Surface plasmon-enhanced zeolite catalysis under light irradiation and its correlation with molecular polarity of reactants

Enhanced catalytic performance of zeoltes via the plasmonic effect of gold nanoparticles has been discovered to be closely correlated with the molecular polarity of reactants. The intensified polarised electrostatic field of Na+ in NaY plays a critical role in stretching the C=O bond of aldehydes to improve the reaction rate.

Integrating ‘role play’ in assessment to strengthen professional conduct and accountability of students : a pilot study

BACKGROUND In a process engineering setting, graduates are frequently allocated reviews of existing operations or required to scope new production processes by their supervisors with a view to improving or expanding on operations and overall productivity. These tasks may be carried out in teams and in consultation with the process engineer’s immediate line manager or a more experienced engineer, such as the Production or Maintenance Manager; ultimately reporting to senior management, which is frequently a non-engineer. Although professional skills development is part of engineering curricula, ‘professional conduct’ and ‘accountability’ required for dealing with peers and superiors in industry is not very well addressed at university. Consequently, upon graduation, many students are, in terms of knowledge and experience in this area, underprepared to work effectively in industry settings. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to develop and implement a role-play scenario within a core 2nd year process engineering unit, so that students could gain knowledge, skills and experience in different aspects (and nuances) of professional conduct and accountability. DESIGN/METHOD In the role-play scenario, students worked in ‘engineering production teams’ to design a process for an iconic Queensland fruitcake and to present their solution and recommendations (culminating in a poster presentation) to an assessment panel consisting of staff, role-playing as, ‘production and plant managers’. Students were assessed on several areas, including professionalism using a criteria referenced assessment guide by a 3-member cross-disciplinary staff panel consisting of a Business Faculty lecturer, an engineer from industry and the lecturer of the Process Engineering unit. Professional conduct and accountability was gauged through direct questioning by the panel. Feedback was also sought from students on various aspects through a survey questionnaire after the role play activity at the end of semester. RESULTS Overall, the role play was very well performed with students achieving an average score of 79.3/100 (distinction grade). Professional conduct as assessed by panel was on average better than scores given for professional accountability (4.0 compared with 3.6 out of 5). Feedback from students indicated that the learning activities had contributed to their overall understanding of the content and the role of process engineers. Industry involvement was rated very highly as contributing to their learning at 4.8 (on Likert scale from 1 – 5) and the poster presentation was rated at 3.6. CONCLUSIONS This pilot study was successful in implementing a new assessment task for modelling professional conduct and accountability within a 2nd year core unit. This task incorporated a role-play activity and there was evidence to suggest that this and associated learning tasks were successful in broadening students’ understanding and skills in this area required for engineering practice. Following feedback given by students and staff, improvements will be made to the nature of the problem, how it is defined, its assessment, and the approach taken in the role-play scenario when the unit is offered in 2014.

Rapid production of a plasmid DNA encoding a malaria vaccine candidate via amino-functionalized poly(GMA-co-EDMA) monolith

Malaria is a global health problem; an effective vaccine is urgently needed. Due to the relative poverty and lack of infrastructure in malaria endemic areas, DNA-based vaccines that are stable at ambient temperatures and easy to formulate have great potential. While attention has been focused mainly on antigen selection, vector design and efficacy assessment, the development of a rapid and commercially viable process to manufacture DNA is generally overlooked. We report here a continuous purification technique employing an optimized stationary adsorbent to allow high-vaccine recovery, low-processing time, and, hence, high-productivity. A 40.0 mL monolithic stationary phase was synthesized and functionalized with amino groups from 2-Chloro-N,N- diethylethylamine hydrochloride for anion-exchange isolation of a plasmid DNA (pDNA) that encodes a malaria vaccine candidate, VR1020-PyMSP4/5. Physical characterization of the monolithic polymer showed a macroporous material with a modal pore diameter of 750 nm. The final vaccine product isolated after 3 min elution was homogeneous supercoiled plasmid with gDNA, RNA and protein levels in keeping with clinical regulatory standards. Toxicological studies of the pVR1020-PyMSP4/5 showed a minimum endotoxin level of 0.28 EU/m.g pDNA. This cost-effective technique is cGMP compatible and highly scalable for the production of DNA-based vaccines in commercial quantities, when such vaccines prove to be effective against malaria. © 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Preparation of magnetic porous ceramsite and its application in biological aerated filters

Ceramsite plays a significant role as a biological aerated filter (BAF) in the treatment of wastewater. In this study, a mixture of goethite, sawdust and palygorskite clay was thermally treated to form magnetic porous ceramsite (MPC). An optimization experiment was conducted to measure the compressive strength of the MPC. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and polarizing microscopy (PM) characterized the pore structure of the MPC. The results show that a combination of goethite, sawdust and palygorskite clay with a mass ratio of 10:2:5 is suitable for the formation of MPC. The compressive strength of MPC conforms to the Chinese national industrial standard (CJ/T 299-2008) for wastewater treatment. The SEM and PM results also show that the uniform and interconnected pores in MPC were well suited for microbial growth. The MPC produced in this study can serve as a biomedium for advanced wastewater treatment.

Equilibrium studies of ammonium exchange with Australian natural zeolites

This paper is concerned with the study of the equilibrium exchange of ammonium ions with two natural zeolite samples sourced in Australia from Castle Mountain Zeolites and Zeolite Australia. A range of sorption models including Langmuir Vageler, Competitive Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin Astakhov and Brouers–Sotolongo were applied in order to gain an insight as to the exchange process. In contrast to most previous studies, non-linear regression was used in all instances to determine the best fit of the experimental data. Castle Mountain natural zeolite was found to exhibit higher ammonium capacity than Zeolite Australia material when in the freshly received state, and this behavior was related to the greater amount of sodium ions present relative to calcium ions on the zeolite exchange sites. The zeolite capacity for ammonium ions was also found to be dependent on the solution normality, with 35–60% increase inuptake noted when increasing the ammonium concentration from 250 to 1000 mg/L. The optimal fit ofthe equilibrium data was achieved by the Freundlich expression as confirmed by use of Akaikes Information Criteria. It was emphasized that the bottle-point method chosen influenced the isotherm profile in several ways, and could lead to misleading interpretation of experiments, especially if the constant zeolite mass approach was followed. Pre-treatment of natural zeolite with acid and subsequently sodium hydroxide promoted the uptake of ammonium species by at least 90%. This paper highlighted the factors which should be taken into account when investigating ammonium ion exchange with natural zeolites.

Ion exchange of sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate solutions using strong acid cation resins in relation to coal seam water treatment

Coal seam gas production has resulted in the production of large volumes of associated water which contains dissolved salts dominated by sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate. Ion exchange using synthetic resins has been proposed as a method for desalination of coal seam water to make it suitable for various beneficial reuse options. This study investigated the behaviour of solutions of sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate with respect to exchange with Lanxess S108H strong acid cation (SAC) resin. Equilibrium isotherms were created for solutions of NaCl and NaHCO3 and an actual sample of coal seam water from the Surat Basin in southern Queensland. The exchange of sodium ions arising from sodium bicarbonate was found to be considerably more favourable than exchange of sodium ions from sodium chloride solutions. This latter behaviour was attributed to the secondary decomposition of bicarbonate species under acidic conditions which resulted in the evolution of carbon dioxide and formation of water. The isotherm profiles could not be satisfactorily fitted by a single isotherm model such as the Langmuir expression. Instead, two Langmuir equations had to be simultaneously applied in order to fit the sections of the isotherm attributable to sodium ion exchange from sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride. The shape of the isotherm profile was dependent upon the ratio of sodium chloride to sodium bicarbonate in solution and there was a high degree of correlation between simulated and actual coal seam water solutions.

Modeling and Simulation of Liquid Pulsed Particulate Fluidized Beds

Pulsed fluidization is of considerable interest in process engineering for improving fluidization quality. Quantitative understanding of the pulsed two-phase flow behaviors is very important for proper design and optimum operation of such contactors. The

Dynamics Of Fine Particles In Liquid-Solid Fluidized Beds

On the basis of the Local Equilibrium Model (LEM), fine particles with large Richardson-Zaki exponent n show, under certain conditions during bed expansion and collapse, different dynamic behavior from particles with small n. For an expansion process there may be a concentration discontinuity propagating upward from the distributor, and, on the contrary, for a collapse process there may be a progressively broadening and upward-propagating continuous transition zone instead of discontinuity. The predictions of the bed height variation and the discontinuity trace have been validated experimentally. (c) 2007 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

国际尖端材料技术协会(SAMPE)第24届技术会议和第3届金属及金属加工会议(1992年10月20—22日,加拿大多伦多)

<正> 国际尖端材料技术协会(SAMPE:Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering)于1992年10月20—22月在加拿大多伦多市召开了两个国际学术会议:第24届国际SAMPE技术会议(24th Int.SAMPE Techn。Coaf。)和第3届国际金属与金属加工会议(3rd Int.SAMPE Metals and Metals Processin Conf.)。两个会议同时举行,全体会议(Plenary Session)在一个会场举行。前者的主题是“先进材料迎接经济的挑战”;后者的主题是“合成与加工的新进展”.尽管此二会议是在西方发达国家经济很不景

飞秒激光辐照K9玻璃引起的暗化和折射率变化

对不同辐照条件下近红外飞秒激光在K9玻璃内部诱导产生的暗化现象和永久性折射率改变进行了实验研究。通过辐照前后的显微镜图片、吸收光谱、电子自旋共振谱(ESR)以及激光衍射实验，分析了K9玻璃中暗化现象产生的微观过程，发现暗化是由诱导产生的空穴型色心引起的。暗化程度和折射率改变随激光强度、扫描速度、扫描行间距变化而变化。光致色心的形成与非线性电离有关。对折射率永久性改变进行了简单说明，其机理仍在探索中。