Engineering Commons^™

Fluorination Of Al₂O₃ Coating For Lithium-Ion Battery, Xinhua Liang, Han Yu

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Improving the performance of cathodes by using surface coatings has proven to be an effective method for improving the stability of Li-ion batteries (LIBs), while a high quality film satisfying all requirements of electrochemical inertia, chemical stability, and lithium ion conductivity has not been found. A composite film composed of AI₂O₃ and AIF3 layers was coated on the surface of Li-rich NMC based electrodes by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The electrochemical characterization results indicated that the coating with 1 cycle of AIF3 ALD on 5 cycles of AI₂O₃ ALD (1 A1 F3-5AI₂O …

Isolation And Purification Of Glycoglycerolipids To Induce Apoptosis In Breast Cancer Cells, Muhammad Raisul Abedin, Sutapa Barua

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) is the most abundant type of glycoglycerolipid found in the plant cell membrane and mostly in the chloroplast thylakoid membrane. The amphiphilic nature of MGDG is attractive in pharmaceutical fields for interaction with other biological molecules and hence exerting therapeutic anti-cancer, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory activities. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of cyanobacteria derived MGDG to inhibit breast cancer cell growth. MGDG was extracted from a cyanobacteria Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 followed by a subsequent fractionation by column chromatographic technique. The purity and molecular structure of MGDG were analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy analysis. …

The 3-O-Sulfation Of Heparan Sulfate Modulates Protein Binding And Lyase Degradation, Pradeep Chopra, Apoorva Joshi, Jiandong Wu, Weigang Lu, Tejabhiram Yadavalli, Margreet A. Wolfert, Deepak Shukla, Joseph Zaia, Geert Jan Boons

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Humans Express Seven Heparan Sulfate (HS) 3-O-Sulfotransferases that Differ in Substrate Specificity and Tissue Expression. Although Genetic Studies Have Indicated that 3-O-Sulfated HS Modulates Many Biological Processes, Ligand Requirements for Proteins Engaging with HS Modified by 3-O-Sulfate (3-OS) Have Been Difficult to Determine. in Particular, the Context in Which the 3-OS Group Needs to Be Presented for Binding is Largely Unknown. We Describe Herein a Modular Synthetic Approach that Can Provide Structurally Diverse HS Oligosaccharides with and Without 3-OS. the Methodology Was Employed to Prepare 27 Hexasaccharides that Were Printed as a Glycan Microarray to Examine Ligand Requirements of a …

Catalytic Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation To Methanol/Dimethyl Ether Over Copper-Based Catalysts, Xiao Fan

Doctoral Dissertations

Direct synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) via CO₂ hydrogenation has received great attention, owing to the global warming caused by CO₂ emission and increasing energy demand worldwide. In this works, three major aspects of bifunctional catalysts development were studied: (1) investigation of the roles of interaction in the CuO-ZnO-ZrO₂-Al₂O₃/HZSM-5 bifunctional catalysts, (2) deactivation and regeneration of CuO-ZnO-ZrO₂-Al₂O₃ with different zeolitic catalysts for one-step CO₂ hydrogenation to dimethyl ether, and (3) study on the enhancement of activity and stability of CZZA/HZSM-5 bifunctional catalysts via the introduction of …

Water Absorption Enhancement Of Sodium Poly Acrylate And Poly(2-Acrylamido-2-Methylpropane Sulphonic Acid) Based Hydrogel Mixtures, Sohair A. Darwish, Ibrahim M. Ibrahim, Nasser Y. Mostafa, Mostafa A. Radwan, Mohamed A. Sadek, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Introduction: Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymers which are cross-linked to form three-dimensional structures, which can absorb, swell and retain huge amounts of water or aqueous fluids. Objective: This paper reports the preparation and characterization of Poly (2-Acrylamido-2-Methylpropane Sulphonic Acid) (PAMPS) hydrogel with different crosslinking intensities. Methodology: 2-Acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS) monomer was purchased from Alfa Aesar Company as reagent grade. It was used as received (>98% purity) without any further purification. PAMPS hydrogel was prepared by free radical crosslinking solution polymerization of AMPS in water at room temperature under a nitrogen blanket in cylindrical glass tubes. The characteristics of the …

Better Heat And Power Integration Of An Existing Gas-Oil Plant In Egypt Through Revamping The Design And Organic Rankine Cycle, Mamdouh A. Gadalla, Alaa Elmasry, Ibrahim Alhajri, Fatma H. Ashour, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Objective: The current study aims mainly to Maximize Condensate Recovery (NGLs), focusing on a gas processing train of Gas-Oil Separation Plant (GOSP) located in Egypt with a capacity of 4,230 kmole/h. Methods: The research study accounts for the constraint of Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) specification, which makes the storage in floating roof tanks is of a great risk. The study proposes the installation of the cryogenic train that recovers condensates (C4+). This train comprises of compression unit, expansion unit, three-phase separators and a re-boiled absorber. The problem of RVP will no longer exist because of the re-boiled absorber achieving RVP …

Equilibrium And Kinetic Study On The Biosorption Of Trypan Blue From Aqueous Solutions Using Avocado Seed Powder, Tamer T. El-Idreesy, Omar Khoshala, Amin Firouzi, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research aims to investigate the removal of trypan blue dye from aqueous solutions by employing ground avocado seeds powder, a low-cost biowaste adsorbent (biosorbent), under various experimental conditions. The effect of contact time, initial dye concentration, and adsorbent dose on dye removal were studied. The experimental kinetic data were fitted to pseudo-first order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. Results imply that adsorption of trypan blue on the avocado seed adsorbent nicely followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Equilibrium isotherms were analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, where Langmuir isotherm described the isotherm data with a high-correlation coefficient (R2=0.9948) closer to unity, …

Enhancing Emulsion Liquid Membrane System (Elm) Stability And Performance For The Extraction Of Phenol From Wastewater Using Various Nanoparticles, Faris H. Al-Ani, Qusay F. Alsalhy, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Emulation liquid membrane (ELM) technology has recently garnered attention as an efficient alternative for separating pollutants, but it faces the problem of instability during the application, as well as emulsion breaking. With this in mind MgO, Al₂O₃, and three magnetic Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles (of different sizes) were utilized to fabricate a new Pickering ELM system (PELM). The extraction efficiency of phenol from aqueous solution by PELM was studied with different NPs types and with different phenol concentrations (1,000; 500; 100; and 50 ppm). It was found that the type of NPs and concentration of …

Investigation Of Post-Acid Stimulation Impacts On Well Performance Using Fracture Modeling And Reservoir Simulation In A Jurassic Carbonate Reservoir, Muaath Alansari

Masters Theses

"Well stimulation (well fracturing) became an essential tool in the Oil and Gas industry to unlock the potential of unconventional reservoirs all over the world and especially in the Middle East. In Kuwait, well stimulation is obligatory when dealing with deep Jurassic carbonate reservoirs. Thus, the well fracture designing process plays a very critical role in determining the success of the stimulation job and the improvement of the recovery.

Several wells stimulated with 20% HCL have shown wide variations in both short and long term well production performance. The research aims to investigate and identify the possible reasons causing these …

3d-Printed Adsorbents For Gas Separations: A Material Development, Kinetic Assessment, And Process Performance Investigation, Shane Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations

“Adsorbent materials are promising for various gas purification processes, however, forming them into structured contactors is paramount in enhancing mass transfer properties and reducing pressure losses. In this research, various adsorbents were engineered into structured contactors with 3D printing. The overall goal of this research was to improve the formulation methods of 3D-printed adsorbents and understand their performances in gas separation processes. The specific objectives were to 1) develop new adsorbent 3D-printing strategies, 2) understand the kinetic properties of printed adsorbent monoliths, and 3) assess their process performances. Objective one was addressed by developing five 3D printing techniques: i) oxide …

Evaluation Of Robust Epoxy Resin Sealants For Wellbore Integrity Applications, Mohammed Mousa M Alkhamis

Doctoral Dissertations

"During the drilling and completion phases of oil and gas wells, cement is placed in the wellbore as a barrier between the casing and the formation. All casing strings must be cemented to protect and support the casing, and to isolate production zones. The primary cement must prevent the wellbore fluids from migrating in an annular flow path so as to allow the wells to be utilized without any control problems. The primary cement may fail to deliver full zonal isolation due to several reasons such as insufficient mud removal before the cementing, casing expansion, and contraction, high fluid losses, …

Cyclic Sequential Adsorption Desorption/Thermal-Catalytic Oxidation Of Volatile Organic Compounds: Material Development, Process Advancement/Improvement, And Numerical Modeling, Simulation And Optimization, Busuyi Ojo Adebayo

Doctoral Dissertations

"Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a group of useful organic chemicals but when emitted have contributed to air pollution. They affect human health, cause environmental degradation and contaminate our waters and soils, so they need to be controlled. When they exist in dilute concentrations, abatement becomes challenging, thus requiring advanced abatement methods, e.g., sequential adsorption desorption/thermal-catalytic oxidation process. The overall goal of this research was to abate dilute streams of VOCs via the process. The specific objectives were to 1) develop novel adsorbent/catalyst dual-function materials (DFMs) for the process, 2) improve the operability of a one-bed-one-column reactor configuration for the …

Convective-Diffusive Transport In Krogh Cylinders: A Model For Pharmacokinetics, Xianjie Qiu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Drug delivery to inside of the tumor is the important problem. The dynamics of drug delivery is presented here. Previously and particularly for directed delivery, a stirred tank model has been used, which appears to have worked well when compared to experiments. However, the stirred tank models do not include all the mass transfer resistances and towards that end we have used a distributed system called Krogh cylinder. This study focuses on the Krogh cylinder model simulation, both on the fluid flow and the mass transfer. The capillary network is broken down into cylindrical cells, each containing a capillary and …

Investigation Of Packed Bed And Moving Bed Reactors With Benchmarking Using Advanced Measurement And Computational Techniques, Binbin Qi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Trickle bed reactors (TBR), as typical packed bed reactors (PBR), are widely used in various fields. Very limited information regarding the flow behaviors, hydrodynamic, and mathematical models in extrudate catalyst shapes, such as cylinders, trilobes, and quadrilobes, can be found in literatures because the major focus was on spherical shape. Therefore, a hybrid pressure drops and liquid holdup phenomenological model for extrudate catalyst shapes was developed based on two-phase volume averaged equations, which showed high accuracy against experimental data. The maldistribution and dynamic liquid holdup were investigated in quadrilobe catalyst using gamma-ray computed tomography. A pseudo-3D empirical model was developed …

Studies On Protein Solubility, Ke Li

Doctoral Dissertations

"Solubility is a critical factor of protein-based drugs during processing and patient administration. This study focused on two aspects of solubility: one was the poly (ethylene) glycol (PEG) precipitation of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and another was crystallins aggregation that is associated with cataracts. Protein precipitation by PEG is a common technique for downstream processing. The effects of pH, ionic strength and the exclude volume effect on the protein precipitation by PEG were extensively studied, but the effects of glycosylation on protein precipitation by PEG has not been examined. Protein aggregation is not only a problem in downstream processing, but it …

Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery By Low Salinity Polymer Flood Combined With Microgel Treatment, Yang Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

“Heavy oil resources account for a large portion of the total oil reserves around the world. The target heavy oil reservoir is located on Alaska’s North Slope (ANS). Advantages of low-salinity HPAM polymer (LSP) over high-salinity polymer (HSP) were demonstrated. LSP could recover more oil with 40% less polymer consumption. No additional oil was recovered by HSP after LSP flood. The first-ever polymer flood pilot on ANS showed remarkable success regarding water cut reduction, oil production increase, delayed breakthrough, and projected oil recovery improvement. Polymer alone was insufficient to achieve satisfactory recovery as the reservoirs were highly heterogeneous. Microgels could …

Extracting Metallurgy Contaminants And Hydrocarbons Removing From Water And Industrial Wastewater Using Enhanced Emulsion Liquid Membrane With Nanoparticles And Ionic Liquid, Qusay Al-Obaidi

Doctoral Dissertations

It is an uphill battle to extract pollutants such as heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive metals from water and industrial wastewater. Emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) is an emerging technology that combines extraction/recover and stripping in one stage to extract/recover heavy metals and/or hydrocarbons from water and wastewater. ELM devised a way to clean up heavy metals and/or hydrocarbons from the water and wastewater where its primary chemicals can be recycled and reused.

In this work, the Emulsion Liquid Membrane (ELM) has been enhanced by adding nanoparticles and ionic liquid to significantly improve the recovery of the water-based contaminants of heavy …

Relationships Among Mineralogy, Geochemistry, And Oil And Gas Production In The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, Hayley Roxana Beitel

Masters Theses

"The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) is an unconventional shale reservoir located in southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi. Limited mineralogical and geochemical data for the TMS have been published. The data that do exist indicate that the formation is heterogeneous. Consequently, previous investigators and oil and gas companies have not managed to effectively link mineralogical and chemical changes to oil and gas production in the TMS. These linkages are critical to establish for future exploration efforts. In this study, we attempt to establish these relationships by gathering all existing mineralogical and chemical data in the TMS, including newly acquired data from …

Power Generation From Waste Heat During Oil Production, Subrahmanya Chandra Bhamidipati

Masters Theses

"The increase in the world population is causing a significant increase in the global demand for energy. This rise in demand is generally met with the use of fossil fuels. But there is considerable pressure to lessen the release of carbon through the combustion of fossil fuels. One way that the oil and gas industry can provide increased energy without carbon combustion is by extracting the latent heat energy contained in produced oil, gas and water from producing reservoirs, and from water which is cycled through depleted, end-of-life or abandoned reservoirs. Extracting this energy and using it to provide direct …

Analysis Of Refracturing Activities In The Major Shale Plays In The United States, Faisal Shammam

Masters Theses

"Refracturing of existing horizontal multistage wells has increased over the past decade in the oil industry. This work aims to investigate all the refracturing operations in the most active shale plays in the united states (Bakken, Niobrara, Marcellus, Permian, Eagle Ford, Barnett, and Haynesville) in terms of completion technique, candidate selection, treatment types, and refracturing production efficiency. To collect the data of the refractured wells, an advanced data analytics approach was applied to separate the refractured wells from 170,000 wells reported in FracFocus, a public chemical registry for hydraulic fracturing in the United States, and combine it with DrillingInfo database, …