Waste to energy: air pollutant emissions from the steam boilers using recycled waste wood

In Taiwan, combustible wood mostly comes from waste pallets and scrap packaging materials discarded by factories, which produced a total of 278,067 tons of waste wood in 2019. In this study, the heat value of waste wood was 18.3 ± 1.07 MJ kg–1. The measured volatile fraction was 76.5 ± 7.34%, the fixed carbon was 15.7 ± 3.19%, the ash content was 2.96 ± 2.45%, and the moisture content was 21.6 ± 10.2%. The proportions of the elemental constituents in the waste wood were 45.3 ± 4.95%, 46.9 ± 3.94%, 5.9 ± 0.44%, 0.21 ± 0.17%, 0.29 ± 0.26%, and 0.02 ± 0.02% for carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, and chlorine, respectively. The average boiler capacity was 11.5 ± 6.84 ton hr–1, the average fuel consumption of the boilers was 1.47 ± 1.81 ton hr–1, the average operating temperature of the boilers was 853 ± 228°C, the average steam generation of the boilers was 7.63 ± 5.97 ton hr–1, and the average exhaust flow rate was 246.6 ± 200.9 m3 min–1. The main air pollution control systems used in the waste wood combustion boilers were systems combining a cyclone, a baghouse and a scrubber (37.8%), a cyclone and a baghouse (28.4%), a cyclone and a scrubber (10.2%), and systems using a baghouse only (9.8%). Based on our fuel consumption data, the air pollutant emission factors were 0.71 ± 1.44 kg per ton of wood for PM, 0.86 ± 1.47 kg per ton of wood for SOx, and 5.24 ± 9.56 kg per ton of wood for NOx. In July 2022, new emission standards for boilers will be implemented, and emission reductions of at least 30% for PM, 35% for NOx and 7% for SO2 will be required

A side-by-side comparison of Daya Bay antineutrino detectors

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment is designed to determine precisely the neutrino mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ with a sensitivity better than 0.01 in the parameter sin$^22\theta_{13}$ at the 90% confidence level. To achieve this goal, the collaboration will build eight functionally identical antineutrino detectors. The first two detectors have been constructed, installed and commissioned in Experimental Hall 1, with steady data-taking beginning September 23, 2011. A comparison of the data collected over the subsequent three months indicates that the detectors are functionally identical, and that detector-related systematic uncertainties exceed requirements.Comment: 24 pages, 36 figure

Observation of electron-antineutrino disappearance at Daya Bay

The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has measured a non-zero value for the neutrino mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ with a significance of 5.2 standard deviations. Antineutrinos from six 2.9 GW$_{\rm th}$ reactors were detected in six antineutrino detectors deployed in two near (flux-weighted baseline 470 m and 576 m) and one far (1648 m) underground experimental halls. With a 43,000 ton-GW_{\rm th}-day livetime exposure in 55 days, 10416 (80376) electron antineutrino candidates were detected at the far hall (near halls). The ratio of the observed to expected number of antineutrinos at the far hall is $R=0.940\pm 0.011({\rm stat}) \pm 0.004({\rm syst})$. A rate-only analysis finds $\sin^22\theta_{13}=0.092\pm 0.016({\rm stat})\pm0.005({\rm syst})$ in a three-neutrino framework.Comment: 5 figures. Version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Rational Diversification of a Promoter Providing Fine-Tuned Expression and Orthogonal Regulation for Synthetic Biology

Yeast is an ideal organism for the development and application of synthetic biology, yet there remain relatively few well-characterised biological parts suitable for precise engineering of this chassis. In order to address this current need, we present here a strategy that takes a single biological part, a promoter, and re-engineers it to produce a fine-graded output range promoter library and new regulated promoters desirable for orthogonal synthetic biology applications. A highly constitutive Saccharomyces cerevisiae promoter, PFY1p, was identified by bioinformatic approaches, characterised in vivo and diversified at its core sequence to create a 36-member promoter library. TetR regulation was introduced into PFY1p to create a synthetic inducible promoter (iPFY1p) that functions in an inverter device. Orthogonal and scalable regulation of synthetic promoters was then demonstrated for the first time using customisable Transcription Activator-Like Effectors (TALEs) modified and designed to act as orthogonal repressors for specific PFY1-based promoters. The ability to diversify a promoter at its core sequences and then independently target Transcription Activator-Like Orthogonal Repressors (TALORs) to virtually any of these sequences shows great promise toward the design and construction of future synthetic gene networks that encode complex “multi-wire” logic functions

Improved Measurement of Electron Antineutrino Disappearance at Daya Bay

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Azimuthal anisotropy and correlations in the hard scattering regime at RHIC

Azimuthal anisotropy (v(2)) and two-particle angular correlations of high p(T) charged hadrons have been measured in Au+Au collisions at roots(NN) = 130 GeV for transverse momenta up to 6 GeV/c, where hard processes are expected to contribute significantly. The two-particle angular correlations exhibit elliptic flow and a structure suggestive of fragmentation of high p(T) partons. The monotonic rise of v(2)(p(T)) for p(T) 3 GeV/c, a saturation of v(2) is observed which persists up to p(T) = 6 GeV/c