Comparison of Various Column Packing Materials’ Efficiency for Hydrocarbons and Aqueous Mixtures

The efficiency of industrial column packings is commonly tested by standard hydrocarbon mixtures. However, a reduced efficiency value is often observed, particularly during distillation of aqueous mixtures. In this paper, distillation experiments with various binary mixtures were carried out on different column packings to evaluate relative separation efficiencies of mixtures for each packing material. Each of the binary mixtures, which comprised heptane–methylcyclohexane, ethanol–water, morpholine–water, and acetic acid–water, was distilled under atmospheric pressure and total reflux ratio on column packings that were made of PTFE, ceramic, zirconium metal, and inox steel 316. According to the results, aqueous solutions of morpholine and acetic acid generally exhibited low relative separation efficiency (in comparison with standard mixture of heptane–methylcyclohexane), ranging between 40 % and 80 %. The highest relative efficiencies were observed with packings made of steel and ceramic. These observations will be useful for the future design of distillation columns, especially for aqueous solutions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Reductive Amination of 1-Hydroxy-2-propanone Over Nickel and Copper Catalysts

The one-step reductive amination of 1-hydroxy-2-propanone (acetol) with ammonia to 2-aminopropanol (2-APOL) over commercial nickel and copper catalysts has been studied in the continuous fixed-bed reactor at the temperature from 130 to 220 °C and different molar ratios of reactants. It was found that the optimal molar ratios of H2/acetol and H2/NH3 regarding the selectivity of 2-APOL were 25 and 1, respectively. The highest selectivity of approx. 45 % to desired 2-APOL at total conversion of acetol was achieved in the presence of the nickel catalyst. Major by-products of amination were cis and trans isomers of 2,5- and 2,6-dimethylpiperazines. Mechanism of the formation of these and other detected and/or potential by-products is discussed. So far, unpublished mass spectra of identified by-products, such as N-substituted dimethylpiperazines or various aminoalcohols, are reported in this paper. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Ambient Ozone Exposure in Czech Forests: A GIS-Based Approach to Spatial Distribution Assessment

Ambient ozone (O3) is an important phytotoxic pollutant, and detailed knowledge of its spatial distribution is becoming increasingly important. The aim of the paper is to compare different spatial interpolation techniques and to recommend the best approach for producing a reliable map for O3 with respect to its phytotoxic potential. For evaluation we used real-time ambient O3 concentrations measured by UV absorbance from 24 Czech rural sites in the 2007 and 2008 vegetation seasons. We considered eleven approaches for spatial interpolation used for the development of maps for mean vegetation season O3 concentrations and the AOT40F exposure index for forests. The uncertainty of maps was assessed by cross-validation analysis. The root mean square error (RMSE) of the map was used as a criterion. Our results indicate that the optimal interpolation approach is linear regression of O3 data and altitude with subsequent interpolation of its residuals by ordinary kriging. The relative uncertainty of the map of O3 mean for the vegetation season is less than 10%, using the optimal method as for both explored years, and this is a very acceptable value. In the case of AOT40F, however, the relative uncertainty of the map is notably worse, reaching nearly 20% in both examined years

Error-tolerant quantum convolutional neural networks for symmetry-protected topological phases

The analysis of noisy quantum states prepared on current quantum computers is getting beyond the capabilities of classical computing. Quantum neural networks based on parametrized quantum circuits, measurements and feed-forward can process large amounts of quantum data to reduce measurement and computational costs of detecting non-local quantum correlations. The tolerance of errors due to decoherence and gate infidelities is a key requirement for the application of quantum neural networks on near-term quantum computers. Here we construct quantum convolutional neural networks (QCNNs) that can, in the presence of incoherent errors, recognize different symmetry-protected topological phases of generalized cluster-Ising Hamiltonians from one another as well as from topologically trivial phases. Using matrix product state simulations, we show that the QCNN output is robust against symmetry-breaking errors below a threshold error probability and against all symmetry-preserving errors provided the error channel is invertible. This is in contrast to string order parameters and the output of previously designed QCNNs, which vanish in the presence of any symmetry-breaking errors. To facilitate the implementation of the QCNNs on near-term quantum computers, the QCNN circuits can be shortened from logarithmic to constant depth in system size by performing a large part of the computation in classical post-processing. These constant-depth QCNNs reduce sample complexity exponentially with system size in comparison to the direct sampling using local Pauli measurements.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure

Adding many Baumgartner clubs

I define a homogeneous ℵ2–c.c. proper product forcing for adding many clubs of ω1 with finite conditions. I use this forcing to build models of b(ω1)=ℵ2, together with d(ω1) and 2ℵ0 large and with very strong failures of club guessing at ω1

Boundary element based multiresolution shape optimisation in electrostatics

We consider the shape optimisation of high-voltage devices subject to electrostatic field equations by combining fast boundary elements with multiresolution subdivision surfaces. The geometry of the domain is described with subdivision surfaces and different resolutions of the same geometry are used for optimisation and analysis. The primal and adjoint problems are discretised with the boundary element method using a sufficiently fine control mesh. For shape optimisation the geometry is updated starting from the coarsest control mesh with increasingly finer control meshes. The multiresolution approach effectively prevents the appearance of non-physical geometry oscillations in the optimised shapes. Moreover, there is no need for mesh regeneration or smoothing during the optimisation due to the absence of a volume mesh. We present several numerical experiments and one industrial application to demonstrate the robustness and versatility of the developed approach.We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the EU commission through the FP7 Marie Curie IAPP project CASOPT (PIAP-GA-2008-230224). K.B. and F.C. thank for the additional support provided by EPSRC through #EP/G008531/1. J.Z. thanks for the support provided by the European Regional Development Fund in the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project (CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0070) and by the project SPOMECH – Creating a Multidisciplinary R&D Team for Reliable Solution of Mechanical Problems, reg. no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0070 within the Operational Programme ‘Education for Competitiveness’ funded by the Structural Funds of the European Union and the state budget of the Czech Republic. Special thanks to Andreas Blaszczyk from the ABB Corporate Research Center Switzerland for fruitful discussions and for providing the industrial applications.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2015.05.01

Highest Weight Uq[sl(n)]U_q[sl(n)] Modules and Invariant Integrable n-State Models with Periodic Boundary Conditions"

The weights are computed for the Bethe vectors of an RSOS type model with periodic boundary conditions obeying $U_q[sl(n)]$ ($q=\exp(i\pi/r)$) invariance. They are shown to be highest weight vectors. The q-dimensions of the corresponding irreducible representations are obtained.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, SFB 288 preprin

Combinatorial Aspects of the Splitting Number

We define the strong splitting number, prove that it equals s when exists, and put some restrictions on the possibility that s is a singular carcinal

Fatigue lifetime of ADI from ultimate tensile strength to permanent fatigue limit

S — N curve of austempered ductile iron was obtained in the range of lifetime including low cycle fatigue domain and high cycle fatigue domain up to 108 cycles. Ultimate tensile strength is used as a limiting value of the curve. Symmetric push-pull fatigue and tensile tests were performed at room temperature on isothermally treated nodular cast iron alloyed with copper and nickel having positive impact on mechanical, technological and fatigue properties of austempered ductile iron. Suitable functions for the fit of experimentally determined points were tested and their parameters were calculated. The best results were obtained using the Palmgren function and the function introduced by Kohout and Vechet. Since the loading frequency in high-cycle region is two orders higher than in low-cycle region, the effect of loading cycle frequency on fatigue behavior of the studied material is also studied. A possibility of discontinuity of experimental data between low-cycle and high-cycle regions is discussed.Получена кривая усталости аустенитно-отпущенного ковкого чугуна (ADI) в диапазоне долговечности, включая области малоцикловой и многоцикловой усталости до 108 циклов. В качестве предельного значения указанной кривой используется предел прочности при растяжении. Проведены испытания на усталость при симметричном растяжении-сжатии и на растяжение при комнатной температуре изотермически термообработанного чугуна с шаровидным графитом, с добавками меди и никеля, которые оказывают положительное влияние на механические, технологические и усталостные свойства ADI. Осуществлена проверка соответствующих функций для описания экспериментально определенных точек; выполнен расчет параметров указанных функций. Наилучшие результаты получены при использовании функции Пальмгрена и функции, предложенной Когутом и Вечетом. Исследовано также влияние частоты циклов нагружения на усталостное поведение рассматриваемого материала с учетом того, что частота нагружения в многоцикловой области на два порядка превышает частоту нагружения в малоцикловой области. Рассмотрена также возможность отсутствия непрерывности в экспериментальных данных на участке между малоцикловой и многоцикловой областями