Anaerobic co-digestion of food waste and FOG with sewage sludge – realising its potential in Ireland

The severe environmental pollution in many countries is caused by indiscriminate discharge of large quantities of food waste (FW), fat oil and grease (FOG) and sewage sludge (SS) to the environment. There are many possible treatment routes, but anaerobic digestion (AD) is now well accepted for treating several kinds of organic wastes. But AD of FW alone presents some operational challenges because of substrates and variability. Anaerobic co-digestion of two or more substrates is better than single substrate digestion. This can use a plant’s unused capacity, in line with the trend to renewable energy. Co-digestion technology, although well established in many European countries, is still in its infancy in Ireland. There are problems with different regulatory arrangements. They should be resolved. The paper reviews anaerobic co-digestion technology is reviewed, with special focus on possible application in Ireland.     

Multimodal sensing and active continuous closed‐loop feedback for achieving reliable manipulation in the outdoor physical world

The use of field robots can greatly decrease the amount of time, effort, and associated risk compared to if human workers were to carryout certain tasks such as disaster response. However, transportability and reliability remain two main issues for most current robot systems. To address the issue of transportability, we have developed a lightweight modularizable platform named AeroArm. To address the issue of reliability, we utilize a multimodal sensing approach, combining the use of multiple sensors and sensor types, and the use of different detection algorithms, as well as active continuous closed‐loop feedback to accurately estimate the state of the robot with respect to the environment. We used Challenge 2 of the 2017 Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Competition as an example outdoor manipulation task, demonstrating the capabilities of our robot system and approach in achieving reliable performance in the fields, and ranked fifth place internationally in the competition.     

Multi-band power oscillation damping controller for power system supported by static VAR compensator

Electrical Engineering - Low-frequency electromechanical oscillations damping is powerfully crucial in power system operation. In order to fulfill this requirement, power oscillation damping (POD)...     

Polymers dynamics of the nonfluoro,nano-brush repelling agent with self-stratifying property in water-based coatings

While perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs), also known as C8s, are used extensively in textile repellent coatings, concerns have arisen for their carcinogenicity and hazardous effects on the environment. In this study, a novel water-based, nonfluoro, and nanobrush textile repelling agent was prepared by conventional sol–gel chemistry using amorphous fumed silica and n-octyltriethoxysilane as the starting materials. Minimal interaction between the designed repelling agent and marketed water-based resins was confirmed using linear viscosity region (LVR) analysis and asymmetric-flow field-flow fractionation (AF4), suggesting the self-stratification potential of the repelling agent. More specifically, the repelling agent exhibited excellent compatibility and self-stratifying ability with a force-emulsified acrylic-based resin, affording a water contact angle of 104.3° when incorporated at 7% solid content. Performance tests carried out on thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) revealed excellent adhesion (100/100) of a final formulation, and a significant increase in water contact angle from 80.1° to 103.8° after treatment. In addition, the fouling area after the removal of a submerged sample from a mixture of slurry, polymer, and oil decreased from 48 to 1% when the repelling agent was added. Moreover, the sludge-fouling property remained unchanged after 1000 cycles of abrasion. These findings demonstrate the potential of the described nonfluoro, nanobrush repelling agent as an environmentally safe alternative for use with commercial resins, in turn realizing a fully water-based hydrophobic coating. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48003.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Pr0.6-xNdxCa0.4FeO3-δ with Pechini Method

Pr0.6-x NdxCa0.4 FeO3-δ （ x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6） were synthesized using Pechini method. A number of studies were conducted concerning composition, specific area, crystalline structure and microstructure of the samples by means of FT-IR, BET, XRD TG-DTA and SEM. The results show that all the samples with different doping amounts of Pr^3＋ and Nd^3＋ on A-site are fine dispersed, and mean particle size less than 100 nm. The powders have good sinterability, and the relative density is 95% after sintered at 1200 ℃ for 2 h. It is found that all specimens are entirely single phase solid solutions with orthorhombic perovskite structure, the stable perovskitetype phase is formed completely after calcination at 900 ℃.     

循环伏安法在润滑油检测中的应用

介绍了循环伏安法的产生背景、原理。应用该技术可以快速、方便地对润滑油中抗氧剂、总酸（碱）值进行测定，并且可以对不同厂家润滑油的抗氧剂包进行区别。该技术还可以有效地评价润滑油的使用寿命和设备工作状况。