Permylene™ demonstration system (PDS), a membrane-based pilot unit for olefin/paraffin separation, is designed and fabricated by Imtex Membranes Corp. (Imtex). The PDS, equipped with pilot-scale ...Permylene™ elements, is capable of treating up to 3 kg/h of olefin/paraffin mixture. The PDS unit is installed in Imtex's testing lab in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Various plant-collected and lab-blended olefin/paraffin mixtures involving ethylene/ethane (C2), propylene/propane (C3), and butene/butane (C4) have been assessed on the unit. This paper is focused on the application of PDS for C3 separation, and a series of remarkable performances that have been achieved by the Permylene™ membrane and PDS unit. Propylene purity of over 98.5 vol% in the permeate/product stream has been reached over a wide range of propylene recovery rates, which could offer significant flexibility to meet various industrial operation conditions. Furthermore, the PDS unit demonstrates its stability and efficiency with 1200 hrs of continuous C3 permeation. Finally, a case study of recovering 90 % of propylene from 15,000 kg/h of C3 is performed to estimate energy consumption in commercial applications. The energy consumption of the Permylene™ process is calculated and compared with that of the distillation process. The result indicates that the energy consumption in PDS is extremely low, equal to only 8 % of that required in distillation. The study undeniably validates Permylene™'s remarkable capability for C3 separation, highlighting its potential as a viable and energy-efficient alternative to traditional distillation.
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•The asymmetric membrane and solution replenishing overcome the instability.•This pilot unit is capable of treating up to 3 kg/h of olefin/paraffin mixture.•Propylene purity of 98.5 vol% is reached over a wide range of recovery rates.•Stable performance is shown in 1200 h of continuous C3 permeation.•The energy consumption in PDS equals 8 % of that required in distillation.
Hydrothermal pretreatment was used for dewatering food waste digestate residue, and biochar/biogas were generated from the separated solid and liquid phases via pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion, ...respectively. Increasing hydrothermal pretreatment temperature (110–200 °C) clearly improved dewaterability, whereas enhancing treatment duration (30–90 min) had little impact. The optimal condition of 160 °C/30 min gave the best dewatering performance with relative lower energy consumption and was chosen for pilot-scale verification achieving 61.7 wt% dry weight content after mechanical squeezing. Moreover, the filtrate and filter cake obtained at optimal condition were applied for biogas and biochar production in lab scale. The methane yield of the filtrate was 335 mL/g COD. Pyrolysis temperature of 500 °C gave better biochar performance and was verified in a pilot scale test. Additionally, the heavy metals in digestate were effectively immobilized during hydrothermal dewatering and pyrolysis processes. In the end, mass/energy balance calculated using pilot-scale data presented the combined systems provided a promising strategy for accomplishing energy recovery and resource reuse of digestate residue.
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•HTPT, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion were used for DR treatment.•°C and 500 °C performed better performances in DR dewatering and biochar production.•The optimal conditions were successfully verified at pilot-scale tests.•Mass/energy balance showed slight energy deficit of the whole process.•t biochar was produced from 100 t DR.
•A pilot-scale SAnMBR-PN/A plant was successfully applied for real municipal wastewater treatment.•The overall COD and total nitrogen removal efficiencies were 95.1% and 81.7%, respectively.•The ...biogas yield rate was 0.09 NL L−1 of treated wastewater with a methane content of 80%.•Denitrification occurred in PN/A unit, enhancing overall COD and nitrogen removal.
A novel municipal wastewater treatment process towards energy neutrality and reduced carbon emissions was established by combining a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor (SAnMBR) with a one-stage partial nitritation-anammox (PN/A), and was demonstrated at pilot-scale at 25 °C. The overall COD and BOD5 removal efficiencies were 95.1% and 96.4%, respectively, with 20.3 mg L−1 COD and 5.2 mg L−1 BOD5 remaining in the final effluent. The total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiency was 81.7%, resulting 7.3 mg L−1 TN was discharged from the system. The biogas yield was 0.222 NL g−1 COD removed with a methane content range of 78–81%. Approximately 90% of influent COD was removed in the SAnMBR, and 70% of influent nitrogen was removed in the PN/A. The denitrification which occurred in the PN/A enhanced overall COD and nitrogen removal. The successful operation of this pilot-scale plant indicates the SAnMBR-PN/A process is suitable for treating real municipal wastewater.
Objective
The present review highlights the advantages of using natural colorant over the synthetic one. We have discussed the fermentation parameters that can enhance the productivity of Monascus ...pigment on agricultural wastes.
Background
Food industry is looking for natural colours because these can enhance the esthetic value, attractiveness, and acceptability of food while remaining nontoxic. Many synthetic food colours (Azorubine Carmoisine, quinoline) have been prohibited due to their toxicity and carcinogenicity. Increasing consumer awareness towards the food safety has forced the manufacturing industries to look for suitable alternatives. In addition to safety, natural colorants have been found to have nutritional and therapeutic significance. Among the natural colorants, microbial pigments can be considered as a viable option because of scalability, easier production, no seasonal dependence, cheaper raw materials and easier extraction. Fungi such as Monascus have a long history of safety and therefore can be used for production of biopigments.
Method
The present review summarizes the predicted biosynthetic pathways and pigment gene clusters in Monascus purpureus.
Results
The challenges faced during the pilot‐scale production of Monascus biopigment and taming it by us of low‐cost agro‐industrial substrates for solid state fermentation has been suggested.
Conclusion
Keeping in mind, therapeutic properties of Monascus pigments and their derivatives, they have huge potential for industrial and pharmaceutical application.
Application
Though the natural pigments have wide scope in the food industry. However, stabilization of pigment is the greatest challenge and attempts are being made to overcome this by complexion with hydrocolloids or metals and by microencapsulation.
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•Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are attractive materials for many industrial applications.•Limited cost-effective MOF production technologies account for the slow progress of ...MOF-based products.•This short review brings together scattered literature that addresses pilot-scale production of MOF materials.•Some technical aspects for accelerating the transition of MOFs from laboratory to real-world application are also presented.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been under development over the past 20years. Similar to other technologies, research on MOFs in the upcoming 30years will move towards the direction where MOF materials can deliver societal benefits by solving real-world problems. Taking technology from laboratory to applications is always a challenge. Analysis of the current MOFs research efforts indicates that the high cost, limited availability of MOF products and the knowledge gap for cost-effective production technologies account for the slow progression towards the development of envisioned MOF products at pilot-scale level. This short review brings together the scattered literature that addresses pilot-scale production of MOF materials. An additional aspect focuses on the progress on the development of pilot-scale synthetic strategies with green and sustainable features for MOF materials, which is an imperative to promote MOF-enabled products into the real world.
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•The pilot scale, continuous flow tubular reactor was designed, specially produced.•Effects of temperature, feed concentration, and KOH catalyst were studied.•Temperature, sludge ...concentration and KOH had great effect on the system yield.•SCWG is a promising and efficient technology for the gasification of wet biomass.•Unlike conventional gasification methods, no hazardous emissions.
Treatment and disposal of sewage sludge constitute one of the major problems of wastewater treatment plants due to high water content and more stringent environmental regulations. Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) technology is accepted as a promising method for sustainable sludge disposal because of the elimination of need for costly water reduction and drying processes before disposal by conventional methods. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of temperature (450–650 °C), solid matter content (1–2%) and catalyst addition (0.5–2% KOH) on supercritical gasification of sewage sludge in a continuous-flow pilot scale tubular reactor. The results indicate that the gasification efficiency is generally temperature dependent. Furthermore, catalyst addition improves the gasification efficiency at high solids content. The produced gas contains 60% of H2 and 22% of CH4 at experimentally determined optimal conditions (650 °C, 2% solid matter content, 2% KOH). The resulting gas contains H2S and CO below detection limits and there is no need for additional treatment.
Consequently, SCWG technology provides complete decomposition of organic matter in a short time, clean gas formation with higher energy content, and volumetric reduction compared to conventional methods.
•Char gasification model is refined to modeling deep staging combustion.•Simulated CO profile agrees well with experiment data in various conditions.•NOx reduction by CO in reducing zone is ...underestimated by NOx model.•In the reducing zone, several undetected nitrogenous species coexist with rich CO concentration.•Rapid oxidization of nitrogenous species determines the final NOx emission.
Deep air-staged combustion tests of Datong (DT) bituminous coal were carried out in a 20kW down flame furnace (DFF) with the burner stoichiometric ratio (SR) ranging from 1.200 (unstaged) to as low as 0.696 (deep staged). The experimental results shown that the concentration of CO reach as high as 120,000ppm (12vol.%) and the NOx decrease to nearly zero in the reducing zone under deep staging conditions of SR=0.696, which was never observed before. Thus, the extent of CO formation (i.e. char gasification) and the NOx reaction mechanism under deep staging condition were studied in order to understand the combustion process of coal. This paper presents a refined numerical simulation for reproducing the profiles of CO and NOx along the DFF under deep staging condition. The comparison between simulation and experimental results prove the reasonability of refined kinetic parameters of char gasification. The enhancement of char gasification by CO2 is proposed and validated. With the simulated CO profile in the DFF confirmed by experiment, the NOx profile could be further analyzed. The discrepancy of simulated NOx profile in the reducing zone (i.e. fuel-rich zone) indicates that there are some undetected nitrogenous species and undiscovered NOx transfer mechanism regardless of the consistence of final NOx emission between simulation and experiment. It is supposed by us that a majority of NOx immersing in high level of CO in the reducing zone is mainly transferred into undetected nitrogenous species (excluding HCN and NH3) which is then rapidly oxidized into NOx once the remaining oxygen is injected into the DFF.
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•Mung bean protein is a sustainable food.•Mung bean protein isolate (MBPI) is produced on a pilot scale.•MBPI can be dried differently to achieve different desirable functional ...properties.•Freeze dried MBPI is suitable for meat extender.•Spray dried MBPI is ideal for meat emulsion.
Mung bean is an inexpensive yet sustainable protein source. Current work compared the effects of freeze (FD), spray (SD) and oven drying (OD), on mung bean protein isolate (MBPI) produced on pilot scale. All samples showed no dissociation of protein subunits and were thermally stable (Td = 157.90–158.07 °C). According to morphological studies, FD formed a porous protein while SD and OD formed wrinkled and compact crystals, respectively. FD and SD formed elastic gels with better gelling capacity than OD (aggregated gel). FD showed exceptional protein solubility, water and oil absorption capacity (4.23 g/g and 8.38 g/g, respectively). SD demonstrated the smallest particle size, excellent emulsion activity index (29.21 m2/g) and stability (351.90 min) and the highest β-sheet amount (37.61%). FTIR spectra for all samples showed characteristic peaks which corresponded well to the secondary structure of legume proteins. Rheological analysis revealed that gelation temperature for all MBPI lied around 90 °C. Current work described the different final properties achieved for MBPI produced under different drying techniques that allowed tailoring for different food systems, whereby FD is ideal for meat extender, SD is suitable for meat emulsion while OD is suitable in general protein-based application.
In order to meet the growing energy crisis of the 21st century, the utilization of bio-based materials has become a field of high research endeavour. In view of that, the present review paper is ...focused on different techniques that are frequently explored for the synthesis of value-added crystalline derivatives of cellulose like MCC and NCC from agricultural wastes and forest residues. Moreover, a comparative analysis between thermochemical and biochemical methods is carried out for such valorization of biomass considering the mechanism involved with various reactions. Further, a critical analysis is performed on various individual techniques specifically used for the applications of MCC and NCC in different fields including environmental, polymer industry, pharmaceutical and other emerging sectors. This article will assist the readers not only to explore new biomass sources but also provides an in-depth insight on various green and cost-effective methods for sustainable production of crystalline cellulose.
•Potential of agricultural wastes and forest residues towards the production of crystalline cellulose was explored.•The conventional methods of synthesis of MCC and NCC and the involved mechanisms were summarized.•Comparison of the conventional thermochemical and biochemical methods was discussed.•The various methods used for the environmental, industrial and other potential applications of MCC and NCC are summarized.•Commercial aspects of MCC and NCC production from agricultural wastes and forest residues were discussed.