Gasification inhibition in chemical-looping combustion with solid fuels

Chemical-looping combustion (CLC) is a novel technology that can be used to meet growing demands on energy production without CO₂ emissions. The CLC process includes two reactors, an air and a fuel reactor. Between these two reactors oxygen is transported by an oxygen carrier, which most often is a metal oxide. This arrangement prevents mixing of N₂ from the air with CO₂ from the combustion giving combustion gases that consist almost entirely of CO₂ and H₂O. The technique reduces the energy penalty that normally arises from the separation of CO₂ from other flue gases, hence, CLC could make capture of CO₂ cheaper. For the application of CLC to solid fuels, the char remaining after devolatilization will react indirectly with the oxygen carrier via steam gasification. It has been suggested that H₂, and possibly CO, has an inhibiting effect on steam gasification in CLC. In this work experiments were conducted to investigate this effect. The experiments were conducted in a laboratory fluidized-bed reactor that was operating cyclically with alternating oxidation and reduction periods. Two different oxygen carriers were used as well as an inert sand bed. During the reducing period varying concentrations of CO or H₂ were used together with steam while the oxidation was conducted with 10% O₂ in N₂. The temperature was constant at 970 °C for all experiments. The results show that CO does not directly inhibit the gasification whereas the partial pressure of H₂ had a significant influence on fuel conversion. The results also suggest that dissociative hydrogen adsorption is the predominant hydrogen inhibition mechanism under the laboratory conditions, thus explaining why char conversion is much faster in a bed of oxygen carrying material, compared to an inert sand bed.     

Plant fibre composites – porosity and stiffness

Plant fibre composites contain typically a relatively large amount of porosity which influences their performance. A model, based on a modified rule of mixtures, is presented to include the influence of porosity on the composite stiffness. The model integrates the volumetric composition of the composites with their mechanical properties. The fibre weight fraction is used as an independent parameter to calculate the complete volumetric composition. A maximum obtainable stiffness of the composites is calculated at a certain transition fibre weight fraction, which is characterised by a best possible combination of high fibre volume fraction and low porosity. The model is validated with experimental data from the literature on several types of composites. A stiffness diagram is presented to demonstrate that the calculations can be used for tailoring and design of composites with a given profile of properties.     

Low-voltage terahertz quantum-cascade lasers based on LO-phonon-assisted interminiband transitions

A report is presented on GaAs/(Al,Ga)As terahertz (THz) quantum-cascade lasers (QCLs) based on alternating photon and longitudinal optical (LO) phonon-assisted transitions between quasi-minibands. The design is optimised for low threshold current densities and low operating voltages, resulting in reduced ohmic heating during continuous-wave (CW) operation. The QCLs exhibit lasing over a broad range of frequencies from 2.91 to 3.21 THz. Using single-plasmon waveguides, pulsed operation up to 114 K and CW operation up to 65 K has been achieved.     

Hydro reservoir handling in Norway before and after deregulation

The Norwegian Energy Act that came into force in 1991 deregulated the electricity market and removed the former obligation power companies had to supply electricity to the geographical area they were responsible for. Hence producers can supply electricity on the basis of profitability. In 2007 the Energy Act was evaluated by the Government. As a part of this, a study concerning hydro reservoir handling before and after deregulation was carried out by SINTEF. Public statistics show that average hydro reservoir levels measured in per cent of reservoir capacity have been reduced after 1990. We have used the power-market model EMPS¹ (EFI's Multi-area Power-market Simulator) to analyze if this reduction can be explained by natural variation in climatic variables or by structural changes that have occurred after 1990. Simulation results show that the reduced reservoir levels cannot be explained by natural variation in climatic variables. Structural changes such as increased transmission capacities can, however, explain some of the reduction. Our study does not indicate that the present reservoir handling gives reservoir levels that are too low. In this paper we also describe the stochastic dynamic optimization problem for long-term hydropower scheduling, and we explain how this problem actually is solved by the EMPS model.     

Social influence during the initial phase of a fire evacuation—Analysis of evacuation experiments in a cinema theatre

Unannounced evacuation experiments in a cinema theatre were analysed. The analysis focused on investigating if people are influenced by others during the initial phase of a fire evacuation. This type of influence is called social influence. Three separate behaviour types were identified and studied and the recognition and pre-movement time was measured. The results suggest that social influence is an important factor and that it becomes more important when the fire cue, e.g., the alarm, is unclear or uninformative. Results also indicate that social influence increases with decreasing distance between visitors. This result implies that individuals are influenced more by people who are close than by people who are further away.     

Adhesion Between Hydrated Aluminium and Ethylene Copolymers Containing Methoxy Silane Groups

The peel strength between ethylene copolymers and aluminium has been investigated. The polymers were ordinary LDPE, copolymer with butyl acrylate (EBA), copolymer with vinyltrimethoxysilane (EVS), and copolymer with both comonomers (EVSBA). The aluminium was modified by hydration in boiling water up to 120 s. The strength of melt-pressed laminates was tested with a T-peel test and the failure mechanism was evaluated by FTIR and SEM. The hydration leads to a porous pseudoboehmite with an increased content of Al-OH groups, which causes considerable increases in peel strength for all polymers, in particular for EVS and EVSBA. The mode of failure varied between adhesive and cohesive depending on the surfaces. The introduced porosity contributes with mechanical keying while the Al-OH groups enable polar interactions for EBA and the formation of interfacial covalent bonds for EVS and EVSBA.     

Chemorheology of carboxyl terminated polybutadienes with different antioxidants

An investigation of chemorheological properties has been made on two types of carboxyl terminated polybutadienes (CTPB), HC-434, and Butarez CTL. Curing of CTPB has been done with an imine, MAPO. Films have been cast and cured and then cut into strips. Some of these strips have been extracted with acetone and then two types of antioxidants were added, phenyl-beta-naphthylamine (PBN) and methylenebis-(4-methyl-6-tert-butyl)-phenol (BKF). Continuous stress relaxation measurements and intermittent measurements of stress have been made at a temperature of 110°C. The results show that Butarez CTL seems to have better ageing properties than HC-434 even when the same type of antioxidant has been added to the polymers. The most effective antioxidant of the two tested is BKF, which balances scission reactions and crosslinking reactions in a better way than PBN.     

Comparison of isolation procedures for essential oils

Summary The influence of the time of distillation on the composition of the essential oils isolated from seed of ajowan, caraway, coriander, and cumin was investigated. The oils were isolated by distillation, as well as by simultaneous distillation-extraction. It was observed that the order of recovery of the oil constituents was determined by their solubility in the distillation water. Hence, the oxygenated compounds, although with higher boiling points, distilled before the hydrocarbons. In comparison, data are included for the oils obtained by solvent extraction from ground seed of the same species. In these cases the proportion of hydro carbons was higher than in the distilled oils. There was also evidence to suggest thatp-cymene in the oils of ajowan and cumin was partly an artefact of distillation.

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Vergleich von Isolierungsverfahren ätherischer ÖleII. Ajowan, Künunel, Koriander und Kreuzkümmel

Zusammenfassung Der Einfluß der Destillationsäuer auf die Zusammensetzung der ätherischen Öle von Ajowan, Kümmel, Koriander und Kreuzkümmel wurde untersucht. Die Öle wurden sowohl durch Destillation als auch durch ein Destillation-Extraktionsverfahren isoliert. Es wurde gezeigt, daß die Reihenfolge der Ölbestandteile während der Destillation bestimmt wurde von ihrer Löslichkeit im Destillationswasser, weshalb die höher siedenden sauerstoffhaltigen Komponenten schneller als die Kohlenwasserstoffe übergehen.Zum Vergleich wurden Angaben aufgenommen für Öle, die mit organischen Lösungsmitteln aus gemahlenen Früchten extrahiert worden waren. In diesen Fällen war die Menge der Kohlenwasserstoffe höher als bei den destillierten Ölen. Es gibt Hinweise dafür, daßp-Cymol in Ajowan- und Kreuzkümmelöl teilweise ein Artefakt der Destillation ist.

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Part I: Chem. Mikrobiol. Technol. Lebensm. (in press)