Effects of Raschig Ring Packing Patterns on Pressure Drop, Heat Transfer, Methane Conversion, and Coke Deposition on a Semi-pilot-scale Packed Bed Reformer

The effects of Raschig ring packing patterns on the efficiency of dry methane reforming reactions were investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The present study aims to understand the behavior of fluid flow in packed bed reactors, especially under low reactor-to-ring ratios between 4 and 8. Three packing patterns were studied: vertical staggered (VS), chessboard staggered (CS), and reciprocal staggered (RS). It was determined that packing pattern notably affected pressure drop across the reactor length. The VS pattern produced the lowest pressure drop of 223 mPa, while the CS and RS patterns produced pressure drops of 228 mPa and 308 mPa, respectively. The values of methane conversion can be increased by ca. 2 % by selecting a more suitable packing pattern (i.e., 76 % for the VS pattern and 74 % for the CS and RS patterns). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Optimization of ingredient and processing levels for the production of coconut yogurt using response surface methodology

In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the ingredient formulation and processing parameters of coconut milk yogurt production such as temperature, time, and amount of starter culture on the sensory evaluation responses. Besides, the physicochemical properties such as pH, titratable acidity, and viscosity of the yogurt were also analysed. The analyses show that the coconut yogurts have a pH from 4. 01 to 5. 79, acidity from 0. 461 to 2. 079 (%), and viscosity from 433 to 21,833 cp during the optimization process. From the analysis of variance, the R2 of all response variables is more than 0. 73 that indicates that a high proportion of variability was explained by the model. Based on the response surface 3D plot of the sensory evaluation, the optimum acceptability of the coconut yogurt processing parameter are at temperature of 37oC, 8 h of the fermentation duration, and 3%(w/w) of the starter culture