Kinetic study of hydrated lime reaction with HCl

Hydrochloride (HCl) is an acidic pollutant present in the flue gas of most municipal or hazardous waste incinerators. Hydrated lime (Ca(OH)2) is often used as a dry sorbent for injection in a spray reactor to remove HCI. However, due to the short residence time encountered, this control method has generally been found to have low conversion efficiencies which results in the high lime usage and generates large amount of fly ash as solid wastes. A fundamental study was carried outto investigate the kinetics of HCl-lime reaction under simulated flue gas conditions in order to better understand the process thereby providing a basis for an optimized lime usage and reduced fly ash production. The initial reaction rate and conversion of three limes were studied using a thermogravimetric analyzer by varying the gas flow rate, temperature (170-400 degrees C), and HCI concentrations (600-1200 mg/m3) as well as the associated particle size and surface area of the limes. The initial lime conversions were found to rely mostly on the residence time, while the ultimate lime conversions were strongly influenced by temperature and the reaction products. CaOHCI was found to be the primary product in most cases, while for one specific lime, CaCl2 was the ultimate conversion product after an extended time period. The true utilization of lime in flue gas cleanup is thus higher when CaOHCl is considered as the final product than those based on CaCl2 as the final product, which has been commonly used in previous studies. The initial reaction was controlled by diffusion of HCl in gas phase and the subsequent reaction by gaseous diffusion through the developing product layer. Increasing the HCI concentration raised the initial rate as well as conversion. However, overloading the lime with excessive HCI caused clogging at its surface and a drop in the ultimate conversion. Limes with smaller particle diameters and higher surface areas were found to be more reactive. The effect of gas-phase mass transfer was minimized when an optimum flow rate was chosen, and in the absence of internal diffusion the reaction was found to be first order with respect to HCI concentration.     

Assessing the performance of methods to detect and quantify African dust in airborne particulates

African dust (AD) contributions to particulate matter (PM) levels may be reported by Member States to the European Commission during justification of exceedances of the daily limit value (DLV). However, the detection and subsequent quantification of the AD contribution to PM levels is complex, and only two measurement-based methods are available in the literature: the Spanish-Portuguese reference method (SPR), and the Tel Aviv University method (TAU). In the present study, both methods were assessed. The SPR method was more conservative in the detection of episodes (71 days identified as AD by SPR, vs 81 by TAU), as it is less affected by interferences with local dust sources. The mean annual contribution of AD was lower with the TAU method than with SPR (2.7 vs 3.5 ± 1.5 μg/m(3)). The SPR and TAU AD time series were correlated with daily aluminum levels (a known tracer of AD), as well as with an AD source identified by the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) receptor model. Higher r(2) values were obtained with the SPR method than with TAU in both cases (r(2) = 0.72 vs 0.56, y = 0.05x vs y = 0.06x with aluminum levels; r(2)=0.79 vs 0.43, y = 0.8x vs y = 0.4x with the PMF source). We conclude that the SPR method is more adequate from an EU policy perspective (justification of DLV exceedances) due to the fact that it is more conservative than the TAU method. Based on our results, the TAU method requires adaptation of the thresholds in the algorithm to refine detection of low-impact episodes and avoid misclassification of local events as AD.     

Comprehensive review and future research directions on using various lanthanum-based adsorbents for selective phosphate removal

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Due to the specific affinity of lanthanum (La) toward phosphate over a wide pH range, La compounds such as lanthanum oxide (LO), lanthanum hydroxide...     

Genetically Encoded Crosslinking Enables Identification of Multivalent Ubiquitin-Deubiquitylating Enzyme Interactions

Ubiquitin (Ub) proteoforms control nearly every aspect of eukaryotic cell biology through their diversity. Inspired by the widely used Ub C-terminal electrophiles (Ub−E), here we report the identification of multivalent binding of Ub with deubiquitylating enzymes (Dubs) using genetic code expansion (GCE) and crosslinking mass spectrometry. While the Ub−Es only gather structural information with the S1 Dub sites, we demonstrate that GCE of Ub with p-benzoyl-L-phenylalanine enables identification of interaction modes beyond the S1 site with a panel of Dubs of both eukaryotic and prokaryotic origin. Collectively, this represents the next generation of Ub-based affinity probes with a unique ability to unravel Ub interaction landscapes beyond what is afforded by cysteine-based chemistries.     

Embedded nanoFeCu for sewage treatment: Laboratory-scale and pilot studies

Bimetallic nanoparticles have been widely studied for wastewater treatment, but the study of nanoFeCu for sewage treatment is minimal. In the previous work, ammonia was removed by nanoFeCu via an oxidation reaction, and nitrogen gas was released. However, the performance and reusability of nanoFeCu in treating industrial wastewater have not been reported elsewhere. This study revealed the performance of nanoFeCu for sewage treatment on both laboratory-scale and pilot-scale for the first time. A varied mass of embedded nanoFeCu (eFeCu4) was exposed to sewage water, and the quality of the effluent was measured in terms of ammonia, biological oxygen demand (BOD), and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. Fe²⁺ and Cu²⁺ concentrations were measured to determine the stability of eFeCu4 in nine reuse cycles. Results showed that the laboratory-scale experiment removed 20%–30% ammonia from sewage. A similar removal rate was reported in all nine cycles of reuse, which confirmed the usability and reliability of eFeCu4. In the pilot-scale study, ammonia was removed from ~22.3 to ~4.8 mg/L, while BOD and COD were reduced from ~204 to ~56 mg/L and ~71 to ~39.7 mg/L, respectively. The treated effluent quality complies with the effluent discharge standard of Malaysia, and it is also comparable with the effluent quality at sewage treatment plants in Malaysia and overseas. In conclusion, nanoFeCu could be an alternative method for sewage treatment due to its stability and pollutant removal performance. A sustainability and cost-effectiveness study should be conducted to determine the feasibility of a full-scale application.