Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Bio-Mass To Bio-Oil: Direct Conversion Vs Companion Coal Gasification, Gabriel Hayes

Honors Theses

Biomass is produced in agriculture and forestry, and can be converted to use as a fuel substitute for petroleum. Direct conversion of biomass to bio-oil is conventionally accomplished with a process called fast pyrolysis, in which the biomass is heated to promote the chemical breakdown of its components. This produces some condensable vapors which, when condensed, yield bio-oil. Such a process was compared to a process that gains heat from companion coal gasification instead of traditional heating media such as heated sand. The conversions were then compared to determine the more cost-effective method for producing bio-oil. Additional parameters investigated include …

Comparison Of Pretreatment Methods For The Production Of Ethanol, Emily Schulte

Honors Theses

Bioethanol provides a great alternative to regular ethanol sources because it uses secondary substrates that are byproducts of other industries, rather than substrates that compete with food products. The technology is available for industrial bioethanol production, but the production costs just aren’t competitive enough with traditional ethanol production. The goal of this project was not to prepare a proposal for a bio-ethanol plant with all of the associated costs and financial calculations, but rather to provide a direct comparison of two pretreatment methods to highlight which factors could make one method less costly than the other. Pretreatment is a critical …

Development Of A Flexible Printed Paper-Based Battery, Justone Crosby

Honors Theses

Market demand for flexible electronics continues to grow, which, in turn, increases the demand for flexible energy storage devices. There are several types of energy storage devices available, including the alkaline (Zn-MnO₂) battery, which is the subject of this project. This project's objective was to develop a flexible, printed paper-based battery, which may be a sustainable solution to the increasing market demand. This device is low-cost and can be manufactured commercially using a scalable process.

The proposed device is an alkaline flexible cell, whose components can be printed onto paper. This alkaline system includes a zinc-based negative electrode …

Steam Valve Thermo-Performance Analysis, Benjamin Evans

Honors Theses

Steam leaks occur in aging power systems due to heat energy loss in the valves of that system. A model was developed to determine the amount of heat energy lost in Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant’s steam pipe valve system. Several methods were used to determine the mass flow rate and used to model the system in PEPSE. The PEPSE model determined the estimated energy that was lost due to seal leakage and general valve degradation. A program was created for use of plant employees to easily calculate the lost generation in MWe due to these leaks using the …

Steam Valve Thermo-Performance Analysis, Turner Slaughter

Honors Theses

Steam leaks occur in aging power systems due to heat energy loss in the valves of that system. A model was developed and programmed using Excel to determine the amount of heat energy lost in an aging power plant steam pipe valve system. This model was tested using data from an existing model called PEPSE. The PEPSE model determined the estimated energy that was lost due to seal leakage and general valve degradation. The energy from the steam was quantified using downstream temperature measurement data that was processed with multiple calculation methods to ensure accuracy in the model. The excel …

Paper Recycling Fiber Recapture, Abigail Cortright

Honors Theses

The goal of the Yoda Chemical Company Paper Recycling Fiber Recapture project and subsequent report was to identify and recommend plant optimization opportunities associated with the potential recovery of five waste streams. Additionally, an analysis of the upgrade’s design was completed in order to determine the economic viability of fiber recapture. Beginning the analysis, the five waste streams were identified and analyzed. The waste streams include the top liner, back liner, and filler liner primary cleaner rejects on the K1 machine, the common rejects from under the K3 paper machine, and the tertiary cleaner rejects from stock preparation.

Two different …

Internals In Gas-Liquid Systems, Sai Sankar Ganesan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of this study is to model gas-liquid contact and separation problems (using Euler-Euler based Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) models) at different scales. We have explored process intensive solutions, design optimizations by introducing internals in these gas-liquid operations.

A 500L pilot plant scale and a 7000L industrial scale novel down-flow bubble column problems were modeled. Methodologies used to overcome challenges on large-bubble micro-bubble dynamics are discussed and the resulting fluid dynamic solutions were studied. These solutions were further modified and tailored toward intensification, by exploring horizontal plate internals. We then modeled mass transfer and reaction kinetics on this system …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Pvp Based Catalysts For Selected Application In Catalysis, Hany A. Elazab, Mohamed N. Ayad, Mohamed M. Hammam, M. A. Radwan, M. A. Sadek

Chemical Engineering

This research aims to study the catalyst activity in specific reactions and the characteristics of the catalyst in order to optimize its performance. This research investigates PVP based catalysts and their properties and applications. PVP was prepared in combination with different metal oxides in order to be tested for different catalytic applications including dye removal. Methyl orange was used as a dye and different concentrations were tested against different metallic ions in order to optimize the catalyst for being used in dye removal applications. Spectrophotometer was used to calculate the concentration of the dye before and after catalyst exposure and …

Benchmark Temperature Microcontroller For Process Dynamics And Control, Junho Park, Ronald Abraham Martin, Jeffrey Kelly, John Hedengren

Faculty Publications

Standard benchmarks are important repositories to establish comparisons between competing model and control methods, especially when a new method is proposed. This paper presents details of an Arduino micro-controller temperature control lab as a benchmark for modeling and control methods. As opposed to simulation studies, a physical benchmark considers real process characteristics such as the requirement to meet a cycle time, discrete sampling intervals, communication overhead with the process, and model mismatch. An example case study of the benchmark is quantifying an optimization approach for a PID controller with 5.4% improved performance. A multivariate example shows the quantified performance improvement …

Hysteresis Effects And Roughness Suppression Efficacy Of Polyethylenimine Additive In Cu Electrodeposition In Ethaline, Nora A. Shaheen, Ijjada Mahesh, Rohan Akolkar

Faculty Scholarship

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) are environmentally-friendly electrolytes that are gaining interest for electrodeposition and energy storage applications. In these applications, metal electrodeposits with smooth, nondendritic morphology are desired and thus effective strategies for suppressing roughness evolution are critically needed. A commonly employed and rather effective strategy for suppressing roughness evolution in metal electrodeposition is the use of electrolyte additives; however, the availability of such additives in DES electrolytes is limited and so is the understanding of the mechanisms through which additives suppress roughness amplification in DES media. In the present contribution, we demonstrate that polyethylenimine (PEI) is an effective electrolyte …

Mitigating Safety Concerns And Profit/Production Losses For Chemical Process Control Systems Under Cyberattacks Via Design/Control Methods, Helen Durand, Matthew Wegener

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

One of the challenges for chemical processes today, from a safety and profit standpoint, is the potential that cyberattacks could be performed on components of process control systems. Safety issues could be catastrophic; however, because the nonlinear systems definition of a cyberattack has similarities to a nonlinear systems definition of faults, many processes have already been instrumented to handle various problematic input conditions. Also challenging is the question of how to design a system that is resilient to attacks attempting to impact the production volumes or profits of a company. In this work, we explore a process/equipment design framework for …

Zeolite Monolith Compositions And Methods For The Catalytic Cracking Of Alkanes, Ali A. Rownaghi, Xin Li, Fateme Rezaei

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Porous zeolite monolith compositions for the catalytic cracking of alkanes. The compositions may be prepared layer by layer using a 3D printer such that the compositions comprise a plurality of micropores and a plurality of mesopores and may be characterized by macro-meso-microporosity.

Fabrication Of Composite Membranes For Solar-Thermal Desalination, Andrew Mason, Mahdi Mohammadighaleni, Siamak Nejati

UCARE: Research Products

With rising human populations, the demand for freshwater is an ever-growing problem. One emerging technology to combat this problem is membrane distillation (MD). MD has several advantages for water desalination such as:

•100% rejection of solute (salt, heavy metals, etc.) •Mergeable with other affordable energy sources (solar heat, electric resistance, etc.)

However, at the moment the specific energy consumption (SEC) of MD is very high due to low water production rates and large energy inputs to heat water. In a solar-assisted design for MD, the high cost of solar collectors (~$200/m2) inhibits low cost of water production in comparison to …

Evaluation Of The Embedded Environmental Impacts Of The Sanitary Sewer System Using Life Cycle Assessment, Kimberly Law

UCARE: Research Products

This study identifies the overall impact that the installation and construction phase of sanitary sewer systems have on the environment. Construction data on sanitary sewer systems from small Nebraska communities was collected and compared to the operating phase of the sanitary sewer. The operating phase is the energy required for the lift station. Analyzing sanitary sewers during their entire life cycle involved the raw materials, infrastructure construction, installation, operation of the system, and maintenance.

Wastewater treatment systems are meant to reduce the negative impact that humans have on the environment. The purpose of the system is to treat and disinfect …

Modeling Unconventional Water Production In The Northeast Elm Coulee Field, Bakken Formation, Jan Branning

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Wells within the Northeast (NE) Elm Coulee produce significantly higher water cuts than wells within Elm Coulee Proper. The purpose of this work was to identify the source of produced water in the NE Elm Coulee. An area within the NE Elm Coulee was selected for a numerical flow simulation analysis, and a total of three models of the project area were constructed by isolating production mechanisms to determine the source of produced water in the NE Elm Coulee. A Separate Tank model was constructed to determine if the source of the produced water was matrix water saturation in the …

Oxidized Phospholipid Regulation Of Chronic Inflammation In Endothelial Cells, Cameron Scott Brutsche

Masters Theses

Atherosclerosis, the primary cause of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), has become one of the top causes of death in the world. As low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles become trapped and oxidized inside arterial walls, the primary oxidation products of 1-palmitoyl-2-arachidonyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphatidylcholine (PAPC) induce the binding of monocytes which can potentially lead to fatty plaque build ups. A fragment of one of these oxidation products, OxPAPC, has previously been studied and can act as standard for testing new phospholipids and how they affect protein expression levels. The central hypothesis of this study was that three newly studied classes of oxidized fatty …

Influence Of Coordination Environment On Catalyst Structure And Function For Co2 Hydrogenation And Ethane Partial Oxidation, Juan D. Jimenez

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we set out to establish strong structure/activity relationships for various catalytic compositions and reactions. Through in situ spectroscopic approaches, specifically DRIFTS, Raman XPS, and XAFS, we were able to discern the reactive species in CO₂ hydrogenation over highly active cobalt nanostructures, the relevant ensemble size and composition of single site catalysts for CO₂ hydrogenation, and active vibrational modes of mixed oxide catalysts for ethane partial oxidation (EPO).

First, we illustrate how tailoring surface orientations of Co₃O₄ catalysts on the nanoscale results in control over catalytic performance via the preferential formation of active …

Multi-Scale Modeling For Transport Study Inside Porous Layers Of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Using Direct Numerical Simulation, Pongsarun Satjaritanun

Theses and Dissertations

The direct modeling-based Lattice Boltzmann Agglomeration Method (LBAM) is used to explore the electrochemical kinetics and multi-scalar/multi-physics transport inside the detailed structure of the porous and catalyst layers inside polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The complete structure of the samples is obtained by both micro- and nano- X-ray computed tomography (CT). LBAM is able to predict the electrochemical kinetics in the nanoscale catalyst layer and investigate the electrochemical variables during cell operation. This work shows success in integrating the lattice elements into an agglomerate structure in the catalyst layer (CL). The predictions using LBAM were compared and validated with …

Effects Of Collision Damage On The Ultimate Strength Of Fpso Vessels, Muhammad Zubair Muis Alie, Dian Ramasari, Taufiqur Rachman, Ristiyanto Adiputra

Makara Journal of Technology

Floating production storage offloading (FPSO) vessels are movable offshore structures. These structures are designed with large dimensions, and their decks are loaded with several types of equipment. During collision damage, the hull and deck parts loaded with equipment are severely affected. Therefore, the ultimate strength of FPSO vessels should be thoroughly checked and evaluated. The objective of the present study is to analyze the ultimate strength of FPSO vessels against collision damage characterized by hogging and sagging under longitudinal bending. The cross section of an FPSO vessel is modeled with elements composed of stiffened and unstiffened plates. The vessel length …

Ionic Conductivity And Electrochemical Properties Of Alginate–Nn4no3-Based Biopolymer Electrolytes For Edlc Application, Norfatihah Binti Mazuki, Nur Muhitul Jalilah Rasali, Bouchta Sahraoui, Ahmad Salihin Samsudin

Makara Journal of Technology

In this work, alginate doped with various contents of ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) as a solid biopolymer electrolyte (SBE) was prepared via casting by using distilled water as a solvent. Impedance studies on alginate–NH4NO3 SBE films were conducted via impedance spectroscopy. The lowest bulk resistance (Rb) showed that the maximum ionic conductivity of the sample containing 25 wt.% NH4NO3 at ambient temperature (303 K) was 5.56 × 10−5 S cm−1. The temperature dependence of ionic conductivity was evaluated, and results confirmed that electrolytes followed an Arrhenius behavior. The highest conducting sample was fabricated into an electrical double-layer capacitor and characterized in …