Production of biodiesel from waste fryer grease using mixed methanol/ethanol system

Transesterification of waste fryer grease (WFG) containing 5–6 wt.% free fatty acid (FFA) was carried out with methanol, ethanol, and mixtures of methanol/ethanol maintaining the oil to alcohol molar ratio of 1:6, and initially with KOH as a catalyst. Mixtures of methanol and ethanol were used for transesterification in order to use the better solvent property of ethanol and rapid equilibrium using methanol. Formation of soap by reaction of FFA present in WFG with KOH instigated difficulty in the separation of glycerol from biodiesel ester. To untangle this problem, two-stage (acid and alkali catalyzed) method was used for biodiesel synthesis. More than 90% ester was obtained when two-stage method was used compared to ∼ 50% ester in single stage alkaline catalyst. In the case of mixed alcohol, a relatively smaller amount of ethyl esters was formed along with methyl esters. Acid value, viscosity, and cetane number of all the esters prepared from WFG were within the range of the ASTM standard. Esters obtained from WFG showed good performance as a lubricity additive.     

Prediction of fire classification for wood based products. A multivariate statistical approach based on the cone calorimeter

Wood has long traditions as a building material, and is often used in construction elements, and as interior and exterior surfaces in the Nordic countries. In most applications, there are reaction to fire requirements to products used as surfaces, e.g. in escape routes and larger public spaces. Most wood products will therefore have to be treated with fire retardant (FR) agents to fulfil the strict requirements to properties connected to heat release and flame spread. Unfortunately, FR agents usually also increase the smoke production, as they cause a more incomplete combustion of the wood. The wood product manufacturers seek to find the optimal amount of FR additives where both heat release and smoke production in the classifying test are within the requirements given in the building regulations. This paper describes models for prediction of the European reaction to fire classes of wood products. The models are based on multivariate statistical analysis, and use test results from the cone calorimeter test as input. The presented models are, with very good precision, able to predict which Euroclass and additional smoke class a wood based product would obtain if it were to be tested in the single burning item test. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characterization of Tomato Pulp Stickiness during Spray Drying using a Contact Probe Method

A contact probe test was developed to characterize the surface stickiness of a tomato pulp droplet at various moisture contents and temperatures. To provide tomato pulp samples with different moisture contents, tomato powder produced by a laboratory spray dryer was wetted to seven different moisture levels. The instantaneous tensile force curve was recorded during the probe withdrawal from which the maximum tensile force and other useful information were obtained and cross-examined against images of bonding, debonding, and failure of the material. Generally, at higher moisture contents tomato pulp exhibited cohesive failure followed by semi-adhesive failure, but when moisture content decreased to a certain level, a peak tensile pressure was observed and the failure was adhesive. In addition, higher temperatures shifted the points of adhesive failure toward lower moisture content.     

N.m.r. study of the ferroelectric phase transition in a 7030mol% copolymer of vinylidene fluoride (VF2) and trifluoroethylene (TrFE)

Nuclear magnetic resonance (n.m.r.) studies of ¹⁹F nuclei in a $\text{70}\text{30}\text{mol}\text{\%}$ random copolymer of vinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene were performed at 9.14 MHz and 20.0 MHz. The free induction decays (FIDs) were analysed in terms of two T₂ components attributed to the amorphous and crystalline portions of the polymer. The changes in crystallinity as well as the effects of the ferroelectric transition were observed during cycles of heating and cooling between 20°C and 140°C. The crystalline component of the FID lengthens by a factor of 2 at 100°C on heating and decreases by this factor at 60°C on cooling, thus exhibiting the thermal hysteresis of this ferroelectric transition. The spin-lattice relaxation was also investigated. From measurements at 9.14 MHz the observed longitudinal relaxation time T₁ appears to be dominated by the dynamics of the amorphous phase and exhibits no anomaly through the phase transition. However, from measurements at 20 MHz, well defined minima of T₁ were observed, which are associated with the ferroelectric transition (especially after repeated annealing of the samples). Results are discussed in terms of the crystalline phase structure, which appears dynamically disordered above the ferroelectric phase transition. An analogy is considered with the plastic phase transitions encountered in molecular crystals.     

Dynamics of hydrated iron(II) cations in nafion polymer membranes

Mössbauer studies of Fe²⁺ in water-soaked nafion polymer membranes in the temperature range between 90 K and 250 K have been performed. Above a critical temperature (～ 180 K) the spectra exhibit both elastic narrow absorption lines and quasielastic broad lines. These spectra are typical of bounded diffusion phenomena observed by Mössbauer spectroscopy in macromolecular systems like haemoglobin, myoglobin and ferritin. Similar spectral shapes have been observed by quasielastic neutron scattering from water in nafion membranes. Within 50 K above the critical temperature the total Mössbauer absorption area decreases by an order of magnitude whereas the narrow absorption line decreases by two orders of magnitude. The results are interpreted in terms of bounded diffusive motion of the iron. Using a model based on overdamped harmonically bound Brownian motion, the essential parameters of the iron motion can be derived as a function of temperature. The iron motion most probably reflects the motion of a large Fe²⁺ complex, e.g. Fe(H₂O)²⁺₆, which is attached to the polymer side chains via the sulphonic group.     

Effects of calcination temperature on phase and microstructure evolution of BaTi4O9 powders

Calcining of the mixture of BaCO₃ and TiO₂ with a ratio 1:4 at different temperatures was carried out to synthesize BaTi₄O₉ powders. Phase evolution of the samples was studied using the differential thermal analysis (DTA) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). Both techniques confirmed that the formation of BaTi₄O₉ started around 1000 °C. The XRD peaks showed that BaTi₄O₉ was most pronounced at 1250 °C. X-ray line broadening methods were employed to study the variation of particle size and microstrain of the BaTi₄O₉ powders. The Voigt function in a single line and the pseudo-Voigt function in the variance methods were used in our case. We found that both functions resulted in the same trends, i.e., the particle size increased with the temperature with the biggest size of 180 and 160 nm, whilst the microstrain yielded the opposite trend with the lowest values of 6.2 × 10^–3 and 1.1 × 10^–3. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study revealed the size of the large particles formed, due to agglomeration, to be about 0.5–1.9 μm. Furthermore, it was shown that irregular shapes of BaTi₄O₉ powders necked to each other appeared at 1000 °C and grew into ellipse and rod shapes at 1250 °C. Electronic Publication     

建筑师难以出精品之原因分析

指出当今建筑业良好的市场给建筑师们提供了展示自己作品的广大空间 ,但其精品却为之甚少。为此 ,对建筑业存在的一些问题及制约建筑师出精品的主、客观因素进行了分析 ,指出建筑师应提高自身素质 ,树立精品意识 ,增强市场竞争能力     

国有企业党风廉政建设中的问题及治理研究

剖析国有企业党风廉政建设中的突出问题。提出“推进国有企业党风廉政建设运用市场经济原则经营运作是重要途径;加强对企业经营管理者的监督管理是关键;完善法人治理结构、建立企业内部权力制衡机制是重要基础”的观点。     

rried out. The Lagrange multipliers are

boundary conditions. A cell structure which is independent to the nodes is used to evaluate the integrals of EFG