Synthesis of Nanodiamond-TiO2 Composites with Excellent UV Shielding Performance and Development of a Continuous Mass Production Process

The goal of this investigation was to initiate the development of a continuous process for the production of Biodiesel, by investigating possible heterogeneous catalysts. Currently there are many processes to produce Biodiesel that are implemented industrially around the world. These processes are varied and are usually batch processes making it difficult to determine which process is the most viable. The question one must ask is why are these processes operating in a batch manner? Any process engineer understands that a batch process is inferior to a continuous process. Currently the processes operate in a batch manner, as the catalysts are homogeneous. If a continuous process was developed for the production of Biodiesel then all other processes would be rendered inferior. Therefore the goal is to investigate heterogeneous catalysts to allow the development of a continuous process.How does the discovery of an active heterogeneous catalyst allow the development of a continuous process for Biodiesel production? A heterogeneous catalyst that is non- soluble in the reaction mixture could be used in a continuous packed bed reactor. A continuous packed bed reactor could form part of a continuous process that would not rely on novel reactor designs and therefore would be highly viable.The literature survey uncovered only one paper that had evidence of a heterogeneous catalyst that may be suitable for a packed bed reactor. This catalyst is CaCO3. This investigation confirmed CaCO3 as an active catalyst and a possible heterogeneous catalyst for a packed bed reactor used to produce Biodiesel.Other heterogeneous catalysts were investigated and 5 other catalysts were found to have even higher activity than CaCO3. These catalysts include: Valfor (Sodium alumina silicate), MCM- 41, Zeolite Y, Beta Zeolite and ZSM5.This investigation screened the catalysts using a 300 ml batch reactor at the same initial concentration, reaction temperatures and pressures, to determine their relative activities. The final result is that this investigation has provided evidence that there are at least six catalysts that have the potential to be used in a packed bed continuous reactor for the production of Biodiesel. This result will initiate further research into the development of a continuous process for Biodiesel production, rendering other processes inferior.

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) brings together new disruptive technologies, increasing future factories’ productivity. Indeed, the control of production processes is fast becoming a key driver for manufacturing operations. Manufacturing control systems have recently been developed for distributed or semi-heterarchical architectures, e.g., holonic systems improving global efficiency and manufacturing operations’ reactiveness. So far, previous studies and applications have not dealt with continuous production processes, such as applications for Water Supply System (WSS), oil refining, or electric power plants. The complexity of continuous production is that a single fault can degrade extensively and even cause service disruption. Therefore, this paper proposes the Holonic Production Unit (HPU) architecture as a solution to control continuous production processes. An HPU is created as a holon unit depicting resources in a continuous process. This unit can detect events within the environment, evaluate several courses of action, and change the parameters aligned to a mission. The proposed approach was tested using a simulated model of WSS. The experiments described in this paper were conducted using a traditional WSS, where the communication and decision-making features allow the application of HPU. The results suggest that constructing a holarchy with different holons can fulfill I4.0 requirements for continuous production processes.

The large-scale production of clinical-grade lentiviral vectors (LVs) for gene therapy applications is a remaining challenge. The use of adherent cell lines and methods like transient transfection are cost-intensive and hamper process scalability as well as reproducibility. This study describes the use of two suspension-adapted stable packaging cell lines, called GPRGs and GPRTGs, for the development of a scalable and serum-free LV production process. Both stable packaging cell lines are based on an inducible Tet-off system, thus requiring doxycycline removal for initiation of the virus production. Therefore, we compared different methods for doxycycline removal and inoculated three independent 5 L bioreactors using a scalable induction method by dilution, an acoustic cell washer and manual centrifugation. The bioreactors were inoculated with a stable producer cell line encoding for a LV carrying a clinically relevant gene. LV production was performed in perfusion mode using a cell retention device based on acoustic wave separation. Comparable cell-specific productivities were obtained with all three methods and cumulative functional yields up to 6.36 × 1011 transducing units per bioreactor were generated in a 234-h long process, demonstrating the usability of stable Tet-off cell lines for an easily scalable suspension process. Remarkably, cell viabilities >90% were maintained at high cell densities without compromising productivity throughout the whole process, allowing to further extend the process time. Given its low effects of toxicity during virus production, the presented cell lines are excellent candidates to develop a fully continuous LV production process to overcome the existing bottlenecks in LV manufacturing.

Development of continuous chitinase production process in a membrane bioreactor by Paenibacillus sp. CHE-N1

Relevance. Nowadays, enterprises not only have to constantly introduce new products, but also to reduce development time, reduce costs, and improve the variety and quality of their products. In the product development process, risk management is too often underutilized and relegated to the background compared to product development planning and monitoring tools. Moreover, the measurement of process performance of risk management within product development is not defined and does not allow for comparison with peers or support continuous process improvement.The purpose of the study is to provide a framework for improving the risk management process performance in space product development. So that risk managers have the proper tools to monitor and understand where resources and efforts should be directed to improve the process.Results. This article identifies how to represent risk in product development and how to measure its impact on the performance of the risk management process in product development. Through a survey of key players in the Russian space industry, the study identifies different practices and needs in risk management, product development and performance measurement of these processes.Methods. Theoretical research methods: analysis, synthesis, classification, comparison, abstraction, generalization, modeling. Empirical method — survey: questionnaire survey. The key contribution of this study (to limit the usual delays and cost overruns in the space industry) is to establish specific characteristics and methods that can serve as a reference practice and basis for the future development of a tool that will assist in the evaluation of space development projects.

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are the fastest-growing class of biotherapeutics. They are mainly used to treat cancer, inflammatory, metabolic and autoimmune diseases. Their commercial production processes are mainly based on Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) suspension cells, which are currently cultivated in fed-batch mode at cubic meter scale. The annually growing market for therapeutic mAbs and the pressure on producers to reduce their manufacturing costs have led to the increasing development of intensified and continuous production processes in recent years. Single-use systems are used in both upstream and downstream processing. This book chapter describes the main intensification approaches and operational architectures of continuous processes realized today, based on the developmental status of single-use technologies used for the up- and downstream processing of mAbs. In this context, the terms “process intensification” and “continuous process” are defined, while the preferential application of single-use systems is described using literature, and further by own studies. Based on the findings, the main challenges for the implementation of intensified and continuous mAb production using single-use systems are identified.

As companies become aware that they have to restructure their product development processes to survive global competition in the market, it is important that they evaluate which management methods and techniques are suitable to improve the performance of the process and which design methods can be integrated and be used efficiently. A combination of management methods like Total Quality Management (TQM), Simultaneous or Concurrent Engineering, and Lean Development can be adapted to meet the requirements of a company more than a single strategy. Interdisciplinary teamwork, cross-hierarchical communication, and delegation of work in addition to employee motivation changes the common attitude towards the work process in the company and integrates the staff more tightly into the process. Nowadays, there is tight cooperation between companies and their sub-contractors, as sub-contractors not only have to manufacture the part or sub-assembly, but often have to design it. Therefore, the product development process has to be defined in a way that the sub-contractors can be tightly integrated into the product development process. Additionally, it is important to break the product down into functionally separate modules during the conceptual phase of the process. If the interfaces between these functions are defined as specifications, these modules can easily be given to suppliers or to other teams inside the company for further development. The use of methods such as Design for Manufacture (DFM) or Design for Assembly (DFA) early during the development process, which utilize the knowledge of experts from manufacturing and assembly, results in a decreasing number of iterative loops during the design process and therefore reduces time-to-market. This cross-functional cooperation leads to improved quality of both processes and products. In this paper, different management methods to achieve the best improvement from the product development process are discussed. In addition, suitable design methods for achieving cost reduction, quality improvement, and reduction of time-to-market are presented. Finally, proposals for industry on methods to reorganize the Integrated Product Development (IPD) process based on actual findings are presented.

Continuous annealing production process generally consists of multiple complex processes that are coupled to each other, and each process contains many control variables. It is difficult to establish a precise mechanism model of the production process. The operators mainly set these control variables based on past production experience, which often result in great fluctuations of product quality (even unqualified products) and high energy consumption. This in turn significantly affected production cost and economic benefits of the cold rolling mill. To efficiently handle this problem, an ensemble learning modeling method based on production data is first proposed for this production process, and then, a multiobjective operation optimization model is established to optimize the operation of continuous annealing production process. Finally, an improved multiobjective differential evolution algorithm based on search process memory is developed to solve this model and achieve the optimal setting of control variables. The computational results on both benchmark problems and practical problems illustrate that the proposed algorithm is superior to some powerful multiobjective evolutionary algorithms in the literature and it can effectively achieve good setting of control variables for the continuous annealing production process.

Influence of silicon carbide filters in cast iron composite brake blocks on brake performance and development of a production process

Development of natural seawater-based continuous biohydrogen production process using the hyperthermophilic archaeon Thermococcus onnurineus NA1

Process capability indices (PCIs) can be viewed as the effective and excellent means of measuring product quality and process performance. They are very useful statistical analysis tools to summarise process dispersion and location by using process capability analysis (PCA). However, they have some limitations which prevent a deep and flexible analysis because of the crisp measurements and specification limits (SLs). Fuzzy set theory can be used to add more flexibility to process capability analyses. In this study, the fuzzy and control charts are used to analyse the process of continuous production in terms of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (TrFN). Also, fuzzy PCIs are produced when SLs and measurements are presented as trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. For this aim, a computer program is coded in MATLAB software. The fuzzy control charts are utilised in Yazd Fiber Production Plant. The results show that in continuous production processes, fuzzy measurements can yield a more accurate analysis. Furthermore, relying on the fuzzy capability indices, one can have a flexible analysis of the process performance.

BACKGROUNDEfficient conversion of inhibitor containing pentose rich stream into bioethanol or biogas is still challenging due to several technological challenges; however, this stream can be efficiently assimilated into lipids by oleaginous yeasts such as Rhodotorula. In this work, a continuous and nonsterile process was developed for bioconversion of waste streams into lipids for biodiesel using growth‐inhibitor‐tolerant oleaginous yeast.RESULTSAn inhibitor‐tolerating property of the strain was used to develop a cyclic and continuous near axenic cultivation process in a 2 L nonsterile bioreactor to enhance valorization of waste streams and to reduce energy requirements for media and vessel sterilization. After media optimization, continuous cultivation resulted in significant increase in biomass (14.90 g L−1 day−1) and lipid productivity (6.15 g L−1 day−1) as compared to flask (biomass ∼3 g L−1 day−1 and lipid productivity ∼0.6 g L−1 day−1) results. Palmitic acid (C16:0) and oleic acid (C18:1) were the major fatty acids, accounting for almost 80% of total lipids, thus making lipid produced in the process suitable for biodiesel production.CONCLUSIONInhibitors present in waste streams successfully maintained near axenic conditions during the cultivation. Maximum dilution rate of 1 was achieved after media optimization, which resulted in complete valorization of nutrients into biomass and lipids with high productivity. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry

Synthesis of diamond particles with an acetylene fired circulating fluidized bed

The pharmaceutical industry is undergoing a radical transition towards continuous production processes. Systematic use of process systems engineering (PSE) methods and tools form the key to achieve this transition in a structured and efficient way.

The dendrite arm spacing in the continuous casting slab of Mn13 steel under different casting speeds was measured using the metallographic microscope. Meanwhile, a heat transfer model was established by the Pro-cast software. The relationship between the dendrite arm spacing and casting speed in continuous casting slab of Mn13 steel was studied and described by a function expression. The results provide an important theoretical basis for the development and optimization of continuous casting production process of high-manganese steel and help to improve the quality of continuous casting slab of high-manganese steel. Under the experimental conditions, the suitable casting speed is about 0.9 m/min. The secondary dendrite spacing maintains a relatively stable low-amplitude increase trend, and it is beneficial to obtain a higher proportion of equiaxed crystals.