MASS TRANSFER WITH A FIRST ORDER CATALYTIC REACTION IN A THREE-PHASE SYSTEM. TRICKLE FLOW ANALYSIS IN A PERIODICALLY CURVED CATALYTIC SOLID

The present work analyzes the process of mass transfer with chemical reaction in a system formed by a periodically curved catalytic wall, which is wetted by a descending film. Through the film a limiting gaseous reactant is transferred from the stagnant gas phase to the catalyst where the chemical reaction takes place.

The film hydrodynamics is first solved with the unknown free surface through a regular perturbation technique, by expanding the resulting equations in terms of a small parameter: the ratio between the film average thickness and the wave length of the curved solid wall. Assuming that the system is isothermal and at steady state, the mass transfer of the gas is afterwards incorporated. A first order kinetics whose limiting reactant is in the gas phase occurs in the solid phase.

Once the model is established and solved, the influence of the dimensionless parameters upon the effectiveness factor and the solid-liquid Biot number is then studied; important effects are found by changing the solid surface curvature at constant flow rate and catalyst volume. Besides, changes in the flow rate, the Peclet number and the ratio between the solid average width and the film average thickness, show significant effects on the net mass transfer process.     

Field and laboratory experiences of Sulfide stress corrosion of a duplex stainless steel

Targets of this work have been: testing of duplex stainless steel in field (into a geothermal well) and in laboratory NACE environment in presence of crevices and sharp defects; development of testing based on fracture mechanics and comparsion with traditional testing approach. The following types of specimens have been used: smooth specimens for tensile tests at constant load with artificial crevices, U-bend specimens and 1/2″ WOL-modified fracture mechanics specimens. The results are only in partial accordance with available literature data and suggest to be very careful in extending laboratory results to real conditions, where, for instance, crevices and sharp defects always exist.     

The effect of compaction pressure on the conductivity and structure in undoped poly(1,4-phenylene) (PPP)

Poly(paraphenylene) has been prepared according to two different procedures. The d.c. conductivity measurements, obtained under compaction pressure, were correlated to the structural modifications undergone in the same pressure range. X-ray diffraction line profile analysis has been applied to determine the variations in the microstructural parameters.     

Catalysts and Network Modeling in Vegetable Oil Hydrogenation Processes

Hydrogenation of vegetable oils is one of the earliest commercial gas-liquid- solid heterogeneous catalytic processes. usually employed to reduce the degree of unsaturation of the naturally occurring triglycerides so as to obtain new, attractive organoleptic changes, and a greater chemical stability. Due to its intrinsic challenge and to its commercial importance, the process has drawn the attention of numerous scholars. Accordingly, there exists a great deal of work which has both generated empirical rules and allowed us to tackle many of the theoretical aspects of the problem as well.     

Editorial

Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation -     

Theoretical comparison between sequential redundancy addition and removal and retiming optimization techniques

This paper attempts to determine the capabilities of existing redundancy addition and removal (SRAR) techniques for logic optimization of sequential circuits. To this purpose, we compare this method with the retiming and resynthesis (RaR) techniques. For the RaR case the set of possible transformations has been established by relating them to STG transformations by other authors. Following these works, we first formally demonstrate that logic transformations provided by RaR are covered by SRAR as well. Then we also show that SRAR is able to identify transformations that cannot be found by RaR. This way we prove that the sequential redundancy addition and removal technique provides more possibilities for logic optimization.     

Intrapartum prophylaxis with ceftriaxone decreases rates of bacterial colonization and early-onset infection in newborns

Because of high rates of neonatal gram-negative sepsis in many Latin American countries, we prospectively enrolled 784 high-risk pregnant women in a study designed to evaluate the effect of a single 1-g dose of ceftriaxone (n = 390) vs. that of no antibiotic prophylaxis (n = 394) on oral, rectal, and umbilical colonization and fatality rates among newborn infants. The mean ceftriaxone concentration in cord blood samples was 26 microgram/mL (range, 9-40 microgram/mL). Compared with infants of untreated mothers, children born to women who were given ceftriaxone were colonized at a lesser rate by gram-negative bacilli (54% vs. 35%; P < .001) and by group B streptococci (54% vs. 21%; P = .03) and endured significantly fewer sepsis-like illnesses in the first 5 days of life (8.1% vs. 3.1%; P = .004). There was also a tendency for them to have fewer episodes of culture-proven early-onset sepsis (2.8% vs. 0.5%; P = .06). Sepsis-related case-fatality rates (0.8% and 0.3%, respectively) were not significantly different. Although intrapartum administration of a single dose of ceftriaxone to high-risk mothers could be a safe and potentially useful strategy for reducing early-onset neonatal infections, additional information is required before this approach can be recommended for routine prophylaxis.     

Effect of lipids and surfactants on extracellular lipase production by Yarrowia lipolytica

The production of extracellular lipase in submerged cultures of Yarrowia lipolytica CECT 1240 has been investigated. Several compounds have been added to the culture medium, in order to assess their efficiency as inducers of lipase production. First, the effect of triglycerides (olive oil, sunflower oil, tributyrin) and fatty acids (oleic acid) has been studied. The highest activity level was obtained with sunflower oil (58 U cm^?3), followed by olive oil (49 U cm^?3). The cultures with tributyrin and oleic acid attained similar activities (33 U cm^?3). Then, several surfactants (Tween 80, Triton X‐100, gum arabic, polyethylene glycol 200) were added to the cultures with sunflower oil, in an attempt to increase the levels of extracellular lipase activity. The obtained activities were slightly lower than those achieved without surfactants. The assay of a wide range of surfactant concentrations in the case of PEG‐200 (with which the highest activity levels had been attained) did not improve the results. This strain secreted lipase concentrations two‐fold higher and showed significantly different behaviour towards the presence of surfactants in the culture medium, compared with other wild‐type Yarrowia lipolytica strains. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry