CO2 capture using membrane contactors: a systematic literature review

With fossil fuel being the major source of energy, CO₂ emission levels need to be reduced to a minimal amount namely from anthropogenic sources. Energy consumption is expected to rise by 48% in the next 30 years, and global warming is becoming an alarming issue which needs to be addressed on a thorough technical basis. Nonetheless, exploring CO₂ capture using membrane contactor technology has shown great potential to be applied and utilised by industry to deal with post- and pre-combustion of CO₂. A systematic review of the literature has been conducted to analyse and assess CO₂ removal using membrane contactors for capturing techniques in industrial processes. The review began with a total of 2650 papers, which were obtained from three major databases, and then were excluded down to a final number of 525 papers following a defined set of criteria. The results showed that the use of hollow fibre membranes have demonstrated popularity, as well as the use of amine solvents for CO₂ removal. This current systematic review in CO₂ removal and capture is an important milestone in the synthesis of up to date research with the potential to serve as a benchmark databank for further research in similar areas of work. This study provides the first systematic enquiry in the evidence to research further sustainable methods to capture and separate CO₂.     

A directional uncertainty principle for periodic functions

Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing - In this paper we introduce a notion of a directional uncertainty product for multivariate periodic functions and multivariate discrete signals. It...     

Utilisation of protein fractions from porcine spleen as technofunctional ingredients in emulsified cooked meat sausages

Spleen is a low commercial value meat by-product from industrial slaughterhouses that is mostly underutilised. In this study, porcine spleens were processed to obtain two protein fractions (i.e. soluble and insoluble extracts in sodium citrate buffer 0.1 m pH 5) and the potential of using them to replace functional ingredients in cooked sausages was assessed. Specifically, a pasteurised insoluble protein extract was used as soy protein replacer in mortadella-type sausages, whereas spray-dried soluble proteins were used instead of sodium caseinate in Frankfurt-type sausages. Both splenic extracts performed well as functional ingredients since no differences in proximate composition, emulsion stability, water-holding capacity or texture were found. The only differences were found in the colour of the sausages containing the soluble protein extract, because of the haem and myoglobin content in this ingredient. The results showed that spleens could be a suitable source of non-allergenic functional proteins for meat products.     

Degradation of fullerene C60 by human myeloperoxidase and some reaction products

Abstract

The biodegradation of the fullerene molecule C₆₀ under the action of the human myeloperoxidase enzyme accompanied by a complete loss of the topology of the fullerene core. Analysis of this reaction mixture using UV and FTIR spectroscopy, chromatographic and mass spectrometry methods showed that the degradation proceeds without the formation of significant amounts of hydroxylated compounds. Among other intermediate compounds aromatic compounds were detected.     

Comprehensive Regulation of Water Services. Why Quality of Service and Economic Costs Cannot be Considered Separately

Water Resources Management - Regulation in the water sector emerged as a formula to protect customers from the natural monopoly that conforms water and wastewater services. As there is little...     

Study on Lake Izvorul Muntelui rehabilitation

In the actual economical and ecological context the rehabilitation of aquatic ecosystems represents one of the most important concerns all over the world. The physical, chemical and biological processes that take place inside a lake are very complex. A simple analysis of the field data is not enough. Even if those dates offers an appreciation of the global functioning of the ecosystem under the influence of certain factors, it does not allow to predict the system evolution, the optimization of the water arrangement, in order to respect and to assure the water quality criteria or to propose solutions for diminishing the lakes eutrophication.In the recent years, Lake Izvorul Muntelui, which is the largest artificial lake on the interior waters of Romania, experienced eutrophication problems. This paper analyzes the apparition condition, its effects onto water quality in the lake and the solutions for the rehabilitation of the ecosystem. Since systematic measured data are not available for this ecosystem, the mathematical modelling it is used.The simulation is done by considering the ecosystem dynamic and the stipulation of the spatial and temporal variation domains for the natural processes to appear and act onto perturbation factors to modify the ecological succession.Thus, different scenarios will be created allowing us to offer solutions for the eutrophication phenomenon and, in the same time, to identify solutions for the rehabilitation of the Izvorul Muntelui Lake.     

Modeling Bacterial Species: Using Sequence Similarity with Clustering Techniques

Existing studies have challenged the current definition of named bacterial species, especially in the case of highly recombinogenic bacteria. This has led to considering the use of computational procedures to examine potential bacterial clusters that are not identified by species naming. This paper describes the use of sequence data obtained from MLST databases as input for a k-means algorithm extended to deal with housekeeping gene sequences as a metric of similarity for the clustering process. An implementation of the k-means algorithm has been developed based on an existing source code implementation, and it has been evaluated against MLST data. Results point out to potential bacterial clusters that are close to more than one different named species and thus may become candidates for alternative classifications accounting for genotypic information. The use of hierarchical clustering with sequence comparison as similarity metric has the potential to find clusters different from named species by using a more informed cluster formation strategy than a conventional nominal variant of the algorithm.     

Composite electrodes of disordered carbon and graphite for improved battery state estimation with minimal performance penalty

Voltage based state of charge (SOC) estimation is challenging for lithium ion batteries that exhibit little open circuit voltage (OCV) change over a large SOC range. We demonstrate that by using a composite negative electrode composed of disordered carbon and graphite, we were able to introduce additional features to the OCV-SOC relationship that facilitate voltage-based SOC estimation. In contrast to graphite, the potential of disordered carbon is sensitive to the state of charge; this behavior, when manifested in a lithium ion battery, gives rise to additional beneficial features of the cell OCV-SOC relationship in terms of state estimation. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach by comparing model simulations and corresponding experimental data of a cell composed of LiFePO₄ positives and graphite + disordered carbon composite negative electrodes. Last, we find that although the graphite material has a higher coulombic capacity, very little (dynamic) performance loss is manifest with the mixed graphite + disordered carbon composite is employed.