A review on devolatilization of coal in fluidized bed

Devolatilization is an important step in fluidized bed combustion and gasification of coal. ‘Devolatilization’ is a general term that signifies the removal of volatile matters from the coal matrix. It is an extremely important step because the combustion of volatile matter can account for 50% of the specific energy of fluidized bed combustion of a high‐volatile coal. Significant insights into the complex physicochemical phenomena that occur during devolatilization have been obtained in the recent years. This review focuses on the devolatilization of coal in an inert gas, air, and oxygen‐enriched air, with emphasis on the effects of the operating parameters (e.g. temperature, heating rate, pressure, and gas velocity) on the yield of volatile matter. Particle size, oxygen content of the fluidizing gas, volatile content of coal and specific heat are some of the other important parameters for the devolatilization of coal. This review also explains the development and application of structural and empirical models. The structural models (e.g. FG‐DVC and CPD models) are fairly complex. However, they can accurately predict the yields of gas and tar. It is observed from the review of the literature that the mechanism of coal devolatilization needs further study. Although the shrinking‐core model can describe the devolatilization in the beginning and toward the end of the process, major deviations are often observed. The economic studies reveal that the capital cost of fluidized bed combustion reduces upon doubling the capacity. Some problems associated with bubbling fluidized bed combustion (e.g. the increase in freeboard temperature) have been explained with the present knowledge of devolatilization. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of ageing on microstructure and mechanical properties of bulk, cryorolled, and room temperature rolled Al 7075 alloy

The effect of ageing on mechanical properties and microstructural characteristics of a precipitation hardenable Al 7075 alloy subjected to rolling at liquid nitrogen temperature and room temperature are has been investigated in the present work employing hardness measurements, tensile test, XRD, DSC, and TEM. The solution-treated bulk Al 7075 alloy was subjected to cryorolling and room temperature rolling to refine grain structures and subsequently ageing treatment to simultaneously improve the strength and ductility. The solution treatment combined with cryorolling up to a true rolling strain of 2.3 followed by low temperature ageing at 100 °C for 45 h has been found to be the optimum processing condition to obtain fine grained microstructure with improved tensile strength (642 MPa) and good tensile ductility (9.5%) in the Al 7075 alloy. The combined effect of suppression of dynamic recovery, partial grain refinement, partial recovery, solid solution strengthening, dislocation hardening, and precipitation hardening are responsible for the significant improvement strength-ductility combination in the cryorolled Al 7075 alloy subjected to peak ageing treatment. The cryorolled and room temperature rolled Al 7075 alloy, upon subjecting to peak ageing treatment, have shown higher strength and ductility in the former than the latter. It is due to presence of high density of nanosized precipitates in the peak aged cryorolled sample.     

Study on the effect of woven sisal fiber mat on mechanical and viscoelastic properties of petroleum based epoxy and bioresin modified toughened epoxy network

Sisal fiber reinforced biocomposites are developed using both unmodified petrol based epoxy and bioresin modified epoxy as base matrix. Two bioresins, epoxidized soybean oil and epoxy methyl soyate (EMS) are used to modify the epoxy matrix for effective toughening and subsequently two layers of sisal fiber mat are incorporated to improve the mechanical and thermomechanical properties. Higher strength and modulus of the EMS modified epoxy composites reveals good interfacial bonding of matrix with the fibers. Fracture toughness parameters K_IC and G_IC are determined and found to be enhanced significantly. Notched impact strength is found to be higher for unmodified epoxy composite, whereas elongation at break is found to be much higher for modified epoxy blend. Dynamic mechanical analysis shows an improvement in the storage modulus for bioresin toughened composites on the account stiffness imparted by fibers. Loss modulus is found to be higher for EMS modified epoxy composite because of strong fiber–matrix interfacial bonding. Loss tangent curves show a strong influence of bioresin on damping behavior of epoxy composite. Strong fiber–matrix interface is found in modified epoxy composite by scanning electron microscopic analysis. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42699.     

有机化学课程全英语教学的探索与思考

顺应高等教育国际化的形势,本科生的全英文教学是我校近几年进行的重要教学改革与创新。在有机化学课程全英语教学改革试验中,从学生的实际出发,我们选择了合适的全英文原版教材,也大胆地尝试了新的教学模式。同时,我们探讨了全英教学过程中存在的问题及解决的对策。在近一年的教学实践中,学生获取了有机化学相关知识,也锻炼和提高了英语表达能力。     

Hybrid optical/RF channels: characterization and performance study using low density parity check codes

A hybrid channel, consisting of a free space optical (FSO) link and a parallel radio frequency (RF) link, is considered. The FSO link carries most of the transmitted data while leaving only a small fraction of the data to be carried by the RF link. It is first shown that the capacity of the proposed hybrid structure is much higher than the capacity of a single FSO link. Next the performance of the hybrid channel is studied using a low density parity check code. A density evolution strategy for the hybrid channel is derived and a Gaussian approximation technique is presented. Using these techniques, the conditions for the convergence of the message passing algorithm in terms of minimum data carrying rate through the RF link are derived. Finally, numerical results showing the benefits of the hybrid channel under various channel conditions are presented.     

Magnetodielectric composite with ferrite inclusions as substrates for microstrip patch antennas at microwave frequencies

A study has been conducted to estimate the complex permittivity and permeability along with magnetic characterization of different volume fractions of magnetodielectric composites with cobalt ferrite nano inclusions. Using an in touch superstrate technique dielectric properties are estimated. Cavity perturbation technique is used to study the complex permeability of the samples. 4πM_s value and coercivity is measured using vibrating sample magnetometry. Structural and surface morphologies on the composite samples are conducted to determine the size and homogeneous distribution of nano inclusions. The average grain size of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles is found to be ～10 nm. The real part of permittivity and permeability of the samples varies from ～1–2.905 to ～1.01–1.05 with increase in inclusion content from 1% VF to 5% VF, respectively. The tan δ of permittivity and imaginary part of permeability is found to be of the order of ～10^?3 and ～10^?1 respectively. Verification of these composites as potential substrates for microstrip patch antenna is carried out by fabricating simple rectangular patch at 9.5 GHz using transmission line model. Rectangular patch is designed on 5% VF composite system. The return loss for the composite system was found to be ～?19.451 dB which is comparable with that designed on standard glass epoxy substrate (?_r = 4.5).     

Experimental and numerical investigation of capillary flow in SU8 and PDMS microchannels with integrated pillars

Microfluidic channels with integrated pillars are fabricated on SU8 and PDMS substrates to understand the capillary flow. Microscope in conjunction with high-speed camera is used to capture the meniscus front movement through these channels for ethanol and isopropyl alcohol, respectively. In parallel, numerical simulations are conducted, using volume of fluid method, to predict the capillary flow through the microchannels with different pillar diameter to height ratio, ranging from 2.19 to 8.75 and pillar diameter to pitch ratio, ranging from 1.44 to 2.6. The pillar size (diameter, pitch and height) and the physical properties of the fluid (surface tension and viscosity) are found to have significant influence on the capillary phenomena in the microchannel. The meniscus displacement is non-uniform due to the presence of pillars and the non-uniformity in meniscus displacement is observed to increase with decrease in pitch to diameter ratio. The surface area to volume ratio is observed to play major roles in the velocity of the capillary meniscus of the devices. The filling speed is observed to change more dramatically under different pillar heights upto 120 μm and the change is slow with further increase in the pillar height. The details pertaining to the fluid distribution (meniscus front shapes) are obtained from the numerical results as well as from experiments. Numerical predictions for meniscus front shapes agree well with the experimental observations for both SU8 and PDMS microchannels. It is observed that the filling time obtained experimentally matches very well with the simulated filling time. The presence of pillars creates uniform meniscus front in the microchannel for both ethanol and isopropyl alcohol. Generalized plots in terms of dimensionless variables are also presented to predict the performance parameters for the design of these microfluidic devices. The flow is observed to have a very low Capillary number, which signifies the relative importance of surface tension to viscous effects in the present study.     

Numerical Understanding of Free Surface Vortex Driven by Rotational Field Inside Viscous Liquid

Abstract

The present study established the genesis of free surface vortex inside a viscous liquid using a rotating cylindrical disc immersed in the liquid. The longitudinal axis of the disc is kept normal to the nominal interfacial plane and its rotation is characterized in terms of Froude number (1.50–4.49). This configuration is simulated using a grid-based volume of fluid technique in the air and high viscous polybutene pair. A dip in nominal interface profile is observed at low disc rotations (Froude number ≈ 1.50), however, the gradual progress of the rotational inertia (Froude number > 1.50) has resulted in elongation of the interface in the form of a free surface vortex progressing inside the liquid. The transient progress of vortex depicts bullet nose like interface tip during the early stages, which grows in the outward radial direction along with its downward motion due to the centrifugal effect of the surrounding liquid. The initial submergence ratio of the disc and its radius are shown as the important parameters governing the entrainment rate and shape of the vortex profiles. The physical understanding behind the formation of the vortex is revealed using axial and crosswise circulations of the surrounding liquid.