In this paper, an extension of previous work performed for a system of two plants is presented. For a set of n plants, heat transfer leading effectively to energy savings occurs at temperature levels between the pinch points of supplying and receiving plants. In some cases, additional heat transfer in other regions is required to attain maximum savings. A systematic procedure, based on LP and M...

Perchlorate (ClO 4 ) has been detected in a large number of surface and ground waters in the US. Due to health concerns of perchlorate in drinking water, the California Department of Health Services has established a provisional action level of 18 mg/L. Several microbial isolates have been obtained capable of microbiological perchlorate reduction through cell respiration, but few of these have ...

An optimal design strategy for membrane networks separating multicomponent gas mixtures based on an approximate permeator model and mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) is proposed. A permeator system superstructure is used to embed a very large number of possible network configurations and allows the permeator feed-side pressure to be fixed or a design variable. A MINLP design model is ...

Hydrogen peroxide was produced by direct current electrolysis using two electrodes only, a carbon felt cathode and a dimensional stabilised anode (titanium coated with RuO2), without adding any chemical. The required oxygen was supplied by water oxidation and by transfer from the atmosphere. The intensity should be maintained under a maximum value to avoid peroxide reduction. High peroxide prod...

In this paper, we propose a set based approach for detecting faults in input/output channels of a closed-loop multivariable system. This approach works with deterministic bounds on measurement noises, disturbances, and fault signals, which may be attractive in some applications. The fault detection problem is formulated as an optimization problem in the state space framework. The dimensionality...

Batch and continuous experiments were conducted to study the influence of dairy wastewater strength (2–30 g-COD/L) on acidification at pH 5.5 and 378C. Results of batch experiments showed that carbohydrate was preferentially acidified as compared to protein and lipid. Production of VFAs (mainly acetate, propionate and butyrate) and hydrogen corresponded to carbohydrate acidification, whereas pr...

This paper describes recent developments in rational process design and their application in biotechnology for large-scale downstream processes. For implementing an expert system, it is necessary to divide the separation process in two parts: recovery and purification, because the information and available heuristic knowledge are different in each part. In the case of the recovery process, the ...

The rates of adsorption of three commercial reactive dyes and Cu(II) from water in the absence and presence of complexing agents using chitosan were measured at 308C. Three simplified kinetic models, i.e., pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and intraparticle diffusion, were tested to investigate the adsorption mechanisms. It was shown that the adsorption of reactive dyes and Cu(II) in the...

The Goshen Swamp, a fourth order blackwater creek in southeastern North Carolina, was clearcut of 130 acres of riparian and seasonally flooded forest in late May through September 1998. Downstream water quality had been monitored monthly for 212 years before the clearcut, during the clearcut, and for two years following the clearcut. The objective of this paper was to test the hypothesis that c...

One of the most common problems encountered in water treatment applications of membranes is fouling. Natural organic matter (NOM) represents a particularly problematic foulant. Membranes may be fouled by relatively hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic NOM components, depending on NOM characteristics, membrane properties, and operating conditions. To maximize flux recovery for an NOMfouled ultrafiltra...