Optimization of operational conditions in a submerged membrane bioreactor

In this study, optimization of operational conditions of a submerged membrane bioreactor treating municipal waste-water was studied. Mixed liquid suspended solid (MLSS), membrane flux (J(v)), aeration (Q), ratio of pumping, time to break time (t(p)/t(b)), and ratio of up flow area to down flow area (A Ad) were chosen as the easily manipulable parameters to study their effects on removal efficiency and membrane fouling. Totally, 16 different runs were designed to compare and select the best combination of the 5 parameters. The results showed that the optimal operational conditions were MLSS = 7g(.)L(-1), J(v) = 10L(.)m(-2.)h(-1), Q = 6 m(3.)h(-1), t(p)/t(b)= 4 min/1 min, and A(r)/A(d) = 1.7 m(2)/m(2). Under such conditions, the SMBR could achieve a double win of high removal efficiency and low membrane fouling.

Highly efficient single-emitting-layer white organic light-emitting diodes with reduced efficiency roll-off

By codoping blue and orange phosphorescent dyes into a single host material, a highly efficient white organic light-emitting diode (WOLED) with Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage coordinates of (0.38, 0.43) at 12 V is demonstrated. Remarkably, this WOLED achieves reduced current efficiency roll-off, which slightly decreases from its maximum value of 37.3-31.0 cd/A at 1000 cd/m(2). The device operational mechanism is subsequently investigated in order to unveil the origin of the high performance.

Lead(IV) dioxide: an effective electron injection material to realize high-efficiency inverted top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes

Lead(IV) dioxide (PbO2) has been used as the electron injection layer (EIL) to realize high-efficiency inverted top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes (I-TOLEDs). It can be seen that the inserting of the PbO2 EIL significantly reduces operational voltage, thus greatly improving the current efficiency and power efficiency of fabricated I-TOLEDs. The 10-(2-benzothiazolyl)-1, 1, 7, 7-tetramethyl-2, 3, 6, 7-tetrahydro-1H, 5H, 11H-[1] benzopyrano [6, 7, 8-ij] quinolizin-11-one (C545T)-based I-TOLEDs with the PbO2 EIL exhibit a maximum current efficiency of 31.6 cd A(-1) and a maximum power efficiency of 14.3 lm W-1, which are both higher than 22.5 cd A(-1) and 5.4 lm W-1 of the I-TOLEDs with LiF as the EIL respectively. A detailed analysis with respect to the role mechanism of PbO2 in electron injection has been presented. The improvement in EL performance is attributed to the formation of the interfacial dipoles at the electrode interface due to charge transfer between PbO2 and Alq(3).

Carbon transition efficiency and process cost in high-rate, large-area deposition of diamond films by DC arc plasma jet

A new DC plasma torch in which are jet states and deposition parameters can be regulated over a wide range has been built. It showed advantages in producing stable plasma conditions at a small gas flow rate. Plasma jets with and without magnetically rotated arcs could be generated. With straight are jet deposition, diamond films could be formed at a rate of 39 mu m/h on Mo substrates of Phi 25 mm, and the conversion rate of carbon in CH4 to diamond was less than 3%. Under magnetically rotated conditions, diamond films could be deposited uniformly in a range of Phi 40 mm at 30 mu m/h, with a quite low total gas flow rate and high carbon conversion rate of over 11%. Mechanisms of rapid and uniform deposition of diamond films with low gas consumption and high carbon transition efficiency are discussed.

Quantum Efficiency And Temperature Coefficients Of Gainp/Gaas Dual-Junction Solar Cell

GaInP/GaAs dual-junction solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 25.2% has been fabricated using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique. Quantum efficiencies of the solar cell were measured within a temperature range from 25 to 160A degrees C. The results indicate that the quantum efficiencies of the subcells increase slightly with the increasing temperature. And red-shift phenomena of absorption limit for all subcells are observed by increasing the cell's work temperature, which are consistent with the viewpoint of energy gap narrowing effect. The short-circuit current density temperature coefficients dJ (sc)/dT of GaInP subcell and GaAs subcell are determined to be 8.9 and 7.4 mu A/cm(2)/A degrees C from the quantum efficiency data, respectively. And the open-circuit cell voltage temperature coefficients dV (oc)/dT calculated based on a theoretical equation are -2.4 mV/A degrees C and -2.1 mV/A degrees C for GaInP subcell and GaAs subcell.

Developing A Microfluidic-Based System To Quantify Cell Capture Efficiency

Micro-fabrication technology has substantial potential for identifying molecular markers expressed on the surfaces of tissue cells and viruses. It has been found in several conceptual prototypes that cells with such markers are able to be captured by their antibodies immobilized on microchannel substrates and unbound cells are flushed out by a driven flow. The feasibility and reliability of such a microfluidic-based assay, however, remains to be further tested. In the current work, we developed a microfluidic-based system consisting of a microfluidic chip, an image grabbing unit, data acquisition and analysis software, as well as a supporting base. Specific binding of CD59-expressed or BSA-coupled human red blood cells (RBCs) to anti-CD59 or anti-BSA antibody-immobilized chip surfaces was quantified by capture efficiency and by the fraction of bound cells. Impacts of respective flow rate, cell concentration, antibody concentration and site density were tested systematically. The measured data indicated that the assay was robust. The robustness was further confirmed by capture efficiencies measured from an independent ELISA-based cell binding assay. These results demonstrated that the system developed provided a new platform to effectively quantify cellular surface markers effectively, which promoted the potential applications in both biological studies and clinical diagnoses.

NOx emission and thermal efficiency of a 300 MWe utility boiler retrofitted by air staging

Full-scale experiments were performed on a 300 MWe utility boiler retrofitted with air staging. In order to improve boiler thermal efficiency and to reduce NOx emission, the influencing factors including the overall excessive air ratio, the secondary air distribution pattern, the damper openings of CCOFA and SOFA, and pulverized coal fineness were investigated. Through comprehensive combustion adjustment, NOx emission decreased 182 ppm (NOx reduction efficiency was 44%), and boiler heat efficiency merely decreased 0.21%. After combustion improvement, high efficiency and low NOx emission was achieved in the utility coal-fired boiler retrofitted with air staging, and the unburned carbon in ash can maintain at a desired level where the utilization of fly-ash as byproducts was not influenced.

High-efficiency volume hologram recording with a pulsed signal beam

We present an efficient photorefractive volume hologram recording technique with a pulsed signal beam and continuous reference-beam illumination. The grating envelope can be simply controlled by manipulation of the duty cycle of the signal beam. Thus, for any grating coupling strength and different initial reference-signal intensity ratios, the diffraction efficiency can be maximized with this technique and can be greatly increased in comparison with that of the conventional recording technique. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.

High efficiency four-wave mixing induced by double-dark resonances in a five-level tripod system

A five-level tripod scheme is proposed for obtaining a high efficiency four-wave-mixing (FWM) process. The existence of double-dark resonances leads to a strong modification of the absorption and dispersion properties against a pump wave at two transparency windows. We show that both of them can be used to open the four-wave mixing channel and produce efficient mixing waves. In particular, higher FWM efficiency is always produced at the transparent window corresponding to the relatively weak-coupling field. By manipulating the intensity of the two coupling fields, the conversion efficiency of FWM can be controlled.

High and stable conversion efficiency obtaining in single-stage multi-crystal optical parametric chirped pulse amplification system

An optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system is demonstrated to provide 32.9% pump-to-signal conversion efficiency . Special techniques are used to make the signal and pump pulses match with each other in both spectral and temporal domains. The broadband 9.5-mJ pulses are produced at the repetition rate of 1 Hz with the gain of over 1.9 x 10(8). The output energy fluctuation of 7.8% is achieved for the saturated amplification process against the pump fluctuation of 10%.

High-conversion-efficiency and broadband tunable femtosecond noncollinear optical parametric amplifier

We build a compact high-conversion-efficiency and broadband tunable noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (OPA) in the infra-red (IR) pumped by a femtosecond Ti:sapphire CPA laser. The OPA consists of an internal seed of white-light continuum generator (WLG) and two noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers. The tunable wavelength range is from 1.2 mu m to 2.4 mu m for both signal and idle pulses. The total OPA efficiency in the last OPA stage reaches about 40% in a wider tunable spectral range (from 1.3 mu m to 1.7 mu m for signal pulse, from 1.5 mu m to 2.0 mu m for idle pulse respectively).

Readout of a real-time hologram in bacteriorhodopsin film with high diffraction efficiency and intensity

A scheme for the readout of a hologram recorded in bacteriorhodopsin film with high diffraction efficiency and intensity is suggested and demonstrated. Two weak coherent continuous beams function as the recording beams, and a strong light pulse is used to read the real-time hologram. The width of the readout light pulse is modulated to be short compared with the erase time of the reading beam; the time space between two adjacent pulses is ensured to be longer than the time the beams take to recover the hologram, and high diffraction efficiency and intensity (similar to 11 mW/cm(2)) can be obtained. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America.

Effect of absorption on the diffraction efficiency in Fe : LiNbO3 crystal with 90 degrees recording geometry

In this paper the saturated diffraction efficiency has been optimized by considering the effect of the absorption of the recording light on a crossed-beam grating with 90 degrees recording geometry in Fe:LiNbO3 crystals. The dependence of saturated diffraction efficiency on the doping levels with a known oxidation-reduction state, as well as the dependence of saturated diffraction efficiency on oxidation-reduction state with known doping levels, has been investigated. Two competing effects on the saturated diffraction efficiency were discussed, and the intensity profile of the diffracted beam at the output boundary has also been investigated. The results show that the maximal saturated diffraction efficiency can be obtained in crystals with moderate doping levels and modest oxidation state. An experimental verification is performed and the results are consistent with those of the theoretical calculation.

High-efficiency reflective diffraction gratings in fused silica as (de)multiplexers at 1.55 mu m for dense wavelength division multiplexing application

We describe high-efficiency, high-dispersion reflection gratings fabricated in bulk fused Silica illuminated by incident lights in the C + L bands as (de)multiplexers for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) application. Based on the phenomenon of total internal reflection, gratings with optimized profile parameters exhibit diffraction efficiencies of more than 90% under TM- and TE-polarized incident lights for 101-nm spectral bandwidths (1520-1620 nm) and can reach an efficiency of greater than 97% for both polarizations at a wavelength of 1550 nm. Without loss of metal absorption, without coating of dielectric film layers, and independent of tooth shape, this new kind of grating should be of great interest for DWDM application. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.

Deep-etched high-density fused-silica transmission gratings with high efficiency at a wavelength of 1550 nm

We describe the design, fabrication, and excellent performance of an optimized deep-etched high-density fused-silica transmission grating for use in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems. The fabricated optimized transmission grating exhibits an efficiency of 87.1% at a wavelength of 1550 nm. Inductively coupled plasma-etching technology was used to fabricate the grating. The deep-etched high-density fused-silica transmission grating is suitable for use in a DWDM system because of its high efficiency, low polarization-dependent loss, parallel demultiplexing, and stable optical performance. The fabricated deep-etched high-density fused-silica transmission gratings should play an important role in DWDM systems. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.