Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Use Of The “Dnachecker” Algorithm For Improving Bioinformatics Research, Nausheen Bhat, Ezra Bernadus Wijaya, Arli Aditya Parikesit

Makara Journal of Technology

Basic Local Alignment Sequencing Tool (BLAST) is a bioinformatics tool used for analyzing nucleotide sequences with regards to their similarity. BLAST can be found online on biological databases such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and other such repositories. The mechanism of BLAST allows the target sequence to be compared with other sequences to find regions of local similarity, and thus, a comparability quotient that determines the resemblance between the sequences is created. Due to the open-platform nature of the online databanks, several sequences can be accepted with little to no interjections regarding the quality of sequence submitted. …

Study Of Ecological Design Of Residential Complexes Using Spss To Elevate Resident Satisfaction, Soheil Malekpour Kolbadinejad, V. Malekpour Ravasjan, A. Darvish

Makara Journal of Technology

This article reports the general residential satisfaction, affecting ecological factors, and their importance in area in Tehran. The collected field data was analyzed using SPSS. Cronbach's alpha variable was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire and the Friedman test was used to assess priorities that influence residential satisfaction. The results show that the quality of residential environments and general satisfaction of their residents may be enhanced by identifying these criteria and making appropriate plans for their improvement.

Adsorption Of Heavy Metal Ions By Oil Palm Decanter Cake Activated Carbon, Mohd. Ezreeza Mohamed Yusoff, Juferi Idris, Nahrul Hayawin Zainal, Mohamad Faizal Ibrahim, Suraini Abd-Aziz

Makara Journal of Technology

Adsorption processes are widely used for the removal of heavy metals from waste streams. Oil palm decanter cake (OPDC) is used as a bioadsorbent because of its compositional properties for activated carbon production; moreover, it is a readily available raw material produced in palm oil mills and is thus abundant and cheap. In this study, the OPDC was carbonized at 700 °C and activated using steam at 700 °C to produce oil palm decanter cake activated carbon (AC-OPDC). Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to compare the adsorption capacities of the raw OPDC and the AC-OPDC for heavy metals removal. …

Experimental Evaluation Of Three Different Humidity Conditions To Physical And Mechanical Properties Of Three Different Mixtures Of Unfired Soil Bricks, Heru Purnomo, Srikandi Wahyu Arini

Makara Journal of Technology

Unfired brick is considered as a more environmentally friendly material than fired brick. It has lower mechanical properties than that of fired brick where humidity influences both bricks. Physical and mechanical properties of unfired bricks made of three kinds of mixtures were studied experimentally under three humidity conditions. The first kind of unfired brick was made only with soil and water while the second type was made of a mixture of soil, water and lime, and the third type was a mixture of soil, water, lime and uniform treated coir where 4% of lime mass was substituted with coir mass. …

Component Analysis And Antiangiogenic Activity Of Thailand Stingless Bee Propolis, Eriko Ishizu, Sari Honda, Tosihro Ohta, Boonyadist Vongsak, Shigenori Kumazawa

Makara Journal of Technology

Propolis is a natural resin produced by honey bees from certain plants, has gained popularity as a food and alternative medicine. However, to the best of our knowledge, few studies on native Thailand stingless bee propolis are available. Information on the chemical composition and biological activities of propolis is needed to investigate its potential utility. Recently we have reported the possible plant origin of Thailand stingless bee propolis, Garcinia mangostana. In this study, further component analysis, functional evaluation, and identification of the plant origin of Thailand stingless bee propolis are conducted. Nine xanthones, including α-mangostin, garcinone C, γ-mangostin, cochinchinone T, …

3d Fdtd Method For Modeling Of Seismo-Electromagnetics Disturbance On Crustal Earth, Nabila Husna Shabrina, Yasuhide Hobara, Achmad Munir

Makara Journal of Technology

The paper deals with the modelling of seismo-electromagnetics disturbance on the crustal earth by use of threedimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The model is built up by discretizing the frontier geographical region between Java Island and Sumatra Island in a cylindrical coordinate system-based 3D object. The proposed method is applied to compute and analyze electromagnetics (EM) fields of the observed very low frequency (VLF) wave used for the investigation. Boundary condition of uniaxial perfectly matched layer (UPML) are applied surrounding the area of computation for truncating the object of simulation. The investigation are focused on the propagation time of …

Novel Coupling Smart Water-Co₂ Flooding For Sandstone Reservoirs, Hasan N. Al-Saedi, Ralph E. Flori

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

CO₂ flooding is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective EOR technique that can be used to unlock residual oil from oil reservoirs. Smart water is any water that is engineered by manipulating the ionic composition, regardless of the resulting salinity of the water. One CO2 flooding mechanism is wettability alteration, which meets with the main smart water flooding function. Injecting CO₂ alone increases the likelihood of an early breakthrough and gravity override problems, which have already been solved using water-alternating-gas (WAG) using regular water. WAG is an emerging enhanced oil recovery process designed to enhance sweep efficiency during gas …

Fabrication Of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Hollow Fiber Membranes For Membrane Distillation, Abdullah Al Balushi

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Desalination technologies can help humanity tap into the most abundant source of water on earth, seawater; however, desalination is an energy-demanding process. Most of the desalination plants worldwide use conventional energy resources; therefore, desalination leaves a large carbon footprint. Solar energy is an available source of energy that can be harvested and integrated into desalination systems.

Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging purification technology that many offers many advantages over traditional desalination systems. For starters, it can utilize low-grade thermal energy to drive the separation, therefore, it can be suitably integrated into the solar-thermal energy scheme. Additionally, MD can be …

Bioactive Glass Fiber Fabrication Via A Combination Of Sol-Gel Process With Electro-Spinning Technique, Malvika Nagrath, Adel Alhalawani, Alireza Rahimnejad Yazdi, Mark R. Towler

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Development Of A Methodology For Characterizing Reaction Kinetics, Rheology, And In-Situ Compaction Of Polyimide Prepregs During Cure, James Raymond Magato, Donald A. Klosterman

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

PMR-type polyimide prepregs are challenging to fabricate into high quality composites due to volatiles that are generated and must be removed in situ during processing. The current work was conducted to develop accurate, reliable, and practical characterization techniques of the prepreg rheology, volatile generation, and subsequent volatile removal from the prepreg during composite fabrication. Thermal analysis was used to characterize volatile generation, reaction rates, and rheology. A novel approach was used to measure the thickness of the prepreg in situ during vacuum bag/oven processing using a high-temperature LVDT. Experimental results are presented for the commercially available RM-1100 polyimide/carbon prepreg system, …

A Study Of Protein And Peptide-Directed Nanoparticle Synthesis For Catalytic Materials, Abdollah Mosleh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticles have received much attentions due to their unique properties that makes them suitable candidates for a broad range of applications. As the size of particles decreases, their surface area-to-volume ratio would increase which is the main cause of much attention. In addition to the size, their morphologies and compositions may also play important roles for defining unique properties. Nanoparticle synthesis include both bottom-up and top-down strategies. To control the process of inorganic nanoparticles synthesis one could follow the bottom-up approach to have atom-level control over their compositions, morphologies, phases, and sizes which is the subject of this work. Due …

Engineered Carbon-Nanocatalyst Composites And Carbon Mixed ‎Matrix Membranes ‎For Water And Wastewater Treatment ‎, Mojtaba Abolhassani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Carbonaceous materials such as graphene oxide, and activated ‎carbon have a wide range of ‎applications in water and wastewater treatment due to the high surface ‎area, unique structure, ‎and chemical and thermal stability. Carbon-based materials can be used as a ‎membrane, an ‎adsorbent, a support for nanomaterials, or ‎as a filler within membranes to remove contaminants ‎from water. In this research, the specific carbon materials and how their properties influence their ‎use and performance in ‎specific engineering applications is explored. ‎

Here, membrane filtration and adsorption/degradation of the water and wastewater using carbon-‎based material are investigated. The research firstly focuses …

Bioengineering Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds For Volumetric Muscle Loss, Kevin Roberts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volumetric muscle loss overwhelms skeletal muscle’s ordinarily capable regenerative machinery, resulting in fibrosis and severe functional deficits which have defied clinical repair strategies. My work spans the design and preclinical evaluation of implants intended to drive the cell community of injured muscle toward a regenerative state, as well as the development of an understanding of the molecular responses of this cell community to biomaterial interventions. I demonstrate a new class of biomaterial by leveraging the productive capacity of sacrificial hollow fiber membrane cell culture; I show specifically that unique threads of whole extracellular matrix can be isolated by solvent degradation …

Purification Of Biomass Hydrolyzates For The Promotion Of Xylose Diester Formation, Laura Fernandez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The application of a novel xylose isolation procedure using phenyl boronic acid esterification has been limited to the hydrolyzates of low extractive biomasses like hardwoods and agricultural resides. Hydrolyzates with lower sugar and higher extractive concentrations, like softwoods, have not yielded xylose, or even xylose diester (XDE), the first intermediate product in the new process, under the same conditions. This research applied evaporation concentration, adsorbent separation and membrane filtration to these lower performing biomass hydrolyzates to maximize the yield of the XDE formation step of the new xylose extraction process. Lab-scale tests of these techniques were applied to pine hydrolyzate …

Fluid Flow Analysis Of Diluted Evaporating American Whiskey Droplets., Martin J. Brown Vi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recent discovery of the unique structures, whiskey webs, formed when the evaporation of diluted American whiskey, has raised many questions as to the nature of the structures. Their formation process follows as such: (1) dilution of the whiskey to form nanoaggregates, (2) formation of a monolayer at the air-liquid interface, (3) chaotic ethanol evaporation caused monolayer collapse (via dynamic pressure), (4) bulk fluid evaporation caused monolayer collapse (via reduction of surface area), where the web-like structures reside on the surface, and finally, (5) web-like structures deposit on the substrate. The webs imaged via SEM had a striking resemblance to …

Measuring Risks Of Interdependencies In Enterprise Systems: An Application To Ghana’S Salt Enterprise, Yaw Mensah

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation describes the use of Functional Dependency Network Analysis (FDNA) for modeling risks resulting from dependencies among elements of enterprise systems with application to salt processing enterprise in Ghana. FDNA was developed to model dependencies among members of enterprise systems by highlighting two dimensions of dependency: strength and criticality. Nonetheless, the concepts and analytics for these two dimensions of dependencies needed further development and generalization in the context of project management and systems development in developing countries.

Managing risks within the interdependency in enterprise systems through integration will help improve global economic growth. Coherent theory for enterprise integration must …

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 …

Process/Equipment Design Implications For Control System Cybersecurity, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

An emerging challenge for process safety is process control system cybersecurity. An attacker could gain control of the process actuators through the control system or communication policies within control loops and potentially drive the process state to unsafe conditions. Cybersecurity has traditionally been handled as an information technology (IT) problem in the process industries. In the literature for cybersecurity specifically of control systems, there has been work aimed at developing control designs that seek to fight cyberattacks by either giving the system appropriate response mechanisms once attacks are detected or seeking to make the attacks difficult to perform. In this …

Thermostable Lyoprotectant-Enhanced Cell-Free Protein Synthesis For On-Demand Endotoxin-Free Therapeutic Production, Kristen M. Wilding, Emily Long Zhao, Conner C. Earl, Bradley Charles Bundy

Faculty Publications

Cell-free protein synthesis has emerged as a promising platform for the production of therapeutic proteins due to its inherently open reaction environment, flexible reaction conditions and rapid protein synthesis capabilities. In recent years, lyophilized cell-free systems have widened the application space of cell-free technology by improving reagent stability outside of cold-chain storage. Current embodiments of the system, however, demonstrate poor stability at elevated temperatures. Lyoprotectants have long been recognized for the ability to preserve the activity of biological molecules during drying processes, but the application of this technology to lyophilized cell-free systems has been limited and has failed to address …

The Statistics Of Directed Evolution: From Library Generation To High Throughput Screens, Keith Tyo

Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XXI

Directed evolution has been recognized as a powerful approach to creating enzymes and cells with desirable properties, such as growth on a new substrate, thermotolerance, or even novel reaction mechanisms. The directed evolution approach is to generate diversity through genetic mutations and screen the diversity for mutants that have improved properties compared to the parent. This diversification and screening can be repeated to generate mutants with superior properties.

While the concept is straightforward, the devil is in the details. How should I create diversity (error prone PCR, mutagenic primers, transposons…)? How much diversity do I need (10³, 10 …