Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research

Efficient catalytic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass to sugars is a major challenge in the production of sustainable biofuels and chemical feedstocks. In this study isethionic acid was compared with H2 SO4 for hydrolysis of polysaccharides in corn stover, switch grass, and poplar. The catalytic activities of acids were compared by analysis of total reducing sugar (TRS) and glucose yields in a sequence of experiments in water at 90-190 °C using 0.050 mol of H+ /L isethionic acid and H2 SO4 . In comparison to using H2 SO4 , the use of isethionic acid catalyst lowered the maximum TRS percent yield temperatures by 25, 24, and 21% for corn stover, switch grass, and poplar...

In the pursuit of advancing and diversifying energy technologies for a more sustainable future, the possibilities of hydrogen (H2 ) usage will broaden, as will our understanding of its containment materials. Polyethylene (PE) has a vast assortment of uses and applications, which are growing with demands for alternative energy possibilities. One use of PE liner is as a prime candidate for nonmetallic piping and pressurized type IV storage devices. Such applications require PE to effectively prevent H2 transport through containment systems...

Steam methane reforming (SMR) currently supplies 76% of the world's hydrogen (H2 ) demand, totaling ∼70 million tonnes per year. Developments in H2 production technologies are required to meet the rising demand for cleaner, less costly H2 . Therefore, palladium membrane reactors (Pd-MR) have received significant attention for their ability to increase the efficiency of traditional SMR. This study performs novel economic analyses and constrained, nonlinear optimizations on an intensified SMR process with a Pd-MR...

The excess Gibbs-energy of a two-component liquid molecular mixture is modeled based on discrete clusters of molecules. These clusters preserve the three-dimensional geometric information about local molecule neighborhoods that inform the interaction energies of the clusters. In terms of a discrete Markov-chain, the clusters are used to hypothetically construct the mixture using sequential insertion steps. Each insertion step and, therefore, cluster is assigned a probability of occurring in an equilibrium system that is determined via the constrained minimization of the Helmholtz free energy...

Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to value-added chemicals and fuels has recently gained increasing attention as a promising route for utilizing carbon dioxide to achieve a sustainable society. In this study, we investigated the hydrogenation of CO2 over M/SiO2 and M/Al2 O3 (M = Co, Ni) catalysts in a dielectric barrier discharge system at different temperatures. We compared three different reaction modes: plasma alone, thermal catalysis, and plasma catalysis. The coupling of catalysts with plasma demonstrated synergy at different reaction temperatures, surpassing the thermal catalysis and plasma alone modes...

The distribution of catalytically active species in heterogeneous porous catalysts strongly influences their performance and durability in industrial reactors. A drying model for investigating this redistribution was developed and implemented using the finite volume method. This model embeds an analytical approach regarding the permeability and capillary pressure from arbitrary pore size distributions. Subsequently, a set of varying pore size distributions are investigated, and their impact on the species redistribution during drying is quantified...

Liquid-liquid emulsions are used in a variety of industry sectors, including personal care, home care, food, and nutrition. The development of compact and modular systems and devices for creating emulsions with desired droplet size distribution (DSD) is becoming increasingly important. In this work, we have shown use of vortex-based cavitation devices for producing emulsions at nominal flow rate of 1 LPM and 20 LPM. We present new experimental results providing quantitative information on influence of multiple passes through the vortex based hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) device, type of oil and device scale on the breakage process and resulting DSDs...

The management of anaerobic digestate is important to realize the value of the waste and enhance the whole system sustainability of anaerobic digestion. In this study, the phosphorus treatment of dirty irrigation water by biochar samples derived from digestate of anaerobic digestion were investigated. The biochars were further activated by steam activation with different duration time and KOH activation with different introducing ratios; the textural properties of biochars were optimized after activation from the aspect of biochar characterization...

For the first time, we demonstrate a photoelectrocatalysis technique for simultaneous surfactant pollutant degradation and green hydrogen generation using mesoporous WO3 /BiVO4 photoanode under simulated sunlight irradiation. The materials properties such as morphology, crystallite structure, chemical environment, optical absorbance, and bandgap energy of the WO3 /BiVO4 films are examined and discussed. We have tested the anionic type (sodium 2-naphthalenesulfonate (S2NS)) and cationic type surfactants (benzyl alkyl dimethylammonium compounds (BAC-C12)) as model pollutants...

Glycerol acetins (mono-, di-, and tri) are produced via esterification with acetic acid. The acetins are commercially important industrial chemicals including their application as fuel additives, thus significant to environmental sustainability and economic viability of the biorefinery industry. Glycerol esterification with acetic acid was studied using partial tin exchanged tungstophosphoric acid supported on montmorillonite K-10 as catalysts. Partially exchanging the H+ ion of DTP with Sn ( x = 1) increased the acidity of the catalyst and showed an increase in the catalytic activity as compared to the DTP/K-10 catalyst...

The application of photocatalysis for the disinfection of water has been extensively reported over the past 30 years. Titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) has been the most widely and successfully used photocatalyst to date; however, it is not without its limitations. Frequently observed long lag times, sometimes up to 60 min, before bacterial inactivation begins and the presence of residual microorganisms, for example, up to 104 colony forming units, remaining after treatment are ongoing challenges with this particular photocatalyst...

In the concept of a microstructured bubble column reactor, microstructuring of the catalyst carrier is realized by introducing a static mesh of thin wires coated with catalyst inside the column. Meanwhile, the wires also serve the purpose of cutting the bubbles, which in turn results in high interfacial area and enhanced interface hydrodynamics. However, there are no models that can predict the fate of bubbles (cut/stuck) passing through these wires, thus making the reactor optimization difficult. In this work, based on several typical bubble-wire interacting configurations, we analyze the outcomes by applying the energy balance of the bubble focusing on buoyancy and surface tension...

Riser reactors are frequently applied in catalytic processes involving rapid catalyst deactivation. Typically heterogeneous flow structures prevail because of the clustering of particles, which impacts the quality of the gas-solid contact. This phenomenon results as a competition between fluid-particle interaction (i.e., drag) and particle-particle interaction (i.e., collisions). In this study, five drag force correlations were used in a combined computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method Immersed Boundary Model to predict the clustering...

This work reports a novel and quick method to estimate the surface area of porous materials. Conventionally, surface area measurement requires the BET method/N2 adsorption experiment which is time-consuming. In this work, we developed a method based on machine learning (ML) and the adsorption of a conductive dye on porous materials. The rate and quantity of dye adsorption, which is characterized by dynamic measurement of conductivity, provide an indirect measure of surface area and zeta potential. An ML-based soft sensor is developed to relate the measured conductivity profiles with surface area and zeta potential...

We explore the effects of the carbon molecular sieve (CMS) microstructure on the separation performance and transport mechanism of water-organic mixtures. Specifically, we utilize PIM-1 dense films and integrally skinned asymmetric hollow fiber membranes as polymer precursors for the CMS materials. The PIM-1 membranes were pyrolyzed under several different pyrolysis atmospheres (argon, carbon dioxide, and diluted hydrogen gas) and at multiple pyrolysis temperatures. Detailed gas physisorption measurements reveal that membranes pyrolyzed under 4% H2 and CO2 had broadened ultramicropore distributions (pore diameter <7 Å) compared to Ar pyrolysis, and pyrolysis under CO2 increased ultramicropore volume and broadened micropore distributions at increased pyrolysis temperatures...

This study investigated the performance of an acoustic backscatter system (ABS) for the in situ particle characterization of complex wastes. Two sediments were used: a fine, milled calcite that was flocculated with anionic polyacrylamide and naturally flocculated pond sludge. Particles were initially measured independently by light-based techniques to gain size, the coefficient of variation (COV), and fractal dimensions. For acoustic experiments, a bespoke, high-fidelity ABS was employed with 1, 2.25, and 5 MHz probes and a recirculating mixing tank...

This work investigates three types of biochar (bamboo charcoal, wood pellet, and coconut shell) for postcombustion carbon capture. Each biochar is structurally modified through physical (H2 O, CO2 ) and chemical (ZnCl2 , KOH, H3 PO4 ) activation to improve carbon capture performance. Three methods (CO2 adsorption isotherms, CO2 fixed-bed adsorption, and thermogravimetric analysis) are used to determine the CO2 adsorption capacity. The results show that a more than 2.35 mmol·g-1 (1 bar, 298 K) CO2 capture capacity was achieved using the activated biochar samples...

The efficient separation of the 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDO) intermediate from fermentation broth is an important issue in the production of biofuels from biomass-derived intermediates. Two zeolitic imidazolate frameworks ZIF-8 and ZIF-71 were investigated for the adsorption of 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDO) from fermentation broth via liquid breakthrough adsorption measurements. While both ZIF materials initially show high separation performance, ZIF-71 retains robust separation performance even after aging in ethanol for two years, whereas the capacity of ZIF-8 decreases significantly...

The aim of this study was to optimize the reaction conditions for concentrated acid hydrolysis of aspen wood flour by employing anhydrous hydrogen chloride gas to produce fermentable sugars. Gas hydrolysis with HCl was conducted both with and without temperature control during hydrolysis under a relatively low pressure of 0.1 MPa. Process parameters for HCl gas hydrolysis included the moisture content of aspen wood flour (0.7-50%) and reaction time under pressure (30 min to 24 h). In addition, liquid-phase hydrolysis with concentrated hydrochloric acid was conducted in concentrations of 32-42% and 15 min to 24 h reaction times for comparison with the gas-phase process...

The propylene production processes currently used in the petrochemical industry (fluid catalytic cracking and steam cracking of naphtha and light diesel) are unable to meet the increase of propylene demand for industrial applications. For this reason, alternative processes for propylene production have been investigated, and among the others, the propane dehydrogenation (PDH) process, allowing the production of propylene as a main product, has been industrially implemented (e.g., Catofin and Oleflex processes)...