Successive parabolic interpolation as extremum seeking control for microbial fuel & electrolysis cells

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) power production and Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) organic production depend strongly on their dynamic environment conditions, like inlet substrate concentration, temperature, etc. This work presents a discrete extremum seeking controller to quickly tune the MFC and MEC electrical settings in order to achieve maximum performance irrespective of these dynamic environment conditions using the successive parabolic interpolation iteration scheme. The controller converges in about 3.5 days within 5% of the cell's maximum performance and in about 5.4 days within 1% for an established MFC model. The proposed discrete parabola controller converges 3x faster than the state-of-the-art controllers without requiring a time-consuming calibration procedure. Equally fast convergence speed is achieved on a MEC model

A current-driven six-channel potentiostat for rapid performance characterization of microbial electrolysis cells

Knowledge of the performance of microbial electrolysis cells under a wide range of operating conditions is crucial to achieve high production efficiencies. Characterizing this performance in an experiment, however, is challenging due to either the long measurement times of steady-state procedures or the transient errors of dynamic procedures. Moreover, wide parallelization of the measurements is not feasible due to the high measurement equipment cost per channel. Hence, to speedup this characterization and to facilitate low-cost, yet widely parallel measurements, this paper presents a novel rapid polarization curve measurement procedure with a dynamic measurement resolution that runs on a custom six-channel potentiostat with a current-driven topology. As case study, the procedure is used to rapidly assess the impact of altering pH values on a microbial electrolysis cell that produces H-2. A $\times 2$ - $\times 12$ speedup could be obtained in comparison with the state-of-the-art, depending on the characterization resolution (16-128 levels). On top of this speedup, measurements can be parallelized up to $6\times$ on the presented, affordable-42-per-channel-potentiostat

Microbial electrochemistry for bioremediation

Lack of suitable electron donors or acceptors is in many cases the key reason for pollutants to persist in the environment. Externally supplementation of electron donors or acceptors is often difficult to control and/or involves chemical additions with limited lifespan, residue formation or other adverse side effects. Microbial electrochemistry has evolved very fast in the past years - this field relates to the study of electrochemical interactions between microorganisms and solid-state electron donors or acceptors. Current can be supplied in such so-called bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) at low voltage to provide or extract electrons in a very precise manner. A plethora of metabolisms can be linked to electrical current now, from metals reductions to denitrification and dechlorination. In this perspective, we provide an overview of the emerging applications of BES and derived technologies towards the bioremediation field and outline how this approach can be game changing

Successive Parabolic Interpolation as Extremum Seeking Control for Microbial Fuel & Electrolysis Cells

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) power production and Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) organic production depend strongly on their dynamic environment conditions, like inlet substrate concentration, temperature, etc. This work presents a discrete extremum seeking controller to quickly tune the MFC and MEC electrical settings in order to achieve maximum performance irrespective of these dynamic environment conditions using the successive parabolic interpolation iteration scheme. The controller converges in about 3.5 days within 5% of the cell's maximum performance and in about 5.4 days within 1% for an established MFC model. The proposed discrete parabola controller converges 3x faster than the state-of-the-art controllers without requiring a time-consuming calibration procedure. Equally fast convergence speed is achieved on a MEC model.status: publishe

Successive parabolic interpolation as extremum seeking control for microbial fuel & electrolysis cells

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) power production and Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) organic production depend strongly on their dynamic environment conditions, like inlet substrate concentration, temperature, etc. This work presents a discrete extremum seeking controller to quickly tune the MFC and MEC electrical settings in order to achieve maximum performance irrespective of these dynamic environment conditions using the successive parabolic interpolation iteration scheme. The controller converges in about 3.5 days within 5% of the cell's maximum performance and in about 5.4 days within 1% for an established MFC model. The proposed discrete parabola controller converges 3x faster than the state-of-the-art controllers without requiring a time-consuming calibration procedure. Equally fast convergence speed is achieved on a MEC model

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically

Successive parabolic interpolation as extremum seeking control for microbial fuel & electrolysis cells

\u3cp\u3eMicrobial Fuel Cell (MFC) power production and Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC) organic production depend strongly on their dynamic environment conditions, like inlet substrate concentration, temperature, etc. This work presents a discrete extremum seeking controller to quickly tune the MFC and MEC electrical settings in order to achieve maximum performance irrespective of these dynamic environment conditions using the successive parabolic interpolation iteration scheme. The controller converges in about 3.5 days within 5% of the cell's maximum performance and in about 5.4 days within 1% for an established MFC model. The proposed discrete parabola controller converges 3x faster than the state-of-the-art controllers without requiring a time-consuming calibration procedure. Equally fast convergence speed is achieved on a MEC model.\u3c/p\u3

Aerospace Medicine and Biology - A cumulative index to a continuing bibliography

Cumulative index for abstracts of NASA documents on aerospace medicine and biolog

Book of abstracts of the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference: CHEMPOR 2008

This book contains the extended abstracts presented at the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference - CHEMPOR 2008, held in Braga, Portugal, over 3 days, from the 4th to the 6th of September, 2008. Previous editions took place in Lisboa (1975, 1889, 1998), Braga (1978), Póvoa de Varzim (1981), Coimbra (1985, 2005), Porto (1993), and Aveiro (2001). The conference was jointly organized by the University of Minho, “Ordem dos Engenheiros”, and the IBB - Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering with the usual support of the “Sociedade Portuguesa de Química” and, by the first time, of the “Sociedade Portuguesa de Biotecnologia”. Thirty years elapsed since CHEMPOR was held at the University of Minho, organized by T.R. Bott, D. Allen, A. Bridgwater, J.J.B. Romero, L.J.S. Soares and J.D.R.S. Pinheiro. We are fortunate to have Profs. Bott, Soares and Pinheiro in the Honor Committee of this 10th edition, under the high Patronage of his Excellency the President of the Portuguese Republic, Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva. The opening ceremony will confer Prof. Bott with a “Long Term Achievement” award acknowledging the important contribution Prof. Bott brought along more than 30 years to the development of the Chemical Engineering science, to the launch of CHEMPOR series and specially to the University of Minho. Prof. Bott’s inaugural lecture will address the importance of effective energy management in processing operations, particularly in the effectiveness of heat recovery and the associated reduction in greenhouse gas emission from combustion processes. The CHEMPOR series traditionally brings together both young and established researchers and end users to discuss recent developments in different areas of Chemical Engineering. The scope of this edition is broadening out by including the Biological Engineering research. One of the major core areas of the conference program is life quality, due to the importance that Chemical and Biological Engineering plays in this area. “Integration of Life Sciences & Engineering” and “Sustainable Process-Product Development through Green Chemistry” are two of the leading themes with papers addressing such important issues. This is complemented with additional leading themes including “Advancing the Chemical and Biological Engineering Fundamentals”, “Multi-Scale and/or Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Process-Product Innovation”, “Systematic Methods and Tools for Managing the Complexity”, and “Educating Chemical and Biological Engineers for Coming Challenges” which define the extended abstracts arrangements along this book. A total of 516 extended abstracts are included in the book, consisting of 7 invited lecturers, 15 keynote, 105 short oral presentations given in 5 parallel sessions, along with 6 slots for viewing 389 poster presentations. Full papers are jointly included in the companion Proceedings in CD-ROM. All papers have been reviewed and we are grateful to the members of scientific and organizing committees for their evaluations. It was an intensive task since 610 submitted abstracts from 45 countries were received. It has been an honor for us to contribute to setting up CHEMPOR 2008 during almost two years. We wish to thank the authors who have contributed to yield a high scientific standard to the program. We are thankful to the sponsors who have contributed decisively to this event. We also extend our gratefulness to all those who, through their dedicated efforts, have assisted us in this task. On behalf of the Scientific and Organizing Committees we wish you that together with an interesting reading, the scientific program and the social moments organized will be memorable for all.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

MS FT-2-2 7 Orthogonal polynomials and quadrature: Theory, computation, and applications

Quadrature rules find many applications in science and engineering. Their analysis is a classical area of applied mathematics and continues to attract considerable attention. This seminar brings together speakers with expertise in a large variety of quadrature rules. It is the aim of the seminar to provide an overview of recent developments in the analysis of quadrature rules. The computation of error estimates and novel applications also are described