Water Removal Method Research Articles

Exposure to 19 elements via water ingestion and dermal contact in several South American environments (La Plata Basin): From Andes and Atlantic Forest to sea front

Nineteen elements were analyzed by ICP-MS in surface water from 44 sampling stations from La Plata Basin (South America), including 5 countries and 7 different environments (streams, rivers, meanders, flood valleys, wetland, dam, delta and estuary). A multi-elemental pollution index (EPI) was employed for classifying the water quality while, the potential non-carcinogenic risk through direct ingestion and skin contact were assessed using Hazard Quotients (HQ). Except Fe (2.5–692 μg/L), elements were in accordance to the quality standards for drinking and biota aquatic protection set by international guidelines. EPI indicated a critical scenario for 10 sampling sites (dam, estuary and some meanders, rivers and streams), while the remaining 34 sites were classified within the high pollution status. HQ indicated that water would not be safe (HQ = 1.0–2.11) for human consumption in 5 areas (wetland and rivers and estuary) while, results indicated that there would be no risk (HQ = 0.0005–0.01) through chronic water contact. The main contributors to the HQ indices were As (up to 6.3 μg/L) and Li (up to 49.9 μg/L). Correlations (r ≥ 0.8) such as LiB, LiAs, LiSr, LiBa, LiU, Li-conductivity, BAs, BSr, BBa, BU, B-conductivity, SrBa, SrU, Sr-conductivity provided powerful information about natural sources of some elements. Principal component analysis showed relations between elements and environments such as As, Li, Cs with Andes Mountains and Al and Fe with Atlantic forest. Results allowed to propose management policy recommendations based on strategies for reducing the direct water ingestion, removal methods, and implementation of monitoring programs in the most affected water bodies.

Dissolution and Regeneration of the Produced Nano Bacterial Cellulose of Food Industries Wastewaters by a Cost-Benefit Method

This paper applied a simple and cost-benefit method for the production of regenerated bacterial cellulose. The inexpensive production of cellulose with complex media derived from wastewater from food industries such as molasses adds a lot of contaminants to the produced bacterial cellulose, which puts a lot of challenges in cellulose purification. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop an inexpensive strategy for the complete dissolution of the very dirty cellulose produced from the low-cost medium containing molasses and corn steep liquor, and the reconstruction of pure bacterial cellulose that can be used for all types of cellulose. The bacterial cellulose was produced by Gluconacetobacter xylinus BRP2001 in an effective and inexpensive culture media including a mixture of molasses and corn steep liquor, then cuprammonium rayon method as a cost effective approach was modified for quick and complete dissolution of the bacterial cellulose. The main parameters in cuprammonium method such as the value of sodium hydroxide and copper sulfate, the water removal method and dissolution process were optimized by irregular fraction design. In addition to cost, the time of dissolution process of bacterial cellulose was reduced to less than 1 hour which is unprecedented in comparison with other conventional methods. Regeneration of bacterial cellulose for the fabrication of novel regenerated bacterial cellulose was carried out using dilute sulfuric acid. Under the optimum rayon method comprising 3 wt% NaOH/ 6 wt% copper sulfate solution, the diameter of the nanofibers of bacterial cellulose and regenerated bacterial cellulose ranged between 20-80 nm and 60-120 nm, respectively. Also, the crystal sizes of bacterial and regenerated bacterial cellulose were estimated at about 59.74nm and 6.13nm and the crystallinity indexes of bacterial cellulose and regenerated bacterial cellulose were calculated as 89% and 64%, respectively. The mechanical modulus and crystallinity of regenerated bacterial cellulose were significantly reduced because of the disruption of the hydrogen bond.

Improved method of water removal from vegetable oil

This paper is about water removal from vegetable oil. Commonly, used drying methods are expensive. Oil dried for transesterification yields improvement and side reaction suppression. Water promotes an undesirable side reaction—saponification of oil. Drying was performed at different pressures and with various additions of alcohol as methanol, ethanol and butanol. The experiment shows that addition of just a small amount of alcohol during vacuum distillation decreased water content to 50 ppm.

Combustion characteristics of biodried sewage sludge

In this study, effects of biodrying on the characteristics of sewage sludge and the subsequent combustion behavior were investigated. 7-Day of biodrying removed 49.78% of water and 23.17% of VS initially contained in the sewage sludge and increased lower heating value (LHV) by 37.87%. Meanwhile, mass contents of C and N decreased from 36.25% and 6.12% to 32.06% and 4.82%, respectively. Surface of the biodried sewage sludge (BDSS) appeared granulated and multi-porous, which was thought to facilitate air transfer during combustion. According to thermogravimetric (TG) analysis coupled with mass spectrometer (MS) with a heating rate of 10 °C/min from 35 °C to 1000 °C, thermally-dried sewage sludge (TDSS) and BDSS lost 74.39% and 67.04% of the initial mass, respectively. In addition, combustibility index (S) of BDSS (8.67 × 10−8 min−2 K−3) was higher than TDSS. TG-MS analyses also showed that less nitrogenous gases were generated from BDSS than TDSS. It was again showed that the average CO and NO concentrations in exit gas from isothermal combustion of BDSS were lower than those from TDSS, especially at low temperatures (≤800 °C). Based on these results, it was concluded that biodrying of sewage sludge was an energy-efficient water-removal method with less emission of air pollutants when BDSS was combusted.

Infusion of fructooligosaccharide in Indian gooseberry (Emblica officinalis) fruit using osmotic treatment and its effect on the antioxidant activity of the fruit

Osmotic dehydration is the most reliable method for the partial removal of water from fruits and vegetables because it is less energy intensive and retains the natural colour, texture and flavour of the food materials. The present work deals with the infusion of fructooligosaccharide (FOS) into Indian gooseberry (amla) fruit. The infusion of FOS was found to increase over a range of temperatures from 30 to 50 °C. The water loss and solid gain during the infusion process were higher at higher temperatures. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity and phenolic as well as flavonoid contents of the FOS osmotic dehydrated samples were also found to be significantly higher as compared to fresh fruits in both in vitro and cell line assays. The present study indicated that the osmotic treatment can be used as a method for the infusion of FOS in solid food matrix such as Indian gooseberry.

Los Alamos water removal method helps nanosheet performance

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have illuminated the critical role of water in forming catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The research provides the first comprehensive understanding of water's role within graphene oxide nanosheets, and could be the key to designing next-generation carbon nanomaterials with enhanced performance for fuel cells and batteries.

مقایسه ویژگی های کیفی برگه خرمالو خشک شده به دو روش هوای داغ و مادون قرمز

Introduction: One of the most important aspects of food preservation is controlling the moisture of material such as fruits.Dryingis considered as important method to controlbacteriasafely using reduction of moisture. The hot air drying method has been widely adopted in manufacturing of conventional dried food.Nowadays, Infrared radiation (IR) has significant advantages over conventional drying. Among these advantages,higher drying rates giving significant energy savings anduniform temperature distribution giving a better quality of product. Therefore, it can be used as an energy saving drying method. Earlier attempts forapplying infrared waves to drying of agricultural materials have been reported in the literatures, such as banana, onion, garlic, apple, corn, pomegranate seeds and peach. The persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is native to East Asia, most likely China. This fruit has very short shelf-life; it is due to thehigh soluble tannin content of the fruit during storage even at refrigerated conditions. The persimmon is mainly eaten fresh, but can be dried.Duringdrying the tannin cells coagulate, so astringency is removed and the sugars in the fruit exude to the surface where they crystallize, thus producing a sweet, candied product. The objective of this study was to examine the drying behavior of the far infrared and hot- air drying of persimmon slices by comparing the physical quality. Materials and methods: Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) used in this study was purchased from a local market (KhorasanRazavi, Mashhad). The whole samples were stored at 4°C. The initial moisture content of persimmon was found to be 78.2 kg H2O/kg moisture. The sampleswerecut into 5mm slices using a cutting machine and were dried to 10% final moisture (wet basis). - Infrared dryer setup: Infrared (IR) dryer used in this research was equipped with IR lamp (1300W). Persimmon slices were placed in a single layer on the drying tray and heated from one side. Thermocouples (Type K) were inserted at the center of persimmon slice.IR drying tests were conducted with final product temperatures controlled at 50°C, 60°C and 70°C. -Hot air dryer setup: Persimmon slices were arranged in a single layer on the trays and dried in cabinet dryer at material temperatures of 50°C, 60°C and 70°C.Air velocity in the dryer was 1.5 m/s. -Quality evaluation: Persimmon slice drying characteristics including rehydration ratio, color parameters, shrinkage, texture and sensory properties were investigated ResultsandDiscussion: It is clear that the moisture content and drying rate decrease continuously with drying time. The drying rate was rapid during the initial period but it became very slow at the last stages of dryingprocess. Persimmonslices dried with hot-air and infrared dryer at temperatures 60 and 70◦c respectively, had a maximum rehydration ratio. In general, infrared drying showed significant effect on L value (p<0.05) and slices dried in 70°C were found to have maximum L values (64.33).Due to the reduction of browning reactions byIR heating, b vales of samples were reduced. The lowest content of shrinkage was observed in infrared dried samples at 50°C. Results of sensory evaluation showed that infrared dried samples are more acceptable and obtained higher score comparing to hot-air dried samples. Conclusion: In conclusion, our results showed thatthe IR drying had much higher drying rate compared to the hot air drying. Its drying rate increased remarkably with increasing of the radiation intensity. Infrared drying of persimmon slices is an effective method of water removal. Drying with application of infrared energy is much faster than convective drying(under equivalent parameters). Beside, IR radiation did not cause any negative impact on characteristics and quality dried sample. Besides, IR drying methods dramatically reduced the drying temperature.

Convex-Envelope Based Automated Quantitative Approach to Multi-Voxel 1H-MRS Applied to Brain Tumor Analysis.

BackgroundMagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) can measure in vivo brain tissue metabolism that exhibits unique biochemical characteristics in brain tumors. For clinical application, an efficient and versatile quantification method of MRS would be an important tool for medical research, particularly for exploring the scientific problem of tumor monitoring. The objective of our study is to propose an automated MRS quantitative approach and assess the feasibility of this approach for glioma grading, prognosis and boundary detection.MethodsAn automated quantitative approach based on a convex envelope (AQoCE) is proposed in this paper, including preprocessing, convex-envelope based baseline fitting, bias correction, sectional baseline removal, and peak detection, in a total of 5 steps. Some metabolic ratios acquired by this quantification are selected for statistical analysis. An independent sample t-test and the Kruskal-Wallis test are used for distinguishing low-grade gliomas (LGG) and high-grade gliomas (HGG) and for detecting the tumor, peritumoral and contralateral areas, respectively. Seventy-eight cases of pre-operative brain gliomas with pathological reports are included in this study.ResultsCho/NAA, Cho/Cr and Lip-Lac/Cr (LL/Cr) calculated by AQoCE in the tumor area differ significantly between LGG and HGG, with p≤0.005. Using logistic regression combining Cho/NAA, Cho/Cr and LL/Cr to generate a ROC curve, AQoCE achieves a sensitivity of 92.9%, a specificity of 72.2%, and an area under ROC curve (AUC) of 0.860. Moreover, both Cho/NAA and Cho/Cr in the AQoCE approach show a significant difference (p≤0.019) between tumoral, peritumoral, and contralateral areas. The comparison between the results of AQoCE and Siemens MRS processing software are also discussed in this paper.ConclusionsThe AQoCE approach is an automated method of residual water removal and metabolite quantification. It can be applied to multi-voxel 1H-MRS for evaluating brain glioma grading and demonstrating characteristics of brain glioma metabolism. It can also detect infiltration in the peritumoral area. Under the limited clinical data used, AQoCE is significantly more versatile and efficient compared to the reference approach of Siemens.

Water removal from biodiesel/diesel blends and jet fuel using natural resin as dehydration agent

Water removal from both biodiesel and diesel/biodiesel blends was studied using a natural removable additive, natural resin. Specifically, two different samples of biodiesel/diesel blends and one of JP8 fuel were studied before and after the blending process with the natural additive. As well as moisture concentration, the properties of density, kinematic viscosity, conductivity, flash point, and heat of combustion were also investigated. Using the proposed method of water removal improves the physicochemical properties of biodiesel/diesel fuel blends, increases the heat of combustion up to 361 J/g, reduces the moisture by ∼66 %, and reduces the conductivity down to 39.5 %. In the case of JP8 fuel decreasing moisture content increases the heat of combustion by 187 J/g, decreases the conductivity by 60 %, and establishes the moisture level within accepted values, from 68 to lower than 50 mg/kg.

Development and application of a quantitative method for determination of flavonoids in orange peel: Influence of sample pretreatment on composition

Peel, a part of the citrus rich in compounds with high-added value, constitutes the bulk of the waste generated in citrus juice industries. Flavonoids are a class of these high-added value compounds characterized by their bioactivity. In this research, a method for analysis of flavonoids, based on LC–MS/MS by using a triple quadrupole detector, has been developed and applied to the quantitative analysis of 16 flavonoids in extracts obtained by maceration of citrus peel. The parameters involved in the ionization and fragmentation of the target analytes were optimized to develop a selected reaction monitoring (SRM) method, which reported detection and quantitation limits ranging from 0.005 to 5ng/mL and from 0.01 to 10ng/mL, respectively. The raw materials for flavonoids extraction were fresh, oven-dried and lyophilized peel of 8 different orange varieties, and the proposed quantitation method was applied to the analysis of the obtained extracts. Evaluation of the two methods of water removal showed that lyophilization preserves the concentration of the flavonoids, while oven-dried peel presented a decrease of glycosylated flavonoids and an increase of aglycone forms.

Proposal and examination of method of water removal from gas diffusion layer by applying slanted microgrooves inside gas channel in separator to improve polymer electrolyte fuel cell performance

The objective of this study was to improve the management of moisture from the gas diffusion layer (GDL) in the gas channel of a separator for PEFC. At the cathode-side, oxygen is transported as reactant gas from gas channel through GDL. When large quantity of moisture is generated during high power generation, moisture blocks transport of oxygen, and the cell voltage drops drastically. Narrow microgrooves with axes at tilt angle to the air flow were arranged inside channel walls. The water from GDL was discharged along microgrooves to facing top of GDL by forces of capillary and air flow shearing. Laser induced fluorescence method was used to measure water velocity in microgrooves. The effect of air velocity in the gas channel on water velocity in microgrooves was investigated. It was shown microgrooves manufactured inside gas channel worked properly. Water velocity in microgrooves increased with increasing air velocity, and moisture could be discharged from GDL by applying microgrooves. Furthermore, effective length of the microgrooves needed to remove water from the GDL surface increased with decreasing inclination angle of microgrooves in the range of 20°–45°. An effective length of approximately 200 mm was attained, which was overall length of experimental apparatus.

Rigorous models to optimise stripping gas rate in natural gas dehydration units

Natural gas is an extremely vital supply of energy. Compared to other fossil fuels, demand for natural gas is experiencing a considerable growth due to its accessibility, availability, versatility and smaller environmental footprint. Glycol dehydration is the most common and economic method of water removal from natural gas streams. The water content of the dehydrated gas depends primarily on the lean triethylene glycol (TEG) concentration. Injecting stripping gas into the reboiler is taken into account as an effective way to improve the glycol concentration. In this article, two intelligent approaches including multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) algorithm are utilized to predict optimum stripping gas flow rate in natural gas dehydration systems. Furthermore, a simple mathematical tool is presented for the application of interest. Based on the statistical analysis, an excellent match is noticed between the values obtained from the predictive tools (e.g., MLP, LSSVM and the empirical equations) and the real data so that the average absolute relative deviation percent (AARD %) is determined to be lower than 0.01%.

Boron contamination in drinking - irrigation water and boron removal methods

Boron presents in IIIA group of periodic table and has high ionization capacity. Therefore it is classified as a metalloid. Average boron concentration in earth's crust is 10 mg/kg. It presents in the environment as a salts of Ca, Na, and Mg. Boron reserves having high concentration and economical extent are found mostly in Turkey and in arid, volcanic and high hydrothermal activity regions of U.S. as compounds of boron attached to oxygen. Boron is an essential micronutrient for plants, although it may be toxic at higher levels. The range in which it is converted from a nutrient to a contaminant is quite narrow. Boron presents in water environment as a boric acid and rarely borate salts. The main boron sources, whose presence is detected in surface waters, are urban wastes and industrial wastes, which can come from a wide range of different activities as well as several chemical products used in agriculture. In Turkey, the most pollutant toxic element in drinking and irrigation water is boron. Therefore boron removal is very important in terms of human health and agricultural products in high quality. Mainly boron removal methods from drinking water and irrigation water are ion exchange, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and adsorption.

Video-based Water Drop Detection and Removal Method for a Moving Vehicle

Video-based Water Drop Detection and Removal Method for a Moving Vehicle

Study on the flooding phenomena and performance enhancement of PEM fuel cell applying a Concus-Finn condition

Abstract The Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell produces electric energy, heat and water during its operation. Therefore, the management of the heat and water produced by PEMFC has become a critical issue of study. The flooding phenomenon in the cathode channel causes concentration loss at high current density, and this loss suddenly decreases the fuel cell efficiency. Current research on the water management of the PEMFC mostly investigates the flooding phenomenon, itself, in the cathode channel. This research presents the optimized design of the channel by studying the flooding phenomenon in the PEMFC under the Concus-Finn condition and the performance improvement by using computational simulation. A new water removal method applying a Concus-Finn condition is presented. The prevention of flooding in the cathode channel of the PEMFC is investigated by visualization experiments, simulations and performance experiments for various reactant RH value and channel shapes under the Concus-Finn condition. Based on the results, a new channel shape that can prevent flooding in the PEMFC is proposed.

A Novel Route for Conversion of Free Fatty Acids in Acidic Oils to Methyl Esters by In-Situ Hydrolysis of Methyl Acetate

Biodiesel from clean oils is comparatively easier than production from crude and non-edible oils. To achieve maximum yield of biodiesel, a two stage process is adopted in which non-edible oils are used as feed-stock: an acid catalyzed esterification of free fatty acids followed by base catalyzed transesterification. Presence of water formed during esterification reaction is detrimental to a viable transesterification process. In the present work, an alternate method for removal of water by in situ hydrolysis reaction of methyl acetate is introduced. The dehydration using methyl acetate during esterification has yielded good results as the soap formed during transesterification was minimal. The results indicated high conversion of triglycerides to methyl ester for lower oil to methanol ratio and at a lower temperature. For 1:3 molar ratio of oil to methanol, the conversion obtained was less than 90 percent and is equivalent to conversions with higher alcohol ratios during esterification in the absence of methyl acetate. These results are indicative of the fact that use of methyl acetate reduces the alcohol to oil ratio without affecting the conversions. Moreover, higher conversions are possible at lower temperatures in the presence of methyl acetate. It is further observed that the oils that are subjected to free fatty acid conversions in the presence of methyl acetate record very little soap formation during the transesterification reactions, thereby resulting in higher grade of biodiesel.

A Novel Route for Conversion of Free Fatty Acids in Acidic Oils to Methyl Esters by In-Situ Hydrolysis of Methyl Acetate

Biodiesel from clean oils is comparatively easier than production from crude and non-edible oils. To achieve maximum yield of biodiesel, a two stage process is adopted in which non-edible oils are used as feed-stock: an acid catalyzed esterification of free fatty acids followed by base catalyzed transesterification. Presence of water formed during esterification reaction is detrimental to a viable transesterification process. In the present work, an alternate method for removal of water by in situ hydrolysis reaction of methyl acetate is introduced. The dehydration using methyl acetate during esterification has yielded good results as the soap formed during transesterification was minimal. The results indicated high conversion of triglycerides to methyl ester for lower oil to methanol ratio and at a lower temperature. For 1:3 molar ratio of oil to methanol, the conversion obtained was less than 90 percent and is equivalent to conversions with higher alcohol ratios during esterification in the absence of methyl acetate. These results are indicative of the fact that use of methyl acetate reduces the alcohol to oil ratio without affecting the conversions. Moreover, higher conversions are possible at lower temperatures in the presence of methyl acetate. It is further observed that the oils that are subjected to free fatty acid conversions in the presence of methyl acetate record very little soap formation during the transesterification reactions, thereby resulting in higher grade of biodiesel.

Enhanced production of hydroxymethylfurfural from fructose with solid acid catalysts by simple water removal methods

Abstract This paper demonstrates two simple ways to increase 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) yield (selectivity) in fructose dehydration with various solid acid catalysts. One is a water removal from the reaction mixture by a mild evacuation at 0.97 × 105 Pa; it increases HMF yield for various catalysts (heteropoly acid, zeolite, and acidic resin). The removal of water suppresses two undesired reactions: the hydrolysis of HMF to levulinic acid and the reaction of partially dehydrated intermediates to condensation products. The other method is a decrease in the particle (bead) size of the resin (Amberlyst-15). The crushed and sieved Amberlyst-15 powder in a size of 0.15–0.053 mm shows 100% HMF yield at high fructose concentration (50 wt.% in DMSO), which is to our knowledge the highest yield to date. Near-infrared spectroscopic characterization of adsorbed water suggests that the enhanced yield can be caused by an improved removal of adsorbed water in a small-size resin particle.

New sulfonic acid ion-exchange resins for the preesterification of different oils and fats with high content of free fatty acids

The preesterification of free fatty acid (FFA) containing vegetable oils by strong acid ion-exchange resins was studied. The catalysts were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ion-exchange capacity. Based on a simple kinetic model the rate constants were determined. The effect of the catalyst structure, particle size, stirring speed, oil properties and water removal method on the reaction rate was investigated. Calculation of the turn over frequencies (TOFs) revealed high catalyst activities. Excellent conversions were obtained even without water removal, due to an extractive esterification. During recycling durability tests a catalyst activity loss occurred. The deactivation mechanism was investigated and the exhausted catalysts were successfully regenerated. A catalyst fouling was not observed. The presented preesterification process facilitates the processing of low quality, high FFA containing oils to biodiesel via basic transesterification and might help to reduce the production costs.

An ER Algorithm-Based Method for Removal of Adherent Water Drops from Images Obtained by a Rear View Camera Mounted on a Vehicle in Rainy Conditions

In this paper, an ER (Error-Reduction) algorithm-based method for removal of adherent water drops from images obtained by a rear view camera mounted on a vehicle in rainy conditions is proposed. Since Fourier-domain and object-domain constraints are needed for any ER algorithm-based method, the proposed method introduces the following two novel constraints for the removal of adherent water drops. The first one is the Fourier-domain constraint that utilizes the Fourier transform magnitude of the previous frame in the obtained images as that of the target frame. Noting that images obtained by the rear view camera have the unique characteristics of objects moving like ripples because the rear view camera is generally composed of a fish-eye lens for a wide view angle, the proposed method assumes that the Fourier transform magnitudes of the target frame and the previous frame are the same in the polar coordinate system. The second constraint is the object-domain constraint that utilizes intensities in an area of the target frame to which water drops have adhered. Specifically, the proposed method models a deterioration process of intensities that are corrupted by the water drop adhering to the rear view camera lens. By utilizing these novel constraints, the proposed ER algorithm can remove adherent water drops from images obtained by the rear view camera. Experimental results that verify the performance of the proposed method are represented.