The simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of malt dust and use in the acidification of mash

In brewing, the mash or wort is frequently acidified by the addition of lactic acid or the bioacidification of the mash. The present study provides an alternative approach for mash or wort acidification by the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of malt dust. In this method, fermentable carbohydrates released by the enzymatic breakdown of the cellulosic portion of the malt dust are converted to lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria. The effect of temperature, ranging between 45 and 51°C, solid loading of malt dust at 2, 5 and 10% (w/v) on a dry basis, and enzyme loading at 0.65, 2.6 and 6.5 filter paper units (FPU) per gram malt dust on SSF and change in pH in mash acidification were examined. The final pH and lactic acid concentration and final glucose concentration of the SSF media were significantly affected by the temperature of the process (p < 0.05). The highest lactic acid titre (9.7 g/L) and the lowest pH (3.12) were obtained by SSF of 10% (w/v) malt dust at 45°C with 6.5 FPU/g. The pH of the mashing solution [containing 20% (w/v) ground malt] decreased to around 5.4 and 5.2 after adding 1.9 and 2.9% of SSF media with pH 3.39. © 2019 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling     

An Optimization Strategy for Water Distribution Networks

An optimization strategy based on head losses minimization is developed for the least cost design of water distribution networks. A new weighting approach is suggested for calculating the initial flow distribution and optimum pipe diameters of the weighted flow distribution is presented by using least square method. In the mean time homogenous and isotropous head losses are maintained with implications of head loss path choice. The model is employed for designing and/or modifying pipe sizes while the classical Hardy-Cross network solver is used to balance the flows. The whole algorithm is programmed and applied to a two-looped network selected from the literature and the results are presented on a comparative basis. A FORTRAN software with the necessary steps in the flow chart is written for the optimization calculations in this paper.     

Stability Charts for the Collapse of Residual Soil in Karst

Collapse of the residual soil over bedrock cavities often occurs during construction in karst terrain, particularly when the thickness of the residuum is reduced during excavation. Even if an estimate of the strength of the residual soil is known, uncertainty with respect to the size/geometry of the subterranean voids makes a detailed analysis difficult, and straightforward methods to check the stability are needed. In this study, numerical analyses were performed to develop a stability chart expressed in terms of a dimensionless stability number and the geometry of a potential void in the residual soil. The stability charts include the effect of friction angle, and are also developed to allow the investigation of the effect of the inverted strength profile typically observed in karst terrain. Such stability numbers may be useful to estimate the stability of a given site based on the expected thickness of the soil overburden and the likely range of anticipated soil void diameters.     

INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATION BETWEEN CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND ASH FUSION TEMPERATURES FOR SOKE TURKISH LIGNITES

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship between ash composition and ash fusion characteristic temperatures for some Turkish lignites. The lignite samples used are from different areas in Turkey. Regression analysis was used to relate the ash composition to the ash fusion behaviour. The results suggest that the chemical composition has a significant effect on the ash fusion temperatures. To consider Fe₂O₃ as an acidic ash constituent makes the realtionships between the selected ash composition parameters and ash fusion temperatures clearer.     

A VOLTAMMETRIC FLAVIN MICROELECTRODE FOR USE IN BIOFILMS

Biofilms used in bioelectrochemical systems are expected to transfer electrons using electron transfer mediators. One mediator type, flavins, which includes flavin mononucleotide, riboflavin, and flavin adenine dinucleotide, has been found to be endogenously produced by Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. However, the presence and concentration of flavins inside a S. oneidensis MR-1 biofilm have never been reported. The goal of this study was to develop a flavin microelectrode capable of measuring flavins inside a living biofilm and apply it to a biofilm which produces flavins. Because flavins are electrochemically active molecules, the flavin microelectrode was based on detection via square-wave voltammetry. The microelectrode consisted of a carbon working electrode with a 10-30 μm tip diameter, a built-in platinum counter electrode, and a Ag/AgCl reference electrode, all enclosed in a glass outer case. The microelectrode was calibrated between 0.1 μM and 10 μM flavins and showed a linear correlation between flavin concentration and peak currents located at -424 mV(Ag/AgCl) on a square-wave voltammogram. We also developed a model to explain the electrochemical mechanism of flavin detection, and to determine the effective surface area of the microelectrode, the standard reduction potential, and the transfer coefficient. We found that the effective surface area of the microelectrode was close to 100 times the projected surface area. The model predicted a standard reduction potential for RF/RFH2 of -419 mV(Ag/AgCl) at 20 °C and a transfer coefficient of 0.45. Lastly, we measured flavin concentration inside a S. oneidensis MR-1 biofilm grown on a glass surface using oxygen as the electron acceptor. The flavin concentration reached 0.7 μM, increasing near the bottom of the biofilm, where no oxygen was present. This shows the possibility that flavins are produced in the anaerobic zone to act as intermediate electron acceptors in the deeper parts of the biofilm, where there is no oxygen.     

Microbial fuel cell using anaerobic respiration as an anodic reaction and biomineralized manganese as a cathodic reactant

We have operated a microbial fuel cell in which glucose was oxidized by Klebsiella pneumoniae in the anodic compartment, and biomineralized manganese oxides, deposited by Leptothrix discophora, were electrochemically reduced in the cathodic compartment. In the anodic compartment, to facilitate the electron transfer from glucose to the graphite electrode, we added a redox mediator, 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone. We did not add any redox mediator to the cathodic compartment because the biomineralized manganese oxides were deposited on the surface of a graphite electrode and were reduced directly by electrons from the electrode. We have demonstrated that biomineralized manganese oxides are superiorto oxygen when used as cathodic reactants in microbial fuel cells. The current density delivered by using biomineralized manganese oxides as the cathodic reactant was almost 2 orders of magnitude higher than that delivered using oxygen. Several fuel cells were operated for 500 h, reaching anodic potentials of -441.5 +/- 31 mVscE and cathodic potentials of +384.5 +/- 64 mVscE. When the electrodes were connected by a 50 Ohms resistor, the fuel cell delivered the peak power density of 126.7 +/- 31.5 mW/m2.     

Wireless sensors powered by microbial fuel cells

Monitoring parameters characterizing water quality, such as temperature, pH, and concentrations of heavy metals in natural waters, is often followed by transmitting the data to remote receivers using telemetry systems. Such systems are commonly powered by batteries, which can be inconvenient at times because batteries have a limited lifetime and must be recharged or replaced periodically to ensure that sufficient energy is available to power the electronics. To avoid these inconveniences, a microbial fuel cell was designed to power electrochemical sensors and small telemetry systems to transmit the data acquired by the sensors to remote receivers. The microbial fuel cell was combined with low-power, high-efficiency electronic circuitry providing a stable power source for wireless data transmission. To generate enough power for the telemetry system, energy produced by the microbial fuel cell was stored in a capacitor and used in short bursts when needed. Since commercial electronic circuits require a minimum 3.3 V input and our cell was able to deliver a maximum of 2.1 V, a DC-DC converter was used to boost the potential. The DC-DC converter powered a transmitter, which gathered the data from the sensor and transmitted it wirelessly to a remote receiver. To demonstrate the utility of the system, temporal variations in temperature were measured, and the data were wirelessly transmitted to a remote receiver.     

Neural network based objective flow regime identification in air-water two phase flow

The Kohonen self-organising neural network was applied to identify flow regimes in horizontal air-water flow. The neural network was trained with stochastic features derived from turbulent absolute pressure signals obtained across a range of flow regimes. The feature map succeeded in classifying samples into distinctive flow regime classes consistent with the visual flow regime observation.     

Effect of hardening models on different ductile fracture criteria in sheet metal forming

Prediction of the fracture is one of the challenging issues which gains attention in sheet metal forming as numerical analyses are being extensively used to simulate the process. To have better results in predicting the sheet metal fracture, appropriate ductile fracture criterion (DFC), yield criterion and hardening rule should be chosen. In this study, the effects of different hardening models namely isotropic, kinematic and combined hardening rules on the various uncoupled ductile fracture criteria are investigated using experimental and numerical methods. Five different ductile fracture criteria are implemented to a finite element code by the user subroutines. The criterion constants of DFCs are obtained by the related experimental tests. The in-plane principle strains obtained by the finite element analyses for different DFCs are compared with the experimental results. Also, the experimental results are used to evaluate the principle strain values calculated by the finite element analysis for different combinations of DFCs and hardening rules. It is shown that some DFCs give better predictions if the appropriate hardening model is employed.