Sharif Digital Repository

Ethylene oxide production units are among the most dangerous plants in the petrochemical industry. A detailed consequence analysis for different accidental scenarios for a storage tanks in a petrochemical complex in Iran is put forward. Credible scenarios were selected and all the effective factors that may influence the mechanism of release and dispersion of toxic materials were surveyed. Simulator software and numerical models were used to simulate the distribution of toxic material around the leak source. The results can be used in risk management and in providing an emergency response plan to counter unwanted situations in the plant. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 7th... 

In this study we offer a new type of plasma which consists of double, corona and glow, discharge to convert natural gas, the main part of which is methane. The most important future of this type of plasma is the steady increase of overall chemical energy efficiency by enhancement of repetition rate. At repetition rate of R = 80 Hz, the energy efficiency of 5.5% was increased to 10% at R = 330 Hz and more improvement was yet expected at higher repetition rates. Easy control of selectivity of products that were hydrogen, acetylene, ethylene, ethane and hydrocarbons with up to 5 carbons, was also possible by repetition rate  

In this study, an industrial acetylene hydrogenation unit is simulated utilizing three available kinetic models. The results are compared against six-day experimental data and the best model is selected. Effects of feed temperature and the amount of injected hydrogen on ethylene selectivity are also studied. According to the simulation results, the unit is not working under its optimum conditions. Furthermore, by reduction of the hydrogen flow rate to 52 kg/h, process selectivity is increased. In addition, a new approach is proposed to modify the hydrogenation process and reduce undesired by-products. In the simulation of the modified process, hydrogenation reactors temperature, hydrogen... 

For risk free application of nanoparticles in life science, energy and the environment, it is essential to understand their biological fate and potential toxicity. The application of iron oxide nanoparticles for drug delivery has been one of the most promising researches in the field of nanotechnology. However, there are two major problems associated with magnetically targeted deliveries that still need close attention: • As the drug is coated on to the particle surfaces, there is the possibility of faster drug release (Burst Effect). Therefore, after reaching to the specific site, there is very low amount of drug for delivery. To overcome this problem, some researchers have used conjugation... 

This paper outlines a quantitative risk assessment for an 110,000 ton/day ethylene oxide production plant in Iran. After a complete and detailed hazard identification study, done by HAZOP method, the purification column was found to be one of the most hazardous sections in this plant. As ethylene oxide with high concentration and inventory is present there. Fault tree analysis (FTA) technique has been used to identify the basic events responsible for top event occurrence and also calculation of top event frequency of occurrence. Human error has been calculated numerically and probability of human error has been estimated. Failure rate data were collected referring to several sources and... 

Ethylene dichloride thermal cracking is one of the conventional methods for hydrogen chloride production. A critical issue concerned with this method is to provide thermal energy for cracking reaction, which is generally provided by the flammable gasses inside the furnace. Utilizing renewable energy sources can be an interesting topic in this case. Hence, in this paper, the thermal integration feasibility of an ethylene dichloride cracking unit with a hybrid renewable plant, based on geothermal and wind energies, is investigated, while the case study for wind turbines system (Alstom ECO 74/1670/ Class II model) is Meshkin Shahr, located in Iran. To utilize geothermal energy, a... 

In this research, a palladium nanocatalyst was synthesised over a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) support and then applied for selective hydrogenation of acetylene in an ethylene-richflow stream. This material displayed a very promising selectivity toward ethylene production with increasing temperature, and also suppressed oligomer formation during acetylene hydrogenation. New operating conditions for selective hydrogenation of acetylene in an ethylene-richflow were introduced. This nanocatalyst gave a considerably higher yield, as high as 93%, than that previously obtained for ethylene production. It was postulated that the governing mechanism for acetylene hydrogenation over 0.5 wt.%... 

In this work, the partition coefficients of Cephalexin in aqueous two-phase systems containing PEG [poly(ethylene glycol)] 4000, 10000 and K 2HPO4, Na3Citrate (C6H 5Na3O7 5, 5H2O) have been measured. The experimental data were obtained in a wide range of temperatures, (28.2 to 37.2) °C. The effects of temperature, pH, polymer concentration, polymer molecular weight, and salt concentration on the partitioning of Cephalexin were also studied. The results showed that salt concentration has a large effect on the partition coefficient, and temperature has an almost negligible effect. The Chen-NRTL Gibbs energy model was used to correlate the experimental results. © 2009 American Chemical Society  

The gas separation properties of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) membranes containing 18 and 28 wt% of vinyl acetate (VA) were investigated in this study. The effects of membrane preparation conditions, such as thermal and thermal/wet phase inversion, and the type of solvent on the gas separation properties of EVA membranes were investigated. The permeation of pure O2, N2, CH4, and CO2 gases at different feed pressures ranging from 2 to 11 bar were examined. The results indicated that the CO2 permeability was evidently higher than those of the other gases. Furthermore, the solubility mechanism was found to be the dominant mechanism for permeation of gases through EVA membranes. Moreover, the... 

The preparation of MCM-41 nanoparticles was made using tetraethylorthosilicate as silica source and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as surfactant. The X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, laser particle size analysis and N2 adsorption techniques were used for characterization of nanoparticles. The dimethyldichlorosilan (DMDCS) was applied to improve the dispersion of MCM-41 nanoparticles into the polysulfone (PSF) matrix. The investigation on the thermal stability with thermogravimetric analysis showed the enhanced stability of membranes possessing higher loading of MCM-41 nanaoparticles. The scanning electron microscopy was used to evaluate the quality of particles dispersion... 

2,4,6,8,10,12-Hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane (2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazatetracyclo dodecane (CL-20)-based polymer/plastic bonded explosives are used in propellant formulation. It can be predicted that CL-20-based nano-polymer/plastic bonded explosives are able to have reduced composite sensitivity and superior mechanical strength. In the current study, we have prepared two kinds of CL-20-based nano-polymer/plastic bonded explosives with ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer and glycidyl azide polymer via the microemulsion method. Several visual techniques such as SEM/AFM/TEM techniques have been utilized for complete characterization of CL-20-based... 

The steam reforming of ethylene glycol, a simple model compound for biomass-derived liquids, is considered to be an environmentally green process for producing renewable hydrogen. Both Pt and Ni species are known for their catalytic activity under steam reforming reaction conditions. In this investigation, alumina supported Ni-Pt bimetallic catalysts (X wt% Ni-Y wt% Pt/Al2O3 named XNi-YPt) were employed for steam reforming of ethylene glycol. The prepared catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, H2-TPR, H₂-Chemisorption, and TEM. It was observed that Ni/Pt ratio strongly affected the redox behavior, BET surface area, and particle size of the samples that in turn affected their catalytic... 

Ceramic suspensions were prepared from an alumino-silicate powder, polyethylene wax (PE-wax) as binder with additions of stearic acid (SA). The ceramic powder consisted of mullite, corundum and tridymite phases. The organic binders contained 3 to 8 wt.% ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) and were filled with various volume fractions of ceramic powder. The yield stresses of suspensions were estimated using shear stress-shear rate data measured at 90-120 °C. The addition level of EVA was shown to have a considerable effect on the yield stress of suspensions. The effect of EVA on the flow parameters was also investigated over the temperature range of 90 to 120 °C. It was shown that the addition of 5... 

This article focuses on the study of potassium carbonate (PC) based deep eutectic solvents based supported liquid membranes (DES-SLMs) for CO2 separation. Two types of DESs were synthesized by mixing and subsequently heating PC with glycerol or ethylene glycol separately. The mechanism of interaction was inferred from the spectral analysis (FTIR) whereas thermal study (TGA) was performed to analyze the stability of the membrane. Experiments were carried out to analyze the permeability and separation factor of the membranes. The PC-Glycerol based SLM reported permeability of 34 Barrer and ideal selectivity of 59 while PC-Ethylene Glycol based SLM showed permeability of 20 Barrer and... 

An industrial-scale reactor for ethylene production was modeled using the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane (ODHE) in a multi-tubular reactor system, examining a variety of parameters affecting reactor performance. The model showed that a double-bed multi-tubular reactor with intermediate air injection scheme was superior to a single-bed design, due to the increased ethylene selectivity while operating under lower oxygen partial pressures. The optimized reactor length for 100% oxygen conversion was theoretically determined for both reactor designs. The use of a distributed oxygen feed with a limited number of injection points indicated a significant improvement on the reactor performance...