The catalytic deacidification of acidic crude oil using Cu-doped alkaline earth metal oxide catalysts

Naphthenic acids (NAs) tend to cause operational problems that can lead to the deactivation of catalysts. To overcome the problem, catalytic deacidification was introduced utilizing an ammonia solution in ethylene glycol with the aids of alkaline earth metal catalyst with alumina as a support. The initial total acid number observed for NAs in n-dodecane was 4.21 mg KOH/g. In total, 1,000 mg/L of 0.4% NH₃-EG were used as the acid removal agent. Calcium, barium, and magnesium catalysts were tested in this study. The results showed Cu/Ca/Al₂O₃ was found to be the best catalyst that could be used to enhance the reaction.     

Hexavalent chromium reduction by Acinetobacter haemolyticus isolated from heavy-metal contaminated wastewater

Possible application of a locally isolated environmental isolate, Acinetobacter haemolyticus to remediate Cr(VI) contamination in water system was demonstrated. Cr(VI) reduction by A. haemolyticus seems to favour the lower concentrations (10-30 mg/L). However, incomplete Cr(VI) reduction occurred at 70-100 mg/L Cr(VI). Initial specific reduction rate increased with Cr(VI) concentrations. Cr(VI) reduction was not affected by 1 or 10 mM sodium azide (metabolic inhibitor), 10 mM of PO(4)3-, SO4(2-), SO(3)2-, NO3- or 30 mg/L of Pb(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) ions. However, heat treatment caused significant dropped in Cr(VI) reduction to less than 20% only. A. haemolyticus cells loses its shape and size after exposure to 10 and 50 mg Cr(VI)/L as revealed from TEM examination. The presence of electron-dense particles in the cytoplasmic region of the bacteria suggested deposition of chromium in the cells.     

Enhancing the Selectivity and Transparency of the Electron Contact in Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells by Phosphorus Catalytic Doping

An intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H(i)) film and a doped silicon film are usually combined in the heterojunction contacts of silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. In this work, a post-doping process called catalytic doping (Cat-doping) on a-Si:H(i) is performed on the electron selective side of SHJ solar cells, which enables a device architecture that eliminates the additional deposition of the doped silicon layer. Thus, a single phosphorus Cat-doping layer combines the functions of two other layers by enabling excellent interface passivation and high carrier selectivity. The overall thinner layer on the window side results in higher spectral response at short wavelengths, leading to an improved short-circuit current density of 40.31 mA cm⁻² and an efficiency of 23.65% (certified). The cell efficiency is currently limited by sputter damage from the subsequent transparent conductive oxide fabrication and low carrier activation in the a-Si:H(i) with Cat-doping. Numerical device simulations show that the a-Si:H(i) with Cat-doping can provide sufficient field effect passivation even at lower active carrier concentrations compared to the as-deposited doped layer, due to the lower defect density.     

RTRS: a recommender system for academic researchers

The ever-evolving nature of research works creates the cacophony of new topics incessantly resulting in an unstable state in every field of research. Researchers are disseminating their works producing a huge volume of articles. In fact, the spectacular growth in scholarly literature is widening the choice sets overwhelmingly for researchers. Consequently, they face difficulties in identifying a suitable topic of current importance from a plethora of research topics. This remains an ill-defined problem for researchers due to the overload of choices. The problem is even more severe for new researchers due to the lack of experience. Hence, there is a definite need for a system that would help researchers make decisions on appropriate topics. Recommender systems are good options for performing this very task. They have been proven to be useful for researchers to keep pace with research dynamics and at the same time to overcome the information overload problem by retrieving useful information from the large information space of scholarly literature. In this article, we present RTRS, a knowledge-based Research Topics Recommender System to assist both novice and experienced researchers in selecting research topics in their chosen field. The core of this system hinges upon bibliometric information of the literature. The system identifies active research topics in a particular area and recommends top N topics to the target users. The results obtained have proven useful to academic researchers, particularly novices, in making an early decision on research topics.     

Life cycle costing of thermal energy storage system using CAPEX and OPEX

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - Electric chillers and thermal energy storage (TES) tanks are important equipment for gas district cooling plants. One feasible way of assessing the...     

Structural characteristics and dielectric properties of neodymium doped barium titanate

Neodymium (Nd) doped barium titanate powder (Ba_(1−x)Nd _x TiO₃) with x value varying from 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07, 0.10 and 0.13 was prepared using the sol gel method. The powder samples were calcined at 700 °C and tetragonal phase appeared in the powders before they were sintered at 1250 °C for 3 h. The undoped samples have a polycrystalline tetragonal structure, but Nd doping into the BaTiO₃ caused phase transformation from tetragonal to cubic. The smaller grains (0.35 μm) produced with the addition of Nd is associated to the inhibition of grain growth of samples. The powders for each composition were pressed into pellets and tested as dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). It was found that on the actual antenna circuit, each sample showed a resonance frequency at X-band application and a dielectric constant value in the range of 51.25–56.89 and tangent loss was 0.039–0.045, depending on the concentration of the Nd at room temperature.     

Investigating transportation research based on social media analysis: a systematic mapping review

Social media is a pool of users’ thoughts, opinions, surrounding environment, situation and others. This pool can be used as a real-time and feedback data source for many domains such as transportation. It can be used to get instant feedback from commuters; their opinions toward the transportation network and their complaints, in addition to the traffic situation, road conditions, events detection and many others. The problem is in how to utilize social media data to achieve one or more of these targets. A systematic review was conducted in the field of transportation-related research based on social media analysis (TRR-SMA) from the years between 2008 and 2018; 74 papers were identified from an initial set of 703 papers extracted from 4 digital libraries. This review will structure the field and give an overview based on the following grounds: activity, keywords, approaches, social media data and platforms and focus of the researches. It will show the trend in the research subjects by countries, in addition to the activity trends, platforms usage trend and others. Further analysis of the most employed approach (Lexicons) and data (text) will be also shown. Finally, challenges and future works are drawn and proposed.

     

The effect of injection pressure and fuel viscosity on the spray characteristics of biodiesel blends injected into an atmospheric chamber

An experimental study was conducted to examine the effect of injection pressure and fuel type on the spray tip penetration length and the angle of spray injected into atmospheric chamber. The objective of the present study is to formulate empirical correlations of the spray tip penetration and the spray angle for non-evaporative condition. The experiment was performed by a common rail type high-pressure injector for the diesel engine at the injection pressure 40??100 MPa and four different fuels (D100, BD25, BD45, and BD65). The results showed that the biodiesel content increased the spray tip penetration and decreased the spray angle. The correlation of spray tip penetration is expressed for each region before and after spray break-up time in terms of injection pressure, fuel viscosity and time after start of injection. The correlation is also obtained for spray angle equation terms of injection pressure and fuel viscosity.     

Biological detoxification of Cr(VI) using wood-husk immobilized Acinetobacter haemolyticus

Acinetobacter haemolyticus, a Gram-negative aerobic locally isolated bacterium, immobilized on wood-husk showed the ability to detoxify Cr(VI) to Cr(III). Wood-husk, a natural cellulose-based support material, packed in an upward-flow column was used as support material for bacterial attachment. Around 97% of the Cr(VI) in wastewater containing 15 mg L(-1) of Cr(VI) was reduced at a flow rate of 8.0 mL min(-1). The wastewater containing Cr(VI) was added with liquid pineapple wastewater as nutrient source for the bacteria. Electron microscopic examinations of the wood-husk after 42 days of column operation showed gradual colonization of the wood-husk by bacterial biofilm. The use of 0.1% (v/v) formaldehyde as a disinfecting agent inhibited growth of bacteria present in the final wastewater discharge. This finding is important in view of the ethical code regarding possible introduction of exogenous bacterial species into the environment.