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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Pre-Methylation Of Lignin To Improve Storage Stability Of Oil Produced By Solvent Liquefaction, Jae-Young Kim, Parinaz Hafezi-Sefat, Sarah D. Cady, Ryan G. Smith, Robert C. Brown Sep 2019

Pre-Methylation Of Lignin To Improve Storage Stability Of Oil Produced By Solvent Liquefaction, Jae-Young Kim, Parinaz Hafezi-Sefat, Sarah D. Cady, Ryan G. Smith, Robert C. Brown

Sarah Cady

In this study, we methylated hydroxyl groups (phenolic hydroxyl: Phe-OH and aliphatic hydroxyl: Aliph-OH) in soda lignin (SL) prior to solvent liquefaction to improve storage stability of the resulting oil. We investigated two methylating reagents, dimethyl sulfate (DMS) and dimethyl carbonate (DMC), for selective Phe-OH and total hydroxyl group (Phe-OH and Aliph-OH) blocking. Samples of SL, DMS-SL, and DMC-SL were depolymerized into oils under supercritical ethanol (350 °C). Both methylated lignins produced higher amounts of oils and smaller amounts of char compared to untreated SL due to suppressed charring reactions. Oil produced from SL had relatively higher functional group contents …


Thermal Removal Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere: Energy Requirements And Scaling Issues, Ted Von Hippel Aug 2019

Thermal Removal Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere: Energy Requirements And Scaling Issues, Ted Von Hippel

Ted von Hippel

I conduct a systems-level study of direct air capture of CO2 using techniques from thermal physics. This system relies on a combination of an efficient heat exchanger, radiative cooling, and refrigeration, all at industrial scale and operated in environments at low ambient temperatures. While technological developments will be required for such a system to operate efficiently, those developments rest on a long history of refrigeration expertise and technology, and they can be developed and tested at modest scale. I estimate that the energy required to remove CO2 via this approach is comparable to direct air capture by other techniques. The …


Call For Abstracts - Resrb 2019, July 8-9, Wrocław, Poland, Wojciech M. Budzianowski Dec 2018

Call For Abstracts - Resrb 2019, July 8-9, Wrocław, Poland, Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

No abstract provided.