STUDIES ON CONTINUOUS GRINDING PROCESS FOR DRIED WATER CHESTNUT KERNEL

Grinding is a unit operation to break big solid material into smaller pieces. As far as process of grinding is concerned, power consumption, specific energy consumption and particle size distribution and mill capacity are main considerations from engineering point of view. The experiments were conducted to study the effect of speed of mill, sieve size, feed rate and time of grinding on power consumption and average particle diameter of water chestnut in continuous grinding process. Power consumption was measured for a constant feed rate of 1 and 2 kg/h at different speed of the mill varied from 800 to 1200 rpm for the sieve openings of 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm and 2.0 mm. For all the sieve sizes and feed rates, it was observed that as the speed of the mill increases, there is an increase in power consumption and found significantly low for higher sieve size and lower feed rate. The size distribution of the water chestnut kernel for different speeds and sieve sizes at constant feed rate were obtained by sieve analysis. The milling speed has no significant effect on particle size distribution of ground product and mass fraction was minimum at lower feed rate and higher sieve size. Harris model was found best suitable to describe the size distribution in continuous grinding process. Fineness modulus decreases with increase of milling speed for experimental sieve size and feed rate

Burden and risk factors for Pseudomonas aeruginosa community-acquired pneumonia:a Multinational Point Prevalence Study of Hospitalised Patients

Pseudornonas aeruginosa is a challenging bacterium to treat due to its intrinsic resistance to the antibiotics used most frequently in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Data about the global burden and risk factors associated with P. aeruginosa-CAP are limited. We assessed the multinational burden and specific risk factors associated with P. aeruginosa-CAP. We enrolled 3193 patients in 54 countries with confirmed diagnosis of CAP who underwent microbiological testing at admission. Prevalence was calculated according to the identification of P. aeruginosa. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for antibiotic-susceptible and antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa-CAP. The prevalence of P. aeruginosa and antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa-CAP was 4.2% and 2.0%, respectively. The rate of P. aeruginosa CAP in patients with prior infection/colonisation due to P. aeruginosa and at least one of the three independently associated chronic lung diseases (i.e. tracheostomy, bronchiectasis and/or very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) was 67%. In contrast, the rate of P. aeruginosa-CAP was 2% in patients without prior P. aeruginosa infection/colonisation and none of the selected chronic lung diseases. The multinational prevalence of P. aeruginosa-CAP is low. The risk factors identified in this study may guide healthcare professionals in deciding empirical antibiotic coverage for CAP patients

Vascular Remodeling in Health and Disease

The term vascular remodeling is commonly used to define the structural changes in blood vessel geometry that occur in response to long-term physiologic alterations in blood flow or in response to vessel wall injury brought about by trauma or underlying cardiovascular diseases.1, 2, 3, 4 The process of remodeling, which begins as an adaptive response to long-term hemodynamic alterations such as elevated shear stress or increased intravascular pressure, may eventually become maladaptive, leading to impaired vascular function. The vascular endothelium, owing to its location lining the lumen of blood vessels, plays a pivotal role in regulation of all aspects of vascular function and homeostasis.5 Thus, not surprisingly, endothelial dysfunction has been recognized as the harbinger of all major cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.6, 7, 8 The endothelium elaborates a variety of substances that influence vascular tone and protect the vessel wall against inflammatory cell adhesion, thrombus formation, and vascular cell proliferation.8, 9, 10 Among the primary biologic mediators emanating from the endothelium is nitric oxide (NO) and the arachidonic acid metabolite prostacyclin [prostaglandin I2 (PGI2)], which exert powerful vasodilatory, antiadhesive, and antiproliferative effects in the vessel wall

Energy-related applications of carbon materials-a review

Carbon materials, which are inert and possess good electrical conductivity, high surface area and layered structure, offer applications as electrodes in re-chargeable batteries, storage media for fuel cell for on-board hydrogen supply, fuel cell components, nano-electronic devices for computer chips, superconductors etc. This paper reviews current research on carbon materials (fullerenes, nano-sized single and multi-walled carbon tubes, graphene, carbon foam etc.) focusing on producing, distributing and storing energy. Keywords: Carbon foam, Carbon nanotubes, Energy source, Energy storage, Energy transmission, Fullerenes, Graphen

Novel Impact of Wet Dosages of NMP in Extraction for Production of High BMCI Carbon Black Feedstocks

In separation sciences, “Solvent Extraction” is one of the most important unit operations, a very widely used process, next only to distillation. In the petroleum refining industry, solvent extraction is commonly widely applied to produce a number of specialty products such as BTX, lube base oils, waxes, etc. There are many solvents used in various separation processes, like sulfolane, phenol, furfural, ketones, and Nmethyl pyrollidone (NMP). NMP in particular is an environmentally benign, new generation solvent, which can be tailored for specific separations by using it in conjunction with small doses of water. In recent years, researchers are re-looking at the separation processes and their modifications to exploit these for producing high-value industrial products from low-value refinery streams. The present study deals with the production of high-quality carbon black feedstocks (CBFS) from clarified oils. The study shows the beneficial effect of using NMP in combination with different dosages of water as extraction solvent to extract low-value clarified oil, a cracked material from the FCC unit of an operating Indian refinery. In the present study, water ranging from 0.3 wt% to 10 wt% was used with NMP to produce aromatic extract of BMCI (Bureau of Mines Correlation Index) up to 146 through liquid-liquid equilibrium and mass transfer studies on clarified oil (CLO). The effect of solvent-to-feed ratio at constant temperature on solvent extraction was also studied. The addition of water in NMP alters the “selectivity” of solvent, which can be exploited for producing aromatic extracts of a wide range of BMCI for different end-use applications. The major users of such high BMCI extracts are carbon black and electrode pitch manufacturers. Regression analysis was also done to develop correlations between water percentage in NMP and targeted BMCI of aromatic extract. Presently, CLO is blended with fuel oil and sold as a very low value product in refinery. Since the demand of CBFS is increasing continuously and current short-fall in India is met through imports from China, Korea, and Japan, it is desirable that such studies are undertaken and will lead to production of high-value CBFS from low-value refinery streams through separation processes. Keywords: BMCI, CBFS, CLO, NMP, regression, solvent extraction, water dosage

Influence of oxidative and non-oxidative conditions on petroleum pitch properties

A series of pitches were prepared by thermal treatment of petroleum feedstock under oxidative and non-oxidative conditions at 350-450°C, to study transformation behavior of feed components. Influence of type of oxidizing gas and oxidizing agent on softening point (SP), coking value (CV), quinoline insolubles (QI) and toluene insolubles (TI) was studied. Rate of increase of SP of pitch has been found more in oxidative conditions than in non-oxidative conditions. Oxidative conditions may also lead to reduction in stabilization period for making carbon fibers and activated carbon spheres. Formation of TI/QI is more under air/oxygen purging as compared to nitrogen purging. Keywords: IR, Non-oxidation, Oxidation, Petroleum pitc