Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Investigation Of Stabilization Mechanisms For Colloidal Suspension Using Nanoparticles., Qingwen He

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, charged nanoparticles have been found to enhance the stability of colloidal suspensions. One promising explanation of this stabilization mechanism is “Nanoparticle Haloing”- the formation of a non-adsorbing nanoparticle layer surrounding neutral colloids that would induce an effective electrostatic repulsion between them. The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of additional charged nanoparticles on the interaction between neural colloids in nanoparticle-regulated complex fluids. Firstly, colloidal probe Atomic Force Microscopy (CP-AFM) is used to directly measure the interaction force in such system with nanoparticle volume fractions varying from 10-6 to 10-2. It is found that …

An Investigation Of Heat Transfer Enhancement In Nanofluids Containing Core And Shell Nanoparticles., Cory Adam Milligan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to determine the differences in heat transfer enhancement of poly alpha olefin oil after the addition of two types of carbon coated nanoparticles, specifically carbon coated cobalt and carbon coated copper nanoparticles. The carbon shell allows for the nanoparticles to be homogenously dispersed in the oil and remain stable throughout the experimental procedure. The nanofluids were prepared in concentrations of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 wt%. A constant surface heat flux testing rig is used to determine the heat transfer coefficients of the base fluids and the nanofluids. Inlet temperatures to the heat transfer section …

Enhancement Of Anaerobic Digestion Of Actual Industrial Wastewaters : Reactor Stability And Kinetic Modeling., Mahyar Ghorbanian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Industrial plants pay disposal costs for discharging their wastewater that can contain pollutants, toxic organics and inorganics, to the sewer based on the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) or Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the streams. It has become increasingly expensive for industry to meet stringent regulatory standards. One solution to reduce this cost is to anaerobically degrade the COD content, which in turn generates useful methane gas that can be used to generate useful energy or heat. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is one of the most suitable renewable resources of conversion of industrial wastewaters to bioenergy, but it is not widely …

Aging Of A Polymer Core Composite Conductor Under Combined Ozone And Temperature Conditions, James M. Middleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The next generation High Temperature Low Sag Polymer Core Composite Conductors (HTLS PCCC) can experience harsh in-service environments including high temperature and highly concentrated ozone. In some extreme cases, it is possible that the conductors will experience temperatures of up to 180°C and ozone concentrations as high as 1% (10,000 ppm). Therefore, the primary goal of this research was to determine the most damaging aging conditions which could negatively affect the in-service life of the conductors. This included characterizing the aging in ozone and at high temperature of the HTLS PCCC hybrid composite rods and neat resin. It was found …

Pretreatment Of Cellulosic Biomass By Iron-Containing Magnetic Ionic Liquid Dissolution, Christopher Roth Riley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this project is to determine the effectiveness in the preprocessing of biomass when magnetic ionic liquids (MIL) (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate (Bmim[FeCl4]) and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate (Emim[FeCl4])) are used as a green solvent. Lignocellulose is a promising starting material for a plethora of products, ranging from biofuels to custom chemicals; however, lignocellulose is resistant to enzymatic degradation. Various biomass-preprocessing techniques such as microbial, mechanical, and chemical pretreatment are used for enhancing the digestibility of biomass to sugars for ethanol production. Varieties of ionic liquids have demonstrated the ability to fragment lignocellulose. However, after fragmentation, separation of biomass and ionic liquids …

The Effects Of Diffusion, Capillary Heterogeneity, And Porous Media Morphology On Co2 Migration In Porous Media, Oluseye Babafemi Adeyemi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Modified Invasion Percolation (MIP) model was used to simulate the invasion of CO2 into a medium initially saturated with water and the style of capillary heterogeneity in combination with buoyancy and viscous forces were varied to yield 105 different simulation scenarios. Thereafter, the invasion of the CO2 gas is simulated using a finite difference model and the effective mass transfer coefficient is determined and linked to various styles of capillary heterogeneity. Results show that an increase in saturation does not result in an increase in mass transfer coefficient rather, the surface area, which in turn is controlled by the …

Evaluation Of Cotton Valley "D" Sand Production In Stampede Field, Mississippi, U.S.A., Patrick Lawrence Murphy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Room Temperature Ionic Liquid (Rtil) Membranes For Bio-Methane Dehumidification, Ryan Amos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Renewable fuels are heavily researched due to the increasing price of and resulting pollution from fossil fuels. The production of useable energy from waste—animal, sewage, discarded food, landfill matter would be a valuable renewable fuel production method. Biogas is a renewable fuel that is produced by anaerobic digestion, composed mainly of methane, carbon dioxide and small percentages of hydrogen sulfide and water vapor. Before this biogas—predominately bio-methane—can be converted to fuel, it must be dehumidified to become useable. Typically membrane-based gas dehumidification uses hydrophilic polymer membrane materials, such as polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and cellulose acetate (CA). The main problems with polymer …

A Fractal Analysis Of The Detection Of Glucose Molecules On Biosensor Surfaces, Lokesh Taneja

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A fractal analysis for the binding and dissociation of glucose molecules to different biosensor surfaces is presented. The sensors contain immobilized glucose oxidase enzymes that have an affinity for the glucose molecules in solution. Data for different modified biosensors is modeled and analyzed, and a single, dual or triple-fractal analysis is applied where adequate. The binding and dissociation kinetics coefficient where applicable are calculated for each of models along with the fractal dimensions. When both binding and dissociation phases are present, the affinity, K of the receptor to the glucose molecule is calculated and its variation with the fractal dimension …

Thermal And Photochemical Interaction Of Co2 With Biochar, Eneruvie Uyoyou Okinedo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With interest in the changes that may occur to the carbonaceous portion of biochar obtain through the pyrolysis of biomass, the simple interaction between CO2 and biochar with water or a mixture of water and ethanol as hydrogen donor resulted in three significant observations. These reactions were carried out thermally at 333K and photochemically by simulating energy from the with a xenon lamp. The photochemical reaction involving biochar, CO2 with water or a mixture of water and ethanol as hydrogen donor led to a decrease in oxygen content of the parent biochar material, as observed by an increase in the …

Admicellar Polymerization Of Calcium Carbonate And Its Performance In Drilling Fluids, Poh Lee Cheah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Admicellar polymerization using sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) template to form ultrafilm polystyrene on commercial calcium carbonate (CaCO3 ) of various particle sizes was studied. Adsorption isotherms of SDS decrease after the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of SDS was observed. This is explained by the phase behavior of SDS with calcium ion. The solubility product constants (Ksp) for calcium dodecylsulfate (Ca(DS) 2) were calculated as 1.55x10?9M3 at 30°C and 8.58x10?9M3 at 50°C. At SDS concentrations above the CMC, precipitation of Ca(DS)2 was governed by the critical ratio of calcium ion concentration bound onto anionic micelles which was 0.22 at 30°C and 0.20 …

Processes Involving Acid Gas Solubility In Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (Rtils), Fadekemi E. Osideinde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The literature contains a number of thermodynamic studies involving the solubility of acid gases in RTILs. This thesis looks at using these studies in the context of two processes: membrane separation and absorption refrigeration cycles. The first part of this study investigated the separation of a mixed dry gas feed of CO2/CH4 by four Stabilized Ionic Liquid Membranes (SILMs); 1-Ethyl-3-methlyimidazolium dicyanamide, [emim][DCA], 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate, [emim][SCN], 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [emim][Tf2N] and 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium nitrate, [bmim][NO 3]. The selectivities and permeances for the CO2/CH 4 feed were measured in all four SILMs at various partial pressures of CO2 in the feed and at two …

Preprocessing Of Biomass Using Mechanical, Chemical And Microbial Techniques, Swetha Mahalaxmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biomass-derived fuels have acquired a lot of attention recently due to increasing emphasis on energy independence, efforts to utilize abundance of green resources and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Grasses, agricultural residues, animal residues and waste, used oils, etc., can be used as starting materials in the production of biofuels. Various preprocessing techniques used in the preprocessing of biomass, such as microbial preprocessing, mechanical preprocessing and chemical pretreatment, are used for enhancing the digestibility of biomass to sugars for ethanol production. In this work, studies were conducted to improve the microbial, chemical and mechanical preprocessing of switch grass by decreasing …

Admicellar Polymerization To Compatibilize Calcium Carbonate With Oil-Based Drilling Mud, Olugbenga Samuel Ojo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Weighting agents like calcium carbonate (CC) are added to drilling mud to improve mud properties and performance during oil and gas drilling operations. Oil-based mud (OBM), a more preferred drilling mud, being hydrophobic is particularly non-compatible with hydrophilic CC. This work explored an economically viable admicellar polymerization technique to surface-modify the high energy hydrophilic CC surface to a low energy hydrophobic surface by polymerizing organic styrene monomer within an admicelle of nonionic surfactant Triton X-100 adsorbed on the CC surface. BET N2 particle size analysis, Soxhlet extraction of the coated polymer, Fourier transform infrared-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectra analysis, and …

Cfd Modeling Of Entrance And Exit Geometries Of A Wind Speed Accelerator., David Russ

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current wind power technology is not economically feasible throughout most of the United States due to low average wind speeds. A design for a small-scale wind concentrator device suitable for use in areas of low wind velocity was tested using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Using a novel approach, the device seeks to accelerate incoming air above minimum velocities required for economical power generation. The novel approach employs a funnel shaped inlet with relief vents along the circumference, so as to alleviate backpressure. Both inlet and outlet sections utilize funnel shapes with both parabolic and hyperbolic regions. All geometry and mesh …

Co2 Adsorption On Solid Sorbents, Bingyu Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sorbent-based CO2 capture technology is considered as one of the potential scientific techniques for mitigating greenhouse gas emission. Major advantages of sorbent based adsorption are its low regeneration energy coupled with the elimination of corrosion and equipment degradation characteristic of amine based solvent CO2 capture systems which are the preferred industrial methods. Different CO2 capture configurations, processes, and operational parameters for different sorbents were revieand summarized. Efficient industrial applications for CO2 capture require that solid sorbents possess an adsorption capacity between 1000-2000µmol/g or more together with a long-term regeneration capacity. Economical consideration necessitates that the cost of CO2 sequestration be …

Designing A Membrane Module For Determining The Permeance Of High Fluxing Membranes And The Testing Rtil-Membranes For Dehumidification., Sikyun Bae

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Membrane-based gas dehumidification can have technical energy, and economical advantages over other dehumidification technologies. Because, it is simple to install, ease to operate, and take low process cost. Removal of water vapor from gases constitutes a significant expenditure of energy in our society. Dehydration via a membrane process would constitute wide spread energy savings. This thesis explores experimental issues involved with testing Room Temperature Ionic Liquid(RTIL)-membrane for dehumidifying gases. RTIL-membranes or Supported Ionic Liquid Membranes (SILMs) have advantageous performance for the separations of the gas pair CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2. Previous research did not separate the membrane mass transport resistance the …

A Computer Science Approach To Identify And Classify Hyperactivated Spermatozoa, Norbert Kaula

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Effective Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) relies in part upon accurate but easily conducted measurements of sperm motion parameters. Several established methods are widely used to assess possible reasons for male infertility, in human and veterinary Andrology clinics. Computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) devices quantitatively assess sperm motion parameters, which have been defined by the World Health Organization, and include the percentage of motile cells in a sample and the motion characteristics of individual cells, such as curvilinear velocity (VCL), average path velocity (VAP) and straight line velocity (VSL). However, CASA analyses fail to define hyperactive sperm motility or determine the prevalence …

Cost Effective Human Protein C Purification From Cohn Fraction Iv-1 Using Mini-Antibody., Doh Gyeuhn Ahn 1969-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Protein C (PC) is an important anticoagulant, antithrombotic, and antiinflammatory in blood plasma. PC deficiency can lead to severe venous thrombotic events, including lung embolism, stroke, and heart attack. In the body, PC is activated only when it is needed, and, therefore, PC does not cause bleeding problems that currently available anticoagulants may do. Purification of PC from plasma is currently done by immunoaffinity chromatography using monoclonal antibodies (Mabs), which is very expensive. Single chain variable regions (mini-Mab) with a PC binding capability, which can be produced in recombinant E. coli , were developed for PC purification. Compared to Mabs, …

The Separation Of Zirconium And Hafnium By Distillation : Ii. An Engineering Appraisal Of Aluminum Structural Materials., Everard G. Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A compilation of references dealing with the separation of hafnium and zirconium is presented, together with an evaluation of their possibilities. It is concluded that a distillation procedure holds the greatest promise. The theory of the separation of hafnium and zirconium by distillation of suitable compounds is given and experimental investigations are presented for confirmation.

A Thermometer Technique For The Determination Of Emissivities Of Finishes., N. P. Shah 1923-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two thermometer techniques for the determination of emissivities of surface coatings are presented. One procedure involving the attainment of steady state hear transfer relations in coated thermometers placed through the wall of a duct at right angles to the direction of air flow was found to give consistent results. Another procedure based upon the rate of change of thermometer temperature was found to give consistent results only with excellent control of air conditions. The emissivities of a variety of paints, varnishes and lacquers were determined for temperature range 90⁰ F. to 140⁰ F. using silver and black coatings for standardization. …

A Study Of The Effect Of Pigmentation On The Film Properties Of Ethocel : Part Ii. A Study Of The Effect Of Sun Light On The Color Of Pigments., Mansur Ahmad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to determine quantitatively the effect of pigmentation on the film properties of ethocel lacquer. This study was confined to the determination of tensile strength, percentage elongation at failure, softening and melting points of the films. Pigments were ground in the ethocel lacquer containing three parts ethocel, one part 276V-9 Dow resin and sixteen parts solvent by weight. Softening and melting points of the films were determined and were found to increase uniformly with increasing amounts of the pigments. The tensile strength of ethocel film with titanium dioxide as a pigment increased from 317 Kgm/Cm2 …

Semi-Micro Combustion, Solvent Extraction, And Oleic Acid Adsorption Of Synthetic Drying Oils : Part Ii., Isadore Nathan Cooperman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rates of oxidation, solvent solubility, and oleic acid adsorption, of natural and synthetic drying oil films were studied by semi-micro analytical methods.

This thesis consists of three phases:

I. Ultimate analysis to determine the oxygen content of a film at specific time intervals.

II. Extraction of the films to determine their solvent solubility as a function of time.

III. Oleic acid adsorption to get a correlation of the structure of the film.

Seven materials were examined:

A. Glyceryl Trilinoleate

B. Pentaerythritol Tetralinoleate

C. Pentaerythritol Oleate

D. Pentaerythritol Oleic Acid Long Oil Alkyd

E. Dipentaerythritol Linoleate

F. Pentaerythritol Linoleate

Glyceryl …

Newspaper Matrix Backing Techniques., Robert Roscoe Childs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem of developing suitable materials and techniques for the elimination of hand backing of mats was undertaken. A thermosetting resin of the resorcinol type, ad-mixed with 15 to 25 per cent short-fiber asbestos, was applied to the mats both as a paste and in the form of a partially cured resin sheet. Its use was discontinued since its inherent insulating properties and warpage were found to be undesirable.

After experimenting with several other backing materials and methods, the following procedure was concluded to be feasible:

(1) Spraying sodium silicate solution upon a sheet of blotting paper.

(2) Pressing the …

Relative Volatility Of Esters In Ethyl Alcohol-Water-Ester System., Yi-Chung Chang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The relative volatillities of five branch-chained esters with respect to ethyl alcohol in mixtures of ethyl alcohol and water containing small amounts of esters were determined experimentally. The results could be used in the design of distillation columns for ethyl alcohol purification.

For alcohol concentrations of more than 50 mol per cent, the increase of relative volatility of the esters was inversely proportional to the alcohol concentration. For dilute concentrations of less than 30 mol per cent the increase in volatility was very rapid, and the rates of increase were different for different esters. No simple quantitative correlation was established …

A Study Of Diffusion In Distillation., Joseph G. Duffey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A study of the mass transfer phenomena in fractional distillation was made. Small scale single slot, single cap apparatus was used to obtain the necessary experimental data.

The mass transfer coefficient KgA was calculated using several combinations of liquid and vapor compositions in the menthanol - water system under static liquid conditions. The correlation showed that KgA held about constant over the entire range of concentrations.

The problem of bubble area was studied and reasonable estimations of area, bubble frequency, and time of rise were made. This information is to be incorporated into the calculation of the mass transfer coefficient …

Utilization Of Unwashed Low Grade Phosphate Rock., Stanley Goldsmith 1924-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Plywood Adhesive Development., Edward J. Dowd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is primarily a study of two-step plywood adhesives made with varying amounts of phenol, 1, 3, 5 xylenol, resorcin, and formaldehyde. Each resin was evaluated by using it as the adhesive in making plywood. The plywood was then tested for shear strength and wood failure after a four hour boil.

Procedures are given for making and testing various straight phenolic resins and resins modified with 1, 3, 5 xylenol or resorcin, or comibinations of both of these accelerating resins.

The straight phenolic resins gave boil-proof bonds, but the curing cycle was too long. Those phenolics modified with 1, …

Accelerated Curing Of Superphosphate Fertilizer., Gus W. Leep

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Simultaneous drying of curing superphospate is shown to be of definite value in increasing the available P2O5 content. Raw superphosphate heated to 80 degrees C., and analysed after 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours of curing contained 16.92%, 19.67%, 20.66%, and 20.78% of available P2O5 respectively. For the same periods of time samples cured at room temperature contained 15.28%, 17.1%, 17.7%, and 18.82% of available P2O5. There was a larger amount of P2O5 available after 4 hours heating than after 48 hours at room temperature. This increase represented a 12:1 time-ratio in favor of the heated sample. …

High Temperature Coatings For Aircraft., Arthur Hoff Isaacs 1924-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.