Use of citric acid for heavy metals extraction from contaminated sewage sludge for land application.

Recent studies revealed that organic acids such as citric and oxalic acids seemed to be more promising as chemical extracting agents for removal of heavy metals from contaminated sludge, since they are biodegradable and can attain a higher metal extraction efficiency at mildly acidic pH compared to other extracting agents. Results of a lab-scale study on the efficiency of citric acid in the extraction of chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn) from anaerobically digested sludge, revealed that citric acid seemed to be highly effective in extracting Cr (at 100%), Cu (at 88%), Ni (at 98%) and Zn (at 100%) at pH 2.33, mostly at 5 days leaching time except for Cu and Zn, which are at 1 day and 2 h contact times respectively. Lead removal at the same pH was also high at 95% but at a longer leaching time of 11 days. At pH 3, citric acid seemed to be highly effective in extracting Pb (at 100%) at 1 day leaching time, although higher removals were also attained for Ni (70%) and Zn (80%) at only 2 h leaching time. Chemical speciation studies showed that Cr, Cu and Ni in the sludge sample seem to predominate in residual fractions, while Pb and Zn were found mostly bound to organic and inorganic matter forms, hence the potential of the sludge for land application.     

Combined RLS-LMS initialization for per tone equalizers in DMT-receivers

In discrete multitone receivers, the classical equalizer structure consists of a (real) time domain equalizer (TEQ) combined with complex one-tap frequency domain equalizers. An alternative receiver is based on a per tone equalization (PTEQ), which optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on each tone separately and, hence, the total bitrate. In this paper, a new initialization scheme for the PTEQ is introduced, based on a combination of least mean squares (LMS) and recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive filtering. It is shown that the proposed method has only slightly slower convergence than full square-root RLS (SR-RLS) while complexity as well as memory cost are reduced considerably. Hence, in terms of complexity and convergence speed, the proposed algorithm is in between LMS and RLS.     

Teaching robust programming

Robust programming aims to prevent abnormal termination or unexpected actions and requires code to handle bad (invalid or absurd) inputs in a way that is consistent with the developer's intent. For example, if an internal error occurs, the program might terminate gracefully rather than simply failing, providing enough information for the programmer to debug the program and avoiding giving the user additional access or information. This article focuses on teaching these principles.     

Pseudorandom active UWB reflectors for accurate ranging

In this letter, the concept of pseudorandom active reflector, based on the ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, is introduced. It consists of a simple device that repeats a slightly delayed version of the received UWB signal only in certain time intervals according to a suitable pseudorandom time-hopping sequence. An example of application of this device for accurate ranging in precise location systems is given. The advantages of this solution are in the hardware simplicity (only the analog section is present), in the low power consumption of the reflector and in the low timing constraint regarding the relative transmitter and reflector clock rates.     

Low Temperature Physics at the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés in Toulouse

An overview over past and present activities and future developments at the Toulouse pulsed magnetic field facility is given, both as far as technical developments of the infrastructure, as well as low temperature physics performed at the LNCMP are concerned.     

Steady-state operation of a high-voltage multiresonant converter in a high-temperature environment

Often scientific instruments on exploratory satellites are used to collect cosmic particles. These instruments, such as the Faraday cup, require a high-voltage regulated power source. On the proposed solar probe satellite there will be instruments which will collect cosmic particles close to the sun. Naturally temperature effects on the voltage regulator are a concern. Specifically power dissipation within the regulator must stay within stringent guidelines. The high-voltage regulator circuit is a resonant flyback topology with a dissipative series switch whose on resistance controls the output voltage level. The extreme temperatures in space will change the inductance of the flyback transformer which will affect the output voltage. State space analysis techniques are used to determine how the value of the transformer inductance and capacitance in the flyback converter affects the output voltage and consequently the power dissipated by the transformer and the switch. The accuracy of the analysis is verified by comparing results with those obtained from an experimental circuit. The results can then be used to help the designer chose nominal capacitance and inductance values that will work over the temperature range of interest.     

Wavelength-tunable 40-GHz picosecond harmonically mode-locked fiber laser source

We demonstrate a novel 40-GHz mode-locked fiber laser that utilizes a single active device to provide both gain and mode-locking. The laser produces pulses as short as 2.2 ps, is tunable over a 27-nm band centered at 1553 nm, and exhibits long-term stability without cavity-length feedback control. The pulse train at 1556 nm was used in a 40-Gb/s transmission experiment over 45 km with a low 0.4-dB power penalty.     

Solutions to a combined problem of excessive hydrogen sulfide in biogas and struvite scaling.

The Woodman Point Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Western Australia has experienced two separate problems causing avoidable maintenance costs: the build-up of massive struvite (MgNH4PO4. 6H2O) scaling downstream of the anaerobic digester and the formation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels in the digester gas to levels that compromised gas engine operation and caused high operating costs on the gas scrubber. As both problems hang together with a chemical imbalance in the anaerobic digester, we decided to investigate whether both problems could be (feasibly and economically) addressed by a common solution (such as dosing of iron solutions to precipitate both sulfide and phosphate), or by using separate approaches. Laboratory results showed that, the hydrogen sulfide emission in digesters could be effectively and economically controlled by the addition of iron dosing. Slightly higher than the theoretical value of 1.5 mol of FeCl3 was required to precipitate 1 mol of dissolved sulfide inside the digester. Due to the high concentration of PO4(3-) in the digested sludge liquor, significantly higher iron is required for struvite precipitation. Iron dosing did not appear an economic solution for struvite control via iron phosphate formation. By taking advantage of the natural tendency of struvite formation in the digester liquid, it is possible to reduce the risk of struvite precipitation in and around the sludge-dewatering centrifuge by increasing the pH to precipitate struvite out before passing through the centrifuge. However, as the Mg2+/PO4(3-) molar ratio in digested sludge was low, by increasing the pH alone (using NaOH) the precipitation of PO4(3-) was limited by the amount of cations (Ca2+ and Mg2+) available in the sludge. Although this would reduce struvite precipitation in the centrifuge, it could not significantly reduce PO4(3-) recycling back to the plant. For long-term operation, maximum PO4(3-) reduction should be the ultimate aim to minimise PO4(3-) accumulation in the plant. Magnesium hydroxide liquid (MHL) was found to be the most cost-effective chemical to achieve this goal. It enhanced struvite precipitation from both, digested sludge and centrate to the point where more than 95% PO4(3-) reduction in the digested sludge was achieved.     

Joint scheduling and power control supporting multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks

This paper addresses the problem of power control in a multihop wireless network supporting multicast traffic. We face the problem of forwarding packet traffic to multicast group members while meeting constraints on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the intended receivers. First, we present a distributed algorithm which, given the set of multicast senders and their corresponding receivers, provides an optimal solution when it exists, which minimizes the total transmit power. When no optimal solution can be found for the given set of multicast senders and receivers, we introduce a distributed, joint scheduling and power control algorithm which eliminates the weak connections and tries to maximize the number of successful multicast transmissions. The algorithm allows the other senders to solve the power control problem and minimize the total transmit power. We show that our distributed algorithm converges to the optimal solution when it exists, and performs close to centralized, heuristic algorithms that have been proposed to address the joint scheduling and power control problem.     

Petroleum naphthenomono-and naphthenobiarenes

The hydrocarbon-group composition and distribution of naphthenoaromatic hydrocarbons of West Siberian oils were studied by the technique of mass spectrometry. Naphthenoaromatic hydrocarbons of the general formula C_nH_2n?z , where z is 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, or 18, containing from one to six saturated cycles are present in oils in significant concentrations. Naphthenomonoarenes with one saturated cycle dominate in all oils. An increase in the amount of compounds containing 3–6 saturated cycles in their molecule with the occurrence depth was noted. Naphthenobiarenes of the general formula C_nH_2n?z , where z is 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, or 24 containing from one to six saturated cycles are present in oils in concentrations from 20.0 to 54.0 wt % of the biaromatic fraction. Most oils are characterized by the prevalence of structures with one and two saturated cycles in their molecule. The dependence of the number of cycles in naphthenobiarenes on the nature of original organic matter (OM) was not traced. The lack of correlation between the number of cycles and the OM type is presumably due to the fact that, for the most part, fused polycyclic naphthenobiarenes reflect the degree of catagenetic alteration of organic matter.