Structured catalytic reactor for VOC combustion

VOC emission has recently become a challenge for environmental protection. Catalytic combustion seems a promising method of VOC removal, however, there are still more specific demands concerning the process. The reactor design has to assure enhanced transfer properties accompanied by low flow resistance to reduce the pumping costs. Neither the packed beds nor the classic ceramic monoliths are able to fulfil the requirements. To solve the problem we propose a wire gauze structure composed of several gauze sheets staked. A number of mass transfer and flow resistance experiments were performed for two gauze types and correlations were derived for the Sherwood number and the friction factor. The results were found to be in a reasonable agreement with the literature available. The studied gauze structures were compared with a classic monolith for the assumed case study. The calculated length of the gauze structured reactor was significantly shorter, up to ten times, when compared with a classic ceramic monolith, but the pressure drop was higher

An Integrated Software Framework for Localization in Wireless Sensor Network

Devices that form a wireless sensor network (WSN) system are usually remotely deployed in large numbers in a sensing field. WSNs have enabled numerous applications, in which location awareness is usually required. Therefore, numerous localization systems are provided to assign geographic coordinates to each node in a network. In this paper, we describe and evaluate an integrated software framework WSNLS (Wireless Sensor Network Localization System) that provides tools for network nodes localization and the environment for tuning and testing various localization schemes. Simulation experiments can be performed on parallel and multi-core computers or computer clusters. The main component of the WSNLS framework is the library of solvers for calculating the geographic coordinates of nodes in a network. Our original solution implemented in WSNLS is the localization system that combines simple geometry of triangles and stochastic optimization to determine the position of nodes with unknown location in the sensing field. We describe and discuss the performance of our system due to the accuracy of location estimation and computation time. Numerical results presented in the paper confirm that our hybrid scheme gives accurate location estimates of network nodes in sensible computing time, and the WSNLS framework can be successfully used for efficient tuning and verification of different localization techniques

THE LEVEL OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY OF ADULTS LIVING IN SOUTH-EASTERN POLAND

Regular physical activity is associated with enhanced health and reduced risk of all-cause mortality. Despite the positive effects of physical activity on health, life has become more sedentary and the decrease in PA has affected people of all ages. The aim of our study was to assess the level of physical activity and related sociodemographic factors of adults aged 18 to 45. Our results showed statistically significant relationships in the majority of the variables examined. Physical activity is undertaken by people of all ages, both residents of cities and rural areas. Among the surveyed inhabitants of the Podkarpackie Province, men much more often than women declare regular willingness to physical activity. The conducted own research shows that 40.90% of the studied group lead an active lifestyle, 31.06% not very active. An important issue is the use of stimulants during physical activity. The problem of using more serious stimulants, i.e. psychoactive substances in my own research, this hypothesis was not confirmed. Article visualizations

Far field combined AFM and micro-Raman imaging for characterisation of surface of structured catalysts : example of Pd Doped CoOxCoO_x catalysts on precalcined kanthal steel

A coupled AFM-Raman system was used to study the surface heterogeneity of catalytic materials at various stages of their preparation. The catalysts chosen for the analyses were cobalt oxide with and without palladium dopant deposited on surface of pre-calcined steel carriers. Steel carriers are surveyed here in terms of their application as fillers for structured reactors for the catalytic combustion of volatile organic compounds. Upon steel precalcination stage the interfaced AFM-Raman and in situ Raman analyses revealed the evolution of alumina and iron oxide phases on the surface with their final stable forms found as being α-Al_{2}O_{3} and α-Fe_{2}O_{3}. Upon catalyst layering stage AFM-Raman mapping evidenced uniform coverage of precalcined steel carrier with cobalt spinel oxide Co_{3}O_{4}. For the doped catalyst except Co_{3}O_{4} palladium(II) oxide grains were also found on the surface. The differences in the composition of cobalt catalysts were correlated with the differences in their catalytic activity

Reflective and photoacoustic infrared spectroscopic techniques in assessment of binding media in paintings

This study proposes a method to estimate the lipid content in binding media in paintings that can be used at any laboratory equipped with an infrared spectrometer. The lipid content estimator, termed greasiness index (GI), is defined as a ratio of lipid \nu(C=O) and protein amide I bands at 1743 and 1635 cm−1, respectively. Three Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) sampling techniques were evaluated for GI determination: reflective attenuated total reflection-ATR, specular reflection microscopy-\muSR and photoacoustic-PAS. A set of model painting samples containing three tempera binding media (casein, egg, egg + oil), seven pigments and one varnish type were used in the study. Multivariate analysis was used to evaluate the resulting data. A good reproducibility of GI was obtained by ATR and PAS but not with \mu SR. The discriminative power of the technique is higher for unvarnished samples, but, generally, the GI estimator can be used for the categorisation of binding media in large populations of painting samples analysed with the same FTIR technique (sampling technique, detection, etc.)

Effect of different polishing methods on anodic titanium dioxide formation

Among various methods of synthesis of nanostructured TiO2, a self-organized anodization is the most commonly used and discussed in the literature. However, different methods of pretreatment of Ti before anodic titanium dioxide (ATO) formation are not often addressed. Therefore, various polishing procedures based on mechanical, chemical, electrochemical, and combined electrochemical with chemical pretreatments were examined to establish whether they represent effective methods for smooth Ti surface preparation before anodization. The ATO layers were prepared via two-step anodization carried out in an ethylene glycol solution containing fluoride ions at 20°C and under the anodizing potential of 60 V. The influence of applied polishing method on the cell size, pore diameter, pore circularity, pore density, and porosity of the top ATO layer was studied. In addition, the effect of polishing procedure on cell arrangement in ATO films was also investigated. The quantitative analyses of the regularity of cell arrangement, based on the regularity ratio derived from bottom-view SEM images, showed that the type of polishing procedure does not affect the cell order

Prospective catalytic structured converters for NH3−SCRNH_3-SCR of NOxNO_x from biogas stationary engines : in situ template-free synthesis of ZSM-5 Cu exchanged catalysts on steel carriers

The main objective of this study is to develop highly active catalyst and its preparation method that would meet the requirements of steel carriers for short- channel structured converters for NO x abatement from stationary biogas engines. The in situ synthesis was applied to deposit a series of Cu-exchanged MFI zeolite (ZSM-5) on kanthal sheets. The samples differ in preparation con- ditions: organic template assisted and template-free syn- thesis, Si/Al ratio and catalyst carrier pretreatment (calcined vs. non-calcined). Dip-coating method was used as a reference to compare loading efficiency. In order to evaluate preparation quality and purity of resulting struc- ture the samples were examined by XRD and SEM/EDS at various stages of preparation. For the assessment of mechanical endurance of the deposited catalyst layers the ultrasonication method was used. The results demonstrated high depositing efficiency of the in situ synthesis as well as high activity and selectivity of the Cu-exchanged MFI samples prepared without costly organic template

Short-channel structured reactor as a catalytic afterburner

Short-channel structures of triangular and sinu- soidal channel cross-sectional shape were examined exper- imentally to find their heat (or mass) transfer and flow friction (flow resistance) characteristics. A particular emphasis was placed on influence of the channels length (referred to its hydraulic diameter) on transport and hydro- dynamic characteristics. The transport and friction proper- ties were correlated in terms of dimensionless channel length with satisfactory accuracy. The dimensionless channel length was proved to be a key factor that determines the transport and friction coefficients. Comparison with ceramic monolith has shown possibility of using the struc- tures in automotive catalytic converters

Stackelberg Security Games: Models, Applications and Computational Aspects, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2016, nr 3

Stackelberg games are non-symmetric games where one player or specified group of players have the privilege position and make decision before the other players. Such games are used in telecommunication and computational systems for supporting administrative decisions. Recently Stackleberg games became useful also in the systems where security issues are the crucial decision criteria. In this paper authors briefly survey the most popular Stackelberg security game models and provide the analysis of the model properties illustrated in the realistic use cases