Electrochemical degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons (PAHS) from synthetic aqueous solutions

Water separated from crude oil and wastewater discharge from petroleum oil refineries contains significant quantity of dissolved hydrocarbons. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are major toxicants in wastewater of refineries. It is difficult to treat wastewater containing PAHs due to their recalcitrant property and low solubility. Conventional techniques for the treatment of wastewater are still a concern of toxicity. Electrochemical oxidation process has been found to be a favorable for treating wastewater. Electrodes with high stability and electrocatalytic activity are important factors for a successful electrochemical oxidation of toxic organics in wastewater. In this study titanium anodes were coated with tin, antimony and iridium oxide mixture from their respective salts by thermal decomposition method. FESEM and XRD used for surface characterization of Ti/SnO₂–Sb₂O₅–IrO₂ anode. Quantification of PAHs was done using GC–MS. Results confirm the presence of respective oxides on anode surface. Their electrocatalytic capability was tested for degradation of 16 priority PAHs in aqueous solution. Results reveal the complete degradation of naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene and fluorene without using NaCl electrolyte. While in the presence of NaCl naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene were completely removed. About 98% of total PAHs removal was found at all initial pH values 3, 6, and 9 in the presence of electrolyte. Current study will be helpful in improving quality of petroleum industry wastewater containing PAHs.     

Zinc-Modified ZSM-5 Nanozeolites Synthesized by the Seed-Induced Method: Interrelation of Their Textural,Acidic, and Catalytic Properties in DME Conversion to Hydrocarbons

The effect of the method of introduction of zinc cations and the zinc content in a nanocrystalline zeolite of the ZSM-5 type on the physicochemical and catalytic properties of the material in DME conversion to a mixture of liquid synthetic hydrocarbons has been studied. Zinc is introduced into the catalysts both during the zeolite synthesis and the ion exchange (Zn _n Al _m NZ5 and ZnNZ5, respectively). The use of nanocrystalline Zn _n Al _m NZ5 zeolites provides the formation of a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons with a high selectivity of no less than 90%; the liquid hydrocarbons contain more than 70% of isoparaffins and a small amount of aromatic compounds. An increase in the zinc loading of the Zn _n Al _m NZ5 zeolite from 0.9 to ~3% leads to an increase in the methanol content in the aqueous phase of the liquid product, an increase in the selectivity for liquid hydrocarbons, and a slight increase in the concentration of aromatic and unsaturated hydrocarbons in the mixture. In the presence of the ZnNZ5/Al₂O₃ catalyst with Zn introduced by ion exchange, the methanol content in the aqueous phase and the aromatics content in the liquid hydrocarbon mixture are significantly higher. The Zn _n Al _m NZ5 nanozeolites are characterized by a more developed external surface, a higher concentration of mesopores, and higher acidity.     

A design algorithm for reconfigurable ATM networks

In this paper, we study the reconfiguration capability in ATM networks and its ability to reduce ATM cell losses. Digital cross-connect systems have been used in traditional reconfigurable networks to concatenate channels to avoid store- and-forward delays. We propose an implementation of the reconfiguration capability in ATM networks that restricts the transmission of cells of an O-D pair to particular channels in each physical link in a simple path from origin to destination. With this proposed implementation, digital cross-connect systems are not needed. We formulate the problem of jointly determining logical networks and the routing assignments on the logical network of a reconfigurable ATM network as a nonlinear mixed integer programming problem. We prove that the joint problem with the integrality constraints relaxed can be simplified to a convex programming problem. This provides a method to compute a lower bound on the minimum cell losses for the original problem. An algorithm is developed to solve the nonlinear mixed integer programming problem. In the computational experiments, the proposed algorithm determined a good feasible solution in a few minutes of CPU time on SUN SPARCsystem 400. In the experiments, the reconfiguration capability decreased the total cell losses by up to 80%. Problem parameters that affect the effectiveness of the reconfiguration capability in reducing ATM cell losses are identified.Supported by NSF Grants NCR 90-16348 and NCR 92-23148.     

Analysis and development of a signal injection technique usingtransmission lines embedded at phased array aperture

In a performance monitoring/fault isolation and correction (PM/FIC) system of a phased array antenna, a built-in transmission line embedded in the array aperture is used for signal injection to check the signal flow. The authors present an analysis of electromagnetic coupling between a twin-lead transmission line and a dipole element. An analysis of the coupling between a transmission line and a linear array of dipole elements over a ground plane has also been developed. The calculated data compared with the measured data favorably. A development of microstrip-line signal injectors embedded in an aperture of a 2D array of monopole excited parallel-plate waveguides has also been made. Measurements of the feed and aperture distributions have been made and the measured distributions follow the designed feed distribution closely     

Hot-carrier degradation of submicrometer p-MOSFETs withthermal/LPCVD composite oxide

It is shown that while gate oxides containing thermal/LPCVD composite oxide have lower defect densities than gates using only thermal oxides, they are more susceptible to hot-carrier degradation. The hot-carrier-induced degradation of composite oxides is worse in p-channel MOSFETs than in n-channel MOSFETs. This sensitivity of p-channel MOSFETs is caused by higher electron trapping levels in LPCVD oxides. For 150-Å gate technology, the hot-carrier-degradation resistance of thermal/LPCVD composite gate oxides with a 70-Å or thicker thermal oxide layer approaches that of high-quality pure thermal oxide     

Improved performances of a S-SEED using extremely shallowquantum-wells and asymmetric Fabry-Perot cavity structure

The authors report significantly improved performances of a symmetric self-electrooptic-effect device (S-SEED), with high on-off contrast ratio (>30:l) and large optical bistability loop widths (ΔP=44%) at an applied bias of V_a=0 V, i.e., with no power supply. The S-SEED is made of extremely shallow quantum wells (ESQWs) in an asymmetric Fabry-Perot (AFP) cavity structure. At V_a =5 V ΔP increased by up to 95%, preserving the high contrast ratio. The reflectivity changes at V_a=0 and 5 V were about 15% and 30%, respectively. These are believed to be the largest values ever reported for such structures     

Analysis of electromagnetic scattering from a cavity with a complextermination by means of a hybrid ray-FDTD method

The electromagnetic modeling of engine cavities is a very difficult task because the electrical size of the cavity is very large, while the engine termination is geometrically complex. High-frequency techniques can adequately model the cavity, but perform poorly when applied to the termination. Low-frequency techniques are currently infeasible for such large geometries because of the large memory and computation time requirements. The authors present a hybrid method which combines the most attractive features of the lowand high-frequency techniques. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is applied to the small region surrounding the termination. The remainder of the cavity is modeled with ray methods. To validate this method, they consider two-dimensional cavities with complex terminations. Their results are compared against those found from a hybrid combination of the modal method and the method of moments