Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Remote Controlled Hydrogel Nanocomposites: Synthesis, Characterization, And Applications, Nitin S. Satarkar

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

There is significant interest in the development of hydrogels and hydrogel nanocomposites for a variety of biomedical applications including drug delivery, sensors and actuators, and hyperthermia cancer treatment. The incorporation of nanoparticulates into a hydrogel matrix can result in unique material characteristics such as enhanced mechanical properties, swelling response, and capability of remote controlled (RC) actuation. In this dissertation, the development of hydrogel nanocomposites containing magnetic nanoparticles/carbon nanotubes, actuation with remote stimulus, and some of their applications are highlighted.

The primary hydrogel nanocomposite systems were synthesized by incorporation of magnetic nanoparticles into temperature responsive N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) matrices. Various nanocomposite properties …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Magnetic Hydrogel Nanocomposites For Cancer Therapy Applications, Samantha Ann Meenach

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Currently, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Conventional cancer treatment includes chemotherapy, radiation, and surgical resection, but unfortunately, all of these methods have significant drawbacks. Hyperthermia, the heating of cancerous tissues to between 41 and 45°C, has been shown to improve the efficacy of cancer therapy when used in conjunction with irradiation and/or chemotherapy. In this work, a novel method for remotely administering heat is presented. This method involves heating of tumor tissue using hydrogel nanocomposites containing magnetic nanoparticles which can be remotely heated upon exposure to an external alternating magnetic field (AMF). The …

Transient Study Of The Wetting Films In Porous Media Using 3d X-Ray Computed Micro-Tomography: Effect Of Imbibition Rate And Pore Geometry, Pradeep Bhattad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Imbibition in porous media is governed by the complex interplay between viscous and capillary forces, pore structure and fluid properties. Understanding and predicting imbibition is important in many natural and engineered applications; it affects the efficiency of oil production operations, the moisture and contaminant transport in soil science, and the formation of defects in certain types of composite materials. Majority of the studies published on the transient imbibition behavior in a porous medium were conducted in the simplified 2D transparent micromodels or the 2D projection visualization (X-ray or visible light) of the 3D porous medium. However, the pore level transient …

Surfactant-Induced Flow Behavior Effects In Gas Condensate Reservoirs, Bikash Deep. Saikia

LSU Master's Theses

Natural gas, which accounts for a quarter of world’s energy, has been a major energy source because of its abundance and less impact on environment. With explorations at higher depth, pressure and temperature, the share of gas condensate reservoirs to global gas production is increasing. A unique production challenge associated with these reservoirs is the condensate blockage problem, which is the buildup of condensate liquid saturation around wellbore as a result of drawdown below dew point pressure. Mitigation of this problem requires in depth understanding of the multiphase flow of liquid and gas. Surfactants are well known in the literature …

Multimetallic Electrocatalysts Of Pt, Ru, And Ir Supported On Anatase And Rutile Tio2 For Oxygen Evolution In An Acid Environment, Roderick E. Fuentes, Jake Farell, John W. Weidner

Faculty Publications

Anatase and rutile TiO2 were investigated as stable supports for different multimetallic nanoparticles (i.e., Pt:Ru, Pt:Ir, Pt:Ru:Ir, and Ir:Ru) and tested for activity toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Overall, Ir:Ru had the highest activity toward OER (i.e., current per gram of metal) compared to the other multimetallic combinations studied. This bimetallic supported on anatase TiO2 had a 53% higher current per gram of metal than an unsupported electrocatalyst of the same composition. The higher catalyst utilization of the supported electrocatalysts for OER is consistent with small, well-dispersed nanoparticles, which were observed in high resolution transmission electron microscopy images.

Quantifying Individual Potential Contributions Of The Hybrid Sulfur Electrolyzer, John A. Staser, Maximilian B. Gorensek, John W. Weidner

Faculty Publications

The hybrid sulfur cycle has been investigated as a means to produce clean hydrogen efficiently on a large scale by first decomposing H₂SO₄ to SO₂, O₂, and H₂O and then electrochemically oxidizing SO₂ back to H₂SO₄ with the cogeneration of H₂. Thus far, it has been determined that the total cell potential for the hybrid sulfur electrolyzer is controlled mainly by water transport in the cell. Water is required at the anode to participate in the oxidation of SO₂ to H₂SO_{4 …}

Maximizing The Life Of A Lithium-Ion Cell By Optimization Of Charging Rates, Saeed Khaleghi Rahimian, Sean Rayman, Ralph E. White

Faculty Publications

Using a dynamic optimization method, the optimum charge currents as a function of cycle number during cycling for the lithium-ion cell are obtained. A single particle physics-based model, which includes capacity fade, was applied to simulate the cell performance under low earth-orbit (LEO) cycling conditions. Useful cell life is defined as the number of cycles before the end of discharge voltage drops below 3.0 V or the cell discharge capacity becomes less than 20% of the original discharge capacity. The simulated useful cell life can be increased by ∼29.28% by varying the charge current.

Desulfurization And Tar Removal From Gasifier Effluents Using Mixed Rare Earth Oxides, Sumana Adusumilli

LSU Master's Theses

Biomass gasification is a promising source of fuels. However, hydrogen sulphide, tars and other by-products must be removed from the raw gas because they deactivate downstream reforming and water gas shift catalysts. The goal of this project is to find the best REO combination for simultaneous tar cracking and desulfurization of gasifier effluents and to find the sorbents that are stable at high operating temperatures of gasifiers. Simultaneous tar cracking and H2S removal from a simulated gasifier effluent was tested using different rare earth mixed oxide (REO) catalysts/sorbents based on Ce/LaOx, Ce/La/MOx and Ce/La/M2Ox/Al2O3 where M is a transition metal …

Designing A Whey Protein Based Material As A Scaffold For Bone Regeneration, Mia Dvora

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A novel gel material was designed and optimized for use as a bone tissue regeneration scaffold. Whey protein isolate (WPI), the primary component of the material, underwent considerable testing for conformity to a set of known material characteristics required for application in bone regeneration. WPI gels of different compositions were fabricated by thermally inducing gelation of high-concentration protein suspensions, and characterized for compressive strength and modulus, hydration swelling and drying properties, mechanical behavior change due to polysaccharide additives, and intrinsic pore network structure. The gels were also tested for their compatibility with MC3T3-E1 cells, and interactions such as cell adhesion, …

Enhanced Pervaporation Using A Novel Pump Configuration, Donough Patrick Shanahan

Theses

The pervaporation process is investigated in this work under the guises of process design improvements and process performance. Several avenues of research were investigated.

The main aim of the project was to investigate the use of liquid ring vacuum pumps for permeate recovery at laboratory and industrial scales. Due to technical and economical issues, these pumps were deemed unsuitable. This analysis then had to be extended further. Previous work investigated the use of dry vacuum pump systems on a lab scale and this work was extended to industrial scale simulations. Results from the lab scale process particularly those relating to …

Enhanced Vacuum Drying Through Improved Solvent Recovery, Reduced Process Cycle Times And Prediction Of Drying Duration, Diana Patricia Mesa Delgado

Theses

Drying of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals is often accomplished under vacuum conditions to enhance energy efficiency and to avoid overheating of thermo sensitive materials. This project aims to study vacuum drying operations to obtain a better understanding of this process so as to optimize drying performance. This project obtained industrial data collected from a range companies in Ireland.

Pharmaceutical companies started assessing processes and making changes to drying processes from 2004 onwards; these initiatives are due to economic pressures, environmental issues and the Process Analytical Technology (PAT) initiative launched by the FDA in 2004.

Vacuum drying has been used in …

Fabrication Of A Memory Device Using Polyaniline Nanofibers And Gold Nanoparticles, Krunal R. Waghela

Masters Theses

"Fabrication of a memory device using one-step/one-pot synthesis for making a PANI (polyaniline)/Au nanocomposite is reported. Although various devices with horizontal and vertical electrode structures were made, the basic structure used consisted of a PANI/Au thin film sandwiched between two electrodes. The ratio of the current in the OFF state to the current in the ON state was seen to be as high as 5000. These devices showed a bistable behavior, which is typical of memory devices. The PANI/Au nanocomposite thin film was constructed right on the electrode using microfabrication techniques with ultraviolet irradiation. The fabrication techniques discussed in this …

Biodiesel Production Using Supercritical Methanol, Dhaval Nitin Modi

Masters Theses

"The catalyst-free transesterification of oil (triglycerides) in supercritical methanol at a temperature and pressure above 239⁰C and 8.1MPa, respectively, provides a new way of producing biodiesel. High reaction temperature and pressure help to accelerate the transesterification because the supercritical methanol becomes non-polar and has enhanced contact with oil. The supercritical transesterification of soybean oil was carried out in a 170 ml volume high-pressure batch reactor. The pressure within the batch reactor was self-generated from heating the contents since no pumps were used. Transesterification of soybean oil with supercritical methanol readily produced biodiesel. Since the supercritical transesterification is carried out without …

Microalgae Harvesting By Flocculation With Polymer-Coated Magnetite Particles, Humayun Shariff

Masters Theses

"Although microalgae are considered to be one of the potentially significant feedstock for renewable biofuels, harvesting them efficiently from culture ponds has been a major hurdle. The conventional harvesting methods such as centrifugation and filtration are very time and labor intensive processes. Gravimetrical settlement with the aid of cationic flocculants is the most widely employed technique, but suffers from the difficulty in recovering microalgae floes. Furthermore, recycling of these flocculants after the harvesting process is not possible. Polymer-coated magnetite particles have been investigated for applications in various fields. This research has focused on the development of a novel and efficient …

Molecular Modeling Of Energetic Materials And Chemical Warfare Agents, Nandhini Sokkalingam

Wayne State University Dissertations

Contamination of military sites by energetic materials and chemical warfare agents is a growing problem. To avoid health hazards associated with these compounds, it is necessary to decontaminate or remediate the contaminated sites. Effective decontamination requires knowledge of environmental fate of contaminants and the appropriate remediation methodologies. While the fate of chemical warfare agents are well studied, the impact of certain energetic materials in the environment is relatively unknown. So the current focus is determining environmental fate of Insensitive Munitions (IM) which are energetic materials that have low shock sensitivity and high thermal stability and developing detection schemes for identifying …

Evaluation Of Two Novel Aluminum-Free, Zinc-Based Glass Polyalkenoate Cements As Alternatives To Pmma Bone Cement For Use In Vertebroplasty And Balloon Kyphoplasty, Gladius Lewis, Mark R. Towler, Daniel Boyd, Matthew J. German, Anthony W. Wren, Owen M. Clarkin, Andrew Yates

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Vertebroplasty (VP) and balloon kyphoplasty (BKP) are now widely used for treating patients in whom the pain due to vertebral compression fractures is severe and has proved to be refractory to conservative treatment. These procedures involve percutaneous delivery of a bolus of an injectable bone cement either directly to the fractured vertebral body, VB (VP) or to a void created in it by an inflatable bone tamp (BKP). Thus, the cement is a vital component of both procedures. In the vast majority of VPs and BKPs, a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) bone cement is used. This material has many shortcomings, notably …

Strength Evaluation And Transportation Behavior Of Preformed Particle Gel Using Screens And Tubes, Rajesh Sarma Challa

Masters Theses

"This research included a series of experiments, using screen models to evaluate the strength of swollen gel particles. It also includes the study of PPG propagation and extrusion behavior through tubes of various internal diameters. The effect of the particle gel swelling ratio (depending on brine concentration), flow rate; and mesh size on the gel injection pressure and injectivity were studied. The results show that gel injection pressure depends primarily on the swelling ratio and the mesh size. However, the injection pressure does not increase significantly with injection rates, behavior consistent with the real-time injection pressure and injection rate change …

Experimental Study On Single Cement Fracture Exposed To Co2 Saturated Brine Under Dynamic Conditions, Tevfik Yalcinkaya

LSU Master's Theses

Carbon capture and storage is one of the technologies that could help reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere while contributing to cutback of Greenhouse Gas emissions. Depleted oil and gas fields are favorable targets for CO2 storage because existing wells can be readily used as injection wells. However, a number of abandoned wells also serve as gateway to the reservoir which should be considered in the context of effective Carbon capture and storage. Wellbore cement is a very essential element in wellbore systems that serve as a barrier between different zones in the subsurface. The fractures inside wellbore cement sheath, …

Processing And Conversion Of Algae To Bioethanol, Sara Katherine Kampfe

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Rock/Fluids Interactions At Reservoir Conditions, Dayanand Saini

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, interfacial phenomena of spreading, wettability, and rock/oil adhesion interactions in complex rock/oil/water systems were characterized at reservoir conditions of elevated pressures and temperatures. Capabilities of both ambient and reservoir condition optical cells were used for measuring the oil/water interfacial tension and dynamic (the water-receding and the water-advancing) contact angles for various complex rock/oil/water systems. Well known sessile oil drop volume alteration method was successfully used in this study for evaluating the applicability of the modified Young’s equation for characterizing the line tension in complex rock/oil/water systems at reservoir conditions. This appears to be first time when rock/fluids …