Process intensification with a hybrid system: A tubular packed bed bioreactor with immobilized activated sludge culture coupled with membrane filtration

Performance of a hybrid system consisting of a tubular bioreactor and a membrane filter was studied for removing carbohydrate and protein. Microporous polyurethane (sponge) was used as the packing medium for immobilization activated sludge culture. The bioreactor was operated in series with a cross flow ultrafiltration system to study the effect of influent flow rate and chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration on the overall system performance. The removal efficiency in the bioreactor decreased linearly with increase in loading. The decline of removal efficiency at higher loadings was more significant for protein than carbohydrate. Coupling the bioreactor with a membrane separation process increased the overall removal rates and provided a consistent effluent quality. The flux through ultrafiltration membrane did not change significantly even when the bioreactor effluent had high levels of protein. Morphological examination of the packing medium both visually and by SEM showed significant accumulation of organisms on the surface which indicates that biofilm thickness was controlled by diffusion limitations. Advantages of the hybrid system include small footprint, economical packing medium, and space savings by coupling the bioreactor with a membrane filtration process.     

Multiparametric investigation of competitive and noncompetitive sorption characteristics of SMP fractions (carbohydrate and protein) on activated carbon

Sorption characteristics of soluble microbial products (SMPs) as carbohydrate and protein on activated carbon were investigated. Batch experiments were conducted to evaluate the sorption kinetics and the equilibrium conditions. The parameters studied included initial SMP concentration (50-200mg/L), activated carbon dosage (0.25-50 g/L), contact time (0.02-4h), particle size of activated carbon used (5-75 μm, 75-850 μm, and 850-1000 μm), and presence of one or both SMP fractions. The equilibrium sorption of carbohydrate and protein were significantly affected by the presence of the second SMP fraction in the solutions. Adsorption isotherms were expressed by the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The adsorption rates under noncompetitive and competitive conditions were analyzed with kinetics-based Lagergren pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order models; and diffusion-based external diffusion and Weber-Morris intraparticle models. Both SMP fractions were removed effectively, however, sorption of protein was significantly better than that of carbohydrate in all cases. The relatively significant effect of particle size on sorption of protein indicates that protein is most likely adsorbed as a single layer on the carbon surface. For the carbohydrate, the increase in particle size did not decrease the sorption significantly indicating that carbohydrate may be adsorbed in multiple layers or may diffuse into the porous matrix more effectively.     

Thermal Decomposition and Ignition of PBXN‐110 Plastic‐Bonded Explosive

Due to safety requirements, insensitive behavior in slow or fast thermal heating (cook‐off) conditions is a desired behavior for today’s munitions. The ignition time of munitions under slow or fast cook‐off conditions is an important parameter in the design of insensitive munitions. The critical temperature, which mainly depends on the chemical, physical, and the geometrical properties of the energetic material, is the determining factor whether the material will end up with thermal initiation or not, when it is exposed to an external heat source. In this study a slow cook‐off test setup is designed and developed and the tests for a generic munition containing PBXN‐110 plastic‐bonded explosive are performed in order to obtain temperature distribution in the test item, ignition time, ignition temperature, and ignition location. In this paper the development procedure and the experimental results of the slow cook‐off tests are explained. Moreover, the kinetic parameters such as activation energy and pre‐exponential factor for the plastic‐bonded explosive obtained from the TGA tests are presented.     

Effect of species and grinding disc distance on the surface roughness parameters of medium density fiberboard

Surface quality of medium density fiberboard (MDF), as a very important criterion for further finishing and utilization, was evaluated using a wide range of measuring parameters (instruments, filters, filtering cut-off length, measuring length, measuring resolution, roughness parameters). However, these various approaches make any data comparison rather difficult. Furthermore, filtering the measured data with a simple Gaussian filter has proved unreliable for wood surfaces. A new, more robust approach by using a Robust Gaussian Regression filter together with a previously tested set of measuring and evaluating parameters was used in this paper in order to quantify the surface roughness of MDF manufactured from different species (beech, poplar, birch, Scots pine, mixture 50 % Scots pine and 50 % beech) and using three different grinding disc distances (0.06, 0.15 and 0.6 mm). If manufacturing parameters are kept constant, the processing roughness of MDF is similar, but variable species anatomy and fuzziness effects will give differentiation in total roughness. The results indicated that fibers made of a mixture of wood chips from Scots pine and beech led to the smoothest MDF surface, followed closely by poplar, birch, and Scots pine. The roughest surface was measured for the panels made of beech fibers. Investigating the influence of the grinding disc distance, the roughest MDF surface was obtained when a grinding gap of 0.6 mm was used. However, surface roughness was found to be quite similar applying a grinding disc distance of 0.06 mm slightly lower for 0.15 mm. This finding indicates that a too fine grinding gap does not improve the MDF surface roughness.