Biological treatment of a contaminated gaseous emission from a paint and varnish plant—from laboratory studies to pilot‐scale operation

A Vapour‐Phase Bioreactor (VPB), namely a biotrickling filter, was scaled‐up and operated in‐situ for the treatment of gaseous emissions from a paint and varnish industrial plant. A microbial culture able to degrade the target compounds was enriched and a laboratory‐scale VPB was established in order to evaluate the treatment's performance. The VPB presented removal efficiencies higher than 90% when exposed to Organic Loads (OL) of ca 50 g h^?1 m^?3 of reactor. The VPB was exposed to dynamic conditions often found in‐situ (eg night and weekend shutdown periods) and showed a fast capacity to recover, with and without mineral medium recirculation. After a prolonged interruption period (10 months), the VPB was not able to cope with OL of ca 25 g h^?1 m^?3 of reactor and re‐inoculation was required in order to recover the treatment performance. The VPB also showed limited treatment when exposed to higher OL (ca 500 g h^?1 m^?3 of reactor). The VPB was then scaled‐up and a 3 m³ VPB was operated in‐situ, showing removal efficiencies higher than 50% when exposed to an OL of c 5 g h^?1 m^?3 of reactor, thus complying with current legal demands. The addition of a maintenance feed was shown to be a useful tool for VPB pilot‐scale operation when shutdown periods occurred. A factorial design of experiments was carried out, which allowed reduction to one‐tenth of the initial supply of the main mineral medium constituents, namely phosphate buffer, ammonium and magnesium salts, and also elimination of the metal supplement. Overall, the VPBs were shown to be robust equipment, being able to respond actively to dynamic treatment scenarios, particularly night and weekend shutdown periods. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Combined thermal and high pressure inactivation kinetics of tomato lipoxygenase

The combined isothermal (10–60 °C) and isobaric (0.1–650 MPa) inactivation kinetics of lipoxygenase (LOX) extracted from tomatoes and reconstituted in a tomato purée were studied. Thermal inactivation of LOX at atmospheric pressure proceeded in the temperature range of 45–65 °C. LOX inactivation did not follow first order kinetics; the data could be fitted assuming that the two isoforms of LOX with different thermostability were present. Combined thermal and high pressure inactivation occurs at pressures in the range of 100–650 MPa combined with temperatures from 10–60 °C, and followed first-order kinetics. In the high-temperature/low-pressure range, (T≥50 °C and P≤300 MPa) an antagonistic effect is observed, therefore, the Arrhenius and Eyring equation cannot be used over the entire temperature and pressure range. Small temperature dependence is found in the low-temperature/high pressure range. A third degree polynomial model was successfully applied to describe the temperature–pressure dependence of the inactivation rate constants, which can be useful to predict inactivation rate constants of tomato LOX reconstituted in tomato purée in the temperature–pressure range studied.     

Biased Monte Carlo optimization: the basic approach

It is well-known that the Monte Carlo method is very successful in tackling several kinds of system simulations.It often happens that one has to deal with rare events, and the use of a variance reduction technique is almost mandatory, in order to have Monte Carlo efficient applications. The main issue associated with variance reduction techniques is related to the choice of the value of the biasing parameter. Actually, this task is typically left to the experience of the Monte Carlo user, who has to make many attempts before achieving an advantageous biasing.A valuable result is provided: a methodology and a practical rule addressed to establish an a priori guidance for the choice of the optimal value of the biasing parameter. This result, which has been obtained for a single component system, has the notable property of being valid for any multicomponent system.In particular, in this paper, the exponential and the uniform biases of exponentially distributed phenomena are investigated thoroughly.     

Design and optimization of an electromagnetic servo braking system combining finite element analysis and weight-based multi-objective genetic algorithms

The purpose of this paper is to show the design and optimization of a novel electromagnetic servo brake incorporating an Antilock brake system (ABS) function by Multi-objective genetic algorithms. To consider different design requirements, three types of Axisymmetric Finite element (FE) models were initially formulated parametrically to determine the braking force and position of the pusher at each instant during operation of the proposed device. Using a combination of the FE models and Weight-based multi-objective genetic algorithms (WBMOGA), the optimal geometry and dimensions of the proposed FE models were determined while maximizing the braking force of the device and minimizing both the current supplied by the battery and the weight of the assembly. Once an optimal configuration for each type of servo brake designed had been achieved, three prototypes were built and validated experimentally on a conventional test bench. Finally, the prototype that performed best of the three prototypes was mounted and tested on a hybrid test bench with a realistic ABS device. The good agreement between the results obtained from the simulations and those measured experimentally, suggests that the combination of FE models and WBMOGA may be used successfully to design and optimize any complex electromechanical device.     

Electrospinning of in situ and ex situ synthesized polyimide composites reinforced by titanate nanotubes

A colloidal dispersion of titanate nanotubes (TiNT) and polyamic acid (PAA) in dimethylformamide (DMF) was electrospun and chemically converted to polyimide (PI)–titanate nanotube (PI‐TiNT) composite nanofibers of 500–1000 nm diameter. The dispersion of nanotubes in the polymer was addressed by two different approaches, namely an in situ method (when TiNT was coated with one of the monomers) and an ex situ one (when TiNT reacted directly with PAA). SEM images showed bead formation on samples from the in situ approach, while ex situ samples showed the absence of such features. Good distribution and some alignment of TiNT within the polymer fibers from in situ or ex situ approaches were observed by TEM imaging. Addition of titanate nanotubes into the polyimide significantly decreased the viscosity of polyamic acid solution and increased the glass transition temperature of the composite. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 44641.     

Auxetic behaviour from stretching connected squares

Systems with negative Poisson’s ratio (auxetic) exhibit the unusual characteristic of getting fatter when stretched and thinner when compressed. Such behaviour is a scale-independent property and is the result of a cooperation between the internal geometry of the system and the way this deforms when uniaxially stretched. Here, we analyse the anisotropic mechanical properties for a system constructed from connected squares which can deform through changes in length of the sides of the squares (idealised ‘stretching squares’ model). In particular, we show that this system may exhibit a negative Poisson’s ratio which depends on the angle between the squares and the direction of loading but is independent of the size of the squares which suggests that this model may be implemented at any scale of structure including the micro- and nano-level. We also show how this model compares and complements the existing ‘rotating squares’ model which also works on a system with the same geometric characteristics and which has been shown to lead to auxeticity in various classes of materials.

---

Geometric T–Ω approach to solve eddy currents coupled to electric circuits

This paper describes a systematic geometric approach to solve magneto‐quasi‐static coupled field–circuit problems. The field problem analysis is based on formulating the boundary value problem with an electric vector potential and a scalar magnetic potential. The field–circuit coupling and the definition of potentials are formally examined within the framework of homology theory. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electronic structure of surface-supported bis(phthalocyaninato) terbium(III) single molecular magnets

The electronic structure of isolated bis(phthalocyaninato) terbium(III) molecules, a novel single-molecular-magnet (SMM), supported on the Cu(111) surface has been characterized by density functional theory and scanning tunneling spectroscopy. These studies reveal that the interaction with the metal surface preserves both the molecular structure and the large spin magnetic moment of the metal center. The 4f electron states are not perturbed by the adsorption while a strong molecular/metal interaction can induce the suppression of the minor spin contribution delocalized over the molecular ligands. The calculations show that the inherent spin magnetic moment of the molecule is only weakly affected by the interaction with the surface and suggest that the SMM character might be preserved.     

Charge Transport Through a Cardan‐Joint Molecule

The charge transport through a single ruthenium atom clamped by two terpyridine hinges is investigated, both experimentally and theoretically. The metal‐bis(terpyridyl) core is equipped with rigid, conjugated linkers of para‐acetyl‐mercapto phenylacetylene to establish electrical contact in a two‐terminal configuration using Au electrodes. The structure of the [Ru^II( L )₂](PF₆)₂ molecule is determined using single‐crystal X‐ray crystallography, which yields good agreement with calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). By means of the mechanically controllable break‐junction technique, current–voltage (I–V), characteristics of [Ru^II( L )₂](PF₆)₂ are acquired on a single‐molecule level under ultra‐high vacuum (UHV) conditions at various temperatures. These results are compared to ab initio transport calculations based on DFT. The simulations show that the cardan‐joint structural element of the molecule controls the magnitude of the current. Moreover, the fluctuations in the cardan angle leave the positions of steps in the I–V curve largely invariant. As a consequence, the experimental I–V characteristics exhibit lowest‐unoccupied‐molecular‐orbit‐based conductance peaks at particular voltages, which are also found to be temperature independent.