Experimental Study of a Modified Icaro Solar Dryer: The Case of Coffee Drying

Food losses in the developing country are thought to be 50% of the fruits and vegetables grown and 25% of harvested food grain. Food preservation can reduce wastage of a harvest surplus, allow storage for food shortages, and in some cases facilitate export to high-value markets. Drying is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. Drying makes produce lighter, smaller, and less likely to spoil and helps to minimize the moisture content in coffee beans as high moisture content during storage is certain to ruin the taste and appearance of coffee. This work presents the results of an experimental study of forced convection drying of coffee cherries in a modified Icaro solar dryer. The study aims to validate the numerical models developed for further research. The experimental tests envisaged also aim to determine the mass loss curves of the product by fixing or calculating its initial mass (1 kg), its initial water content (70%), the ambient temperature, the drying airflow (0.02 m3.s-1 to 0.09 m3.s-1) and the exchange coefficients. The influence of these aerothermal parameters on the drying time of a most commercialized coffee variety (Robusta) was studied. Finally, the results revealed an increase in the efficiency of the heat transfer air and a reduction in the water content of the coffee cherry from 70% to 9.87%, after 30.2 hours.

Crystallization Behavior and Properties of B-Doped ZnO Thin Films Prepared by Sol-Gel Method with Different Pyrolysis Temperatures

Boron-doped zinc oxide transparent （BZO） films were prepared by sol-gel method. The effect of pyrolysis temperature on the crystallization behavior and properties was systematically investigated. XRD patterns revealed that the BZO films had wurtzite structure with a preferential growth orientation along the c-axis. With the increase of pyrolysis temperature, the particle size and surface roughness of the BZO films increased, suggesting that pyrolysis temperature is the critical factor for determining the crystallization behavior of the BZO films. Moreover, the carrier concentration and the carrier mobility increased with increasing the pyrolysis temperature, and the mean transmittance for every film is over 90% in the visible range.

Skin temperature oscillation model for assessing vasomotion of microcirculation

It has been proved that there exists a certain cor relation between fingertip temperature oscillations and blood flow oscillations. In this work, a porous media model of hu man hand is presented to investigate how the blood flow os cillation in the endothelial frequency band influences finger tip skin temperature oscillations. The porosity which repre sents the density of micro vessels is assumed to vary periodi cally and is a function of the skin temperature. Finite element analysis of skin temperature for a contra lateral hand under a cooling test was conducted. Subsequently, wavelet anal ysis was carried out to extract the temperature oscillations of the data through the numerical analysis and experimen tal measurements. Furthermore, the oscillations extracted from both numerical analyses and experiments were statis tically analyzed to compare the amplitude. The simulation and experimental results show that for the subjects in cardio vascular health, the skin temperature fluctuations in endothe lial frequency decrease during the cooling test and increase gradually after cooling, implying that the assumed porosity variation can represent the vasomotion in the endothelial fre quency band.

FORMATION OF SILICONIZED LAYER ON TiAl-BASED ALLOY AND THE OXIDATION RESISTANCE

The Ti-48Al alloy was pack siliconized with 15%Si+85%Al2O3. The microstructure of the siliconized coating on the TiAl-based alloy was analyzed and its effect on oxidation resistance was investigated. The specimens before and after cycle oxidation were examined by XRD and SEM equipped with XEDS. The results showed that the coating is composed of a thin Al2O3 outer layer and a composite inner layer of Ti5Si3 with an appropriate amount of Al2O3 dispersed in. Cycle oxidation tests showed that the high temperature oxidation resistance of TiAl-based alloy was greatly improved by forming such composite coating. No spaliation and crack happened and the weight gain was very small after cycle oxidation at 900℃ for 314h.

Heat-fluid-solid coupling mechanism of supercritical carbon dioxide jet in rock-breaking

Aiming at the synergistic rock-breaking mechanism of supercritical carbon dioxide(SC-CO_(2))jet pressure and tem-perature difference,a heat-fluid-solid calculation model of rock-breaking stress was established and verified to be effective,and the variations of jet flow field and rock stress with jet standoff distance of SC-CO_(2),water and nitrogen were studied.With the increase of jet standoff distance,the jet pressure of SC-CO_(2) decreases and the jet temperature difference increases.The SC-CO_(2) jet is higher in pressure than the nitrogen jet and differs little from the water jet.Temperature difference of SC-CO_(2) jet is 5 times that of water jet and more than 2.5 ti mes that of nitrogen jet when the jet standoff distance is larger than 10.The tem-perature stress is the main reason why SC-CO_(2) jet is superior to water and nitrogen jets in rock-breaking.The rock under the SC-CO_(2) jet has greater rock stress,effective rock-breaking jet standoff distance and rock-breaking area.The jet pressure plays a major role in rock-breaking when the jet standoff distance is small,while the jet temperature difference plays a major role in rock-breaking when the jet standoff distance is large.The SC-CO_(2) jet is an efficient volume rock-breaking method,which results in tensile and shear failure on the rock surface under short time jet and large area tensile failure inside the rock simultaneously under long time jet.

Diagnosis of Electron,Vibrational and Rotational Temperatures in an Ar/N2 Shock Plasma Jet Produced by a Low Pressure DC Cascade Arc Discharge

In this paper, a low pressure Ar/N2 shock plasma jet with clearly multicycle al- ternating zones produced by a DC cascade arc discharge has been investigated by an emission spectral method combined with Abel inversion analysis. Plasma emission intensity, electron, vi- brational and rotational temperatures of the shock plasma have been measured in the expansion and compression zones. The results indicate that the ranges of the measured electron temperature, vibrational temperature and rotational temperature are 1.1 eV to 1.6 eV, 0.2 eV to 0.7 eV and 0.19 eV to 0.22 eV, respectively, and it is found for the first time that the vibrational and rota- tional temperatures increase while the electron temperature decreases in the compression zones. The electron temperature departs from the vibrational and the rotational temperatures due to non-equilibrium plasma effects. Electrons and heavy particles could not completely exchange energy via collisions in the shock plasma jet under the low pressure of 620 Pa or so.

Co-digestion Of Olive Mill Wastewater and Swine Manure Using Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor for Biogas Production

Swine wastewater (SW) and olive mill wastewater (OMW) are two problematic wastes that have become major causes of health and environmental concerns. The main objective of the current work was to evaluate the efficiency of the co-digestion strategy for treatment of SW and OMW mixtures. Mesophilic batch reac-tors fed with mixtures of SW and OMW showed that the two adapted sludges Gadot and Prigat exhibited the best COD removal capacity and biogas production;therefore both were selected to seed up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) continuous reactors. During 170 days of operation, both sludges Gadot and Prigat showed high biodegradation potential. The highest COD removal of 85-95% and biogas production of 0.55 L?g-1 COD were obtained at a mixture consisting of 33% OMW and 67% SW. Under these conditions, an organic load of 28,000 mg?L-1 COD was reduced to 1,500-3,500 mg?L-1. These results strongly suggest that co-digestion technology using UASB reactors is a highly reliable and promising technology for wastewater treatment and biogas production.

低价、高效、微波产品用的TPA覆铜板

随着信息产业的飞速发展,高频信号设备,如高速计算机、移动电话、卫星通信等,都已从兆赫频段扩展到千兆赫,这就意味着对它们所用的微波电路基板提出了更高的要求。长期以来,高频微波基板几乎没有越出使用聚四氟乙烯的老传统,但是,它有若干缺点:玻璃化温度低,敌刚性差;加工复杂,故成本高;金属化孔镀层与孔壁的结合力弱,故可靠性不高。 多年来,美国GIL科技公司一直在研制替代聚四氟乙烯的材料,经过姐妹公司的合作,终于研制成功了TPA板材,这种材料克服了上述缺点,从而获得了美国专利。本文介绍了TPA层压板的电气特性、机械特性和热效应,给出了许多宝贵数据。

The high-resolution climate recorded in the δ^(18)O of Porites lutea from the Nansha Islands of China

A Porites lutea core from Yongshu Reef of Nansha Islands covering 50 years growth history was ana-ly/ed for oxygen isotopic composition with monthly and seasonally resolution. The calibration of the δ18O with the instrumental temperature indicated that the coral δ18O is a good indicator for sea surface temperature (SST) and air temperature (t). It can be used to reconstruct the SST and air temperature of the Yongshu Reef sea area. In addition, the coral δ18O provides signatures for the intensity of the East Asia monsoon and it is a record for the activities of El Nino events. With the calibrated SST and air temperature formulas, the most recent fifty years SST and air temperature were reconstructed based on the coral δ18O, thus back up the understanding of the climate of Nansha Islands to 1950. far beyond the limit of the instrumental recording since September 1988. It was found that, in general, increasing 1℃ air temperature results in 0.24‰decrease in skeletal δ18O.

Modification of the land surface energy balance relationship by introducing vertical sensible heat advection and soil heat storage over the Loess Plateau

Little is known about the surface energy balance problem for a complex underlying surface.Taking data from the Loess Plateau Land-surface Processes Experiment(LOPEX) and investigating the characteristics of the surface energy balance over a complex underlying surface,this paper calculates the soil heat storage and vertical sensible heat advection,analyzes their contributions to the surface energy imbalance,and discusses the mechanism by which the vertical velocity and temperature gradient in the surface layer affect the vertical sensible heat advection transfer.We found that the vertical velocity in the surface layer provides the necessary dynamic power for vertical sensible heat advection,and a relatively strong temperature gradient is the energy source generating vertical sensible heat advection.Under an ascending condition,the effect of vertical sensible heat advection on the surface energy budget is more obvious.It is also found that when the soil heat storage term and the vertical sensible heat advection term are added to the energy balance equation,the imbalance significantly improves.The peak of average diurnal residuals decreases from 125.1 to 41.5 W m-2,the daily average absolute value of residuals falls from 59.0 to 26.4 W m-2,and the surface energy balance closure increases from 78.4% to 94.0%.

Effects of diurnal adjustment on biases and trends derived from inter-sensor calibrated AMSU-A data

Measurements of brightness temperatures from Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A （AMSU-A） temperature sounding instruments onboard NOAA Polar- orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites （POES） have been extensively used for studying atmospheric temperature trends over the past several decades. Inter- sensor biases, orbital drifts and diurnal variations of atmospheric and surface temperatures must be considered before using a merged long-term time series of AMSU-A measurements from NOAA- 15, - 18, - 19 and MetOp-A. We study the impacts of the orbital drift and orbital differences of local equator crossing times （LECTs） on temperature trends derivable from AMSU-A using near-nadir observa- tions from NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19, and MetOp-A during 1998 - 2014 over the Amazon rainforest. The double difference method is firstly applied to estimation of inter-sensor biases between any two satellites during their overlapping time period. The inter-calibrated observations are then used to generate a monthly mean diurnal cycle of brightness temperature for each AMSU-A channel. A diurnal correction is finally applied each channel to obtain AMSU-A data valid at the same local time. Impacts of the inter-sensor bias correction and diurnal correction on the AMSU-A derived long-term atmospheric temperature trends are separately quantified and compared with those derived from original data. It is shown that the orbital drift and differences of LECT among different POESs induce a large uncertainty in AMSU-A derived long-term warming/cooling trends. After applying an inter-sensor bias correction and a diurnal correction, the warming trends at different local times, which are approximately the same, are smaller by half than the trends derived without applying these corrections.