Integrated vacuum pressure swing adsorption and Rectisol process for CO_(2) capture from underground coal gasification syngas

An integrated vacuum pressure swing adsorption(VPSA) and Rectisol process is proposed for CO_(2) capture from underground coal gasification(UCG) syngas. A ten-bed VPSA process with silica gel adsorbent is firstly designed to pre-separate and capture 74.57% CO_(2) with a CO_(2) purity of 98.35% from UCG syngas(CH_(4)/CO/CO_(2)/H_(2)/N_(2)= 30.77%/6.15%/44.10%/18.46%/0.52%, mole fraction, from Shaar Lake Mine Field,Xinjiang Province, China) with a feed pressure of 3.5 MPa. Subsequently, the Rectisol process is constructed to furtherly remove and capture the residual CO_(2)remained in light product gas from the VPSA process using cryogenic methanol(233.15 K, 100%(mass)) as absorbent. A final purified gas with CO_(2) concentration lower than 3% and a regenerated CO_(2) product with CO_(2) purity higher than 95% were achieved by using the Rectisol process. Comparisons indicate that the energy consumption is deceased from 2.143 MJ·kg^(-1) of the single Rectisol process to 1.008 MJ·kg^(-1) of the integrated VPSA & Rectisol process, which demonstrated that the deployed VPSA was an energy conservation process for CO_(2) capture from UCG syngas. Additionally, the high-value gas(e.g., CH_(4)) loss can be decreased and the effects of key operating parameters on the process performances were detailed.

Research on SAR data integrated processing methodology oriented on earth environment factor inversions

As an important advanced technique in the field of Earth observations,Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)plays a key role in the study of global environmental change,resources exploration,disaster mitigation,urban environments,and even lunar exploration.However,studies on imaging,image processing,and Earth factor inversions have often been conducted independently for a long time,which significantly limits the application effectiveness of SAR remote sensing due to the lack of an overall integrated design scheme and integrated information processing.Focusing on this SAR application issue,this paper proposes and describes a new SAR data processing methodology–SAR data integrated processing(DIP)oriented on Earth environment factor inversions.The simple definition,typical integrated modes and overall implementation ideas are introduced.Finally,focusing on building information extraction(man-made targets)and sea ice classification(natural targets)applications,three SAR DIP methods and experiments are conducted.Improved results are obtained under the guidance of the SAR DIP framework.Therefore,the SAR DIP theoretical framework and methodology represent a new SAR science application mode that has the capability to improve the SAR remote sensing quantitative application level and promote the development of new theories and methodologies.

An Architecture of Computer Aided Process Planning System Integrated with Scheduling Using Decision Support System

Process planning and scheduling are two major plann in g and control activities that consume significant part of the lead-time, theref ore all attempts are being made to reduce lead-time by automating them. Compute r Aided Process Planning (CAPP) is a step in this direction. Most of the existin g CAPP systems do not consider scheduling while generating a process plan. Sched uling is done separately after the process plan has been generated and therefore , it is possible that a process plan so generated is either not optimal or feasi ble from scheduling point of view. As process plans are generated without consid eration of job shop status, many problems arise within the manufacturing environ ment. Investigations have shown that 20%～30% of all process plans generated are not valid and have to be altered or suffer production delays when production sta rts. There is thus a major need for integration of scheduling with computer aide d process planning for generating more realistic process plans. In doing so, eff iciency of the manufacturing system as a whole is expected to improve. Decision support system performs many functions such as selection of machine too ls, cutting tools, sequencing of operations, determination of optimum cutting pa rameters and checking availability of machine tool before allocating any operati on to a machine tool. The process of transforming component data, process capabi lity and decision rules into computer readable format is still a major obstacle. This paper proposes architecture of a system, which integrates computer aided p rocess-planning system with scheduling using decision support system. A decisio n support system can be defined as " an interactive system that provides the use rs with easy access to decision models in order to support semi-structured or u nstructured decision making tasks".

A Process Oriented Integration Model for Smart Health Services

Cities are facing challenges of high rise in population number and con-sequently need to be equipped with latest smart services to provide luxuries of life to its residents.Smart integrated solutions are also a need to deal with the social and environmental challenges,caused by increasing urbanization.Currently,the development of smart services’integrated network,within a city,is facing the bar-riers including;less efficient collection and sharing of data,along with inadequate collaboration of software and hardware.Aiming to resolve these issues,this paper recommended a solution for a synchronous functionality in the smart services’integration process through modeling technique.Using this integration modeling solution,atfirst,the service participants,processes and tasks of smart services are identified and then standard illustrations are developed for the better understand-ing of the integrated service group environment.Business process modeling and notation(BPMN)language based models are developed and discussed for a devised case study,to test and experiment i.e.,for remote healthcare from a smart home.The research is concluded with the integration process model application for the required data sharing among different service groups.The outcomes of the modeling are better understanding and attaining maximum automation that can be referenced and replicated.

Mathematical Modeling and a Multiswarm Collaborative Optimization Algorithm for Fuzzy Integrated Process Planning and Scheduling Problem

Considering both process planning and shop scheduling in manufacturing can fully utilize their complementarities,resulting in improved rationality of process routes and high-quality and efficient production. Hence,the study of Integrated Process Planning and Scheduling (IPPS) has become a hot topic in the current production field. However,when performing this integrated optimization,the uncertainty of processing time is a realistic key point that cannot be neglected. Thus,this paper investigates a Fuzzy IPPS (FIPPS) problem to minimize the maximum fuzzy completion time. Compared with the conventional IPPS problem,FIPPS considers the fuzzy process time in the uncertain production environment,which is more practical and realistic. However,it is difficult to solve the FIPPS problem due to the complicated fuzzy calculating rules. To solve this problem,this paper formulates a novel fuzzy mathematical model based on the process network graph and proposes a MultiSwarm Collaborative Optimization Algorithm (MSCOA) with an integrated encoding method to improve the optimization. Different swarms evolve in various directions and collaborate in a certain number of iterations. Moreover,the critical path searching method is introduced according to the triangular fuzzy number,allowing for the calculation of rules to enhance the local searching ability of MSCOA. The numerical experiments extended from the well-known Kim benchmark are conducted to test the performance of the proposed MSCOA. Compared with other competitive algorithms,the results obtained by MSCOA show significant advantages,thus proving its effectiveness in solving the FIPPS problem.

Application Effect of Integrated Water and Fertilizer Technology for Tomato

Integrated water and fertilizer technology has the advantages of saving water,fertilizer and labour,which is widely applied in tomato plantation. Integrated water and fertilizer technology in topdressing and whole process of big and small tomatoes were studied,and their application effects were contrasted and analyzed,and application advantages and scopes of the two models were concluded.

Integrated adsorption and absorption process for post-combustion CO_(2) capture

This study explored the feasibility of integrating an adsorption and solvent scrubbing process for postcombustion CO_(2) capture from a coal-fired power plant.This integrated process has two stages:the first is a vacuum swing adsorption(VSA)process using activated carbon as the adsorbent,and the second stage is a solvent scrubber/stripper system using monoethanolamine (30 wt-%) as the solvent.The results showed that the adsorption process could enrich CO_(2) in the flue gas from 12 to 50 mol-% with a CO_(2) recovery of >90%,and the concentrated CO_(2) stream fed to the solvent scrubber had a significantly lower volumetric flowrate.The increased CO_(2) concentration and reduced feed flow to the absorption section resulted in significant reduction in the diameter of the solvent absorber,bringing the size of the absorber from uneconomically large to readily achievable domain.In addition,the VSA process could also remove most of the oxygen initially existed in the feed gas,alleviating the downstream corrosion and degradation problems in the absorption section.The findings in this work will reduce the technical risks associated with the state-of-the art solvent absorption technology for CO_(2) capture and thus accelerate the deployment of such technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

Progress and Prospects of Hydrogen Production: Opportunities and Challenges

This study presents an overview of the current status of hydrogen production in relation to the global requirement for energy and resources.Subsequently,it symmetrically outlines the advantages and disadvantages of various production routes including fossil fuel/biomass conversion,water electrolysis,microbial fermentation,and photocatalysis(PC),in terms of their technologies,economy,energy consumption,and costs.Considering the characteristics of hydrogen energy and the current infrastructure issues,it highlights that onsite production is indispensable and convenient for some special occasions.Finally,it briefly summarizes the current industrialization situation and presents future development and research directions,such as theoretical research strengthening,renewable raw material development,process coupling,and sustainable energy use.

Bi-functional particles for integrated thermo-chemical processes:Catalysis and beyond

Particulate materials possessing dual functionalities have received tremendous investigations in many fields,owing to their superiority over mono-functional counterparts and their potential for process integration and intensification.This review focuses on bi-functional catalytic particles which also serve as sorbents/adsorbents or heat suppliers in the scheme of various thermo-chemical processes,enabling inherent separation or energy conservation within single-step operation.Bi-functional particles applied for integration of reaction and separation including sorption-enhanced hydrogen production and integrated capture and catalytic conversion processes are reviewed in detail,providing insights into material design and key performance indicators.On the other hand,bi-functional particles applied for integration of reaction and non-thermal radiation heating,including electrothermal and photothermal assisted heterogeneously catalyzed reactions,are also reviewed,with emphasis on the material property and energy efficiency improvement.These bi-functional particles show broad adaptability and feasibility in various reactions operated in integrated and intensified schemes,affording huge potentials for further improving productivity and efficiency in thermo-chemical processes.

A Full CMOS Integration Including ISFET Microsensors and Interface Circuit for Biochemical Applications

One of today's challenges is the integration of ISFETs in chemical and biochemical Microsystems.This article presents a full integration of ISFET chip containing the ISFET/REFET(reference FET) pair,ISFET/REFET amplifiers,bias current generator,as well as a reference electrode structure,all integrated on the same chip based on CMOS technology.The sensor chip was fabricated in a standard 0.35μm CMOS process(Chartered Semiconductor,Singapore).The extra post processing steps have been developed and added for depositing membranes.Finally,the pH response of the integrated sensor was measured with the interface circuit.

SOLID MATRICES FOR EXPANDED BED ADSORPTION OF PROTEINS

Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) has been introduced as a primary recovery step for protein purification from a whole fermentation broth or unclarified cell homogenates. It can also be integrated with a fermentation or cell disruption process. Solid matrix is the principal pillar supporting the successful application of the EBA technology. This article summarizes the solid matrices employed in and developed for the EBA process to date. Further development of solid matrices for the expanded bed technique in the recovery of various biological substances from different sources has been addressed.

CLEAN PRODUCTION AND SMELTING REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Clean Production is the best method for iron-steel making industry to eliminate pollution thoroughly. In order to achieve this object, smelting reduction technology should play the key role. Furthermore, process integration method can be used to solve the problem of residual gas utilization by integrating smelting reduction process with direct reduced iron unit, gasoline, methanol or dimethyl ether synthesis unit, etc. A new smelting reduction process has been proposed which can be constructed on the present plant site. Since this process can directly treat the lump coal and iron ore fines, it reduces st6ps necessary in traditional blast furnace process and Corex smelting reduction process.

The future of blast furnace ironmaking—a Nordic perspective

The blast furnace is the oldest metallurgical process in commercial use.It has gone through great improvements during the last decades and new important modifications are still foreseen.The huge amount of coal and coke needed for reduction of iron ore is resulting in emissions of carbon dioxide that have to be strongly reduced to meet the requirement of minimizing the carbon footprint.All residuals from iron- and steelmaking also need to be taken care of to meet the requirement of zero waste.This paper deals with several potential improvements of the blast furnace process being developed in the LKAB Experimental Blast Furnace in Lulea, Sweden over the last decade,including operation at ultra low slag volume,injection of BF flue dust,injection of BOF slag,and the oxygen blast furnace.

Regrowth-Free Processing for GaAs and InP Photonic Integrated Circuits

Technologies are described for integrating multiple bandgaps and photonic crystal structures monolithically in a semiconductor chip. Practical devices examples include high power 980 nm pumps, 2×2 crosspoint switches and lasers modelocked at THz frequencies.

Sequential Ordering Algorithm for Mass Integration: The Case of Direct Recycling

In the last three decades much effort has been devoted in process integration as a way to improve economic and environmental performance of chemical processes. Although the established frameworks have undergone constant refinement toward formulating and solving complicated process integration problems, less attention has been drawn to the problem of sequential applications of mass integration. This work addresses this problem by proposing an algorithm for optimal ordering of the process sinks in direct recycling problems, which is compatible with the typical mass integration formulation. The order consists in selecting the optimal sink at a specific integration step given the selection of the previous steps and the remaining process sources. Such order is identified through a succession of preemptive goal programming problems, namely of optimization problems characterized by more objectives at different priority levels. Indeed, the target for each sink is obtained by maximizing the total flow recycled from the available process sources to this sink and then minimizing the use of pure sources, starting from the purest one;the hierarchy is respected through a succession of linear optimization problems with a single objective function. While the conditional optimality of the algorithm holds always, a thorough statistical analysis including structured to random scenarios of process sources and process sinks shows how frequently the sequential ordering algorithm is outperformed with respect to the total recycled amount by a different selection of process sinks with the same cardinality. Two more case studies proving the usefulness of ordering the process sinks are illustrated. Extensions of the algorithm are also identified to cover more aspects of the process integration framework.

Multiple exosome RNA analysis methods for lung cancer diagnosis through integrated on-chip microfluidic system

Exosomes are now raising focus as a prospective biomarker for cancer diagnostics and prognosis owing to its unique bio-origin and composition.Exosomes take part in cellular communication and receptor mediation and transfer their cargos(e.g.,proteins,m RNA and DNA).Quantitative analysis of tumor-related nucleic acid mutations can be a potential method to cancer diagnosis and prognosis in early stages.Here we present an integrated microfluidic system for exosome on-chip isolation and lung cancer RNA analysis through droplet digital PCR(dd PCR).Gradient dilution experiments show great linearity over a large concentration range with R^(2)=0.9998.Utilizing the system,four cell lines and two mutation targets were parallelly detected for mutation analysis.The experiments demonstrated mutation heterogeneity and the results were agree with cell researches.These results proved our integrated microfluidic system as a promising means for early cancer diagnosis and prognosis in the era of liquid biopsy.

Graphene-integrated waveguides:Properties,preparation,and applications

Graphene-integrated waveguides(GIWGs)have shown immense potential for applications in next-generation datacom technology due to graphene’s compactness and its functional complementarity with traditional optical waveguides.However,the fabrication techniques of GIWGs lack scalability for commercial applications.Here we discuss the recent developments of GIWGs in two-dimensional optoelectronics by focusing on their properties,wave–matter interaction mechanisms,and fabrication techniques.We highlight representative advances on the advantages and potential applications of GIWGs in telecom networks.Finally,we outline major challenges and development trends to bridge the gap between proof-of-concept demonstrations and practical applications.

INTEGRATION OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE WRITING AND PROCESS WRITING APPROACHES IN TEACHING EFL WRITING

This paper adopts a pedagogical approach to theteaching of English writing to EFL learners of interme-diate or advanced level in China.The teaching ofwriting has been a problem to Chinese EFL teachers fora long time.On the one hand,they want to make anattempt to adopt fashionable and effective Englishwriting approaches,like process writing.On the otherhand,they are frustrated by the traditional Chinesewriting method.Some of our language educators arealways struggling against the influence of our tradi-tional Chinese writing method.A negative attitudetowards our mother tongue writing approach has beenestablished or accepted by most of our EFL teachers,which result in the EFL learners’panic in their Eng-lish writing course because they are afraid of being ac-cused of writing a Chinese composition in Englishwords.Needless to say,this kind of teaching stylecannot be effective and is frustrating instead.The au-thor presents an integrated and practical solution tothis problem and discusses the applicability of the ap-proach.The author discusses how we can effectivelyintegrate the traditional Chinese writing method andthe popular process writing approach in teaching Eng-lish writing.

Model Algorithm Research on Cooling Path Control of Hot-rolled Dual-phase Steel

With the development of advanced high strength steel,especially for dual-phase steel,the model algorithm for cooling control after hot rolling has to achieve the targeted coiling temperature control at the location of downcoiler whilst maintaining the cooling path control based on strip microstructure along the whole cooling section.A cooling path control algorithm was proposed for the laminar cooling process as a solution to practical difficulties associated with the realization of the thermal cycle during cooling process.The heat conduction equation coupled with the carbon diffusion equation with moving boundary was employed in order to simulate temperature change and phase transformation kinetics,making it possible to observe the temperature field and the phase fraction of the strip in real time.On this basis,an optimization method was utilized for valve settings to ensure the minimum deviations between the predicted and actual cooling path of the strip,taking into account the constraints of the cooling equipment′s specific capacity,cooling line length,etc.Results showed that the model algorithm was able to achieve the online cooling path control for dual-phase steel.

Optimization of enhanced weathering networks with alternative transportation modes

Enhanced weathering of alkaline rocks and minerals is a negative emissions technology (NET) that is potentiallyscalable to deliver gigaton-level carbon dioxide removal (CDR) for climate change mitigation. This techniquerelies on the acceleration of naturally occurring weathering reactions with water and carbon dioxide by reducingthese substances into a fine powder with high specific surface area. The ex situ enhanced weathering processchain consists of the acquisition of suitable natural or synthetic materials, grinding to a fine particle size,transportation, and application on suitable sites. Future enhanced weathering systems can be envisioned assupply chain-like networks which have to be optimized to deliver maximum CDR given physical constraints.There is a notable research gap in the literature on decision support for such systems. To address this gap, amixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed in this work to optimize enhanced weatheringnetworks for CDR. The model also incorporates the availability of multiple transportation options and constraintson network topology. Two test cases are used to demonstrate the model capability to determine optimal andnear-optimal networks. The top ten solutions in these two scenarios yield total CDR levels of 3.4316–3.4363 Mtand 15.27017–15.27960 Mt.