Engineering Commons^™

Production Of Glycerol 1,2-Carbonate From Glycerol With Aid Of Ionic Liquid As Catalyst, Nor Asrina Sairi, Zati Ismah, Yatimah Alias, Rozita Yusoff, Mohamed Kheireddine Taieb Aroua,

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

The surplus formation of glycerol (glycerine or 1,2,3-propanetriol) during biodiesel production has led to a major concern. Glycerol price has dropped and it exerts a great impact on the refined glycerol market. This has triggered an extensive research focus to find an innovative way to revalorize glycerol and transform to value-added chemicals. Yet, it is undeniably a necessary move towards achieving greener and sustainable processes. For instance, glycerol 1,2-carbonate (4-hydroxymethyl-1, 3-dioxolan-2-one) is currently one of the most celebrated glycerol derivatives that captured arising scientific and industrial attentions due to its extensive potential applicability. This cyclic ester of glycerol with carbonic …

Development And Industrial Application Of Novel Non-Cr Passivity For Electrolytic Manganese, Siming Chen, Dongping Duan, E Zhou, Ting Li

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

No abstract provided.

Sox Trapping Performances Of Cuo Based Silica Mesoporous Adsorbents For Desulfurization Of Industrial Flue Gas Stream, Sophie Dorge, Marc Berger, Habiba Nouali, Laure Michelin, Ludovic Josien, Matthieu Vierling, Michel Molière, Emmanuel Fiani, David Habermacher, Joël Patarin, Jean-François Brilhac, Pierrick Gaudin

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

In the present work, CuO/SBA-15 SOx regenerable adsorbents were elaborated. Synthesis conditions were controlled in order to obtain highly dispersed Cu²⁺ species assumed to be Cu-O-Si species. Materials were evaluated as SOx adsorbents through multicycle adsorption/regeneration experiments. Their performances decrease along cycles due to copper species sintering and there is an optimal copper loading for a maximal SOx adsorption efficiency.

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Catalytic Property Of Olivine For Bio-Oil Gasification, Mohammad Latifi, Franco Berruti, Cedric Briens

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Introduction

Biomass is an attractive renewable source of fuel and energy. Thermochemical processes can convert biomass to a liquid bio-oil or to a syngas. The advantage of using bio-oil as an intermediate is that, in contrast with both raw biomass and gas, it can easily be produced in small distributed units, stored and transported. Not only can platform chemicals and clean fuels be produced from syngas, but hydrogen is itself an alternative fuel. A high hydrogen production is usually desired: for example, methanol production requires a syngas with a molar H₂/CO ratio of 2. Therefore, maximum hydrogen production …

Influence Of Pre-Treatment On Grass Pyrolysis For High Value Products, Chiara Barbiero, Charles Greenhalf, Franco Berruti, Cedric Briens

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Pyrolysis of biomass is a process which yields high quality, clean, and green products like bio-oil and bio-char. Bio-oil has a wide range of applications and also includes liquid fuels and raw chemical products. Therefore, it will be attractive to tailor the bio-oil properties to improve the yields of specific compounds that are economically interesting. In particular, pyrolytic sugar can be used for fermentation while phenolic compounds have an array of industrial applications such as adhesives; moreover, they can substitute petroleum-based phenols. However, it is difficult to achieve high yields of specific chemicals in the bio-oil without adequate biomass pre-treatments. …

Pyrolysis Of Residues From Well-Established Biochemical Processes For Biomass Conversion Into Liquid Fuel, Devon Barry, Cedric Briens, Franco Berruti

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

This project focuses on the pyrolysis of residues from well-established biochemical processes into liquid fuel. The residues examined come from two major conversion processes; wastewater treatment facilities, and biogas digesters. These processes produce low value, unconverted residues that are refractory to further biochemical conversion. Pyrolysis is an aggressive thermochemical conversion process that is ideally suited to such residues.

Currently, these residues are viewed as a low-value or waste products that must be disposed of. The environmentally friendly disposal of wastewater sludge is a common problem for many municipalities, where the sludge is often incinerated or disposed of in landfills. Anaerobic …

Adhesives From Biomass Pyrolysis, Dongbing Li, Franco Berruti, Cedric Briens

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Fast pyrolysis of waste biomass with high lignin content, such as birch wood, birch bark, hydrolysis lignin, kraft lignin or low-cost digestate from biogas production, provides oils that can be substituted for phenol in phenol-formaldehyde resins. Biomass fast pyrolysis was performed in a dedicated fluidized bed pyrolyzer that incorporated two crucial innovations: a fractional condensation train provided dry bio-oils with ~1% of moisture and much reduced acidity; autothermal pyrolysis with partial oxidation reduces operating and capital costs, as well as increasing the quality of the dry bio-oil. Dry bio-oil obtained from autothermal fast pyrolysis of kraft lignin can be used …

Performance And Emissions Of A Diesel Engine Fueled With Biodiesel Doped With A Renewable Antioxidant Additive, Alberto Gonzalo, Jorge Arroyo, Francisco Moreno, Mariano Muñoz, Carlos Monné, Ana Bautista, Noemí Gil-Lalaguna, Cristina Dueso, José Luis Sánchez

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

1. INTRODUCTION

Biodiesel is a mixture of alkyl esters obtained by transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats with a short chain alcohol (mainly methanol or ethanol) and catalyzed by acids or bases (usually NaOH or KOH) [1]. Final properties of the biodiesel are similar to those of petroleum derived-diesel. Therefore, biodiesel can be used in diesel conventional engines without significant modifications or mixed in any proportion with fossil diesel.

Some of the main drawbacks of biodiesel to be used as fuel are the low oxidation stability and poor cold flow properties (freezing point and flowability of the …

Hydrothermal Treatment Of Bio-Oil For The Production Of Biodiesel Antioxidants, Noemí Gil-Lalaguna, Ana Bautista, Lucía Botella, Alberto Gonzalo, José Luis Sánchez, Jesús Arauzo

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

1. INTRODUCTION

Fuel consumption is inevitable for industrial development and growth of any country. In the last years, diesel fuels have gained an increasingly important role in the transportation sector. However, the rapid depletion of crude oil resources, as well as the worldwide concern about the environmental damage related to the increase in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants, has led to an increasing awareness about the development and use of renewable fuels. In this context, biodiesel appears as a good alternative to fossil diesel because of its renewable and biodegradable character, also being a non-toxic and clean fuel …

The Integrated Forest Biorefinery, An Example Of Green Engineering, Miyuru Kannangara, Mariya Marinova, Michel Perrier, Jean Paris

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

1. Introduction

Confronted by a steady decline in the demand for commodity papers, the pulp and paper industry has undertaken intensive R&D efforts to identify and develop new non paper products that could be manufactured from the forest biomass. The components of wood that can be separated and converted into new non paper products are the cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Celluloses and hemicelluloses are polymers of various sugars and lignin is a polymer of phenylpropane units. This paper treats the specific case of lignin and hemicellulose extraction from a Kraft pulping process. Two processes have been investigated for the extraction …

Two-Stage Thermochemical Valorisation Of Sugar-Derived Humins, Paul De Wild

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

The majority of commercial bulk chemicals is still derived from fossil resources. The development of green biobased chemicals is high on the global research and development agenda. Lignocellulosic biomass and particularly the cellulose and hemicellulose fraction are considered interesting feeds for the production of key bulk chemicals to serve as building blocks for the chemical industry. Efficient chemo-catalytic conversion technologies for C5 and C6 sugars are under development to generate selected existing bulk chemicals, such as Levulinic acid (LA), caprolactam (CAP), butadiene (BD), furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a very promising platform chemical for the synthesis of a.o. novel monomers for …

Process For Removal And Recovery Of Phenolic Compounds From Switchgrass, Robert M. Counce, Nikki Labbé, Michelle L. Lehmann, Jack S. Watson, Jingming Tao

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Introduction

This paper describes a process for the separation and recovery of non-structural phenolic compounds from switchgrass. This process is proposed as a preliminary step of a biorefinery incorporating the organosolv process for biomass fractionation. The economics of such an addition to separate and recover phenolic compounds is then investigated.

Switchgrass has been selected as a dedicated feedstock for bioprocesses producing liquid fuels such as ethanol and advanced fuels. The University of Tennessee has been heavily involved in the development of switchgrass as one of the feedstocks for bioenergy production in the southeast (Tiller 2011). Biofuels have the potential to …

Marketable Bioproducts And Biomaterials From Research To Commercial Manufacture For Sustainability, Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions And A Circular Economy, Richard Jewell

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Enerkem produces clean fuels and green chemicals from waste with improved economics and greater sustainability than technologies that rely on fossil sources. Enerkem’s technology converts non-recyclable municipal solid waste, such as household garbage, into clean fuels and renewable chemicals.

Enerkem develops and delivers biorefineries in North America and globally, using internal process engineering groups to develop and build biorefineries that are modular and standardize plant fabrication and manufacturing.

The success of Enerkem’s process engineering acumen is demonstrated in Enerkems rollout of the world’s first commercial biorefinery to use municipal solid waste feedstock to produce methanol and ethanol. This facility, called …

Fundamental Study And Applications To Biomass Pyrolysis Of The Mechanically Fluidized Reactor, Valentina Lago, Franco Berruti, Cedric Briens

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Lignin has great potential for the production of aromatics currently derived from petroleum, since it is the most abundant source of aromatics in nature. At present, Kraft lignin is used as fuel within the pulping process but, alternatively, it could be converted to high-value chemicals using thermochemical processes such as pyrolysis. Kraft lignin, however, is a very cohesive and thermally sensitive powder with foaming and agglomerating tendency under reaction conditions. Consequently, a novel reactor design, designated as Mechanically Fluidized Reactor (MFR) has been developed to successfully process Kraft lignin.

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Using The Jiggled Bed Reactor To Develop Activated Carbons From Biomass Residues, Anastasia Colomba, Franco Berruti, Cedric Briens

5th International Congress on Green Process Engineering (GPE 2016)

Activated carbons are the most used adsorbent material. Their applications range from wastewater treatment, air purification, removal of contaminants and many others. According to “Global Activated Carbon Market Forecast & Opportunities 2017”, the demand for activated carbon is expected to increase more than 10% per year for the next 5 years to make it a $3 billion market by 2017. Current processes for the production of activated carbons from renewable resources do not provide valuable co-products. This presentation focuses on the conversion to activated carbon of the bio-char co-product of the pyrolysis process. Pyrolysis also provides valuable bio-oil, which is …

Secure Software Engineering Education: Knowledge Area, Curriculum And Resources, Xiaohong Yuan, Li Yang, Bilan Jones, Huiming Yu, Bei-Tseng Chu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This paper reviews current efforts and resources in secure software engineering education, with the goal of providing guidance for educators to make use of these resources in developing secure software engineering curriculum. These resources include Common Body of Knowledge, reference curriculum, sample curriculum materials, hands-on exercises, and resources developed by industry and open source community. The relationship among the Common Body of Knowledge proposed by the Department of Homeland Security, the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and ACM/IEEE are discussed. The recent practices on secure software engineering education, including secure software engineering related programs, courses, and course modules …

Dango (Doings And Goings On) - Vol. 22 | Issue 5, Cecily Towell, Haley Stien, Matthew Kimball, Rusty Towell, Vicente Rojas, Zhaojia Xi, Caleb Hicks, Joshua Daniel Martinez, Paul Carstens, Reuben Byrd, Shon Watson, Donald Isenhower, Mike Daugherity

DANGO: Doings and Goings On: Summer Research Newsletter, Department of Engineering and Physics

Weekly Summer Newsletter for Engineering and Physics

Experimental And Computational Study Of Gas Bubble Removal In A Microfluidic System Using Nanofibrous Membranes, Hamed Gholami Derami, Ravindra Vundavilli, Jeff Darabi

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This paper presents a simple and efficient method for removing gas bubbles from a microfluidic system. This bubble removal system uses a T-junction configuration to generate gas bubbles within a water-filled microchannel. The generated bubbles are then transported to a bubble removal region and vented through a hydrophobic nanofibrous membrane. Four different hydrophobic Polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) membranes with different pore sizes ranging from 0.45 to 3 μm are tested to study the effect of membrane structure on the system performance. The fluidic channel width is 500 μm and channel height ranges from 100 to 300 μm. Additionally, a 3D computational fluid …

Modeling Of Soybean Under Present And Future Climates In Mozambique, Manuel António Dina Talacuece, Flávio Barbosa Justino, Rafael De Ávila Rodrigues, Milton Edgar Pereira Flores, Jéssica Garcia Nascimento, Eduardo Eduardo Santos

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

This study aims to calibrate and validate the generic crop model (CROPGRO-Soybean) and estimate the soybean yield, considering simulations with different sowing times for the current period (1990–2013) and future climate scenario (2014–2030). The database used came from observed data, nine climate models of CORDEX (Coordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment)-Africa framework and MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications) reanalysis. The calibration and validation data for the model were acquired in field experiments, carried out in the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 growing seasons in the experimental area of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Angónia, Mozambique. The yield …

Identification Of Streamflow Changes Across The Continental United States Using Variable Record Lengths, Kazi Tamaddun, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The study focused on investigating the presence of change patterns in 600 unimpaired streamflow stations across the continental U.S. at different time intervals to understand the change patterns that can provide significant insight regarding climate variability and change. Each station had continuous streamflow data of at least 30 years (the entire dataset covered a range of 109 years). Presence of trends and shifts were detected in water year and the four seasons (fall, winter, spring, and summer) analyzing the water year and seasonal mean flows. Two non-parametric tests, namely, the Mann-Kendall test and the Pettitt’s test were used to identify …

Floquet Topological Insulators For Sound, Romain Fleury, Alexander B. Khanikaev, Andrea Alu

Publications and Research

The unique conduction properties of condensed matter systems with topological order have recently inspired a quest for the similar effects in classical wave phenomena. Acoustic topological insulators, in particular, hold the promise to revolutionize our ability to control sound, allowing for large isolation in the bulk and broadband one-way transport along their edges, with topological immunity against structural defects and disorder. So far, these fascinating properties have been obtained relying on moving media, which may introduce noise and absorption losses, hindering the practical potential of topological acoustics. Here we overcome these limitations by modulating in time the acoustic properties of …

Design For Resourceful Ageing: Intervening In The Ethics Of Gerontechnology, Elisa Giaccardi, Lenneke Kuijer, Louis Neven

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper discusses an innovative approach to the design of technologies for older people. The approach contains a critique of “gerontechnology” as taking decisions out of the hands of older people and materializing what it means to live healthily and well into “foolproof” designs that easily become inappropriate in the variety of situations in which older people end up using them. The proposed design approach focuses on re-delegating such ethical decisions to the point at which technology is used. It does so by considering technologies as resources that can complement the ageing competences of older people and adapt in a …

Fiction As A Resource In Participatory Design, Eva Knutz, Tau U. Lenskjold, Thomas Markussen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In recent years, co-design research has moved into the heart of business and organisational matters of concern. As a consequence of that fact, the idea of what design is capable of evolves into something that does not only encompass product and service design, but also at the same time changes organisations’ way of doing things – or in other words, it challenges the organisational culture and the mindset of the decision-makers as a way towards the successful embedding of a project within the organisation. This paper investigates how the development of a new service design project together with integrated co-design …

Perception, Meaning And Transmodal Design, Mathias Nordvall, Mattias Arvola

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Our perceptual system allows us to experience and make meaning of the world through different modalities. We can move between feeling, seeing and hearing things and still makes sense of our world. Our cognitive activities are transmodal. In interaction design this means that both our design processes and our users’ interactions are transmodal. We have gained insights into how transitions between modalities, both in the design context and in the users’ interaction context, modulate meaning and experience, by analysing three interactive systems: SimProv, VibEd, and Sightlence. We propose that a transmodal design approach facilitate designers to realize the communicative potential …

Metrics, Software Engineering, Small Systems – The Future Of Systems Development, William L. Honig

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this talk I will introduce the importance of metrics, or measures, and the role they play in the development of high quality computer systems. I will review some key mega trends in computer science over the last three decades and then explain why I believe the trend to small networked systems, along with metrics and software engineering will define the future of high technology computer based systems.

I first learned about metrics at the Bell System where everything was measured. Metrics can be understood easily if you think of them as measures, for example of calories or salt in …

Vaccination As A Tool To Reduce Antimicrobial Resistance Worldwide, Bernard Vallat, Elisabeth Erlacher

Vaccine Technology VI

Antimicrobial resistance is a global human and animal health concern that is influenced by the non-appropriate use of antimicrobial agents in both human and veterinary medicine, as well as in the plant sector. To combat antimicrobial resistance, the World Organisation for Animal health (OIE) has developed science-based intergovernmental standards and guidelines covering terrestrial animals and aquaculture.

The OIE also contributed to the development of the WHO Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, adopted in 2015 by the World Health Assembly. The 180 Member Countries of the OIE expressed their support to this plan of action through a Resolution, …

Explorable 3d Model Of Scu Campus, Benjamin Giglione

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

My project is an interactive 3D model of SCU campus, which prospective students and their parents can explore without actually having to make the journey to campus. The architecture of the university is made traversable by running under Unreal Engine 4 which is a 3D game development framework that supports the Oculus Rift. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, which enhances the immersive experience for users of the SCU campus application. It accomplishes this by displaying the rendered images in immersive 3D right in front of their faces, and tracking their head motion and moving the viewpoint in …

Plant-Based Technologies To Enable Rapid Response To Ebola Outbreak, Jerzy Karczewski, Vidadi Yusibov

Vaccine Technology VI

Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with a strain of Ebola virus (Zaire, Sudan or Marburg). Ebola is spread through a direct contact with body fluids of infected patients. The recent Ebola outbreak affected multiple countries in West Africa and clearly demonstrated a need for development of technologies enabling production of adequate supply of vaccines and therapeutics to treat infected patients. We have undertaken efforts to develop methods and produce plant-based recombinant vaccine as well as a series of monoclonal antibodies to fight Ebola infection.

Several approaches were carried out to develop vaccines based on recombinant …

How To Deliver New Vaccines Under Very Short Timelines: The Zapi Project, Jean-Christophe Audonnet

Vaccine Technology VI

The ZAPI project is the first One Health project in the European Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) program. Its objective is to define and validate unique methodologies that can be applied when new zoonotic infectious diseases will occur in Europe or other regions of the world. The project is supporting an entirely new approach for “anticipating the unexpected”, and is defining new ways to alleviate the technical constraints which are typically encountered with the classical vaccine development processes.

The ZAPI project involves a total of 20 partners, from academic, biotech, and industry origin. One important feature of ZAPI is that it …

Usu Engineering Faculty Receive $5.8m In Nuclear Energy Research Grants | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

NEWS RELEASE – June 16, 2016 – Two professors of mechanical engineering at Utah State University will receive grants from the U.S. Department of Energy totaling $5.8 million for nuclear energy research. The news came in a Tuesday announcement from DOE officials who awarded more than $35 million to 48 university-led nuclear research and development projects around the country through the Nuclear Energy University Program, or NEUP.