Chemical Plant Research Articles

The Effect of Plantation on Sand Dust-storm Weather Near Newly Planted Forest Based on Geographic Information System: A Case Study in Tongliao City, China

As desertification has become a vital environmental problem in recent years, incidental natural disasters such as sandstorm weather and greenhouse effect harm human life and increase. To ease the problem, various methods of sand fixation have been applied. Among them, the regeneration of plantations is thought to be the most effective and widely used worldwide. This study takes Tongliao city as an example, and applies the technology of GIS and satellite images as well as extreme weather data to analyze the plantations effect on sand fixation and desertification prevention. Results show that plantation positively affects sand fixation, because sand storm weather decreases significantly as the plantation rate increases gradually. But for further protection, special areas such as saline soil area, where planting trees is not applicative, methods such as adding chemical reagent and planting applicable plants are used to improve soil quality and was proved to be useful. Also, discovering and applying plants that are suitable for desert growing environment can be a solution to the problem.

Research progress on preparation technology and detection methods of vanillin

Vanillin is an important spice, widely used in food, beverage, daily necessities, medicine and other fields. In this paper, the research progress of preparation techniques chemical synthesis, plant extraction and biotransformation of vanillin was reviewed. The detection methods of vanillin such as gas chromatography, liquid chromatography and electrochemical method were summarized, which provide reference for the development and research of vanillin in the future.

The infl uence of herbicides on the development of small bowel abnormalities and their surgical correction

The birth of children with congenital malformations of the small intestine has a correlation with the degree of use of chemical plant protection products and water supply problems in some regions. Surgical treatment of this pathology in this group of surgical patients — in newborns who are extremely difficult to tolerate any diagnostic and treatment interventions, have limited prospects and opportunities. The problem associated with these malformations of the digestive tube in newborns must be addressed with preventive measures.

Efficient Approaches for Layout Problems of Large Chemical Plants Based on MILP Model

This paper presents two novel solution approaches for addressing large-scale multi-floor process plant layout problems. Based on the mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model, the first solution approach employs a multi-directional search strategy while the second improves solution efficiency by reducing model size through an iterative framework. Both approaches determine the spatial arrangement of the plant equipment considering equipment-floor allocation, non-overlapping constraints, tall equipment penetrating multiple floors, etc. The computational results indicate that the proposed approaches achieved potential cost savings for four illustrative examples when compared to the previous studies. Finally, engineering experience constraints were included to represent a more complex industrial situation, and their applicability was tested with the last example.

Person killed in chemical plant explosion

An explosion at a Seqens chemical plant in Newburyport, Massachusetts, early on May 4 killed one worker. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation. This is the third serious accident at the plant, which manufactures pharmaceutical chemicals under contract, since 2020, when an explosion damaged a building. A chemical fire occurred at the site in 2021. The person killed was Jack O’Keefe, who according to a local news report had worked at the company for over 25 years. Four other workers on site when the explosion occurred were hospitalized as a precaution but were uninjured, according to Barry Salt, Newburyport’s deputy fire chief. “They had just wrapped up a typical manufacturing procedure that they’d done numerous times daily,” Salt says. “Obviously there was some sort of accident to cause the explosion, but what that was or how that happened is still in the beginning stages of investigation.” The plant

Wormwood, nomads’ rights, and capitalism: the birth of a chemical industry in Russian Turkestan (1870s–1914)

AbstractA variety of wormwood, Artemisia cina, once grew abundantly in the Syr-Darya province of Russian Turkestan. Santonin, a drug derived from it, was in high demand. Flowers harvested by Kazakhs were handed over to intermediaries to be processed in Europe, but from the 1880s entrepreneurs from different parts of the Russian empire established their own chemical plants in Chimkent and Tashkent. They pressured the Russian imperial government to restrict the rights of the Kazakhs on land where Artemisia cina grew, and grant them the exclusive right to exploit this resource. These entrepreneurs used conservationist arguments and advocated a ‘cultured’ approach to the management of natural resources located on supposedly ‘State land’. These attempts collided with the usage rights of the Kazakhs, as defined by Turkestan’s governing Statute. By shifting the argument to the political, rather than legal, level, the industrialists eventually gained a monopoly to the exclusion of local entrepreneurs and even assumed State-like functions. This article reconstructs this controversy and allows a glimpse into the evolving claims to natural resources in the ‘periphery’ by both Tsarist colonial power and the Kazakhs themselves. The article also explores the features of autochthonous and Russian entrepreneurship and situates Turkestan in a web of trade connections to the global pharmaceutical industry.

Phlebotonics for conservative treatment of haemorrhoids: when, to whom, how?

Hemorrhoidal disease (HD) is a pathological enlargement of the external and/or internal hemorrhoidal piles, which may be accompanied by the bleeding and prolapse of haemorrhoids outside the anal canal. The incidence of HD among the population of the Russian Federation is 130–145 patients per 1000 people, occurring mainly in patients 45–65 years old. Among all coloproctological diseases in Russia, haemorrhoids became the reason for visiting a coloproctologist in 35–41.9% of cases. In outpatient department, the disease occurs with a frequency of 694 per 100,000 population. The treatment of hemorrhoids often begins at the coloproctologist’s office during outpatient visits. Typical clinical presentations of hemorrhoids include a complex of symptoms: periodic rectal bleeding during defecation, prolapsed hemorrhoids requiring manual reduction. Pain and itching are much less common symptoms. The treatment of hemorrhoidal disease consists of a complex of conservative measures, minimally invasive and surgical treatments, or a combination of above methods. Systemic phlebotropic drugs that affect various pathogenesis links of hemorrhoidal disease hold one of the first rightful places at the very core of modern conservative therapy regimens. Phlebotropic drugs are a large group of biologically active substances that are products of chemical synthesis or plant processing. The venotonic drugs containing flavonoids diosmin and hesperidin are the most studied ones. Various effects of diosmin and hesperidin from anti-ulcerogenic and antitumor to antioxidant and anti-inflammatory ones have been studied in clinical and experimental studies. Its venotonic and angioprotective effects are the most important actions for the treatment of hemorrhoidal disease. This review of literature is aimed determining the place of phlebotonics in outpatient practice for the treatment of haemorrhoidal disease.

Predicting the contribution of a local emission source in mid-range transport of DDT and its deposition in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in Northern Italy

A recently developed dynamic multiple box multimedia fate model (Gridded-SoilPlusVeg, or GSPV) was developed and implemented to account for the environmental variation and the effect of directional advective transport of chemicals towards different compartments and geographical locations. A chemical plant located in Pieve Vergonte in Ossola Valley produced and emitted DDTs for around 50 years. In the previous study the fate and transport of p,p’-DDT emitted from the chemical plant were evaluated in nearby areas (up to 12 km). In this paper, the GSPV model was run for p,p’-DDT from its production period and decades after the production stop in 1996 (a total of 100 years) for a much larger study area (40,000 km2) in order to evaluate the contribution of a local source on a larger scale. Additionally, the deposition fluxes into the lakes were calculated and were used as input into a dynamic fugacity-based aquatic model to calculate DDT concentration in water and sediments of three Prealpine lakes: Lake Maggiore, Lake Como and Lake Lugano. The results of the simulations were compared with the monitoring and literature data. The results obtained from GSPV allowed to estimate the atmospheric deposition fluxes and identify the role of this source for the regional scale contamination in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Industrially Important Fungal Carotenoids: Advancements in Biotechnological Production and Extraction.

Carotenoids are lipid-soluble compounds that are present in nature, including plants and microorganisms such as fungi, certain bacteria, and algae. In fungi, they are widely present in almost all taxonomic classifications. Fungal carotenoids have gained special attention due to their biochemistry and the genetics of their synthetic pathway. The antioxidant potential of carotenoids may help fungi survive longer in their natural environment. Carotenoids may be produced in greater quantities using biotechnological methods than by chemical synthesis or plant extraction. The initial focus of this review is on industrially important carotenoids in the most advanced fungal and yeast strains, with a brief description of their taxonomic classification. Biotechnology has long been regarded as the most suitable alternative way of producing natural pigment from microbes due to their immense capacity to accumulate these pigments. So, this review mainly presents the recent progress in the genetic modification of native and non-native producers to modify the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway for enhanced carotenoid production, as well as factors affecting carotenoid biosynthesis in fungal strains and yeast, and proposes various extraction methods to obtain high yields of carotenoids in an attempt to find suitable greener extraction methods. Finally, a brief description of the challenges regarding the commercialization of these fungal carotenoids and the solution is also given.

Do natural catastrophic events and exceptional climatic conditions also affect parasites?

Parasites and parasitologists have always lived together in good and bad luck in a sort of forced marriage. In recent times bad luck certainly prevailed, because of increasing man-made emergencies such as wars, chemical disasters, but also because of natural disasters, amplified by climate change, that condition more and more parasite–host equilibrium. The symposium at the National Congress of the Italian Society for Parasitology, was a first occasion for Italian parasitologists to reason about ‘disaster parasitology’ and researchers’ responsibilities. Extreme weather events and their impacts on parasites’ epidemiology are illustrated, comparing disasters that recently occurred in Italy with literature data. In particular, the Sardinian Island was hit subsequently by fires and floods exacerbating the effects on ecosystems and parasite–host-relationships. Examples of Cryptosporidium outbreaks in man and Fasciola hepatica infections in various hosts after heavy rains are reviewed and effects of droughts on pasture borne parasites, such as gastro-intestinal nematodes of ruminants are discussed. Heavy rains may also cause dissemination of toxic substances released accidentally from chemical plants as happened e.g. in Milan province (IT) after the dioxin hazard. The overlapping effects of strictly man-made disasters with climate change dependent extreme weather events is further challenging the understanding of what are the consequences of disasters on ecosystems and parasite epidemiology.GIS applications combined with AI programs may help to face the complex challenges, allowing the collection and analysis of spatial/temporal data at whatever level desired. Examples illustrated in the article suggest their employment also in a more systematic, prevention-oriented manner.

Використання метеосервісів, дистанційних і польових методів для обґрунтування температурних показників розвитку пшениці озимої

Goal. To justify the method of determining the phases of the development of winter wheat for obtaining reliable information using information technologies and remote sensing of the Earth. Methods. The data of remote monitoring of temperature indicators on the field and field observations and remote monitoring of the field using automatic meteorological equipment were used. Results. Research conducted on plots in vil. Khlybodarske (Odesa oblast) (46°47’96” N, 30°59’09” E) and vil. Huta Chuhorska (Khmelnytskyi oblast) (48°70’38” N, 27°04’08” E) confirmed mutual complementarity and some interchangeability of field monitoring information and information from weather forecasting services, the need to create an inexpensive service for monitoring and analyzing weather data, which could give forecasts and recommendations regarding the phases of development of crops. Conclusions. The proposed comprehensive approach to monitoring and forecasting the temperature indicators of winter wheat development enables agronomists to effectively monitor the development phases of crops. The use of inexpensive field monitoring stations by farmers will improve the quality of the received information about temperature indicators in the field. Determination of the phases of agricultural plant development is important for high-quality irrigation management, fertilizer application planning, and chemical plant protection. In the future, it is proposed to test the forecast of the onset of phenological phases with the help of the proposed integrated approach using the service of monitoring and analysis of weather data.

Memorial Landscape of the Ural Town in the Material of Folklore Archive (Kaslee, 1970‑1980)

The article considers the possibility and limits of reconstructing the memorial landscape of the Ural town-factory based on the materials of student folklore practical studies in the late Soviet era. The author reveals the stable motifs of the legends connected with the history of the founding of the industrial settlement of Kaslee, as well as with the specifics of the ethnic interaction between Russian settlers and the local population. The article also defines the “places of memory” in folklore materials. The study shows how the scientific and methodological attitudes of folklorists and the methods of interaction between collectors and informants are reflected in the collection of field archival materials from a particular area.
 The memorial landscape reconstructed according to folklore data tells both about the past of Kaslee and the present, as the perspective of such a description of the past is determined by the present. Archival folklore materials are an example of a combination of practices of communicative and cultural memories. In this aspect, the place of “songs about the city” is also determined in the article. The authors believe that “empty cells” – lacunae of archival memory, about which the informants did not tell and/or the collectors did not ask, are significant elements of this memorative landscape. The stories related to the accident at the Mayak chemical plant in 1957 and the environmental agenda in general become such subjects of silence.
 The article will be useful to folklorists and anyone interested in the problems of memory in folklore materials, as an attempt to apply the methods of folklore and anthropology to the practice of memory studies.

The distribution and dynamics of residual mercury from the Chisso chemical plant in sediments of the Yatsushiro Sea, western Kyushu, Japan: have recent sedimentations lowered surface mercury concentrations?

To determine the long-term dynamics of mercury discharged from Chisso chemical plant between 1932 and 1968, the vertical variation in mercury concentrations in Yatsushiro Sea sediments was studied from 2013 to 2020 at 31 locations and compared to the mercury concentration distribution obtained in 1996. The results suggest that new sedimentation occurred after 1996, but the mercury concentrations at the surface ranged from 0.2 to 1.9mgkg-1, which did not decrease significantly over a 20-year period. It was estimated that approximately 17 t of mercury remained in the southern Yatsushiro Sea sediment, which is equivalent to 10-20% of the total mercury discharged between 1932 and 1968. From results of WD-XRF and TOC measurement, it was suggested that mercury in sediment had been transported with suspended particles derived from sludges from the chemical plant and further suggests that the suspended particles derived from the sediment surface layer are still slowly diffusing.

Exogenous Streptomyces spp. benefit naked oat growth under dry farming conditions by modifying rhizosphere bacterial communities

Manipulation of rhizosphere microbiota is an effective strategy to facilitate crop growth in dry farming systems. Actinobacteria, such as Streptomyces spp., have the potential to alleviate plant damage induced by drought stress. However, whether exogenous actinobacteria can promote naked oat (Avena nuda L.) growth in drylands by reshaping rhizosphere bacterial community structure is still unclear. This study evaluated the effects of S. albidoflavus T4 and S. pactum Act12 on the growth and yield of naked oat through a two-year field experiment conducted in Taigu, Shanxi Province, China. Streptomyces-mediated shifts in rhizosphere bacterial diversity and community composition were analyzed based on 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. Both T4 and Act12 inoculation improved plant growth and grain yield by 21.5 %–27.4 % compared with the uninoculated control. Despite no significant changes in the alpha diversity of rhizosphere bacteria, their community composition varied in different patterns following inoculation. In T4-treated soils, there were increased proportions of Chloroflexi (rare phylum), Stenotrophomonas (abundant genus), and Acidovorax (moderate genus), along with a decreased proportion of Polycyclovorans (moderate genus). These differential taxa were closely related to increased soil available phosphorus and potassium contents as well as alkaline phosphatase activity, thereby contributing to plant growth. Act12-treated soils showed increased proportions of Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136 (abundant genus), Pantoea (rare genus), and Kluyvera (rare genus), in contrast to the decreasing trend of Microvirga (moderate genus). These differential taxa were mainly associated with enhanced soil sucrase and leaf catalase activities, which indirectly increased plant biomass and grain yield. The findings demonstrate that inoculation with S. albidoflavus T4 and S. pactum Act12 conveys benefits to naked oat growth under dry farming conditions as an indirect consequence of alterations in key taxa abundance in rhizosphere microbiota coupled with changes in soil chemical environment and plant antioxidant activity.

ELECTROREFINING OF URANIUM ALLOYS CONTAINING PALLADIUM AND NEODYMIUM IN 3LiCl–2KCl–UCl<sub>3</sub> MELTS

The technology of pyrochemical processing of mixed nitride uranium-plutonium spent fuel, realizable at the experimental and demonstration energy complex of the site of the Siberian Chemical Plant, includes several operations with the ultimate goal of isolating the target fission products. It’s planned to use the electrofining of the products of the previous stage, metallized spent nuclear fuel, аs the penultimate stage of processing. It’s necessary to determine the processes and technological modes of electrolytic refining of alloys modeling the product of this stage of the processing module to implement electrolytic refining. This paper presents the results of electrofining of model alloys (simulating the raw materials of the stage of electrofining processing) on an enlarged laboratory electrolyzer. The initial parameters of uranium refining processes in melts based on 3LiCl–2KCl–UCl3 were determined earlier. The basic parameters of refining were the use of electrolyte 3LiCl–2KCl–UCl3 (10.1 wt % UCl3) and conducting experiments at 550°C. Uranium alloys containing palladium and neodymium were prepared by direct fusion of uranium metal, PdAP-1 grade palladium metal powders and neodymium metal (99.99%) in a medium of high-purity argon (99.998%). The data obtained showed that at a temperature of 550°C, cathode precipitates are typical dendritic forms of alpha-uranium in rhombic syngony with a tendency to needle formation with an increase in cathode current density. An increase in the company time and cathode current density leads to a decrease in the current output due to short-circuiting of the electrodes with cathode sediment needles or metal shedding from the cathode. The modes of the cathode process have been experimentally refined as a result of electrofining. When electrofining alloys U–Pd(1.59 wt %), U–Pd(1.62 wt %), U–Pd(1.54 wt %), U–Pd(1.58 wt %)–Nd(5.64 wt %), U–Pd(1.84 wt %)–Nd(6.49 wt %), U–Pd(1.79 wt %)–Nd(6.54 wt %), uranium cathode precipitates were obtained, which were subjected to chemical analysis, which showed the high purity of the resulting metallic uranium, as well as the absence of metallic palladium and molybdenum in it. The palladium purification coefficient exceeds 5000, the neodymium purification coefficient exceeds 1000, which meets the requirements for purification from fission products at this stage of pyrochemical processing of spent fuel. Palladium accumulates in anode slime, while the bulk of neodymium passes into the molten electrolyte.

Atmospheric Observation of Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases around Four Chemical Plants in China

Due to the high global warming potential and rapidly increasing atmospheric concentrations of fluorinated greenhouse gases (hereinafter referred to as F-gases), the emission estimation has been widely studied. Additionally, the atmospheric observation supports the emission estimation. However, there are few F-gas studies with respect to chemical plants. In this study, we firstly carried out atmospheric observation studies of F-gases around chemical plants in China. Four typical chemical plants were selected, and the concentration levels, their concentration differences (hereinafter referred to as the up–down difference) and enhanced ratios (hereinafter referred to as the up–down enhanced ratio) of the F-gases at upwind and downwind sites in the four plants were observed. Both the upwind and downwind observation results of each plant showed that the average concentrations of HFCs were the highest (57%–85%), followed by PFCs, while the total average concentrations of SF6 and NF3 only accounted for less than 5%. The F-gases, with both the larger up–down enhanced ratios and the larger up–down differences in each plant, may suggest larger emission strengths during fluorinated production, by-products and usage processes. Additionally, the numbers of F-gas species emitted from Plants A, B and C were all significantly higher than those from Plant D. This may be because the F-gases in Plants A, B and C were emitted not only during fluorinated production and by-product processes, but also during usage processes, with respect to refrigeration and air-conditioning or foam insulation materials. The F-gases emitted by each plant did not cause toxicity to humans at sensitive sites; however, they can cause nonnegligible climate impacts. In the future, it is necessary to select more typical chemical plants to carry out the atmospheric observation of F-gases, with a higher observation frequency and larger sample size, to further estimate F-gas emissions from chemical plants in China.

Reality versus simulation-implementation of heat exchangers with phase changes

The heat exchanger is probably second only to the pipe as the most widely used piece of process equipment. A typical chemical plant has hundreds of heat exchangers that transfer heat from a hot source into a cold sink. The analysis of heat transfer is straight-forward when both the hot and the cold streams do not undergo any change in phase during the heating and cooling. However, the analysis gets more complex when there is vaporization or condensation of either of the streams. Now latent heats are involved and temperatures do not change continuously with axial location. Vaporizers, reboilers, evaporators and condensers are common examples of heat transfer with phase changes.The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how realistic simulation models can be developed that capture the steadystate and dynamic heat-transfer differential temperature driving forces, vapor-liquid fractions and heat-transfer rates for these important and widely applied exchangers.

Metabolic engineering of Bacillus subtilis toward the efficient and stable production of C30-carotenoids

Commercial carotenoid production is dominated by chemical synthesis and plant extraction, both of which are unsustainable and can be detrimental to the environment. A promising alternative for the mass production of carotenoids from both an ecological and commercial perspective is microbial synthesis. To date, C30 carotenoid production in Bacillus subtilis has been achieved using plasmid systems for the overexpression of biosynthetic enzymes. In the present study, we employed a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat-Cas9 (CRISPR-Cas9) system to develop an efficient, safe, and stable C30 carotenoid-producing B. subtilis strain, devoid of plasmids and antibiotic selection markers. To this end, the expression levels of crtM (dehydrosqualene synthase) and crtN (dehydrosqualene desaturase) genes from Staphylococcus aureus were upregulated by the insertion of three gene copies into the chromosome of B. subtilis. Subsequently, the supply of the C30 carotenoid precursor farnesyl diphosphate (FPP), which is the substrate for CrtMN enzymes, was enhanced by expressing chromosomally integrated Bacillus megaterium-derived farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FPPS), a key enzyme in the FPP pathway, and abolishing the expression of farnesyl diphosphate phosphatase (YisP), an enzyme responsible for the undesired conversion of FPP to farnesol. The consecutive combination of these features resulted in a stepwise increased production of C30 carotenoids. For the first time, a B. subtilis strain that can endogenously produce C30 carotenoids has been constructed, which we anticipate will serve as a chassis for further metabolic engineering and fermentation optimization aimed at developing a commercial scale bioproduction process.

Safety analysis and risk assessment of a Micro-GtL Plant

Laboratory hydrogen generators, medical oxygen, and micro-breweries are examples of modular and micro technologies that are commercial successes. Researchers, patients, and unskilled workers operate these facilities but more complex processes require highly qualified personnel to ensure they operate safely. Modular-micro processes in isolated locations meet economic objectives when operated remotely thereby minimizing labor costs. Mitigating the risk requires a comprehensive hazards analysis with advanced control systems particularly for explosive and toxic compounds. Here, we propose a method called Failure Mode Risk Decision (FMRD) to review the inherent hazards of a micro-refinery unit (MRU) that converts flared and wasted natural gas to long chain hydrocarbons. This approach combines the Process Flow Failure Mode (PFFM) methodology as a systematic and reliable technique with a novel numerical risk assessment to improve the analytical evaluation of hazardous conditions. The objective is to combine causes and consequences in a single metric, where scaled probability of evident causes and severity of consequences are used to derive a risk level measure. With the proposed metric, the magnitude of a potential hazard is directly correlated with the risk level. This mechanism identifies extra risk scenarios compared to the classical hazard analysis method and provides a straightforward comprehensive numerical assessment to represent the inherent and residual risks to facilitate justifying the hazardous scenarios. Accordingly, we design a safety loop and supply all the required facilities to remove the potential risks at the process plant. Not only the proposed methodology clarifies the risks of the MRU presented in this study, but can be extended to review the hazards of other chemical process plants.

EPA seeks to slash chemical plant emissions

EPA seeks to slash chemical plant emissions