Changes In Feed Composition Research Articles

Single-pot extractive double divided wall column for Acetonitrile, Ethanol, and water Separation: Design and control

An integrated single-pot double divided wall column (DDWC) process is designed for separating acetonitrile, ethanol and water into its constituent pure components using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as the homogenous extractive entrainer. Comparison with the recently reported side-stream extractive distillation (SSED) design with three columns shows the single-pot process to be more cost-effective and energy-efficient. The SSED process has a Total Annualized Cost (TAC) that is higher by 9.91% and an energy consumption that is higher by 7.27%. Also, a decentralized temperature inferential control system is shown to effectively reject large throughput and moderate feed composition changes to establish the controllability of the proposed design. The developed single-pot process is thus a promising alternative, particularly for space-constrained production facilities.

Liquid carry-over control using three-phase horizontal smart separators in Khor Mor gas-condensate processing plant

Liquid carry-over phenomenon, where liquid droplets escape with gas, is a prevalent operational challenge in gas–liquid separators. Liquid carry-over leads to foaming issue and performance reduction within separator downstream absorption processes. In order to ascertain whether liquid carry-over is inducing foaming within the gas sweetening process’s absorption tower at Iraq’s Khor Mor gas-condensate processing plant, this study initiated an evaluation of the liquid droplet size distribution in the gas product and gas/liquid separation efficiency of upstream Alpha, Bravo #1, Bravo #2, and Charlee separators that feed into the aforementioned tower by using the Horizontal Vessel and ProSeparator correlations in Aspen HYSYS v.11 software. The study revealed that Alpha and Bravo #2 experienced liquid carry-over issues. In response to these challenges, an innovative smart separator design, referred to as an adjustable separator, was proposed, employing the Arnold-Stewart semi-empirical procedure. This design allows for easy adjustment to accommodate changes in feed composition and operational conditions, mitigating the liquid carry-over problem. The smart design demonstrated a significant increase in gas/liquid separation efficiency for Alpha separator, improving by 31.11% under current conditions and 77.65% under future conditions. Similarly, under both current and future conditions, the smart design of Bravo #2 separator yielded an enhancement of 21.31% and 28.23%, respectively. These results suggest that the smart design can be considered an optimal solution for controlling liquid carry-over. This innovation not only maintains high gas/liquid separation efficiency but also prevents foaming, offering a robust solution for ensuring sustained operational performance and productivity in gas–liquid separation processes.

Simulation of the physical temperature probes for soft sensor design under feed composition changes for naphtha plant

This paper presents a versatile strategy for using simulations to identify control stages of naphtha distillation plant where additional temperature probes can be installed. This search is based on sensitivity analysis applied to the real distillation columns under different operating modes, while simulating the data probed with added thermocouples. It was shown that feed composition has a crucial influence on the resulting position of the control stage(s) and efficiency of the soft sensor (SS) in predicting the quality product. In most practical cases, when the oil field changes, the accuracy of the SS decreases significantly and requires rebuilding, which poses a problem in the control of the technological process. As shown in the paper, SS built with additional thermocouples used as inputs has demonstrated increase in the prediction accuracy under different feed compositions. The effectiveness of the suggested strategy is confirmed by comparing the results with those assuming the use of only physically available probes as inputs for SS.

Assessing the impact of three feeding stages on rumen bacterial community and physiological characteristics of Japanese Black cattle

In Japan, Japanese Black cattle, known for their exceptional meat quality owing to their abundant intramuscular fat, undergo a unique three-stage feeding system with varying concentrate ratios. There is limited research on physiological and rumen microbial changes in Japanese Black cattle during these stages. Therefore, this study aimed to examine Japanese Black steers in these three stages: early (T1, 12–14 months), middle (T2, 15–22 months), and late (T3, 23–30 months). The rumen bacteria of 21 cattle per phase was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Rumen bacterial diversity was significantly higher in T1, with a distinct distribution, than in T2 and T3. Specific phyla and genera were exclusive to each stage, reflecting the shifts in feed composition. Certain genera dominated each stage: T1 had Flexilinea, Streptococcus, Butyrivibrio, Selenomonas, and Kandleria; T2 had Bifidobacterium, Shuttleworthia, and Sharpea; and T3 had Acetitomaculum, Mycoplasma, Atopobium, and Howardella. Correlation analysis revealed significant associations between certain microbial populations and physiological parameters. These findings indicate that changes in energy content and feed composition are associated with physiological and ruminal alterations. This study may guide strategies to improve rumen health and productivity in Japanese Black cattle by modifying diets to specific fattening stages.

PSII-8 Comparison of Different Fattening Stages on Rumen Microbiota and Physiological Characteristics in Japanese Black Cattle

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the relationship between rumen microbiota and physiological characteristics in Japanese Black cattle during the fattening period, which are known for their distinctive physiological characteristics due to prominent intramuscular fat deposition. The experimental period was categorized into three stages: early (12 to 14 months of age; T1), middle (15 to 22 months; T2), and late fattening phases (23 to 30 months; T3). We analyzed the rumen microbiota of 21 Japanese Black cattle in each phase using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. In addition, we examined the correlation between the rumen microbiota and various physiological parameters, such as blood metabolites, hormones, and rumen fermentation characteristics. Our results showed that rumen microbial diversity was greater in T1, and the inter-group distribution of rumen microbiota in T1 was differentiated from T2 and T3. At the genus level, Flexilinea, Streptococcus, Butyrivibrio, Selenomonas and Kandleria were the most abundant in T1. Bifidobacterium, Shuttleworthia and Sharpea were the most abundant in T2. Acetitomaculum, Mycoplasma, Atopobium and Howardella were the most abundant in T3. In correlation analysis, Monoglobus and Olsenella negatively correlated with IGF-1 and positively correlated with cortisol in T1. Firmicutes/Bacteroidota ratio positively correlated with daily gain, blood total cholesterol, and lactic acid dehydrogenase in T3. Planctomycetota correlated with volatile fatty acid components during the entire period, while Verrucomicrobiota positively correlated with carcass traits in T1. Additionally, functional genetic profiles indicated that rumen microbiota related to carbohydrate metabolism and nucleotide biosynthesis was significantly enriched in T1 and T3, respectively. The composition of rumen microbial in Japanese Black cattle varied depending on fattening stages, and this variation is likely attributable to changes in feed composition. Furthermore, specific microorganisms were significantly associated with physiological parameters. Our findings could help in the development of strategies to enhance gut health and productivity by manipulating the rumen microbiota through the changes in diet compositions considering the fattening stages of Japanese Black cattle.

NOx emissions prediction for MSWI process based on dynamic modular neural network

Accurate prediction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) is crucial for improving the efficiency of denitrification systems in municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) process. Due to the change of feed composition and operation mode, it is difficult to predict NOx emissions with complex dynamics. For this reason, a dynamic modular neural network (DMNN) is proposed for NOx emissions prediction in MSWI process. First, a principal component analysis (PCA)-based dynamic task decomposition method is proposed, and then the original task with time varying characteristic is divided into several sub-tasks for effectual handing. Next, an adaptive long short-term memory (ALSTM) network is designed driven by the corresponding sub-task. Then, the nonlinearity between dominant variables and NOx value is learned to guarantee the prediction accuracy. Finally, the merits of proposed DMNN are confirmed on a benchmark and real industrial data of a MSWI process. The experimental results further demonstrate the superiority and potential of DMNN for industrial applications.

Climate-Neutral Agriculture?

Regarding the achievement of worldwide agricultural climate neutrality, the focus is on a worldwide net-zero emission of cradle-to-farmgate greenhouse gases (GHGs), while, when appropriate, including the biogeophysical impacts of practices on the longwave radiation balance. Increasing soil carbon stocks and afforestation have been suggested as practices that could be currently (roughly) sufficient to achieve agricultural climate neutrality. It appears that in both cases the quantitative contributions to climate neutrality that can actually be delivered are very uncertain. There is also much uncertainty about the quantitative climate benefits with regard to forest conservation, changing feed composition to reduce enteric methane emission by ruminants, agroforestry and the use of nitrification and urease inhibitors to decrease the emission of N2O. There is a case for much future work aimed at reducing the present uncertainties. The replacing of animal husbandry-based protein production by plant-based protein production that can reduce agricultural GHG emissions by about 50%, is technically feasible but at variance with trends in worldwide food consumption. There is a case for a major effort to reverse these trends. Phasing out fossil fuel inputs, improving nitrogen-use efficiency, net-zero GHG-emission fertilizer inputs and reducing methane emissions by rice paddies can cut the current worldwide agricultural GHG emissions by about 22%.

Design and control of extraction combined with extractive distillation for separation isopropanol-butanol-ethanol-water with organic Rankine cycle

The high-purity isopropanol butanol ethanol (IBE) mixture is a highly efficient gasoline additive that can be directly used without further separation. The product of isopropanol-butanol-ethanol fermentation contains a large amount of water, and a large amount of energy will be consumed in the purification process. In this paper, the separation IBE process is systematically studied from the aspects of process optimization, energy recovery and process control. The operation parameters of extraction combined with extractive distillation (E-ED) are optimized by a multi-objective genetic algorithm. Then, the pinch point technique is used to analyze the energy usage of the optimized process, and the maximum heat recovery heat integration scheme is obtained. Compared with the optimized process, the low pressure steam consumption of the heat integration process is reduced by 100%, the cooling water consumption is saved by 58.80%, and the TAC is reduced by 35.95%. In view of massive waste heat in the heat integration of the extraction combined with extractive distillation (E-ED-HI) process, a new configuration combining the E-ED-HI and organic Rankine cycle (E-ED-HI-ORC) is further proposed. The organic Rankine cycle using R600a can further reduce TAC by 8.88% based on the HI-E-ED process. Finally, the control scheme of E-ED process is proposed. The performance of the control scheme is examined with ±10% disturbance of the feed flow rate and composition change, and the results show that the process of extractive distillation and separation of IBE has good controllability.

Sustainable farming strategies for mixed crop-livestock farms in Luxembourg simulated with a hybrid agent-based and life-cycle assessment model

Agent-based models (ABMs) are particularly suitable to simulate human-natural systems since they allow modelers to consider the behavioral aspects of individuals. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has also been widely used in research, industry, and policy to assess systems' environmental sustainability. In this paper, we introduce a coupled ABM-LCA model to simulate mixed crop-livestock farming activities in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The simulator considers a wide range of aspects related to typical farming business activities and allows the calculation of the environmental and economic impacts of the decisions taken by agents as well. The paper simulates different scenarios. Scenario A is the baseline scenario. Scenario B considers reducing the stocking rate from 1.6 to 1.3 livestock units per ha (LSU/ha). Scenario C aims to reduce the soybean ratio in animals’ feed rations to the minimum possible level that is feasible for each farm. Scenario D simulates an increase in soybean autonomy: the farmer chooses to adopt local soybean (instead of imported one) into the crop rotation if its green consciousness exceeds a pre-fixed threshold. As expected, in scenario B, all impact categories show improvement with respect to the baseline scenario, the highest ones being an almost 25% reduction in freshwater eutrophication, 21% in climate change - human health, and 19% in freshwater ecotoxicity. For natural land transformation, the most significant improvements are obtained in scenarios C (11% reduction) and D (13% reduction). On the other hand, in scenario C, the change in feed composition, combined with an expected decrease in stocking rates, also has a positive effect (about 16% reduction compared to the baseline) on agricultural land occupation, due to the utilization of pasture and locally produced crops. An analysis of the systemic uncertainty calculated at the endpoint indicators level showed low coefficients of variation (CV) for all the scenarios, with scenario A always having the lowest values of CV in every impact category, scenario C having the highest CV in the ecosystem quality and the human health categories and scenario B having the highest CV in the resources category. The consideration of subsidy schemes in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg allows the modelers to better interpret the resulting revenue and cost structures of different scenarios. The results show that the farm profitability stays on the same level when the stocking rate is reduced, and the subsidy granted for reducing nitrogen emissions is in place at the same time. Moreover, the soybean autarky in Luxembourg can be increased to 17% if the farmers are willing to incorporate soybean into their rotation scheme, thus reducing the impacts due to the transportation and production of soybean in South American countries.

Compact process for cumene manufacture: Synthesis, design and control

A compact single-unit process is developed for continuous cumene manufacture via the alkylation of benzene with propylene. The design combines reactive distillation (RD) and dividing-wall separation in a single column. In terms of the TAC, it is significantly cheaper (42%) than the conventional “reaction followed by separation process” and only slightly more expensive than the RD process. The controllability of the developed compact design is confirmed via rigorous dynamic simulations that demonstrate effective process operation for large production rate and feed composition changes using a simple decentralized temperature inferential control system. The developed compact design is especially suitable for capacity expansion in space-constrained cumene manufacturing facilities.

Simultaneous fault diagnosis based on multiple kernel support vector machine in nonlinear dynamic distillation column

AbstractAlthough numerous works have been done, most of the studies in fault diagnosis are limited to single fault type at a time. Majority of the works reported in the literature do not extend the diagnosis of the root cause of the fault for simultaneous faults specifically in the distillation column. However, an industrial system is susceptible to more than one fault at a time, which may or may not be interrelated. These faults not only reduce the diagnosis performance but also increase the computational complexity of the diagnosis algorithm. In this work, therefore, a multiple kernel support vector machine (MK‐SVM) algorithm is proposed to diagnose simultaneous faults in the distillation column. In the developed MK‐SVM algorithm, multilabel approach based on various kernel functions has been utilized for the classification of simultaneous faults. Dynamic simulation of a pilot‐scale distillation column using Aspen Plus® is used for generating data in normal and faulty operation. Eight different fault types are considered, including valve sticking at reflux and reboiler, tray upsets, loss of feed flow, feed composition, and feed temperature changes. In the classification of simultaneous faults, a combination of two, three, and four faults is introduced for the performance evaluation of the proposed MK‐SVM algorithm. The result showed that the proposed MK‐SVM has a high fault detection rate (FDR) of 99.51% and a very low misclassification rate (MR) of 0.49%. The MK‐SVM–based classification is better with the F1 score of >97% for all combinations of faults. Moreover, it is observed that the proposed MK‐SVM shows better fault diagnosis for single, multiple, and simultaneous faults as compared to other established machine‐learning algorithms.

Flare Gas Recovery from an Existing Oil Plant using Gas Compressors

Global warming is nowadays one of the main and important issues. As the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of the combustion of these gases causes such phenomena. Therefore, oil and gas plants need to be constantly reviewed over time to maintain high performance and operability, especially while changing feed composition and rate to meet standard product specifications. The aim of this study is to study the effect of flare gases recovery using gas compressors on the economic and environmental performance of an existing oilfield plant. A commercial simulation program aspen HYSYS Version 11 was used. The Kalabsha Central Processing Facility (KCPF) in the Western Desert of Egypt is the studied plant. This plant handles 30 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) from free water knock out drum and 1.6 MMSCFD of gases from heaters. 20 MMSCFD from gas is charged to the gas pipeline and 10 MMSCFD is sent to the flare with the 1.6 MMSCFD. It is proposed to install gas compressors to capture the gases from the free water knock out drum and heaters before sending them to the flare. Such technology can be used as a guide in upgrading existing and new oil and gas plants to reduce gas flaring. In addition, environmental protection also adds more economic profits from burning the recovered gas besides increasing the life of the flare equipment.

Erosion corrosion failure on elbow distillate heater system in the petrochemical industry

This research focuses on the mechanism of erosion-corrosion failure in the petrochemical industry's radian outlet pipe of the distillate column feed heater. Aim to determine the cause of leaks in the inlet & outlet piping systems and radiant tube heaters from the effects of operations related to flow, pressure, temperature, erosion, and corrosion. This research evaluates the operational process and mechanical properties to understand the causes of thinning to avoid recurrence in the future.Erosion corrosion was the leading cause of elbow failure. Fluid erosion plays a dominant role in the failure process, while electrochemical corrosion plays a dominant role in corrosion pits formation. Further characterization methods need to understand corrosion mechanisms, including mechanical properties, metallographic examination, CFD analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy spectrum analysis (EDS).The root cause of premature leakage at the elbow is a feed composition change and the design. Including indications of increasing corroded content of Sulfur and chloride, compounds with the current fluid flow rate even though the pressure temperature and capacity conditions maintain according to the design.

ИЗМЕНЕНИЕ АКТИВНОСТИ ГАММА-ГЛУТАМИЛТРАНСФЕРАЗЫ В ТКАНЯХ ПЕЧЕНИ У КРОЛЬЧАТ В РАЗНЫЕ ФАЗЫ ПОСТНАТАЛЬНОГО ОНТОГЕНЕЗА

This work describes the patterns of changes in activity of gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) in tissues of various liver lobes (caudate, mastoid, right outer, left outer, left inner, and square) of gray giant rabbits at different phases of postnatal ontogenesis. The enzyme activity was determined by spectrophotometric method in the scientific laboratory of Chuvash State Agrarian University. It was revealed that rabbits are born with different enzyme activities in the studied liver lobes, and the intensity of age-related changes of GGT activity in the studied rabbits’ periods of life in the tissues of liver lobes is diverse, which is connected with change of vegetable feed composition and with unequal need for enzyme participation in metabolic processes in the body tissues during the studied early postnatal period. The most intense changes in enzyme activity with age of rabbits occur at colostrum-milk phase in the square lobe; as for the first phase of milk nutrition - in the right and left outer lobes; the third phase of milk nutrition - in the left inner and in the square lobes; in the second phase of transitional nutrition - in the left inner lobe. Stabilization of GGT activity does not happen by the age of two months.

Adsorption for efficient low carbon hydrogen production: part 2\u2014Cyclic experiments and model predictions

Hydrogen as clean energy carrier is expected to play a key role in future low-carbon energy systems. In this paper, we demonstrate a new technology for coupling fossil-fuel based hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage (CCS): the integration of CO2 capture and H2 purification in a single vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) cycle. An eight step VPSA cycle is tested in a two-column lab-pilot for a ternary CO2–H2–CH4 stream representative of shifted steam methane reformer (SMR) syngas, while using commercial zeolite 13X as adsorbent. The cycle can co-purify CO2 and H2, thus reaching H2 purities up to 99.96%, CO2 purities up to 98.9%, CO2 recoveries up to 94.3% and H2 recoveries up to 81%. The key decision variables for adjusting the separation performance to reach the required targets are the heavy purge (HP) duration, the feed duration, the evacuation pressure and the flow rate of the light purge (LP). In contrast to that, the separation performance is rather insensitive towards small changes in feed composition and in HP inlet composition. Comparing the experimental results with simulation results shows that the model for describing multi-component adsorption is critical in determining the predictive capabilities of the column model. Here, the real adsorbed solution theory (RAST) is necessary to describe all experiments well, whereas neither extended isotherms nor the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) can reproduce all effects observed experimentally.

Practically Achievable Process Performance Limits for Pressure-Vacuum Swing Adsorption-Based Postcombustion CO2 Capture

Practically achievable limits for pressure-vacuum swing adsorption (PVSA)-based postcombustion carbon capture are evaluated. The adsorption isotherms of CO₂ and N₂ are described by competitive Langmuir isotherms. Two low-energy process cycles are considered and a machine learning surrogate model is trained with inputs from an experimentally validated, detailed PVSA model. Several case studies are considered to evaluate two critical performance indicators, namely, minimum energy and maximum productivity. For each case study, the genetic algorithm optimizer that is coupled to the machine learning surrogate model searches tens of thousands of combinations of isotherms and process operating conditions. The framework pairs the optimum materials properties with the optimum operating conditions, hence providing the limits of achievable performance. The results indicate that pressures < 0.2 bar may be required to achieve process constraints for feeds with low CO₂ compositions (<0.15 mole fraction), indicating that PVSA may not be favorable. At higher CO₂ feed compositions, PVSA can be attractive and can be operated at practically achievable vacuum levels. Further, the gap between the energy consumption of available adsorbents and the achievable limits with the best hypothetical best adsorbent varies between 20 and 2.5% as the CO₂ feed composition changes between 0.05 and 0.4. This indicates a limited potential for the development of new adsorbents of PVSA-based CO₂ capture. Future work for PVSA should focus on gas streams with high CO₂ compositions.

Changes in the environmental impacts of pig production systems in Great Britain over the last 18 years

ContextThe aims of global pig production systems include a reduction of their environmental impacts, which can be achieved through an increase in outputs whilst minimising inputs. ObjectiveThe aim of this paper was to develop a novel method to enable estimation of the changes in the environmental impacts based on sparse data from the British pig production industry over ~20 years. MethodsTo achieve this, we developed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method capable of dealing with sparse historical data from livestock systems. We applied it, for the first time, to estimate the temporal changes in environmental impacts of British pig production systems caused by changes in production performance. Performance data available from industry-held databases for indoor and outdoor bred pigs in Britain were used to estimate nutrient requirements through animal performance modelling, and feed composition through least-cost formulation. The cradle to farm-gate LCA model developed, included manure management and the full life cycle of the pigs and its functional unit was 1 kg of live weight pig at farm-gate. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to investigate the potential influence of changes in animal performance and feed prices on the estimated changes in environmental impacts. Results and ConclusionsThe higher growth rates and increased leanness over the period considered led to substantial reductions in energy requirements. Overall, the system changes led to reductions, for indoor and outdoor bred systems respectively, of 37.0% and 35.4% for Global Warming Potential, 21.2% and 16.4% in Terrestrial Acidification Potential, 22.5% and 22.3% in Freshwater Eutrophication Potential, 15.8% and 16.8% in Agricultural Land Use and 16.5% and 16.1% in Fossil Resource Scarcity. The sensitivity analyses showed that trends in feed composition were influential on the environmental impact outcomes, and that the LCA model was more sensitive to the change in feed composition than to the changes in animal performance over the time period considered. SignificanceKnowledge of temporal changes to the environmental impacts of livestock systems and the drivers of changes to date should guide future decisions to mitigate these impacts.

Environmental burdens of small-scale intensive pig production in China

Small-scale intensive pig production systems account for over a half of the total number of pig farms in China, of which concerns have been raised relating to their environmental performances. This study explores the cradle-to-slaughterhouse gate environmental impacts using life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, with the purpose of identifying major hotspots to formulate mitigation strategies. The functional unit is defined as 1000 kg of pig carcass weight. Consistent with previous research, feed production makes up the largest contribution (56–95%) to all the six selected impact categories based on the ReCiPe 2016 framework. Of the feed ingredients, maize is identified as the principal hotspot mainly due to the large consumption as well as the heat usage in grain steaming to enhance availability of starch digestion. The results also indicate that changes of feed consumption and composition along the lifetime growth reveal a much higher contribution from the grower-finisher stage. Marked differences are observed in terms of greenhouse gas emissions from pig production between developing (including China) and developed countries. With lots of studies showing feasibilities, improvements suggested for small-scale intensive pig production systems include the optimization of feed formulas, the introduction of new feed technologies, and the upgrade of manure management system. Our results provide valuable and practical insight for the Chinese pig supply chain to mitigate environmental burdens and achieve future environmental sustainability.

The performance and bacterial community shifts in an anaerobic-aerobic process treating purified terephthalic acid wastewater under influent composition variations and ambient temperatures

Anaerobic-aerobic process is an efficient way to treat purified terephthalic acid (PTA) wastewater. In this study, the effect of changing feed composition on the performance of a combined upflow anaerobic fluidized bed (UAFB) and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was investigated under ambient conditions (15–25 °C). The 187 days’ operation was divided into 4 stages by consecutively elevating the loading rate of terephthalic acid (TA), p-toluic acid, benzoic acid and acetic acid. Results revealed that almost all iso-phthalic acid, benzoic acid and acetic acid could be completely removed in the UAFB reactor, while only about 35% p-toluic acid was degraded in the UAFB reactor. Nevertheless, over 97.0% average COD removal efficiency could be achieved after the consecutive aerobic treatment. Furthermore, the load elevation of easily biodegradable organics might enhance the operational stability together with a less diverse bacterial community in anaerobic system. The microbial analysis elucidated a large amount of versatile aromatic degraders including Syntrophorhabdus, Syntrophus and Syntrophobacteraceae were observed in UAFB reactor, but they did not show clear correlation with any specific pollutant. Meanwhile, the growth of Thauera and Rhodobacteraceae in SBR reactor were stimulated by p-toluic acid load elevation, and both of them showed strong positive correlation with p-toluic acid degradation. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive insight into the organics degradation characteristics and bacterial profiles of UAFB-SBR process treating complex industrial wastewater at ambient temperatures.

Examination of high-resolution feed intake data of grower finisher pigs confronted with typical short-term disturbances in stable routine

Modern pig feeding systems allow the collection of highly detailed feeding data for each animal. These data enable the examination of individual feeding behaviours to assess an animal’s wellbeing. As such, four different treatments ‒ undisturbed control, starving (no feed for 24 h, restrictive feeding), feed change (changes in feed composition) and social stress (exchanging of animals between the pens and short-term reduction of accessible water) ‒ were designed to simulate typical short-term disturbances in a practical stable routine. Each treatment was conducted over 2 pens with 12 animals each. Zootechnical performance and feed intake behaviour measures were assessed for each animal. Treatments did not affect zootechnical performance. Results showed that short-term disturbances did not influence feed intake behaviours, such as daily feed intake, amount of intake per feeder visit, number of daily feeder visits and daily feeding action with highest feed intake. Animals developed individual feeding patterns that persisted through artificial short-term disturbances. However, data suggested that an individual animal’s behavioural pattern was strongly influenced by the group (pen) due to group dynamics among animals.