Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the artificial neural network has been applied to estimate the reaction rate of methanol dehydration in dimethyl ether synthesis. The multilayer feed forward neural network with three inputs and one output has been trained with different algorithms and different numbers of neurons in the hidden layer. Two thirds of all training data are used for training of the network and the rest are used for testing of the generalization of the network. The accuracy of the proposed model was found to agree well with the experimental results over a wide range of experimental conditions. The results clearly depict that the neural network is a powerful tool to estimate the reaction rate and... 

Zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings are quite successful in protecting steel against corrosion under severe exposing conditions. In spite of providing excellent cathodic protection to steel structure after film curing, two-component zinc-rich ethyl silicate coatings have some limitations, one of which is inadequate shelf life as a result of in-can binder gelation. In this work, the preparation steps of ethyl silicate such as pre-hydrolysis, dehydration and organometallic reactions were surveyed and herein an approach towards understanding the cause and effect relationship of the use of ingredients is presented. The effects of water and catalytic acid dosages on gel time under accelerated... 

The liquid-phase dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether was investigated over various materials including synthetic zeolites, namely, ZSM-5, Y, Mordenite, Ferrierite and Beta as well as silica and alumina. The key characters investigated were the Si/Al ratio and cation exchange. The results showed that the Mordenite zeolite exchanged with H+ exhibited the highest activity in dehydration of methanol. After finding the most active catalyst, the Mordenite zeolite was modified with Cu, Zn, Ni, Al, Zr, Mg and Na via wet-impregnation method to further improve its selectivity, and characterized by AAS, XRD, NH3-TPD, NH3-FT-IR and BET surface area techniques. It was found that these materials... 

Silver nanoparticles (NPs) stored in pore-arrays (pa) SU-8 photoresist layer were utilized as an antibacterial nanocomposition against E. coli bacteria. The pa-SU-8 matrix was fabricated by an optical interference lithography method resulting in small pores with a diameter of ∼50 nm and a depth of ∼100 nm. The Ag NPs were deposited on the soft polymeric matrix at different drying temperatures of 50 and 90 °C. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the deposited silver NPs were substantially in the metallic state, independent from the drying condition. However, the concentration of the immobilized Ag NPs on the film surface increased (by a factor of 2.5) at the higher drying... 

Drying behavior of broad beans (Vicia faba) was studied in a pilot scaled fluidized bed dryer with inert particles assisted by dielectric heating. The effective diffusion coefficient of moisture transfer was determined by Fickian method at four different air drying temperatures of 35, 45, 55 and 65 °C. Correlations for moisture diffusivity as a function of moisture content and temperature of the drying medium were developed. The values of moisture diffusivity were obtained within the range of 1.27 × 10-9-6.48 × 10-9 m2/s and the activation energies for FBD and FBD + DE were found to be 27.71 and 17.10 kJ/mol, respectively. The shrinkage behavior of the broad beans was also investigated by... 

A mathematical model is developed for induration of the iron-ore pellets in an industrial-scale plant based on the laws of mass, heat and momentum transfer. Physicochemical processes occurring during the induration of pellets such as drying of moisture, calcination of limestone and coke-magnetite reaction are considered to evaluate the gradient of temperature within the pellets. Differential equations describing transport phenomena in a grate bed are simultaneously solved by dividing the space in both x- and z- directions and numerically solving the phenomenological equations. A kinetic model is used for estimation of the change of the strength of the pellets due to firing. The model... 

Heavy metal removal from water and wastewater was investigated by using raw and modified diatomite from Iranian mines. Modification of diatomite was done by impregnating the diatomite surface with 0.35 g of manganese oxide in one gram of diatomite. This modified diatomite was named Mn-Diatomite. The surface area measurements for Mn-diatomite showed a 2.2 fold increase, hence higher removal capacity for the heavy metals. The results of the removal showed an increase in adsorption capacity which was for Pb2+ about 40 mg/g, for Ni 2+ about 34mg/g and for Cu2+ about 33mg/g. The filtration quality of diatomite was significantly enhanced with surface modification by manganese oxide  

In this study, the ozonation impact on anaerobic digestion of wasted thickened activated sludge of Tehran wastewater treatment plant has been investigated. Regarding that, the thickened activated sludge, a final solid waste of treatment plants, was subjected to ozonation pretreatment to evaluate its characteristics. Three major sludge characteristics were considered for investigating ozonation effects on anaerobic digestion. A comparison of two different ozone doses, i.e., 0.05 and 0.1 gO3 g−1TS was performed for short-term (10 days) and long-term (30 days) sludge retention times. Furthermore, biogas production, sludge composition, dewaterability, and energy balancing, were studied during... 

This study aims at analyzing the performance of three units known as low salt rejection reverse osmosis (LSRRO), split-feed counterflow reverse osmosis (SF-CFRO), and split-brine counterflow reverse osmosis (SB-CFRO) and implementing them in a modified multi-stage multi-feed counter-current membrane with cascade recycle for dewatering hypersaline streams to the salinity appropriate for crystallizers' feed. Exergy and primitive pinch analysis showed that dewatering is limited in SF-CFRO as the permeate inlet dictates the maximum salinity difference at the pinch point as well as high frictional pressure loss in the permeate channel. SB-CFRO and LSRRO units can reach high salinities by... 

Catalytic ozonation has recently been used as a new means of contaminant removal from water and wastewater. In this study, bone charcoal (BC), a new catalyst prepared under laboratory conditions, was used to catalyze the ozonation of humic substances (HS) in aqueous solutions. The catalytic effect of bone charcoal and the relevant parameters of this ozonation process (solution pH, temperature, scavenger effect, humic acids concentration and BC dosage) were investigated. In the catalytic ozonation experiments, the degradation kinetics was investigated. The reaction rate and the rate constant were determined. The results showed that using a BC catalyst in the ozonation of HS produced a 1.43-... 

Sol was prepared by the mixing of tetra-η-butyle titanat, ethyl aceto acetate, and ethanol in an optimized condition. Polished 316L specimens were coated with the sol by dip-coating method. The influences of drying condition, withdrawal speed, calcination temperature, addition of dispersant, and pH of sol on TiO2 nanostructure coating were investigated. Choosing of alcohol as drying atmosphere hindered the crack formation. The relation between coating thickness and withdrawal speed was evaluated. The optimum temperature to create a uniform distribution of nanoparticles of anatase was derived as 400 °C. Average roughness of coating was found about 10.61 nm by AFM analysis. Dispersant addition... 

Synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) via methanol dehydration were investigated over various catalysts, and via direct CO hydrogenation over hybrid catalysts composed of Al-modified H-Mordenite zeolite and Cu/ZnO/ZrO 2. H-Mordenite zeolite exhibited the highest activity in dehydration of methanol. However, its selectivity toward dimethyl ether was rather low. For this reason, the H-Mordenite was modified. Modification of zeolites was performed by wet impregnation method and considered catalysts were characterized by AAS, XRD and NH3-TPD analyses. Results of catalytic tests indicated that H-Mordenite modified with 8 wt% aluminum oxide was the best catalyst for synthesis of dimethyl ether from... 

A headspace solid-phase dynamic extraction (HS-SPDE) technique was developed by the use of polypyrrole (PPy) sorbent, electropolymerized inside the surface of a needle, as a possible alternative to solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Thermal desorption was subsequently, employed to transfer the extracted analytes into the injection port of a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The PPy sorbent including polypyrrole-dodecyl sulfate (PPy-DS) was deposited on the interior surface of a stainless steel needle from the corresponding aqueous electrolyte by applying a constant deposition potential. The homogeneity and the porous surface structure of the coating were examined using the...