Drying and Heating Modelling of Granular Flow: Application to the Mix-Asphalt Processes

Concrete asphalt is a hydrocarbon material that includes a mix of mineral components along with a bituminous binder. Prior to mixing, its production protocol requires drying and heating the aggregates. Generally performed in a rotary drum, these drying and heating steps within mix asphalt processes have never been studied from a physical perspective. We are thus proposing in the present paper to analyze the drying and heating mechanisms when granular materials and hot gases are involved in a co-current flow. This process step accounts for a large proportion of the overall energy consumed during hot-mix asphalt manufacturing. In the present context, the high energy cost associated with this step has encouraged developing new strategies specifically for the drying process. Applying new asphalt techniques so that an amount of moisture can be preserved in the asphalt concrete appears fundamental to such new strategies. This low-energy asphalt, also referred to as the "warm technique", depends heavily on a relevant prediction of the actual moisture content inside asphalt concrete during the mixing step. The purpose of this paper is to present a physical model dedicated to the evolution in temperature and moisture of granular solids throughout the drying and heating steps carried out inside a rotary drum. An initial experimental campaign to visualize inside a drum at the pilot scale (i.e. 1/3 scale) has been carried out in order to describe the granular flow and establish the necessary physical assumptions for the drying and heating model. Energy and mass balance equations are solved by implementing an adequate heat and mass transfer coupling, yielding a 1D model from several parameters that in turn drives the physical modeling steps. Moreover, model results will be analyzed and compared to several measurements performed in an actual asphalt mix plant at the industrial scale (i.e. full scale)

A practical and catalyst-free trifluoroethylation reaction of amines using trifluoroacetic acid

Amines are a fundamentally important class of biologically active compounds and the ability to manipulate their physicochemical properties through the introduction of fluorine is of paramount importance in medicinal chemistry. Current synthesis methods for the construction of fluorinated amines rely on air and moisture sensitive reagents that require special handling or harsh reductants that limit functionality. Here we report practical, catalyst-free, reductive trifluoroethylation reactions of free amines exhibiting remarkable functional group tolerance. The reactions proceed in conventional glassware without rigorous exclusion of either moisture or oxygen, and use trifluoroacetic acid as a stable and inexpensive fluorine source. The new methods provide access to a wide range of medicinally-relevant functionalized tertiary beta-fluoroalkylamine cores, either through direct trifluoroethylation of secondary amines or via a three-component coupling of primary amines, aldehydes and trifluoroacetic acid. A reduction of in situ-generated silyl ester species is proposed to account for the reductive selectivity observed

Is there a common water-activity limit for the three domains of life?

Archaea and Bacteria constitute a majority of life systems on Earth but have long been considered inferior to Eukarya in terms of solute tolerance. Whereas the most halophilic prokaryotes are known for an ability to multiply at saturated NaCl (water activity (a w) 0.755) some xerophilic fungi can germinate, usually at high-sugar concentrations, at values as low as 0.650-0.605 a w. Here, we present evidence that halophilic prokayotes can grow down to water activities of <0.755 for Halanaerobium lacusrosei (0.748), Halobacterium strain 004.1 (0.728), Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 and Halococcus morrhuae (0.717), Haloquadratum walsbyi (0.709), Halococcus salifodinae (0.693), Halobacterium noricense (0.687), Natrinema pallidum (0.681) and haloarchaeal strains GN-2 and GN-5 (0.635 a w). Furthermore, extrapolation of growth curves (prone to giving conservative estimates) indicated theoretical minima down to 0.611 a w for extreme, obligately halophilic Archaea and Bacteria. These were compared with minima for the most solute-tolerant Bacteria in high-sugar (or other non-saline) media (Mycobacterium spp., Tetragenococcus halophilus, Saccharibacter floricola, Staphylococcus aureus and so on) and eukaryotic microbes in saline (Wallemia spp., Basipetospora halophila, Dunaliella spp. and so on) and high-sugar substrates (for example, Xeromyces bisporus, Zygosaccharomyces rouxii, Aspergillus and Eurotium spp.). We also manipulated the balance of chaotropic and kosmotropic stressors for the extreme, xerophilic fungi Aspergillus penicilloides and X. bisporus and, via this approach, their established water-activity limits for mycelial growth (∼0.65) were reduced to 0.640. Furthermore, extrapolations indicated theoretical limits of 0.632 and 0.636 a w for A. penicilloides and X. bisporus, respectively. Collectively, these findings suggest that there is a common water-activity limit that is determined by physicochemical constraints for the three domains of life

Evaluation of local kinetic energy dissipation rate in the impeller stream of a Rushton turbine by time-resolved PIV

International audienceThe present paper is dedicated to the direct measurement of the dissipation rate of kinetic energy, ¯ε, by means of time-resolved 2D-PIV, in the impeller region of a stirred vessel. Experimental estimation of ¯ε is carried out without simplifications, since all spatial gradients of the fluctuating velocity components are directly measured. At each point, measurements have thus been realized in three orthogonal planes. The present results have been compared with previous ones and discussed according to experimental techniques. A special attention is focused on the contribution of measurements in each plane and some newideas have been suggested for the assessment of ¯ε. In addition, in each measurement plane, the time-variation of the instantaneous fluctuating velocity gradients have been also presented, exhibiting periodicity, with large values of instantaneous dissipation rate, linked to the trailing vortex induced by the blade rotation

TITANOCENE-DICHLORIDE AS A METALORGANIC SOURCE FOR TITANIUM CARBIDE

The use of titanocene-dichloride (Cp2TiCl2) as a metalorganic precursor for TiC coating provides layers of very different quality according to its temperature of vaporization in a cold wall CVD reactor. The deposits observed by SEM and characterized by EPMA are related to the experimental procedure. The thermal behavior of the precursor investigated by thermogravimetry (TG), thermogravimetry coupled with differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) and mass spectroscopy (MS) is used to determine the structural state of Cp2TiCl2 active from a CVD point of view