Sharif Digital Repository

Mix uniformity is a critical quality control point in food manufacturing. Process analytical technology (PAT) provides new technological opportunities for fulfilling and perhaps replacing conventional sampling methods by proposing spectroscopic analyzers for measuring blend homogeneity. Many spectroscopic analyzers have been used in powder blending processes. Light-induced fluorescence (LIF) is the most rapid and consistent underutilized PAT. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of DL-methionine concentration, moisture content (MC) and bulk density (BD) on LIF responses. Fluorescent responses to powder mixtures comprising 0.05–0.50% w/w fluorescent active pharmaceutical... 

Due to environmental and economic advantages, cold mix asphalt (CMA) can be considered as a good alternative to conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA). Nevertheless, it has inferior performance compared to HMA, so that the application of CMA is not recommended in the surface layer of pavements subjected to high traffic volume and/or regions with very cold or hot climate. Considering the high potential of distress occurring in the CMAs, this research is aimed at investigating the effect of crumb rubber (CR) on fracture and moisture damage resistance of the CMAs. Different CR percentages were applied through two different modification methods and, then by means of Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test,... 

Due to environmental and economic advantages, cold mix asphalt (CMA) can be considered as a good alternative to conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA). Nevertheless, it has inferior performance compared to HMA, so that the application of CMA is not recommended in the surface layer of pavements subjected to high traffic volume and/or regions with very cold or hot climate. Considering the high potential of distress occurring in the CMAs, this research is aimed at investigating the effect of crumb rubber (CR) on fracture and moisture damage resistance of the CMAs. Different CR percentages were applied through two different modification methods and, then by means of Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test,... 

Recycling of wastepaper is an effective way to achieve the sustainable paper manufacturing regarding sustainable development goals. Focusing on the mixed wastepaper sorting, recovery of suitable papers for deinking purpose and minimizing the impurities were developed in this study. In a wastepaper sorting process, each equipment has its own role in increasing recycling performance. In this study, disc screen was applied and evaluated for sorting of the mixed wastepaper considering independent variables such as inclination, velocity and moisture content. Response surface method was applied for design of the experiments. Sorting efficiency of 100% was achieved in two conditions: 1–20%... 

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted significant attention due to their excellent efficiency reaching 22.1% in just the past few years. Despite their high efficiency, the limited long-term stability of PSCs has to be overcome. Moisture environments has been recognized as a main degradation pathway of perovskite materials. This review summarizes recent studies about relationship of the stability of PSCs with moisture environment. We also discuss the current standard strategies for enhancing the stability of PSCs by modifying the properties of either the perovskite material itself or its interfaces  

The effect of moisture on Shengli lignite breakage behavior and energy efficiency was studied experimentally using a standard Hardgrove mill fitted with a wattmeter. The grinding process concerned both the inputs, namely the occurrence and content of water and instantaneous energy consumption and the outputs, size-reduction and product fineness. Results show that the energy-size reduction process for grinding lignite is markedly influenced by moisture occurrence and content. Removing surface moisture from 37.90% to 16.61% (the air-dried condition) resulted in a slight increase of input energy by 0.04 kWh.t−1 per 10 s. However, with further drying inherent moisture to 0%, the consumed energy... 

A major challenge in automatic irrigation of extensive agricultural fields is large scale soil moisture monitoring. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is a widespread data-driven dimension reduction technique which can be combined with QR pivoting method for estimation of high-dimensional signals and optimal sensor placement. However, it requires computation of tailored basis functions which should be extracted from known training data. This is feasible for problems with constant features such as face recognition. However, using fixed bases (and probably fixed sensor selection) may not be an appropriate approach for estimation of signals with time-variant features. This paper demonstrates... 

Recycling of wastepaper is an effective way to achieve the sustainable paper manufacturing regarding sustainable development goals. Focusing on the mixed wastepaper sorting, recovery of suitable papers for deinking purpose and minimizing the impurities were developed in this study. In a wastepaper sorting process, each equipment has its own role in increasing recycling performance. In this study, disc screen was applied and evaluated for sorting of the mixed wastepaper considering independent variables such as inclination, velocity and moisture content. Response surface method was applied for design of the experiments. Sorting efficiency of 100% was achieved in two conditions: 1–20%... 

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... 

One of the methods newly introduced in pavement technology to address environmental concerns and reduce total gas emission is warm mix asphalt (WMA) technology. In this study, polyethylene wax is used to produce WMA mixtures. Although this technology has several positive features, moisture and rutting resistance of WMA mixtures are always questionable. To evaluate moisture and rutting resistance of polyethylene-modified mixtures, indirect tensile strength and dynamic creep tests were used, respectively. Results indicated that polyethylene has positive effect at low compaction temperature on moisture resistance, and also has negative effect on rutting resistance  

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted significant attention due to their excellent efficiency reaching 22.1% in just the past few years. Despite their high efficiency, the limited long-term stability of PSCs has to be overcome. Moisture environments has been recognized as a main degradation pathway of perovskite materials. This review summarizes recent studies about relationship of the stability of PSCs with moisture environment. We also discuss the current standard strategies for enhancing the stability of PSCs by modifying the properties of either the perovskite material itself or its interfaces. © 2018  

Central composite orthogonal design was applied to quantify relations of xylanase production, loss of dry matter and change of pH with four critical variables during solid state fermentation of a mixture of wheat bran and wheat straw on which Aspergillus niger CCUG 33991 was cultivated. The studied variables included the percentage of wheat straw, wheat bran, temperature, moisture content, and fermentation time. The second-order quadratic model predicted the xylanase activity at a suitable set of conditions namely 29°C, 55% moisture content, and 50 hours of fermentation to be 1465 U/g of fermented dry matter which differed less than 6% from measured value at this set of conditions.... 

We develop a method for predicting the moisture content of the fermenting solids in an intermittently mixed packed-bed bioreactor on the basis of measurements of the inlet and outlet gas stream temperatures and the assumption that both the gas streams are saturated with water vapor. This method can be used to estimate when an intermittently mixed packed bed should be mixed and how much water should be added during the mixing event. The predictions were experimentally verified for the growth of Aspergillus niger on wheat bran in a thin packed bed. We show that the application of a controller based on our estimation method would have led to adequate moisture control, with significant errors in... 

An experimental study is conducted to measure small-strain shear modulus of clay-cement mixture using bender element apparatus setup in a triaxial cell. Bender element tests were conducted on cement-treated soils and the results were analyzed to study the variation of shear modulus properties of soil specimens at different cement contents, confining pressures, curing times, and compaction moisture contents. Based on the obtained results increasing the cement ratio has a significant effect on the small-strain shear modulus of the treated soils, and this effect signifies with increasing the moisture content and curing time. Rates of shear modulus enhancements due to cement content, curing... 

During drying processes, moisture control of food products, such as dried tea, is of great importance. Improving dryer control, results in consistent production and reduction of energy consumption. However, the dryer is a complex system associated with model uncertainties. In this paper, a realistic uncertain model of a fluidized tea bed dryer is considered. Moisture content and temperature of tea leaves (or other products) are controlled at desired values by manipulating tea leaves heating rate. Developing a code by Robust Control Toolbox of MATLAB and modeling uncertainties, a robust controller is designed based on ′-synthesis with DK-iteration algorithm. Results show that in the presence... 

For the first time, the simultaneous effects of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB), soil type and moisture content on corrosion behavior of a pipeline steel were investigated. Corrosion weight loss measurements were performed in abiotic control and SRB-active conditions, at three different moisture contents, and in two types of soils. Results showed that the presence of SRB in the soils, although increased the corrosion rate and aggravated pitting corrosion at low moisture contents, had a protective effect at high moisture contents. The corrosion rates showed a maximum at the saturation moisture content (SMC) of the soils. Soil physicochemical analyses showed that the corrosion rate and soil... 

Low-power wireless stand-alone sensors that can operate without any wiring have received significant attention in sensor network applications. These devices harvest environmental energy resources to supply their power and transfer their collected data using wireless RF links. In many instances, the power supplied from the environment is far less than the power required by the sensor device. In this case, the main solution is to accumulate energy on a storage element, and when enough energy is stored, the sensor node is instantaneously activated using an undervoltage lockout (UVLO) circuit. During this short time burst, the sensor performs the required acquisition, transmits the results, and...