In-situ methane enrichment of biogas from anaerobic digestion of palm oil mill effluent by addition of zero valent iron (ZVI)

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a wastewater effluent that is generated from palm oil milling. Treatment of POME, especially using biological treatment methods, is a challenge as it contains high amounts of organic and sulfur compounds, and it is highly acidic. In this research, the effects of zero-valent iron (ZVI) on the enhancement of methane production from POME via anaerobic digestion were investigated. Furthermore, to identify the reactor operation modes that were suitable for the addition of ZVI, anaerobic digestion of POME was tested in three reaction configurations: batch reactor, fed-batch reactor, and continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR). In the batch mode, where acidic POME was fed with 16 g/L of ZVI dose just once, methane production increased by 74%. However, as the oxidation of ZVI under anaerobic conditions led to the production of hydroxyl ions, the pH of the medium continuously increased from approximately 7 to 9, which is not suitable for methanogenesis. In the fed-batch mode that involved intermittent feeding of acidic POME, the pH of the culture media was maintained at 6.8. This is because the extra hydroxyl ions generated from the oxidation reaction of ZVI tended to neutralize the acids in the feeding substrate. In addition, ZVI promoted the production of methane from POME and increased the average methane content in biogas from 62% to 76%. In the CSTR mode, which involved continuous feeding of acidic POME, ZVI increased methane production by 86% (from 1.79 to 3.32 L/day), methane content in biogas from 60 to 75%, and total chemical oxygen demand (tCOD) removal efficiency from 78 to 89 to 88–95%. Thus, the addition of ZVI can be a potential strategy for in-situ methane enrichment of biogas by anaerobic digestion of POME. This is because ZVI acts as a buffer for acid generation and provides extra electrons, ferrous ions, and ferric ions, which promote key microbial activities in the anaerobic digestion process.     

贵州机制砂混凝土品质提升方案思考

为加强贵州高性能混凝土推广应用工作，促进传统行业转型升级、品质提升、高质量发展，总结出节能减排、绿色生产，成本控制技术；守正创新、模拟仿真，配制检验技术；预防为主、全程监控，过程控制技术；知行合一、匠人匠心，人员技能培训；整理形成了机制砂混凝土品质提升方案，为提升行业生产水平提供技术支撑。     

Comparison of experimental and simulation results on catalytic HI decomposition in a silica-based ceramic membrane reactor

In this study, the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen iodide was theoretically and experimentally investigated in a silica-based ceramic membrane reactor to assess the reactor's suitability for thermochemical hydrogen production. The silica membranes were fabricated by depositing a thin silica layer onto the surface of porous alumina ceramic support tubes via counter-diffusion chemical vapor deposition of hexyltrimethoxysilane. The performance of the silica-based ceramic membrane reactor was evaluated by exploring important operating parameters such as the flow rates of the hydrogen iodide feed and the nitrogen sweep gas. The influence of the flow rates on the hydrogen iodide decomposition conversion was investigated in the lower range of the investigated feed flow rates and in the higher range of the sweep-gas flow rates. The experimental data agreed with the simulation results reasonably well, and both highlighted the possibility of achieving a conversion greater than 0.70 at decomposition temperature of 400 °C. Therefore, the developed silica-based ceramic membrane reactor could enhance the total thermal efficiency of the thermochemical process.     

Exploring the potential of fur farming wastes and byproducts as substrates to anaerobic digestion process

Mink farming is a well-established economic activity with a significant environmental footprint. In this work mink farming derived organic waste was assessed, for the first time, as substrate to anaerobic digestion plants. The substrates assessed were; (a)fresh mink manures, (b)weathered mink manures, (c)waste feed and (d)mink derived meat and bone meal. Substrates with in inoculum to substrate ratio of 2 offered specific methane productions ranging between 368 and 591 mLCH₄/gVS_added corresponding to 67.4 and 91.1% of their theoretical methane potential. In the second phase of the experiments three organic loading rates and three inoculum to substrate ratios were assessed. Substrate/inoculum ratios, in batch mode, lower than 1 seem to affect negatively the process, due to slow hydrolysis and acetogenesis of the macromolecules. In addition, initial organic loading rates of up to 50 gVS/L can be applied in batch systems when manure is utilized as substrate. In contrast to this, when mink derived byproducts are used the same loading rate will result into an irreversible process inhibition due to the accumulation of intermediate products.     

On the formation mechanisms of fine granular area (FGA) on the fracture surface for high strength steels in the VHCF regime

The fine granular area (FGA) plays a crucial role in the VHCF regime. However, so far, the uniform understanding or conclusion about the formation mechanism of FGA has not been drawn. In view of the significance of FGA, the current studies on FGA, i.e., the FGA size, the stress intensity factor range at the periphery of FGA, the crack initiation and growth process in FGA, and the formation mechanisms of FGA, are reviewed in the present paper. The role of internal hydrogen in the VHCF regime is further discussed. In the end, two important definite conclusions are drawn based on the present investigations.     

Docker容器化下的遥感算法程序集成方法

目的 近年来，随着我国遥感技术的快速发展，遥感数据呈现出大数据的特点，遥感数据的时效性增强，针对新环境下遥感算法编程语言众多，程序运行和部署环境需求多样，程序的集成和部署困难的问题，提出了一种遥感算法程序快速封装与Docker容器化系统集成架构。方法 该系统架构主要包括：1）遥感算法程序的镜像自动化封装制作；2）镜像的分发管理，达到算法程序镜像的共享；3）遥感信息产品生产流程的容器化编排服务，将相关联的算法程序镜像串联，以满足特定遥感信息产品的生产；4）容器的调度运行，调用镜像，实现特定遥感产品的容器化运行。本文在上述容器化系统集成架构下，以Landsat5数据的NDVI、NDWI信息产品的生产作为容器化生产实例，并同物理机、KVM （kernel-based virtual machine）虚拟机在运行时间、内存占用量、部署效率等性能进行了对比。结果 Docker容器虚拟化环境下的产品生产和物理机环境下在运行时间和内存占用量上几无差别，优于KVM虚拟机。Docker容器虚拟化环境和KVM虚拟机环境下在部署上能够节省大量时间，相比于物理机环境能够提高部署效率。结论 容器化的系统集成方式能够有效解决遥感算法程序集成和部署困难的问题，有利于遥感算法程序的复用和流程的共享，提高系统集成效率，具备较强的遥感数据实时快速处理能力。     

Natural Gas Production

Current data on natural gas production, as well as a breakdown of production by country. Updated on a monthly basis.     

Carbon intensity of electricity in ASEAN: Drivers,performance and outlook

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with its ten member countries, has a total population exceeding 600 million. Its energy-related CO₂ emissions have been growing and in 2013 amounted to 3.6% of total global emissions. About 40% of ASEAN's energy-related CO₂ emissions are currently attributable to electricity production. In view of this high share, we study the CO₂ emissions of ASEAN's electricity production sector with a focus on the aggregate emission intensity (ACI) given by the level of CO₂ emissions for each unit of electricity produced. Drivers of ACI are analysed for individual countries and spatial analysis is conducted by comparing factors contributing to differences between the ACIs of individual countries and that of the ASEAN average. Arising from these analyses and in light of the current developments, it is concluded that drastic actions need to be taken both at the national and regional levels in order to reduce growth in the region's electricity-related CO₂ emissions. Two key policy issues, namely overcoming national circumstances to improve electricity generation mix and improving power generation efficiency, are further discussed.     

Multi-dimensional clearing functions for aggregate capacity modelling in multi-stage production systems

Nonlinear clearing functions have been proposed in the literature as metamodels to represent the behaviour of production resources that can be embedded in optimisation models for production planning. However, most clearing functions tested to date use a single-state variable to represent aggregate system workload over all products, which performs poorly when product mix affects system throughput. Clearing functions using multiple-state variables have shown promise, but require significant computational effort to fit the functions and to solve the resulting optimisation models. This paper examines the impact of aggregation in state variables on solution time and quality in multi-item multi-stage production systems with differing degrees of manufacturing flexibility. We propose multi-dimensional clearing functions using alternative aggregations of state variables, and evaluate their performance in computational experiments. We find that at low utilisation, aggregation of state variables has little effect on system performance; multi-dimensional clearing functions outperform single-dimensional ones in general; and increasing manufacturing flexibility allows the use of aggregate clearing functions with little loss of solution quality.     

An improved tri-reforming based methanol production process for enhanced CO2 valorization

The consistent rise of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is known to be significantly detrimental to the environment. Thus, mitigating CO₂ has become an urgent necessity. Current methods involving CO₂ mitigation can be broadly divided into two major categories which involve (i) CO₂ capture and sequestration (CCS) and (ii) CO₂ capture and valorization. Since, production of fuels/chemicals is an added feature along with mitigation in CO₂ valorization based methods, they could be economically favorable. An energy intensive CO₂ capture step is a common drawback of most CO₂ valorization methods that aim to mitigate CO₂ from major CO₂ emission sources (such as industrial flue gases). In this paper we employ and analyze a relatively new process called tri-reforming [1,2] which was developed to directly convert power plant based flue gases to synthesis gas, while avoiding the capture step. This paper is presented as an improvement over a tri-reforming coupled methanol production process as developed by Zhang et al. [3]. The process in Zhang et al. [3] involves utilizing tri-reforming process using flue gas and methane to produce synthesis gas which is then converted to methanol in the next step. The main contributions of this paper to the tri-reforming coupled methanol production process are: (i) proposition of a high pressure tri-reforming step to limit capital costs of the process (ii) establishment of steam input coupled with water separation step as a process improvement whose impact is shown to further amplify at higher tri-reformer pressures. The paper evaluates the process in terms of the profit generating and CO₂ valorization potential of the process as reflected by two parameters, gross margin (GM) and NPCV (net percentage of CO₂ valorized) respectively. In the proposed approach, higher pressures were utilized in the tri-reforming process to ensure economic feasibility of the process by limiting the reactor volume. The process improvements for the flowsheet containing the steam input combined with water separation (SWS) step over the one without these steps (termed as WSWS) are demonstrated in terms of an increase in GM/NPCV values at various pressures. The results indicate substantial improvements in GM and NPCV values (especially at higher tri-reformer pressures) ranging from 24.30 to 84.96% and 28.80–78.44% respectively in SWS cases over WSWS cases at various pressures. The simulations have been carried out in Aspen Plus V8.4 and are optimized using sensitivity analysis.