Chemical Engineering Commons^™

The Critical Role Of Mechanism-Based Models For Understanding And Predicting Liposomal Drug Loading, Binding And Release Kinetics, Sweta Modi

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Liposomal delivery systems hold considerable promise for improvement of cancer therapy provided that critical formulation design criteria can be met. The main objective of the current project was to enable quality by design in the formulation of liposomal delivery systems by developing comprehensive, mechanism-based mathematical models of drug loading, binding and release kinetics that take into account not only the therapeutic requirement but the physicochemical properties of the drug, the bilayer membrane, and the intraliposomal microenvironment.

Membrane binding of the drug affects both drug loading and release from liposomes. The influence of bilayer composition and phase structure on the partitioning ...

Semicontinuous Separation Of Dimethyl Ether From Biomass, Alicia A. Pascall

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Environmental concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and energy security are the main drivers for the production of alternative fuels from bio-based feedstock. Dimethyl ether has attracted interest of many researches and is touted as “A fuel for the 21^st century” due to its versatility. However, the production of DME from biomass is dependent on the overall economics of its production.

This thesis considers the application of semicontinuous distillation to improve the economics of the separation section in a biomass-to-DME facility. Semicontinuous distillation systems operate in a forced cycle to effect multiple separations using a single distillation column integrated with ...

Biodiesel Synthesis Via Transesterification Reaction In Supercritical Methanol:A) A Kinetic Study, B) Biodiesel Synthesis Using Microalgae Oil, Jiuxu Liu

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering – Theses

The transesterification reaction in supercritical methanol between various oil feed stocks and alcohols is proposed as an alternative cost effective method to produce biofuels. Two studies were conducted related to this process in order to (a) supplement a previous kinetics study to better understand the reaction mechanism and (b) assess basic reaction conditions for effective conversion of microalgae oil to biofuels in supercritical methanol.

A one-step transesterification reaction has been used in some supercritical batch experiments to explain the kinetic results (He, Sun, Wang, & Zhu, 2007; Kusdiana & Saka, 2001). However, one-step kinetic models ignore the detailed multi-step reaction mechanism and cannot be ...

Study Level Design Of A Vanadium Redox Flow Battery, Katie Lutes

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Towards Rare-Earth-Free Permanent Magnets: Exchange Bias In Binary Mn-Based Alloys, Joshua Marion

Chemical Engineering Master's Theses

Quantum–mechanical exchange interactions between phases in ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (FM/AF) magnetic nanocomposite systems can result in useful effects such as exchange bias (H_ex) and remanence enhancement. These effects are more pronounced in nanostructured systems than in their coarse–grained counterparts due to improved interphase contact and can be developed to create good permanent magnetic behavior, but are currently poorly understood in bulk three–dimensional systems. To achieve this goal, factors such as the magnetic and structural phase identity, chemistry, size, shape, and character are investigated. To this end, synthesis, characterization and analysis of the magnetic and structural properties ...

Married Coal Gasification And Biomass Pyrolysis, Michael Balch

Honors Theses

This project is a proposal to marry a coal gasification process to a biomass pyrolysis. Coal is pyrolized to produce syngas and a large amount of heat. The syngas is treated and fed to a Fischer-Tropsch process. The excess heat produces steam that is used to pyrolize biomass. The biomass produces char, gas, and vapor. The char and gas are recovered, and the vapor is condensed to produce bio-oil.

The proposed plant has a capacity of 1100 tons of biomass (550 dry tons) per day. I assumed an operating factor of 0.9 The plant could be operational within five ...

Comparison Of Biomass To Bio-Oils Reactor Systems: Direct Conversion Vs. Companion Coal Gasification, Alexandra Eicher

Honors Theses

It is well known that the United States’ dependence on crude-oil negatively affects its economy, safety, and environment. To alleviate these negative consequences, a more economical and environmentally-friendly source of fuel, such as biomass, should be explored. The conversion of biomass to bio-oils involves the pyrolysis of biomass at about 500°C, thus requiring a great deal of heat. This heat source could be the excess waste heat from a coal gasifier.

As such, this report specifies the design of an industrial plant that produces bio-oils from biomass by using the waste heat from a coal gasifier. It is designed ...

Characterization Of Influenza Hemagglutinin Mutants For The Elucidation Of Key Residues’ Effect On Activation, Morgan Baltz

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Advances In The Synthesis Of Zno Nanomaterials For Varistor Devices, Suresh Pillai, John M. Kelly, Raghavendra Ramesh, Declan Mccormack

Articles

ZnO based varistors are widely used for overvoltage protection in many electrical and electronic circuits, at voltages ranging from a few to over a million volts. By careful control of the microstructure, through nanostructuring by chemical routes, it should be possible to produce varistors with high breakdown voltage (Vc), as this is proportional to the number of active grain boundaries in the sintered body. This property is particularly important for the production of the small-sized varistors needed for modern electronic instruments such as tablet computers and mobile phones. The current review will outline the recent advances in the chemical processing ...

Economic Report On Vanadium Redox Flow Battery With Optimization Of Flow Rate, Kevin Spellman, Kendrick Stiles, Ian Little

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Particle Fluidization In Upward And Inverse Liquid-Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed, Long Sang

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The fluidization of particles in upwards and inverse Liquid-Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed is carried out to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics when using “heavy” and “light” particles, whose densities are higher and lower than that of the surrounding liquid respectively. Generally, the solids are fluidized upwards in the former case, whereas, the downwards fluidization is preferred in the latter scenario.

In the Liquid-Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed (LSCFB) riser, where the upwards fluidization takes place, the effects of particle properties on solids holdup are investigated experimentally based on three parameters: superficial liquid velocity, normalized superficial liquid velocity and excess superficial liquid velocity ...

A Novel Mixed Metallic Oxygen Carrier For Chemical Looping Combustion: Preparation, Characterization And Kinetic Modeling, Mohammad Rezwanul Quddus

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In last decades, significant concerns have been raised regarding the global warming effect. To date, about one-third of the total anthropogenic CO₂ emission results from power generation using fossil based fuel and CO₂ is the main contributor to global warming. Therefore, technologies for efficient capture of CO₂ are becoming of great value. In this respect, Chemical-Looping Combustion (CLC) has received significant attention as a promising technology facilitating concurrent CO₂ capture and power generation. This non-conventional technique employs a solid carrier, known as oxygen carrier, to supply oxygen and facilitates combustion process in absence of N_{2 ...}

Inventory Pinch Algorithms For Gasoline Blend Planning, Pedro A. Castillo Castillo

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Current gasoline blend planning practice is to optimize blend plans via discrete-time multi-period NLP or MINLP models and schedule blends via interactive simulation. Solutions of multi-period models using discrete-time representation typically have different blend recipes for each time period. In this work, the concept of an inventory pinch point is introduced and used it to construct a new decomposition of the multi-period MINLP problems: at the top level nonlinear blending problems for periods delimited by the inventory pinch points are solved to optimize multi-grade blend recipes; at the lower level a fine grid multi-period MILP model that uses optimal recipes ...

Conference Program, Cedric Briens, Jesús Arauzo, Dietrich Meier

Bioenergy III: Present and New Perspectives on Biorefineries

No abstract provided.

Sol-Gel Derived Biodegradable And Bioactive Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Biomaterials For Bone Tissue Engineering, Bedilu A. Allo

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Treatments of bone injuries and defects have been largely centered on replacing the lost bone with tissues of allogeneic or xenogeneic sources as well as synthetic bone substitutes, which in all lead to limited degree of structural and functional recovery. As a result, tissue engineering has emerged as a viable technology to regenerate the structures and therefore recover the functions of bone tissue rather than replacement alone. Hence, the current strategies of bone tissue engineering and regeneration rely on bioactive scaffolds to mimic the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) as templates onto which cells attach, multiply, migrate and function.

In this ...

Predicting Enzyme Targets For Optimization Of Metabolic Networks Under Uncertainty, David Christopher Flowers

Masters Theses

Recently, ensemble modeling was applied to metabolic networks for the sake of predicting the effects of genetic manipulations on the observed phenotype of the system. The ensemble of models is generated from experimental wild-type flux data and screened using phenotypic data from gene overexpression and knockout experiments, leaving predictive models. The need for data from multiple genetic perturbation experiments is an inherent limitation to this approach. In this investigation, ensemble modeling is used alongside elementary mode analysis to attempt to predict those enzymatic perturbations that are most likely to result in an increase in a target yield and a target ...

Lignin Yield Maximization Of Lignocellulosic Biomass By Taguchi Robust Product Design Using Organosolv Fractionation, Anton Friedrich Astner

Masters Theses

Lignin, a byproduct of the organosolv pretreatment process using lignocellulosic biomass from switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is currently being explored for its potential use in the production of value-added chemicals and biobased polymers. Pretreatment is one of the most expensive processing steps in cellulosic biomass conversion. Optimization of the process is one of the major goals of the biomass-toethanol conversion process. Taguchi Robust Product Design (TRPD) provides an effective engineering experimental design method for optimizing a system and designing products that are robust to process variations. Given the results of several preliminary studies of the organosolv ...

An Experimental Study On Thermal Stability Of Biodiesel Fuel, Yiying Zhu

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering – Theses

Biodiesel fuel, as renewable energy, has been used in conventional diesel engines in pure form or as biodiesel/diesel blends for many years. However, thermal stability of biodiesel and biodiesel/diesel blends has been minimally explored. Aimed to shorten this gap, thermal stability of biodiesel is investigated at high temperatures.

In this study, batch thermal stressing experiments of biodiesel fuel were performed in stainless steel coils at specific temperature and residence time range from 250 to 425 °C and 3 to 63 minutes, respectively.

Evidence of different pathways of biodiesel fuel degradation is demonstrated chromatographically. It was found that biodiesel ...

Particle-Collector Interactions In Nanoscale Heterogeneous Systems, Marina Bendersky

Open Access Dissertations

Particle-surface interactions govern a myriad of interface phenomena, that span from technological applications to naturally occurring biological processes.

In the present work, particle-collector DLVO interactions are computed with the grid-surface integration (GSI) technique, previously applied to the computation of particle colloidal interactions with anionic surfaces patterned with O(10 nm) cationic patches. The applicability of the GSI technique is extended to account for interactions with collectors covered with topographical and chemical nanoscale heterogeneity. Surface roughness is shown to have a significant role in the decrease of the energy barriers, in accordance with experimental deposition rates that are higher than those ...

Helical Ordering In Chiral Block Copolymers, Wei Zhao

Open Access Dissertations

The phase behavior of chiral block copolymers (BCPs*), namely, BCPs with at least one of the constituent block is formed by chiral monomers, is studied both experimentally and theoretically. Specifically, the formation of a unique morphology with helical sense, the H* phase, where the chiral block forms nanohelices hexagonally embedded in the matrix of achiral block, is investigated. Such unique morphology was first observed in the cast film of polystyrene-b-poly(L-lactide) (PS-b-PLLA) from a neutral solvent dichloromethane at room temperature with all the nanohelices being left-handed, which would switch to right-handed if the PLLA block changes ...