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Full-Text Articles in Chemical Engineering

Estimating Aquifer System Storage Loss With Water Levels, Pumping And Insar Data In The Parowan Valley, Utah, Ryan G. Smith, Jiawei Li, Katherine R. Grote, Jim Butler Apr 2023

Estimating Aquifer System Storage Loss With Water Levels, Pumping And Insar Data In The Parowan Valley, Utah, Ryan G. Smith, Jiawei Li, Katherine R. Grote, Jim Butler

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the Parowan Valley of Utah, Groundwater Levels Have Declined by as Much as 30 M over the Past 50 Years with Accompanying Subsidence Rates of Up to 5 Cm/year. Traditional Methods to Estimate Groundwater Storage Change Use a Combination of Groundwater Level and Storativity Estimates, But There is Often Considerable Uncertainty in These. in This Study, We Demonstrate a New Method that Relies on a Combination of Geodetic Data from InSAR, as Well as Groundwater Level and Pumping Data, to Estimate Both the Total Groundwater Storage Loss and the Percentages of Storage Loss in Fine- and Coarse-Grained Layers within …


Multi-Criteria Decision Matrix Method In The Risk Analysis Of Biodiesel Production Processes, Kaylee Alles Dec 2022

Multi-Criteria Decision Matrix Method In The Risk Analysis Of Biodiesel Production Processes, Kaylee Alles

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

Renewable fuel technologies aim to mitigate the non-renewability of fossil fuels, challenges with increased energy demand, and the climate impact of fossil fuel emissions. However, before investing in renewable technologies, there need to be decision strategies that assess and identify the best alternatives according to stakeholder priorities. There is also a concern about whether the technologies that are the “most sustainable” effectively meet the acceptable risk requirements of stakeholders. In response to this question, a risk-adapted multi-criteria decision model was developed and compared to a sustainability study that evaluated five renewable diesel technologies, including Green Diesel I, II, and III; …


Artificial Intelligence-Based Material Discovery For Clean Energy Future, Reza Maleki, Mohsen Asadnia, Amir Razmjou Jan 2022

Artificial Intelligence-Based Material Discovery For Clean Energy Future, Reza Maleki, Mohsen Asadnia, Amir Razmjou

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted materials design and discovery methods can come to the aid of global concerns for introducing new efficient materials in different applications. Also, a sustainable clean future requires a transition to a low-carbon economy that is material-intensive. AI-assisted methods advent as inexpensive and accelerated methods in the design of new materials for clean energies. Herein, the emerging research area of AI-assisted material discovery with a focus on developing clean energies is discussed. The applications, advantages, and challenges of using AI in material discovery are discussed and the future perspective of using AI in clean energy is studied. This …


Apple Pomace Consumption Favorably Alters Hepatic Lipid Metabolism In Young Female Sprague-Dawley Rats Fed A Western Diet, Roy Chris Skinner, Derek C. Warren, Soofie N. Lateef, Vagner A. Benedito, Janet C. Tou Jan 2018

Apple Pomace Consumption Favorably Alters Hepatic Lipid Metabolism In Young Female Sprague-Dawley Rats Fed A Western Diet, Roy Chris Skinner, Derek C. Warren, Soofie N. Lateef, Vagner A. Benedito, Janet C. Tou

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Apple pomace, which is a waste byproduct of processing, is rich in several nutrients, particularly dietary fiber, indicating potential benefits for diseases that are attributed to poor diets, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD affects over 25% of United States population and is increasing in children. Increasing fruit consumption can influence NAFLD. The study objective was to replace calories in standard or Western diets with apple pomace to determine the effects on genes regulating hepatic lipid metabolism and on risk of NAFLD. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned (n = 8 rats/group) to isocaloric diets of AIN-93G and …


Development Of Chemical Process Design And Control For Sustainability, Shuyun Li, Gaurav Mirlekar, Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado, Fernando V. Lima Jan 2016

Development Of Chemical Process Design And Control For Sustainability, Shuyun Li, Gaurav Mirlekar, Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado, Fernando V. Lima

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This contribution describes a novel process systems engineering framework that couples advanced control with sustainability evaluation for the optimization of process operations to minimize environmental impacts associated with products, materials and energy. The implemented control strategy combines a biologically-inspired method with optimal control concepts for finding more sustainable operating trajectories. The sustainability assessment of process operating points is carried out by using the U.S. EPA’s Gauging Reaction Effectiveness for the ENvironmental Sustainability of Chemistries with a multi-Objective Process Evaluator (GREENSCOPE) tool that provides scores for the selected indicators in the economic, material efficiency, environmental and energy areas. The indicator scores …


Sustainability Assessment For Energy Systems And Chemical Process Industries, Michael J. Matzen Dec 2015

Sustainability Assessment For Energy Systems And Chemical Process Industries, Michael J. Matzen

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

Sustainability has become an important factor in the chemical process and energy industries with a strong drive for process improvements towards more environmentally conscious solutions. However, there are many ways of defining sustainability and even more ways of trying to determine how sustainable a process is. This work looks into applying a conjunction of tools including; process simulation, multi-criteria decision matrices and life-cycle assessment to more quantitatively determine sustainability metrics. We have applied these tools for the production of electricity, methanol and dimethyl ether. A novel method of electricity production, in chemical looping combustion (CLC), was used that inherently involves …


Sustainability And Economic Analysis Of Propylene Carbonate And Polypropylene Carbonate Production Processes Using Co2 And Propylene Oxide, Yaşar Demirel Jan 2015

Sustainability And Economic Analysis Of Propylene Carbonate And Polypropylene Carbonate Production Processes Using Co2 And Propylene Oxide, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

Currently, the industrially important polycarbonates are synthesized from bisphenol A and diphenyl carbonate, which are highly toxic and hence other feasible alternatives are preferable. Following the considerable advances on the catalyst for the synthesis of carbonates from CO2 and propylene oxide (PO), industrial scale processes for the productions of propylene carbonate (PC) and polypropylene carbonate (PPC) have been designed and simulated with sustainability and economic analyses. The CO2 is supplied by a nearby bioethanol plant, while the PO from a petrochemical process. The first part of the study is for the production of 200 million lb/year cyclic PC …


Process Intensification Routes For Mineral Carbonation, Rafael M. Santos, Tom Van Gerven Dec 2011

Process Intensification Routes For Mineral Carbonation, Rafael M. Santos, Tom Van Gerven

Faculty Publications and Scholarship

Mineral carbonation is a realistic route for capture and storage of carbon dioxide. The principal advantages of this approach are the chemical stability and storage safety of mineral carbonates, the opportunities for process integration available, and the potential for conversion of low-value materials into useful products. In this work the valorisation of alkaline waste materials from thermal processes by mineral carbonation utilizing intensified and integrated mineral carbonation routes is explored. Process intensification is the chemical engineering of the 21st century, and aims at providing the paradigm-shifting techniques that will revolutionize the industry. The combination of process intensification and process integration …


Sustainability Analysis Of Personal Transportation For Near Urban Commuting, Michelle Everett, Michael Pickelsimer, Virginia Browning, William R. Henson, James R. Hall Jr., Yue Cao, Justin Ridenour, Theodore Ansink, James Wilson, Eugene Ng, Matthew Atchley, Scott Teeters, David Irick, Leon Tolbert, Chris Cherry, Robert Counce, Paul D. Frymier May 2011

Sustainability Analysis Of Personal Transportation For Near Urban Commuting, Michelle Everett, Michael Pickelsimer, Virginia Browning, William R. Henson, James R. Hall Jr., Yue Cao, Justin Ridenour, Theodore Ansink, James Wilson, Eugene Ng, Matthew Atchley, Scott Teeters, David Irick, Leon Tolbert, Chris Cherry, Robert Counce, Paul D. Frymier

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering

The goal of this P3 project was to test three hypotheses: 1) there exists a vehicle or class of vehicles that can be effectively used to replace a car for near-urban commuting and short range transportation in cities of similar population, topology and traffic volume as Knoxville, TN with significantly less environmental impact than a typical automobile, 2) this vehicle has the appropriate capacity, convenience, and comfort such that people who are not likely to use other forms of alternate transportation will adopt it, and 3) between a fuel cell hybrid and fully battery electric, one of the two designs …