Movable optical sensor for automatic detection and monitoring of liquid-liquid interfaces.

This work presents a novel sensor setup for the general detection of liquid-liquid interfaces in different mixes of liquids as part of a liquid-liquid extraction device. The sensor setup is applied to a laboratory scale separatory funnel. It uses a near infrared sensor array which receives light going through the liquids inside the funnel, which are illuminated by a light source located on the other side and below the funnel. Light refracts inside the funnel and the liquids and reflects on the interface creating changing patterns in the light intensity measured by the sensor, providing a way of locating the liquid-liquid interface. Liquid mixes with different optical features, from transparent to opaque, emulsion and clean, are used to test whether different types of interfaces produce a distinguishable response on the sensor, allowing to detect interfaces in different situations that can occur as part of an Artificial Intelligence orchestrated battery chemical synthesis process. Emulsion interfaces create a discernible change in the sensor input by lowering the light intensity registered when crossing in front of the sensor making them easier to locate than with other optical techniques. The setup opens the possibility of detecting a liquid-liquid interface as it is forming and can be miniaturized to be attached to laboratory funnels as a manual aid or used with other transparent vessels in automatic solutions like liquid handling robots or pipetting robots.

Laboratory and field observations of stress‐wave induced changes in oil flow behavior

Palm oil is one of the many vegetable oils widely consumed around the world. The production of palm oil requires voluminous amount of water with the concurrent generation of large amount of wastewater known as palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME is a mixture of water, oil, and natural sediments (solid particles and fibres).There is a dearth of information on the physical properties of these POME sediments. This study intends to distinguish the physical properties of oily and non‐oily POME sediments which include sediment size, particle size distribution (PSD), sediment shape, sediment surface morphology, and sediment density. These characterizations are important for future researches because these properties have significant effects on the settling process that occurs either under natural gravity or by coagulations. It was found that the oily and non‐oily POME sediments have different sizes with nonspherical irregular shapes, and because of that, the aspect ratio (AR) and circularity shape factors were adopted to describe the shapes of these sediments. The results also indicate that the density of oily POME sediment decreases as the sediment size increases.

Construction of superhydrophobic and superoleophilic nickel foam for separation of water and oil mixture

New developments in liquid-liquid extraction, surface modification and agglomerate-free processing of inorganic particles

This chapter talks about interest in the liquid-liquid interface that is concerned with the topic of emulsions, which is closely related to the study of food science. It explains that the liquid-liquid interface consists of liquid drops dispersed in another liquid, which are normally thermodynamically unstable and are usually stabilized by the adsorption of an emulsifier. It also considers the movement of a solute from one liquid phase to another. This is important with processes such as liquid-liquid extraction in the chemical industry and in many biological situations. The chapter highlights the role of membranes that can be significant in solute transport and is an essential feature of many biological processes. It reviews emulsions that are concerned with water or an aqueous solution as one phase and a water-insoluble organic liquid as the other phase.

LED optical light source and laser diode function as an information carriers in the opticalcommunication systems. Each optical light source in the form of LED, CW Laser, and VCSEL Laserhas advantages and disadvantages. Based on these advantages and disadvantages, a study wascarried out on the internal and external characteristics of optical light sources to determine the optimaloptical light source to use as needed. Simulations are carried out in optical system software. Theperformance analyzed is Q-Factor, BER, and Eye Diagram until it reaches the ITU-T G.984.2standard with a minimum limit of Q-Factor = 6 and BER = 10-9. The feasibility test of the practicummodule uses the method of filling out a questionnaire with a Likert scale of 1–5 and giving pre andpost-test to the practitioner. The results of this study were an increase in the internal characteristics ofthe LED, a decrease in the signal power of the CW Laser, and an increase in the bias current of theVCSEL Laser resulting in a decrease in Q-Factor, and an increase in the BER value. The comparisonof the increase in bit rate and transmission distance showed that CW Laser can transmit a higher bitrate and a longer transmission distance. The comparison of the transmission distance that can becovered by each optical light source shows that the CW Laser travels the farthest transmissiondistance . Increased understanding of the practitioner based on the post-test score which is higherthan the pre-test score can be used as the basis that this practicum module as a whole is verysuitable for use as teaching material. This is also supported by the feasibility test of the questionnairefilling method with a Likert scale of 1-5 with a percentage of the practitioner's assessment of 88.6%.

The extractant-assisted transport of metal ions from aqueous to organic environments by liquid-liquid extraction has been widely used to separate and recover critical elements on an industrial scale. While current efforts focus on designing better extractants and optimizing process conditions, the mechanism that underlies ionic transport remains poorly understood. Here, we report a nonequilibrium process in the bulk aqueous phase that influences interfacial ion transport: the formation of metastable ion-extractant precipitates away from the liquid-liquid interface, separated from it by a depletion region without precipitates. Although the precipitate is soluble in the organic phase, the depletion region separates the two and ions are sequestered in a long-lived metastable state. Since precipitation removes extractants from the aqueous phase, even extractants that are sparingly soluble in water will continue to be withdrawn from the organic phase to feed the aqueous precipitation process. Solute concentrations in both phases and the aqueous pH influence the temporal evolution of the process and ionic partitioning between the precipitate and organic phase. Aqueous ion-extractant precipitation during liquid-liquid extraction provides a reaction path that can influence the extraction kinetics, which plays an important role in designing advanced processes to separate rare earths and other minerals.

Novel superhydrophobic and superoleophilic sugarcane green ceramic hollow fibre membrane as hybrid oil sorbent-separator of real oil and water mixture

Development of quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) for predicting the aggregation of TiO2 nanoparticles under favorable conditions

The withdrawal of fluid from only one layer of a vertically stratified immiscible fluid system is often referred to as selective withdrawal. For a given withdrawal location, the ability to predict the maximum flow rate at which fluid from one layer can be withdrawn before an adjacent layer of fluid is also entrained is critical for many applications. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) offers one such example where oil is stored above an underlying brine layer in large underground caverns. When oil is added to a cavern, a corresponding volume of brine must be withdrawn through a hanging string that extends through the oil into the brine layer. If the depth of the string below the oil-brine interface is insufficient for a given flow rate, oil may be inadvertently withdrawn along with the expected brine — potentially introducing oil into the brine handling system and leading to costly cleanup to prevent environmental contamination. Laboratory experiments with two immiscible liquids (silicone oil and water or brine) have been conducted to investigate this behavior for typical SPR cavern conditions. In these experiments the higher density fluid is withdrawn through a tube below the liquid-liquid interface. As the withdrawal point is raised closer to the interface for a given flow rate, or the flow rate is increased for a given submergence, the overlying lower density layer begins to entrain along with the higher density liquid. The critical withdrawal depth at which transition to light layer entrainment occurs is measured for a given flow rate of the lower liquid, and the process is repeated for different flow rates. Most prior literature concerning the transition from selective withdrawal has examined removal of the lower density fluid and the transition to entraining the higher density fluid, whereas this work focuses on the inverse. Experiments were performed for a range of different light layer silicone oils and heavy layer water or brine, covering a range of density and viscosity ratios. Three separate withdrawal tubes of differing diameter were placed in two orientations to establish the depth at which selective withdrawal began as a function of fluid properties. The data show that, at the highest flow rates, the transition to light layer entrainment can occur when the withdrawal point is up to two diameters below the liquid-liquid interface, depending on the lower fluid density. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was performed to map the instantaneous velocity field. The strength of the velocity vectors increased dramatically near the withdrawal tube opening showing the region in which inertial forces dominated the flow pattern.

In the present work, the kinetics of transport of selected rare earth ions at the liquid-liquid interface in the presence of a magnetic field gradient was investigated. A uniform magnetic field was applied to the classic liquid-liquid solvent extraction system. The influence of temperature, initial concentration of selected ions and magnetic field gradient on the extraction rate was determined. It was shown that the uniform magnetic field could affect the kinetics of the extraction of rare earth ions in the liquid-liquid system. The observed differences constitute a promising prospect worthy of further research. Figs 6, Refs 10.

Cold production is a non-thermal primary heavy oil recovery process in which sand production is encouraged. Previous field and laboratory studies [1–3] suggest that high permeability channels (wormholes) develop within the formation starting at the perforations in a cold production well. These wormholes provide higher effective fluid mobility leading to higher oil recovery compared to conventional primary recovery without sand production. According to previous models we developed [4, 5], in the first few months of cold production, wormholes grow rapidly, forming a wormhole network. The produced sand cuts are high during this period. Based on laboratory experiments, during this period, most wormholes are uniformly filled with slurry, a mixture of oil and liquefied sand. At later stages of cold production, however, the expansion of the wormhole network zone slows down, resulting in reduced sand cuts. In previous experiments conducted at ARC, we observed the creation and extension of a sand-free zone in the upper part of a wormhole after the wormholes stopped growing [3]. The flow behavior under this circumstance is very different from that in a uniformly filled wormhole. In this work, we establish a simple model of flow in a partially filled wormhole, where layers of oil, slurry and immobile sand can co-exist. The slurry is assumed to behave as a Bingham material, i.e., it liquefies when the shear stress exceeds the yield stress. The yield stress is assumed to increase with depth due to the weight of the overlying sand. A Mohr-Coulomb equation is used to calculate the yield stress within the slurry and immobile sand layers. Linearized Navier-Stokes equations are solved to calculate the oil and mobile sand flow rates. Different characteristic oil and sand flow patterns are studied. Oil and sand flow rates through the wormhole are calculated as functions of pressure gradient and rheological parameters. This simple model could be used to estimate sand transport in a partially filled wormhole, complementing a sand transport model for uniformly filled wormholes [4]. These wormhole flow models can be incorporated into a field scale model for cold production. Introduction At the early stage of cold production, a few months in many cases, wormholes are believed to grow rapidly, resulting in high sand cut and formation of wormhole networks. During this period, most of the wormhole is thought to be filled with slurry, a liquefied mixture of sand and oil. Models describing such wormhole flow [4] and the wormhole network [5] have been developed. At later stages of cold production, however, the expansion of the wormhole network zone slows down drastically, resulting in reduced sand cut. Experiments have demonstrated the creation and extension of a sand free zone in the upper part of a wormhole. The flow behavior under this circumstance is very different from that in a sand-filled wormhole. In this work, we use a simplified description of the layered flow in partially filled wormhole. A comparison with experimental results indicates that this simple model could be used for the estimation of flow properties in a partially filled wormhole, complementing the sand transport model for a fully filled wormhole and the wormhole network model.

Fully automated methods for the determination of hydrochlorothiazide in human plasma and urine.

Many species of insect pests can be detected and monitored automatically. Several systems have been designed in order to improve integrated pest management (IPM) in the context of precision agriculture. Automatic detection traps have been developed for many important pests. These techniques and new technologies are very promising for the early detection and monitoring of aggressive and quarantine pests. The aim of the present paper is to review the techniques and scientific state of the art of the use of sensors for automatic detection and monitoring of insect pests. The paper focuses on the methods for identification of pests based in infrared sensors, audio sensors and image-based classification, presenting the different systems available, examples of applications and recent developments, including machine learning and Internet of Things. Future trends of automatic traps and decision support systems are also discussed.