Evaluation of ultrafiltration to recover aqueous iron phosphating/degreasing bath /

"Contract no. CR-815829."

Ink and cleaner waste reduction evaluation for flexographic printers /

"HWRIC TR-012."

Recycling nickel electroplating rinse waters by low temperature evaporation and reverse osmosis /

"Contract no. CR-815829."

Reaproveitamento da lactose presente em permeado de soro de leite bovino em pó para estudo da síntese de lactulose

Dissertação composta por 2 artigos.

Pulp and paper: chemistry and chemical technology.

Includes bibliography.

Encyclopedia of chemical technology.

Mode of access: Internet.

Chemical technology; or, Chemistry in its applications to the arts and manufactures.

Mode of access: Internet.

Investigating automated chemical evolution of oil-in-water droplets

One of the main unresolved questions in science is how non-living matter became alive in a process known as abiognesis, which aims to explain how from a primordial soup scenario containing simple molecules, by following a ``bottom up'' approach, complex biomolecules emerged forming the first living system, known as a protocell. A protocell is defined by the interplay of three sub-systems which are considered requirements for life: information molecules, metabolism, and compartmentalization. This thesis investigates the role of compartmentalization during the emergence of life, and how simple membrane aggregates could evolve into entities that were able to develop ``life-like'' behaviours, and in particular how such evolution could happen without the presence of information molecules. Our ultimate objective is to create an autonomous evolvable system, and in order tp do so we will try to engineer life following a ``top-down'' approach, where an initial platform capable of evolving chemistry will be constructed, but the chemistry being dependent on the robotic adjunct, and how then this platform can be de-constructed in iterative operations until it is fully disconnected from the evolvable system, the system then being inherently autonomous. The first project of this thesis describes how the initial platform was designed and built. The platform was based on the model of a standard liquid handling robot, with the main difference with respect to other similar robots being that we used a 3D-printer in order to prototype the robot and build its main equipment, like a liquid dispensing system, tool movement mechanism, and washing procedures. The robot was able to mix different components and create populations of droplets in a Petri dish filled with aqueous phase. The Petri dish was then observed by a camera, which analysed the behaviours described by the droplets and fed this information back to the robot. Using this loop, the robot was then able to implement an evolutionary algorithm, where populations of droplets were evolved towards defined life-like behaviours. The second project of this thesis aimed to remove as many mechanical parts as possible from the robot while keeping the evolvable chemistry intact. In order to do so, we encapsulated the functionalities of the previous liquid handling robot into a single monolithic 3D-printed device. This device was able to mix different components, generate populations of droplets in an aqueous phase, and was also equipped with a camera in order to analyse the experiments. Moreover, because the full fabrication process of the devices happened in a 3D-printer, we were also able to alter its experimental arena by adding different obstacles where to evolve the droplets, enabling us to study how environmental changes can shape evolution. By doing so, we were able to embody evolutionary characteristics into our device, removing constraints from the physical platform, and taking one step forward to a possible autonomous evolvable system.

A new open-pit multi-stage mine production timetabling model for drilling, blasting and excavating operations

This paper proposes a new multi-resource multi-stage mine production timetabling problem for optimising the open-pit drilling, blasting and excavating operations under equipment capacity constraints. The flow process is analysed based on the real-life data from an Australian iron ore mine site. The objective of the model is to maximise the throughput and minimise the total idle times of equipment at each stage. The following comprehensive mining attributes and constraints are considered: types of equipment; operating capacities of equipment; ready times of equipment; speeds of equipment; block-sequence-dependent movement times; equipment-assignment-dependent operational times; etc. The model also provides the availability and usage of equipment units at multiple operational stages such as drilling, blasting and excavating stages. The problem is formulated by mixed integer programming and solved by ILOG-CPLEX optimiser. The proposed model is validated with extensive computational experiments to improve mine production efficiency at the operational level.

Biosorption of iron(III) from aqueous solutions using the husk of Cicer arientinum

Iron is a major pollutant released as a by-product during several industrial operations especially during acid mining of metal ores. In this paper, the use of Bengal gram husk (husk of channa dal, Cicer arientinum) in the biosorption of Fe(III) from aqueous solutions is discussed. Parameters like agitation time, adsorbent dosage and pH were studied at different Fe(Ill) concentrations. The adsorption data fit well with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The adsorption capacity (q(max)) calculated from the Langmuir isotherm was 72.16 mg of Fe(III)/g of the biosorbent at an initial pH of 2.5. Desorption Studies were performed at different concentrations of hydrochloric acid showing that quantitative recovery of the metal ion is possible. The infrared spectra of the biomass before and after treatment with Fe(III), revealed that hydroxyl, carboxyl and amide bonds are involved in the uptake of Fe(III) ions.

Waste minimisation in fishing operations

Sources of wastes in fishing operations mainly include bycatch discards; processing wastes where catch is processed onboard; plastic wastes due to abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear; bilges and other wastes from the vessel operations. Fishing systems in general have an associated catch of nontargeted organisms known as bycatch. Non-selective fishing gear that is not modified or equipped to exclude non-targeted organisms, may take a significant quantity of bycatch of non-targeted finfish, juvenile fish, benthic animals, marine mammals, marine birds and vulnerable or endangered species that are often discarded. Average annual global discards, has been estimated to be 7.3 million t, based on a weighted discard rate of 8%, during 1992-2001 period. Trawl fisheries for shrimp and demersal finfish account for over 50% of the total estimated global discards. Plastic materials are extensively used in fisheries, owing to their durability and other desirable properties, contributing to the efficiency and catchability of the fishing gear. However, plastics biodegrade at an extremely slow rate compared to other organic materials. Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) and related marine debris have been recognized as a critical problem in the marine environment and for living marine resources. Prevention of excess fishing capacity by appropriate management measures could lead to enormous savings in terms of fuel consumption, emissions and bycatch discards from the excess fishing fleet, capital and operational investments and labour deployment in capture fisheries, with significant economic gains. In this paper, wastes originating from fishing operations are reviewed, along with their environmental impacts and possible mitigation measures

Gross energy requirement in fishing operations

Energy is a key input into the fish harvesting process. Efficient use of energy helps in reducing operational costs and environmental impact, while increasing profits. Energy optimisation is an important aspect of responsible fishing as enunciated in the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. Gross Energy Requirement (GER) is the sum of all non-renewable energy resources consumed in making available a product or service and is expressed in energy units per physical unit of product or service delivered. GER is a measure of intensity of non-renewable resource use and it reflects the amount of depletion of earth’s inherited store of non-renewable energy in order to create and make available a product or service. In this study, GER in fish harvesting up to the point of landing is estimated in selected fish harvesting systems in the small-mechanised sectors of Indian fisheries and compared with reported results from selected non mechanised and motorised fishing systems to reflect the situation during 1997-1998. Among the fish harvesting systems studied, GER t fish-1 ranged from 5.54 and 5.91 GJ, respectively, for wooden and steel purse seiners powered by 156 hp engines; 6.40 GJ for wooden purse seiner with 235 hp engine; 25.18 GJ for mechanised gillnet/line fishing vessel with 89 hp engines; to 31.40 and 36.97 GJ, respectively, for wooden and steel trawlers powered by 99-106 hp engines.

Switching between molecular switch types by module rearrangement:Ca -enabled, H-driven 'off-on-off', H-driven YES and PASS 0 as well as H, Ca-driven AND logic operations

Several logic gates and switches can be accessed from two different combinations of a single set of fluorophore, receptor and spacer components.

Prediction interval-based modelling and control of nonlinear processes

 Novel computational intelligence-based methods have been investigated to quantify uncertainties prevalent in the operation of chemical plants. A new family of predication interval-based controlling algorithms is proposed and successfully applied to chemical reactors in order to minimise energy consumption and operational cost.