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  • 3.4
    Impact Factor
  • 5.7
    CiteScore
  • 15 days
    Submission to First Decision
  • 3 days
    Acceptance to Publication

Processes

Processes is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on processes/systems in chemistry, biology, material, energy, environment, food, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, automation control, catalysis, separation, particle and allied engineering fields published semimonthly online by MDPI. The Brazilian Association of Chemical Engineering (ABEQ) is affiliated with Processes and its members receive discounts on the article processing charges. Please visit Society Collaborations for more details.
  • Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
  • High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Ei Compendex, Inspec, AGRIS, and other databases.
  • Journal Rank: CiteScore - Q2 (Chemical Engineering (miscellaneous))
  • Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 14.7 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 2.8 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the first half of 2026).
  • Recognition of Reviewers: Reviewers whose reports are timely and of high quality receive an APC discount voucher for a future publication in an MDPI journal. Become a reviewer.
  • Companion journal: Advanced Petroleum Science.

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All Articles (22,262)

  • Article
  • Open Access

Clayey-silt gas hydrate reservoirs in the northern South China Sea are characterized by weak consolidation, fine-grained sediments, and high clay contents, making sand-control screens (SCSs) susceptible to progressive plugging during long-term production. This study investigates the plugging mechanisms of SCSs and evaluates a physical–chemical composite plug-removal method for clayey-silt gas hydrate reservoirs. X-ray diffraction (XRD), hydrate dissociation, long-term plugging, mineral dissolution, chemical plug-removal, and high-pressure water-jet experiments were conducted, together with computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method (CFD–DEM) simulations revealing the progressive transition from particle migration and deposition to pore-throat blockage under coupled fluid–particle interactions. The results show that the clay-mineral content increased from approximately 36.4% in the original sediment to 41.5% in the plugging layer, accompanied by enrichment of montmorillonite and ordered illite/smectite mixed-layer minerals. Screen plugging developed progressively from initial particle bridging to fine-particle invasion and pore-throat locking, followed by progressive compaction and structural stabilization. A mud-acid system containing 10% HCl and 2% HF was selected as the core chemical treatment for weakening the carbonate–silicate composite plugging structure, while dispersing, chelating, and hydrate-inhibiting agents were used as auxiliary components. High-pressure water jetting achieved plug-removal efficiencies of 12.4–46.2% depending on the plugging stage and operating conditions. After chemical pretreatment followed by water-jet stripping, the composite method achieved pressure-drop reduction ratios of 74.1–78.0%, 64.6–69.6%, and 85.1–85.6% at the initial, middle, and late plugging stages, respectively. These results demonstrate that chemical weakening followed by mechanical stripping provides an effective approach for restoring the flow capacity of plugged SCSs in clayey-silt gas hydrate reservoirs.

Processes

4 November 2026

Experimental system used for SCS plugging evaluation: (a) schematic rendering of the improved high-pressure, low-temperature experimental apparatus; (b) simplified schematic of the SCS plugging-test flow loop and monitored parameters.
  • Article
  • Open Access

Surface defect detection of industrial products is a critical component of intelligent manufacturing quality control. However, existing unsupervised anomaly detection methods still struggle to achieve a favorable balance among image-level detection accuracy, pixel-level localization performance, and inference efficiency. To address this issue, this paper proposes a Fusion PatchCore with Lightweight Diffusion Reconstruction (FPC-LDR) framework for industrial surface defect detection, exploiting the complementary properties of discriminative feature matching and generative reconstruction. The proposed method first constructs a memory-bank module based on deep semantic features to identify anomalies via feature matching. Then, a lightweight latent diffusion reconstruction module is developed, in which single-step reconstruction replaces conventional multi-step diffusion processes, reducing computational overhead while maintaining reconstruction quality. Furthermore, an adaptive fusion strategy is introduced to integrate feature distance and reconstruction residuals, improving detection robustness and localization accuracy. Extensive experiments on the MVTec AD dataset demonstrate that FPC-LDR achieves an image-level AUROC of 94.65%, a pixel-level AUROC of 94.54%, and a PRO score of 95.28%. Cross-dataset evaluations on the VisA dataset further verify its generalization capability. The proposed method achieves an effective trade-off among accuracy, localization performance, and inference efficiency, demonstrating its potential for real-time industrial defect inspection.

Processes

4 November 2026

Motivation of integrating memory bank and diffusion reconstruction for industrial surface defect detection. Highlighted regions indicate defect locations, the middle panel illustrates the diffusion-based noise-injection process, and red regions represent defects.
  • Article
  • Open Access

In quadrupole mass filtering processes, ion trajectory stability is governed by the Mathieu parameters (a,q), which scale inversely with the square of the excitation frequency (ω−2). High-quality-factor (Q≥100) series resonant networks are widely employed for passive radio-frequency (RF) voltage step-up. However, their narrow passbands render the output amplitude vulnerable to temperature-induced capacitive detuning. Furthermore, conventional microcontroller-based Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) architectures rely on integer register parsing, constraining the tuning resolution to ≥1 Hz and introducing quantization errors during frequency scanning and tracking. This paper presents the coupled modeling, hardware design, and benchtop characterization of a software-defined RF/DC driver platform with 0.1 Hz frequency resolution for resonant quadrupole mass filters. Numerical modeling coupling fourth-order Runge–Kutta (RK4) ion dynamics with RLC transfer functions demonstrates that a 0.1 Hz frequency increment restricts stability parameter shifts to , limits detuning voltage attenuation to , and eliminates peak apex truncation at mass resolving powers R>1200. The hardware platform integrates an STM32 microcontroller, an AD9954 DDS core (400 MSPS), an IEEE-754 32-bit floating-point Ethernet communication pipeline, a 16-bit bipolar DC bias stage (0.1 mV step resolution), and an in-loop baseband telemetry channel. Benchtop measurements demonstrate continuous RF generation from 10 Hz to 10 MHz with a relative frequency error below 0.070%. On a 1.0 MHz series resonant network loaded with a 50 pF equivalent capacitance, thermal measurements reveal an open-loop start-up frequency scatter of 0.266% (2.66 kHz), demonstrating the necessity of sub-Hertz frequency correction to restore resonance. The telemetry channel achieves an acquisition stability relative standard deviation (RSD) of 1.2×10−5 via a 500-sample moving-average filter, enabling closed-loop frequency tracking to maintain the normalized RF amplitude within 99.55% to 100.00% across a 60-min thermal cycle. Characterized on a benchtop equivalent load, this hardware platform provides a deterministic electronic foundation for dynamic resonance re-centering and stable ion transmission in high-Q quadrupole systems.

Processes

4 November 2026

Cross-section of the hyperbolic quadrupole analyzer showing the coordinate system, inscribed field radius 
  
    r
    0
  
, and applied RF/DC potentials.
  • Article
  • Open Access

The fifth member of the Upper Triassic Xujiahe Formation (T3x5) in the southwestern Sichuan Basin and adjacent areas contains widely developed organic-rich source rocks, which represent a crucial interval for hydrocarbon exploration in the region. Based on 402 core samples from 15 wells, this study systematically evaluates the organic geochemical characteristics, spatial distribution, and hydrocarbon generation potential of these source rocks using total organic carbon (TOC) analysis, organic matter typing, vitrinite reflectance (Ro) measurements, and basin modeling. The TOC content of the T3x5 source rock ranges from 0.50% to 71.73%, with an arithmetic mean of 2.09% (n = 402). Lacustrine mudstones, which dominate the source rock volume (n = 359), have a mean TOC of 1.25%. Organic matter is predominantly of mixed sapropelic-humic type (Type II2). The TOC content generally increases from uplift areas to depressions, reflecting the control of the depositional environment on organic matter preservation. Thermal maturity exhibits a westward increase and eastward decrease, with the western Sichuan depression reaching high to over-mature stages (Ro mostly 1.3–2.0%, locally > 2.0%), while the eastern and southern areas are mainly mature to low-mature (Ro 0.7–1.3%), locally within the condensate–wet gas window. The thickness of the upper submember reaches >320 m, with depocenter 120–280 m in the central–southern part of western Sichuan; the lower submember reaches >240 m, centered in the Chengdu–Deyang area with central thickness 160–220 m. Basin modeling estimates a cumulative gas generation of approximately 1.92 × 1014 m3 (192 trillion cubic meters), with the highest generation intensity coinciding with the western Sichuan depression. It should be emphasized that this value represents the total generated gas over geological history and does not equate to accumulated or recoverable resources; further evaluation of the migration, expulsion, and accumulation efficiencies is required. Overall, the T3x5 source rocks possess a favorable material base and significant gas generation potential. Tight sandstone reservoirs adjacent to the gas kitchen should be prioritized in future explorations, with differentiated strategies adapted to various maturity zones.

Processes

4 November 2026

Tectonic division of Sichuan Basin with inset map of China and comprehensive geological column of well Qiulin2 in T3x5 showing upper and lower submembers. Modified from [28].

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Processes - ISSN 2227-9717