Full calculation of a chemical-technological complex for processing of cracking and pyrolysis gases based on the kinetic models of the processes

The results of calculations using the kinetic models of material balance of methane–hydrogen, propane–propylene, butylene–divinyl, and isobutylene regions were presented. Together with the previously calculated ethylene region, these regions constitute the chemical-technological complex for cracking and pyrolysis gas processing. The final scheme of the chemical-technological complex with indication of all of its inlet and outlet flows and connections between the material and recirculation flows between regions was presented. The production capacities of reactor elements were determined for all the desired products of the chemical-technological complex.     

Autonomous magnetically actuated continuous flow microimmunofluorocytometry assay

This article presents a microfluidic device which integrates autonomous serial immunofluorocytometry binding reactions of cytometric beads with fluorescence detection and quantification in a continuous flow environment. The microdevice assay is intended to alleviate the extensive benchwork and large sample volumes used when conducting traditional immunoassays, without requiring complex external controls. The technology is based on the miniaturization and automation of the serial processing steps of an antigen sandwich immunoassay, with integrated fluorescence detection using paramagnetic microbeads. The continuous flow design may enable temporal tracking of time-varying protein concentrations in a continuously infused sample for clinical applications, specifically for monitoring inflammation marker proteins in blood produced during cardiac surgeries involving cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) procedures. The device operation was first validated via a single incubation device which measured the concentration of a fluorescently labeled biotin molecule using streptavidin-coated paramagnetic cytometric beads. Subsequently, a dual incubation device was tested with samples of the anaphylatoxin complement protein C3a, and was shown to be capable of differentiating between samples at typical systemic concentrations of the protein (1–5 μg/ml), with very low sample usage (<6 μl/h). It is believed that this continuous flow, automated microimmunosensor technology will be a platform for high sample rate immunoassays capable of tracking and more thoroughly characterizing the systemic inflammation process, and may aid in the development of better treatment options for systemic inflammation during and after CPB.     

Optimal Design of a Chemical-Technological Complex for Coprocessing Cracking and Pyrolysis Gases

Theoretical Foundations of Chemical Engineering - This paper completes our work on calculation of a chemical-technological complex for coprocessing cracking and pyrolysis gases on the basis of a...     

Influence of the preliminary radiation-oxidation treatment of zirconium on the radiation-heterogeneous processes in the Zr + H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O System

The oxidation processes are studied of untreated and radiation-oxidation preliminary treated (in an H₂O₂ solution at room temperature) zirconium specimens in contact with water by reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy. A comparison is performed of their kinetic characteristics. Passivation of the metal surface is revealed as evidence of the surface oxide layer.     

Development and evaluation of graphite nanoplate (GNP)‐based phase change material for energy storage applications

In this study, arachidic acid (AA)/graphite nanoplate (GNP) composite material is proposed as a novel phase change material (PCM). In order to examine the influence of GNP loading into the base material (AA), composite PCMs were prepared with three different fractions (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 in wt%). The thermal, chemical and morphological characteristics of the samples were introduced in terms of differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared, and X‐ray diffraction analyses. Moreover, the thermal conductivity values of samples in the liquid state were measured by means of 3ω method. It was found that, for GNP fractions of 0.5, 1, and 2 wt. %, the thermal conductivity of composite PCMs have been increased by 15, 30 and 43% in comparison to the pure AA. Results also revealed that the GNP loading into the pure AA led to a reduction in the degree of subcooling and a small diminution in the latent heat values. Considering the thermal cycling tests, it was also obtained that the proposed composite PCMs remained stable even at the highest GNP loading. Conduction‐dominated inward solidification process was simulated for one‐dimensional spherical computational domain. For this particular case, it was found that the increments of 15, 30 and 45% in thermal conductivity tend to increase the effectiveness by 3.5, 6.4 and 8.7%, respectively. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CVD grown graphene as catalyst for acid electrolytes

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) process is utilized to grow and study behavior of porous, continuous-phase 3D graphene structures in acid electrolyte. Graphene layers that are produced by CVD process are tested for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity by Rotating Disc Electrode (RDE) measurements in 0,1 M HClO₄ electrolyte. Raman spectroscopy measurements confirms multi-layer porous structure formation for more than 1 min grow on nickel foam. Multi-layer porous graphene has provided μA level current. When NH₃ is used for nitrogen (N)-doping, magnitude of the reduction current increases, but still low for practical usage of graphene in acid electrolytes as catalyst. N-doping is confirmed with XPS measurements showing all possible types of N-doping phases with 900 °C being better than 1000 °C doping. CVD grown continuous-phase graphene, by itself or N-doped, cannot provide enough electrocatalytic activity to be used in 0,1 M HClO₄ acid electrolyte or polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells for practical applications. Pt layer of 10 nm has been sputtered on to graphene (21.45 μg/cm² Pt loading) and has provided orders of magnitude increase in oxygen reduction current compare to bare graphene layers.     

The effect of cooking methods on mineral and vitamin contents of African catfish

Proximate composition, mineral and vitamin contents (A, E, B₁, B₂, niacin and B₆) were investigated in cooked African catfish. Different cooking treatments were used (baking, grilling, microwaving and frying). The protein and ash contents increased in all cooked fish. The fat content increased only in fried fillets. The moisture content of cooked fish decreased. Mineral levels were affected by cooking methods, except for Cu Although the vitamin A content significantly increased in grilled and fried fish, vitamin E increased in all cooked fish. Vitamin B₁ content of cooked fish significantly decreased. Vitamin B₂ and niacin contents of grilled fish increased significantly. B₆ content of cooked fish significantly decreased but this did not occur for the grilled fish. High levels of vitamin and mineral contents were found in grilled catfish.     

The influence of polymerization time and dopant concentration on the absorption of microwave radiation in conducting polypyrrole coated textiles

Temperature changes in conducting polypyrrole/para-toluene-2-sulphonic acid (PPy/pTSA) coated nylon textiles due to microwave absorption in the 8–9 GHz and 15–16 GHz frequency ranges were obtained by a thermography station during simultaneous irradiation of the samples. The temperature values are compared and related to the amounts of reflection, transmission and absorption obtained with a non-contact free space transmission technique, indicating a relationship between microwave absorption and temperature increase. Non-conductive samples showed no temperature increase upon irradiation irrespective of frequency range. The maximum temperature difference of around 4 °C in the conducting fabrics relative to ambient temperature was observed in samples having 48% absorption and 26.5 ± 4% reflection. Samples polymerized for 60 or 120 min with a dopant concentration of 0.018 mol/l or polymerized for 180 min with a dopant concentration of 0.009 mol/l yielded optimum absorption levels. As the surface resistivity decreased and the reflection levels increased, the temperature increase upon irradiation reduced.     

Object-oriented texture analysis for the unsupervised segmentation of biopsy images for cancer detection

Staining methods routinely used in pathology lead to similar color distributions in the biologically different regions of histopathological images. This causes problems in image segmentation for the quantitative analysis and detection of cancer. To overcome this problem, unlike previous methods that use pixel distributions, we propose a new homogeneity measure based on the distribution of the objects that we define to represent tissue components. Using this measure, we demonstrate a new object-oriented segmentation algorithm. Working with colon biopsy images, we show that this algorithm segments the cancerous and normal regions with 94.89 percent accuracy on the average and significantly improves the segmentation accuracy compared to its pixel-based counterpart.