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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Improving And Modeling Bacteria Recovery In Hollow Disk System, Clifton Anderson Aug 2019

Improving And Modeling Bacteria Recovery In Hollow Disk System, Clifton Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Identifying antibiotic resistance in blood infections requires separating bacteria from whole blood. A hollow spinning disk rapidly removes suspended red blood cells by leveraging hydrodynamic differences between bacteria and whole blood components in a centrifugal field. Once the red cells are removed, the supernatant plasma which contains bacteria is collected for downstream antibiotic testing. This work improves upon previous work by modifying the disk design to maximize fractional plasma recovery and minimize fractional red cell recovery. V-shaped channels induce plasma flow and increase fractional plasma recovery. Additionally, diluting a blood sample spiked with bacteria prior to spinning it increased the …


Correlating Pressure, Fluidization Gas Velocities, Andsolids Mass Flowrates In A High-Pressurefluidized Bed Coal Feed System, Jacob Talailetalalelei Tuia Jul 2019

Correlating Pressure, Fluidization Gas Velocities, Andsolids Mass Flowrates In A High-Pressurefluidized Bed Coal Feed System, Jacob Talailetalalelei Tuia

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis was to understand what parameters would be most impactful when delivering dry, pulverized coal in a dilute-phase, with a high-pressure feed-system to a pressurized oxy-combustion (POC) reactor. Many studies have conveyed materials in dense-phase plugs at high-pressure or in dilute-phase flows at atmospheric pressure. Very few studies have fluidized and conveyed materials in dilute-phase flows at high pressure, as we needed to. Additionally, studies which might have been applicable based upon system -pressure and -phase delivered findings that were empirically based and therefore not specifically applicable to non-similar systems. 220 different tests were ran using …


Replacement Rates Of Initially Hydrocarbon-Filled Microscopic Cavities With Water, Hans Christian Larson Jun 2019

Replacement Rates Of Initially Hydrocarbon-Filled Microscopic Cavities With Water, Hans Christian Larson

Theses and Dissertations

Wetting behaviors influence many aspects of life and industry from consumer product goods to oil recovery to cosmetics. While the traditional solid-liquid-vapor (SLV) system has been studied for many years now, wetting transitions in the solid-liquid-liquid (SLL) system has remained relatively unexplored. The purpose of this work is to bring light to the wetting transition of the solid-liquid-liquid system and to understand the replacement rates of initially hydrocarbon-filled microscopic cavities with water and the factors affecting these rates. Factors studied were viscosity, density, diffusion related properties, and surface related properties in both hydrocarbon-saturated and hydrocarbon-non-saturated conditions. Cylindrical microscopic cavities were …


The Development Of A Multi-Objective Optimization And Preference Tool To Improve The Design Process Of Nuclear Power Plant Systems, Paul Richard Wilding Jun 2019

The Development Of A Multi-Objective Optimization And Preference Tool To Improve The Design Process Of Nuclear Power Plant Systems, Paul Richard Wilding

Theses and Dissertations

The complete design process for a new nuclear power plant concept is costly, long, complicated, and the work is generally split between several specialized groups. These design groups separately do their best to design the portion of the reactor that falls in their expertise according to the design criteria before passing the design to the subsequent design group. Ultimately, the work of each design group is combined, with significant iteration between groups striving to facilitate the integration of each of the heavily interdependent systems. Such complex interaction between experts leads to three significant problems: (1) the issues associated with knowledge …


Effect Of Support, Preparations Methods, Ag Promotion And Nc Size On The Activity, Selectivity And Sintering Deactivation Of Supported Co Fischer-Tropsch Catalyst, Mahmood Rahmati Mar 2019

Effect Of Support, Preparations Methods, Ag Promotion And Nc Size On The Activity, Selectivity And Sintering Deactivation Of Supported Co Fischer-Tropsch Catalyst, Mahmood Rahmati

Theses and Dissertations

A series of silver-promoted, 20 wt% cobalt Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) catalysts supported on an alumina modified with 5 wt% silica were prepared using two methods: traditional incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) and a new solvent-deficient precipitation (SDP) technique. Catalysts containing silver promoter concentrations of 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, and 2.5 wt% were prepared using each of the two methods. Silver improved the reducibility of the cobalt significantly, lowering reduction temperatures by up to 100°C, and increasing the extent of reduction by up to 35%. Further, in both preparation methods, changing the silver loading altered the cobalt dispersion. The smallest Co crystallite size …


Carbon Capture And Synergistic Energy Storage: Performance And Uncertainty Quantification, Christopher Stephen Russell Feb 2019

Carbon Capture And Synergistic Energy Storage: Performance And Uncertainty Quantification, Christopher Stephen Russell

Theses and Dissertations

Energy use around the world will rise in the coming decades. Renewable energy sources will help meet this demand, but renewable sources suffer from intermittency, uncontrollable power supply, geographic limitations, and other issues. Many of these issues can be mitigated by introducing energy storage technologies. These technologies facilitate load following and can effectively time-shift power. This analysis compares dedicated and synergistic energy storage technologies using energy efficiency as the primary metric.
Energy storage will help renewable sources come to the grid, but fossil fuels still dominate energy sources for decades to come in nearly all projections. Carbon capture technologies can …