Search results for "Process (engineering)"
showing 10 items of 931 documents
Optimum design and operation of primary sludge fermentation schemes for volatile fatty acids production.
2003
This paper presents a model-knowledge based algorithm for optimising the primary sludge fermentation process design and operation. This is a recently used method to obtain the volatile fatty acids (VFA), needed to improve biological nutrient removal processes, directly from the raw wastewater. The proposed algorithm consists in a heuristic reasoning algorithm based on the expert knowledge of the process. Only effluent VFA and the sludge blanket height (SBH) have to be set as design criteria, and the optimisation algorithm obtains the minimum return sludge and waste sludge flow rates which fulfil those design criteria. A pilot plant fed with municipal raw wastewater was operated in order to …
Matching Economical, Energetic and Environmental Benefits: An Analysis for Hybrid CHCP-Heat Pumps Systems
2006
Abstract The optimization of design and operation of combined heat, cooling and power systems usually leads to select different plant lay-outs and size of components, depending on the adopted optimization criterion (maximum profit or energy saving or minimum environmental impact). This occurs when the current energy prices and the normative provisions supporting cogeneration are not able to coincide with the specific customer’s interest and the overall “social interest” for a reduction in energy consumption and in pollutants’ emissions. At EU level, polygeneration is considered to have a large potential for residential and commercial buildings district network, for the tertiary sector and f…
Product information, hedonic evaluation, and purchase decision: an experimental study of orange juice
2007
AbstractTwo randomly sampled groups of subjects were endowed with real budgets and placed in 5 different budget/price situations. In each situation they had to evaluate 6 orange juices and complete a demand table. At the end of the experiment, one demand table was randomly selected and participants had to buy the corresponding products. In one group, participants choose after looking at the packaging in the other they could also taste the products. Results show that participants who chose without tasting, made quicker decisions, selected a larger number of variants and were more influenced by prices than those who could taste the products. Although choices appeared very heterogeneous, most …
Exergetic and exergoeconomic analysis of a novel hybrid solar-geothermal polygeneration system producing energy and water
2016
Abstract A dynamic simulation model of a novel solar–geothermal polygeneration system and the related exergetic and exergoeconomic analyses are presented in this paper. The plant is designed in order to supply electrical, thermal and cooling energy and fresh water for a small community, connected to a district heating and cooling network. The hybrid system is equipped with an Organic Rankine Cycle fueled by medium-enthalpy geothermal energy and by a Parabolic Trough Collector solar field. Geothermal brine is also used for space heating and cooling purposes. Finally, geothermal fluid supplies heat to a Multi-Effect Distillation unit, producing also desalinized water from seawater. Dynamic si…
Rational computing of energy levels for organic electronics: the case of 2-benzylidene-1,3-indandiones
2016
Device engineering in organic electronics, an active area of research, requires knowledge of the energy levels of organic materials (traditionally but ambiguously denoted as HOMO and LUMO). These can be effectively determined by electrochemical investigation, but yet more effective would be quantum chemical (QC) computation of these quantities. However, there is no consensus on the computational method in the research community. Ongoing discussions often focus on choosing the right density functional method, but neglect other model parameters, in particular, the basis set. This study considers comparison of various methodologies and parameters for predicting ionization energy I and electron…
Thermodynamics of yeast cell osmoregulation: Passive mechanisms
1996
International audience; The response of yeast cells to osmotic pressure variations of the medium were studied through the kinetics of cell-volume modifications corresponding to the mass transfer of water and solutes. Osmotic variations were made by modification of the concentration of an external binary solution (polyol/water) without nutritive components. Two phases were distinguished in the thermodynamic response. A transient phase following an osmotic shift, which is characterised by rapid water transfer across the cell membrane and whose kinetics determine cell viability; then, a steady-state phase is reached when the cell volume becomes quasi-constant. The response of the cell during t…
Effects of PET packaging on the quality of an orange juice made from concentrate
2004
An orange juice made from concentrate was conditioned in three different PET (PolyEthylene Terephtalate) and glass packagings. Influence of storage conditions (length of storage, light, oxygen) on vitamin C content, browning index, and colour were measured. Results show that permeability to oxygen of PET packagings is the major factor detrimentally affecting the above parameters.
Selectivity improvement of semi-conducting gas sensors by selective filter for atmospheric pollutants detection
2006
International audience; The monitoring of atmospheric pollution using chemical gas sensors is a challenge due to the lack of selectivity of most existing devices. However, their performances can be improved using filtering films achieving the separation or the removal of some gases. This study is focused on the detection of carbon monoxide and of oxidant pollutants (nitrogen dioxide and ozone) by sensors constituted of SnO2, or phthalocyanine compounds. Two types of filters were investigated. Filters based on MnO2 powder are successful to remove ozone while preserving nitrogen dioxide in a large temperature range from ambient to 400 -C, but they partially convert carbon monoxide. The second…
Identification and quantification of phosphorus in cheeses - methodological investigations by solid-state 31P NMR spectroscopy
2008
International audience; NMR has been shown to be an interesting tool for investigating dairy foods, in particular cheese products, for which the method is non-destructive and well suited for investigating their compounds showing different structure and mobility during ripening. Solid-state magic angle spinning 31P NMR spectroscopy was used to characterize the structure and composition of semi-hard cheeses. Assignment including overlapping resonances from mobile/immobile phosphorylated serine residues and inorganic calcium phosphates, has been realised using different NMR techniques (spin echo, cross polarisation and single pulse excitation) and by comparison with spectra of literature. Stud…
Quantitative structure-property relationships approach of aroma compounds behaviour in polysaccharide gels
2010
International audience; Pectin and carrageenan are common used thickeners in fat free foods. The aim of this work was to study separately and to compare their respective effects on the aroma release, in order to investigate the nature of involved interactions. In this way, we studied the influence of the chemical structure of 13 aroma compounds on retention/release equilibrium between vapour phase and gels using QSPR tools. Six descriptors are involved in the best obtained QSPR equations, and three of them appeared to play a critical role in the behaviour of aroma compound. Our results put forward the role of polar effects on the retention of odorant molecules in both iota-carrageenan and p…