3,832 research outputs found
Trace element requirements for stable food waste digestion at elevated ammonia concentrations
The work investigated why anaerobic digesters treating food waste and operating at high ammonia concentrations suffer from propionic acid accumulation which may result in process failure. The results showed deficiency of selenium, essential for both propionate oxidation and syntrophic hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, leads to this while supplementation allows operation at substantially higher organic loading rates (OLR). At high loadings cobalt also becomes limiting, due to its role either in acetate oxidation in a reverse Wood-Ljungdahl or in hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis. Population structure analysis using fluorescent in situ hybridization showed only hydrogenotrophic methanogens. Critical Se and Co concentrations were established as 0.16 and 0.22 mg kg?1 fresh matter feed at moderate loading. At this dosage the OLR could be raised to 5 g VS l?1 day?1 giving specific and volumetric biogas productions of 0.75 m3 kg?1 VSadded and 3.75 STP m3 m?3 day?1, representing a significant increase in process performance and operational stability
Methodology for determining the electronic thermal conductivity of metals via direct non-equilibrium ab initio molecular dynamics
Many physical properties of metals can be understood in terms of the free
electron model, as proven by the Wiedemann-Franz law. According to this model,
electronic thermal conductivity () can be inferred from the
Boltzmann transport equation (BTE). However, the BTE does not perform well for
some complex metals, such as Cu. Moreover, the BTE cannot clearly describe the
origin of the thermal energy carried by electrons or how this energy is
transported in metals. The charge distribution of conduction electrons in
metals is known to reflect the electrostatic potential (EP) of the ion cores.
Based on this premise, we develop a new methodology for evaluating
by combining the free electron model and non-equilibrium ab
initio molecular dynamics (NEAIMD) simulations. We demonstrate that the kinetic
energy of thermally excited electrons originates from the energy of the spatial
electrostatic potential oscillation (EPO), which is induced by the thermal
motion of ion cores. This method directly predicts the of pure
metals with a high degree of accuracy.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, with Supplementary Information of 19 pages, 7
figures and 7 table
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