1,691 research outputs found
Integration of hydrothermal liquefaction and carbon capture and storage for the production of advanced liquid biofuels with negative CO2 emissions
The technical and economic feasibility to deliver sustainable liquid biocrude
through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) while enabling negative carbon dioxide
emissions is evaluated in this paper, looking into the potential of the process
in the context of negative emission technologies (NETs) for climate change
mitigation. In the HTL process, a gas phase consisting mainly of carbon dioxide
is obtained as a side product driving a potential for the implementation of
carbon capture and storage in the process (BECCS) that has not been explored
yet in the existing literature and is undertaken in this study. To this end,
the process is divided in a standard HTL base and a carbon capture add-on,
having forestry residues as feedstock. The Selexol technology is adapted in a
novel scheme to simultaneously separate the CO2 from the HTL gas and recover
the excess hydrogen for biocrude upgrading. The cost evaluation indicates that
the additional cost of the carbon capture can be compensated by revenues from
the excess process heat and the European carbon allowance market. The impact in
the MFSP of the HTL base case ranges from -7% to 3%, with -15% in the most
favorable scenario, with a GHG emissions reduction potential of 102-113%
compared to the fossil baseline. These results show that the implementation of
CCS in the HTL process is a promising alternative from technical, economic and
environmental perspective in future scenarios in which advanced liquid biofuels
and NETs are expected to play a role in the decarbonization of the energy
system
Full characterization of compounds obtained from fractional distillation and upgrading of a HTL biocrude
A Method to Estimate the Boson Mass and to Optimise Sensitivity to Helicity Correlations of tau+tau- Final States
In proton-proton collisions at LHC energies, Z and low mass Higgs bosons
would be produced with high and predominantly longitudinal boost with respect
to the beam axis. This note describes a new analysis tool devised to handle
this situation in cases when such bosons decay to a pair of tau-leptons. The
tool reconstructs the rest frame of the tau+tau- pair by finding the boost that
minimises the acollinearity between the visible tau decay products. In most
cases this gives a reasonable approximation to the rest frame of the decaying
boson. It is shown how the reconstructed rest frame allows for a new method of
mass estimation. Also a considerable gain in sensitivity to helicity
correlations is obtained by analysing the tau-jets in the reconstructed frame
instead of using the laboratory momenta and energies, particularly when both
tau-leptons decay hadronically.Comment: 13 pages, method extended with 3D boost finde
Production of marine biofuels from hydrothermal liquefaction of sewage sludge. Preliminary techno-economic analysis and life-cycle GHG emissions assessment of Dutch case study
Self-organized criticality in a rice-pile model
We present a new model for relaxations in piles of granular material. The
relaxations are determined by a stochastic rule which models the effect of
friction between the grains. We find power-law distributions for avalanche
sizes and lifetimes characterized by the exponents and
, respectively. For the discharge events, we find a
characteristic size that scales with the system size as , with . We also find that the frequency of the discharge events
decrease with the system size as with .Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, multicol, epsf, rotate (sty files provided). To
appear Phys. Rev. E Rapid Communication (Nov or Dec 96
Universality classes for rice-pile models
We investigate sandpile models where the updating of unstable columns is done
according to a stochastic rule. We examine the effect of introducing nonlocal
relaxation mechanisms. We find that the models self-organize into critical
states that belong to three different universality classes. The models with
local relaxation rules belong to a known universality class that is
characterized by an avalanche exponent , whereas the models
with nonlocal relaxation rules belong to new universality classes characterized
by exponents and . We discuss the values
of the exponents in terms of scaling relations and a mapping of the sandpile
models to interface models.Comment: 4 pages, including 3 figure
CT beam dosimetric characterization procedure for personalized dosimetry
Personalized dosimetry in computed tomography (CT) can be realized by a full Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the scan procedure. Essential input data needed for the simulation are appropriate CT x-ray source models and a model of the patient's body which is based on the CT image. The purpose of this work is to develop comprehensive procedures for the determination of CT x-ray source models and their verification by comparison of calculated and measured dose distributions in physical phantoms. Mobile equipment together with customized software was developed and used for non-invasive determination of equivalent source models of CT scanners under clinical conditions. Standard and physical anthropomorphic CT dose phantoms equipped with real-time CT dose probes at five representative positions were scanned. The accumulated dose was measured during the scan at the five positions. ImpactMC, an MC-based CT dose software program, was used to simulate the scan. The necessary inputs were obtained from the scan parameters, from the equivalent source models and from the material-segmented CT images of the phantoms. 3D dose distributions in the phantoms were simulated and the dose values calculated at the five positions inside the phantom were compared to measured dose values. Initial results were obtained by means of a General Electric Optima CT 660 and a Toshiba (Canon) Aquilion ONE. In general, the measured and calculated dose values were within relative uncertainties that had been estimated to be less than 10%. The procedures developed were found to be viable and rapid. The procedures are applicable to any scanner type under clinical conditions without making use of the service mode with stationary x-ray tube position. Results show that the procedures are well suited for determining and verifying the equivalent source models needed for personalized CT dosimetry based on post-scan MC calculations.Peer reviewe
Modeling relaxation and jamming in granular media
We introduce a stochastic microscopic model to investigate the jamming and
reorganization of grains induced by an object moving through a granular medium.
The model reproduces the experimentally observed periodic sawtooth fluctuations
in the jamming force and predicts the period and the power spectrum in terms of
the controllable physical parameters. It also predicts that the avalanche
sizes, defined as the number of displaced grains during a single advance of the
object, follow a power-law, , where the exponent is
independent of the physical parameters
Changes in Blood Cell Deformability in Chorea-Acanthocytosis and Effects of Treatment With Dasatinib or Lithium
Misshaped red blood cells (RBCs), characterized by thorn-like protrusions known as acanthocytes, are a key diagnostic feature in Chorea-Acanthocytosis (ChAc), a rare neurodegenerative disorder. The altered RBC morphology likely influences their biomechanical properties which are crucial for the cells to pass the microvasculature. Here, we investigated blood cell deformability of five ChAc patients compared to healthy controls during up to 1-year individual off-label treatment with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor dasatinib or several weeks with lithium. Measurements with two microfluidic techniques allowed us to assess RBC deformability under different shear stresses. Furthermore, we characterized leukocyte stiffness at high shear stresses. The results showed that blood cell deformability–including both RBCs and leukocytes - in general was altered in ChAc patients compared to healthy donors. Therefore, this study shows for the first time an impairment of leukocyte properties in ChAc. During treatment with dasatinib or lithium, we observed alterations in RBC deformability and a stiffness increase for leukocytes. The hematological phenotype of ChAc patients hinted at a reorganization of the cytoskeleton in blood cells which partly explains the altered mechanical properties observed here. These findings highlight the need for a systematic assessment of the contribution of impaired blood cell mechanics to the clinical manifestation of ChAc
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