Membrane Anaerobic System (MAS) for Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) Treatment

The direct discharge of palm oil mill effluent (POME) wastewater causes serious environmental pollution due to its high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Traditional ways for POME treatment have both economic and environmental disadvantages. In this study, membrane anaerobic system (MAS) was used as an alternative, cost effective method for treating POME. Six steady states were attained as a part of a kinetic study that considered concentration ranges of 8,220 to 15,400 mg/l for mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) and 6, 329 to 13,244 mg/l for mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS). Kinetic equations from Monod, Contois and Chen & Hashimoto were employed to describe the kinetics of POME treatment at organic loading rates ranging from 2 to 13 kg COD/m3/d. throughout the experiment, the removal efficiency of COD was from 94.8 to 96.5% with hydraulic retention time, HRT from 400.6 to 5.7 days. The growth yield coefficient, Y was found to be 0.62gVSS/g COD the specific microorganism decay rate was 0.21 d-1 and the methane gas yield production rate was between 0.25 l/g COD/d and 0.58 l/g COD/d. Steady state influent COD concentrations increased from 18,302 mg/l in the first steady state to 43,500 mg/l in the sixth steady state. The minimum solids retention time, which was obtained from the three kinetic models ranged from 5 to 12.3 days. The k values were in the range of and values were between 0.26 and 0.379 d-1. The solids retention time (SRT) decreased from 800 days to 11.6 days. The complete treatment reduced the COD content to 2279 mg/l equivalent to a reduction of 94.8% reduction from the original

Parvovirus B19 infection in pediatric transplant patients

Evidence of recent parvovirus virus infection (as determined by the presence of a positive IgM antibody titer) without other identified causes of anemia was found in 5 of 26 pediatric solid-organ transplant recipients evaluated for moderate-to-severe anemia between June 1990 and July 1991. Anemia tended to be chronic (median duration of anemia at the time of diagnosis was 12 weeks) and was associated with normal red blood cell indices in the absence of reticulocytes. The median age of the children at the time of presentation with anemia due to parvovirus was 1.8 years at a median time of 8 months after transplantation. Four of the 5 children were treated with i.v. immunoglobulin because of persistance of anemia requiring blood transfusions. A response characterized by an increase in reticulocyte count and normalization of hemoglobin was seen in each of these patients 2-4 weeks after treatment. The remaining patient experienced a spontaneous recovery from her anemia. Parvovirus infection should be included in the differential diagnosis of solid-organ transplant recipients presenting with severe anemia associated with low or absent reticulocytes

CEMENT BRICKS BASED ON SHREDDED AUTOMOBILE TIRES

The essential target of this is to make good, qualified bricks with economic background and to have several uses than ordinary brick that is utilized in construction of homes or any building. From these useful properties of those blocks are acoustic segregation and thermal insulation also with recovery of many wastes that don’t be benefit from them; create from them jobs to be reused and to make brick economically wise and to be applied for example the insulation. From those squandering, are the shredded used tires after being used and it can’t be used anymore. It was cleared that the ultimate percent that cement brick can withstand was 10%. After the test of acoustic and temperature measurements by EXTECH instrument, explored that automobile tire addition makes a decline in sound and temperature surrounding also decreased it. Which has a good effect on cement brick by enhancing the insulation of sound and thermal where sound insulation from 55 db to 42 db and make thermal insulation where temperature before is 37 oC and then after addition of 10 % which the best percent that cement brick can withstand; temperature becomes 26 oC which make an insulation of about 11 oC. In addition, that shredded used tires decreases cost of cement standard brick by 7.6 %

Demulsification of petroleum emulsions using microwave separation method

The formation of emulsions during oil production and processing is a costly problem, both in terms of chemicals used and production losses. For economic and operational reasons, it is necessary to separate the water completely from crude oils before transporting or refining them. Experimental data are presented to show the influences of Triton X-100, low-sulfur wax residue (LSWR), sorbitan monooleate (Span 83) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on the stability and microwave demulsification of petroleum emulsions. It was found that emulsion stability was related to several parameters including the surfactant concentration, water-to-oil phase ratio (10 to 90%), temperature and agitation speed. Based on this study, a possible emulsion-minimization approach utilizing microwave irradiation is suggested, which could be implemented in refineries. Compared with conventional heating, the use of microwave heating can significantly enhance the demulsification rate, reaching over 90 v/v% for the emulsions studied in this work

A Comparative Investigation on Petroleum Demulsification Techniques (Centrifuge and Green Chemicals Versus Conventional Chemicals)

The breaking (demulsification) of 50-50% w/o petroleum emulsions of two oils (A and B) by Green (chemical and centrifuge) methods were studied in comparison to conventional (chemical) method. The green methods consisted of silicon based chemical demulsifiers and high-speed centrifuge operated at 12,000 RPM, while the conventional method consisted of Amine group based demulsifiers. In chemical method, the concentrations were varied (0.5%, 1.5% and 3%), while in centrifuge method, the processing time was varied (10 and 30 minutes). The efficiency of these methods was determined by measuring the amount of water separated from the emulsion after being treated. The maximum separation efficiencies for Silicon demulsifiers were 93 and 88% for oils A and B respectively, and that of Amine group demulsifiers were 72 and 86% for oils A and B respectively, While centrifuge demulsification gave maximum separations of 39 and 24% for oils A and B respectively. Based on these results, Silicon based demulsifiers are very effective and reliable method to treat emulsions for different types of oils with different composition, and have the potential to be used as an alternative method in the demulsification or breaking of water-in-crude oil emulsions

Exact implicit Solution of Nonlinear Heat Transfer in Rectangular Straight Fin Using Symmetry Reduction Methods

In this paper, the exact implicit solution of the second order nonlinear ordinary differential equation which governing heat transfer in rectangular fin is obtained using symmetry reduction methods. General relationship among the temperature at the fin tip, the temperature gradient at the fin base, the mode of heat transfer, and the fin parameters and ℰ is obtained. Some numerical examples are discussed and it is shown that the temperature of fin increases when approaching from the heat source. The relationship between the fin efficiency and the temperature of fin tip is obtained for any value of the mode of heat transfer . The relationship between the fin efficiency and both the parameter and ε the temperature gradient at the fin base is obtained. To our best knowledge, solutions obtained in this paper are new

Non-uniform UE-spline quasi-interpolants and their application to the numerical solution of integral equations

A construction of Marsden’s identity for UE-splines is developed and a complete proof is given. With the help of this identity, a new non-uniform quasi-interpolant that repro-duces the spaces of polynomial, trigonometric and hyperbolic functions are defined. Effi-cient quadrature rules based on integrating these quasi-interpolation schemes are derived and analyzed. Then, a quadrature formula associated with non-uniform quasi-interpolation along with Nyström’s method is used to numericallysolve Hammerstein and Fredholm integral equations. Numerical results that illustrate the effectiveness of these rules are pre-sented.Universidad de Granada / CBU

The Impact of Balanced Scorecard to Strengthen the Competitiveness of Industrial Companies

This research deals with balanced scorecard method as one of the management and evaluate strategic performance methods, their impact on achieving success in the competitive field of industrial companies, achieving competitive advantages through the company to outdo competitors' capabilities, coping with the growing dynamics of the competitive environments in which they operate, and ensuring the strengthening of the competitiveness of the company.The research problem can be formulated in the following question: Does the application of balanced scorecard method affect strengthening the competitiveness?".The researcher depends on an exploratory study by scanning the field for several companies in the engineering industries sector in Syria by using a questionnaire to determine the impact of balanced scorecard method in strengthening competitiveness. The most important findings of the resulting of the research: 1-There is a good positive and direct correlation between the balanced scorecard method and enhancing cost advantage. 2- There is a good positive and direct correlation between the balanced scorecard method and enhancing quality advantage. 3- There is a good positive and direct correlation between the balanced scorecard method and enhancing environmental advantage. Keywords: Balanced scorecard, Cost Advantage, Environmental Advantage, Competitive Advantage, Quality Advantage