Effect of Adding Transition Metals to Copper on the Dehydrogenation Reaction of Ethanol

The present work aims to investigate the effect adding Ag, Co, Ni, Cd and Pt to copper on ethanol dehydrogenation. The catalysts synthesized by deposition–precipitation method were characterized using various physicochemical methods such as N₂ adsorption–desorption, TPR, SEM–EDX, XRD, XPS and TGA–DSC-MS. Catalytic evaluation results revealed that the predominant product of the reaction was acetaldehyde. Monometallic copper or mixed with Cd, Ag or Co show good catalytic performances. Adding nickel to copper improves the process conversion but reduces acetaldehyde selectivity, giving rise to methane in produced hydrogen. Pt-Cu/SiO₂ catalyst guides the reaction towards diethyl ether. Time on stream tests performed during 12 h at 260 °C, showed that adding Cd to Cu enhances its stability by over 30% of conversion, this is explained by the reduction of copper crystallites sintering, which makes Cd-Cu/SiO₂ a promising catalyst for the production of acetaldehyde by ethanol dehydrogenation.

Graphic Abstract

     

Analysis of base content in in-service oils by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

An automated FTIR method for the determination of the base content (BC(pKa)) of oils at rates of > 120 samples/h has been developed. The method uses a 5% solution of trifluoroacetic acid in 1-propanol (TFA/P) added to heptane-diluted oil to react with the base present and measures the ν(COO(-)) absorption of the TFA anion produced, with calibrations devised by gravimetrically adding 1-methylimidazole to a heptane-TFA/P mixture. To minimize spectral interferences, all spectra are transformed to 2(nd) derivative spectra using a gap-segment algorithm. Any solvent displacement effects resulting from sample miscibility are spectrally accounted for by measurement of the changes in the 1-propanol overtone band at 1936 cm(-1). A variety of oils were analyzed for BC(0.5), expressed as mEq base/g oil as well as converted to base number (BN) units (mg KOH/g oil) to facilitate direct comparison with ASTM D2896 and ASTM D974 results for the same samples. Linear relationships were obtained between FTIR and D2896 and D974, with the ASTM methods producing higher BN values by factors of ~1.5 and ~1.3, respectively. Thus, the FTIR BC method correlates well with ASTM potentiometric procedures and, with its much higher throughput, promises to be a useful alternative means of rapidly determining reserve alkalinity in commercial oil condition monitoring laboratories.     

Controlling power output of solar chimney power plant according to demand

ABSTRACT

The solar chimney power plant (SCPP) is a simple solar thermal power plant that is capable of converting solar energy into thermal energy in the solar collector. In the second stage, the generated thermal energy is converted into kinetic energy in the chimney and ultimately into electric energy using a combination of a wind turbine and a generator. The numerical simulations were performed for the geometry of the prototype in Manzanares, Spain. Using computational ?uid dynamics (CFD) techniques; we have simulated a two-dimensional axisymmetric model of a SCPP with the RNG k-ε turbulence. In this model, the discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model was implemented to solve the radiative transfer equation, using a two-band radiation model. The main objective of this work is to explore dynamic control over plant power output. We have presented a technique to control the power output of the solar chimney power plant, in order to deliver power according to specified demand patterns. In order to present this, the reference plant model was modified to include a secondary and tertiary collector roof under the existing main collector. In terms of base load electricity generation, the inclusion of a secondary and tertiary collector roof produces good control over plant output.