with wind velocity yield high accuracies by causing radical improve of the performances with R² (0.925-0.961) and RMSE (0.131-0.272?mm?day^-1); while relative humidity may cause only (R²?=?0.801-0.933 and RMSE?=?0.370-0.578?mm?day^-1). Statistically; GEP is an effectual modeling tool for computing successfully evapotranspiration in Sahel.     

Diesel evaporation as the first step of hydrogen production

Diesel constitutes the major fuel utilized in ships. Hence, diesel reforming is foreseen as one of the options for marine fuel cell applications. Evaporation of diesel fuel is an important stage in the diesel reforming processes. Thermal decomposition of the heavy feedstock that occurs primarily in the high temperature domain of the evaporation process leads to carboneous material formation and may plug the evaporator. Carboneous materials can also accumulate on the catalyst surface and cause serious problems in desulfurization and pre-reformer units. The diesel evaporator design is one of the key parameters to minimize carbon formation. The operating conditions must be optimized as well.     

Comparison of Blackbodies for Calibration of Infrared Ear Thermometers

The article presents the results of the EURAMET Project No. 927 ??Comparison of blackbodies for calibration of infrared ear thermometers (IRETs)??. The objective of the comparison was to determine the agreement of blackbodies used for the calibration of IRETs among European national laboratories. To verify the accuracy of an IRET, a suitable blackbody (BB) is needed. Such a blackbody related to the EN standard, designed for the calibration of ear thermometers and immersed in a stirred water bath, was provided for the comparison by the pilot laboratory. The pilot provided also the transfer IRET and organized the comparison.     

Results with a bench scale downdraft biomass gasifier for agricultural and forestry residues

A small scale fixed bed downdraft gasifier system to be fed with agricultural and forestry residues has been designed and constructed. The downdraft gasifier has four consecutive reaction zones from the top to the bottom, namely drying, pyrolysis, oxidation and reduction zones. Both the biomass fuel and the gases move in the same direction. A throat has been incorporated into the design to achieve gasification with lower tar production. The experimental system consists of the downdraft gasifier and the gas cleaning unit made up by a cyclone, a scrubber and a filter box. A pilot burner is utilized for initial ignition of the biomass fuel. The product gases are combusted in the flare built up as part of the gasification system. The gasification medium is air. The air to fuel ratio is adjusted to produce a gas with acceptably high heating value and low pollutants. Within this frame, different types of biomass, namely wood chips, barks, olive pomace and hazelnut shells are to be processed. The developed downdraft gasifier appears to handle the investigated biomass sources in a technically and environmentally feasible manner. This paper summarizes selected design related issues along with the results obtained with wood chips and hazelnut shells.     

The radiative transfer solution of a rectangular enclosure using angular domain discrete wavelets

The wavelet expansion is used in order to evaluate the angular dependence of the radiative intensity in the solution of the radiative transfer equation. The radiative intensity is expanded in terms of orthogonal Daubechies’ wavelet basis in the angular domain. The method is applied to a two-dimensional rectangular enclosure with an absorbing, emitting and nonscattering medium in radiative equilibrium. One of the boundary surfaces is maintained at constant temperature T₁, while others are kept cold. This boundary conditions are chosen to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in dealing with the geometries which are sensitive to ray effects. Centerline emissive power and surface heat flux distributions are compared well with the results given by the standard discrete ordinates method, the modified discrete ordinates method and also with the available exact solutions.     

Adsorption of rhodium(III) ions onto poly(1,8-diaminonaphthalene) chelating polymer: Equilibrium,kinetic and thermodynamic study

In the present work, poly(1,8-diaminonaphthalene) (poly(1,8-DAN)) was synthesized by the reaction of 1,8-diaminonaphthalene (1,8-DAN) with ammonium persulfate (APS) and then the equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics of rhodium(III) adsorption onto poly(1,8-DAN) were studied. Poly(1,8-DAN), Rh(III)-poly(1,8-DAN) and Rh(III)-1,8-DAN complex were characterized by UV–vis. and FTIR spectroscopy, thermal analysis, potentiometric titration and electrical conductivity. In the adsorption studies, the effects of acidity, the temperature and the concentration of rhodium(III) were examined. It was found that poly(1,8-DAN) has Rh(III) adsorption capacity (q_m) of 11.11 mg/g polymer. The adsorption data fitted better to the Freundlich isotherm then the Langmuir isotherm, and the kinetics of the adsorption fitted to pseudo second order kinetic model. The ΔG° values were calculated as ?7.33 at 20 and ?11.31 kJ/mol at 60 °C. The enthalpy (ΔH°), entropy (ΔS°) and the activation energy (E_a) of the adsorption were found as 21.335 kJ/mol, 97.057 J/mol K and 70.210 kJ/mol, respectively. It was predicted that the adsorption of Rh(III) onto poly(1,8-DAN) was an endothermic chemical adsorption process governed by both ionic interaction and chelating mechanisms. It was also observed that the adsorption of Rh(III) lowered the electrical conductivity of the pol(1,8-DAN).     

Fatigue characteristics of continuous welded rails and the effect of residual stress on fatigue-ratchetting interaction

ABSTRACT

The importance of ratchetting-fatigue interaction is garnering interest due to complex failure mechanism of rail welds under cyclic loading. The objective of this paper is to investigate the fatigue characteristics of continuous welded rails (CWRs) and the effect of residual stress on fatigue-ratchetting interaction. For this purpose, UIC60 rails have been modeled using a three-dimensional finite element model, including a combination of nonlinear kinematic and isotropic hardening. In addition, the interaction between cyclic loading and the effect of residual stress on fatigue is taken into consideration. Finite element model is validated against representative experimental findings. Smith–Watson–Topper (SWT) method is utilized in order to estimate the fatigue life of rail welds under static and cyclic loading. Lower fatigue life is predicted with increasing load due to the contact between rails and wheels. Simulation results also show that failure in the form of ratchetting occurs during the 10,236th cycle, while failure corresponds to the 15,290th cycle and the 145,161st cycle based on the SWT and Coffin-Manson fatigue models, respectively. These findings suggest that investigations on ratchetting and fatigue should be carried out simultaneously to estimate the failure of the CWRs.