Processes, Volume 5, Issue 4

In this study, the solvent based extraction of artemisinin from Artemisia annua L. using acetone in percolation mode is compared to the method of pressurized hot water extraction. Both techniques are simulated by a physico-chemical process model. The...

Dynamic optimization offers a great potential for maximizing performance of continuous processes from startup to shutdown by obtaining optimal trajectories for the control variables. However, numerical procedures for dynamic optimization can become p...

Performance of integrated production scheduling and advanced process control with disturbances is summarized and reviewed with four progressive stages of scheduling and control integration and responsiveness to disturbances: open-loop segregated sche...

A novel formulation for combined scheduling and control of multi-product, continuous chemical processes is introduced in which nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) and noncyclic continuous-time scheduling are efficiently combined. A decompositio...

Dry reforming is a very interesting process for synthesis gas generation from ${\mathrm{CH}}_4$ and ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ but suffers from low hydrogen yields due to the reverse water–gas shift reaction (WGS). For this reason, membranes are often used for hydrogen...

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide. It is estimated that one-third of the world’s population is infected with TB. Most have the latent stage of the disease that can later transition to active TB disease. TB is s...

Differential activation of neuronal populations can improve the efficacy of clinical devices such as sensory or cortical prostheses. Improving stimulus specificity will facilitate targeted neuronal activation to convey biologically realistic percepts...

The pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum is a model organism able to synthesize industrially-relevant molecules. Commercial-scale cultivation currently requires large monocultures, prone to bio-contamination. However, little is known about the id...

Calculation of evaporation requires accurate thermophysical properties of the liquid. Such data are well-known for conventional fossil fuels. In contrast, e.g., thermal conductivity or dynamic viscosity of the fuel vapor are rarely available for mode...

The moisture content of biomass affects its processing for applications such as electricity or steam. In this study, the effects of variation in moisture content of banagrass and energycane was evaluated using techno-economic analysis and life-cycle...

The systematic design of an advanced and efficient control strategy for controlling critical quality attributes of the tablet compaction operation is necessary to increase the robustness of a continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing process and for re...

Modern data, such as occurring in chemical engineering, typically entail large collections of samples with numerous dimensional components (or attributes). Visualizing the samples in relation of these components can bring valuable insight. For exampl...

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) represent a still relatively new technology for liquid organic waste treatment and simultaneous recovery of energy and resources. Although the technology is quite appealing due its potential benefits, its practical applica...

Various distance metrics and their induced norms are employed in the quantitative modeling of evolutionary dynamics. Minimization of these distance metrics, when applied to evolutionary optimization, are hypothesized to result in different outcomes....

The development of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to target polyphenols present in vegetable extracts was here addressed. Polydatin was selected as a template polyphenol due to its relatively high size and amphiphilic character. Different MIPs...

Clinical trial planning of candidate drugs is an important task for pharmaceutical companies. In this paper, we propose two new multistage stochastic programming formulations (CM1 and CM2) to determine the optimal clinical trial plan under uncertaint...

Mesoporous alumina and magnesia were prepared using various polymers, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), poly(N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide) (PHPMA), and poly(dimethylacrylamide) (PDMAAm), as porogenic structure matrices. Me...

We present a generalized state-space model formulation particularly motivated by an online scheduling perspective, which allows modeling (1) task-delays and unit breakdowns; (2) fractional delays and unit downtimes, when using discrete-time grid; (3)...

This paper discusses a problem connected with the production process of ductile iron castings made using the in-mold method. The study results are presented showing that this method compromises the quality of the cast machine parts and of the equipme...

Mineral calcination worldwide accounts for some 5–10% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per year. Roughly half of the CO₂ released results from burning fossil fuels for heat generation, while the other half is a product of the calci...

The problem of scheduling multiproduct and multipurpose batch processes has been studied for more than 30 years using math programming and heuristics. In most formulations, the manufacturing recipes are represented by simplified models using state ta...

The bottleneck in creating dynamic models of biological networks and processes often lies in estimating unknown kinetic model parameters from experimental data. In this regard, experimental conditions have a strong influence on parameter identifiabil...

Big Data may introduce new opportunities, and for this reason it has become a mantra among most industries. This paper focuses on examining how to develop cost and sustainable reporting by utilizing Big Data that covers economic values, production vo...

Ecological mechanisms influence relationships among microbial communities, which in turn impact biogeochemistry. In particular, microbial communities are assembled by deterministic (e.g., selection) and stochastic (e.g., dispersal) processes, and the...

Carbon dioxide conversion and utilization is gaining significant attention worldwide, not only because carbon dioxide has an impact on global climate change, but also because it provides a source for potential fuels and chemicals. Methanol is an impo...

Enormous advances in genetics and metabolic engineering have made it possible, in principle, to create new plants and crops with improved yield through targeted molecular alterations. However, while the potential is beyond doubt, the actual implement...

A model predictive control (MPC) framework, exploiting both feedforward and feedback control loops, is employed to minimize large disturbances that occur in military water networks. Military installations’ need for resilient and efficient water suppl...

The primary objective of this work was to investigate the thermal and rheological properties of crude tall oil (CTO), a low-cost by-product from the Kraft pulping process, as a potential feedstock for biodiesel production. Adequate knowledge of CTO p...

In recent years gas–liquid flow in microchannels has drawn much attention in the research fields of analytics and applications, such as in oxidations or hydrogenations. Since surface forces are increasingly important on the small scale, bubble coales...

This article describes the development of a reaction database with the objective to collect data for multiphase reactions involved in small molecule pharmaceutical processes with a search engine to retrieve necessary data in investigations of reactio...

Data reconciliation is a model-based technique that reduces measurement errors by making use of redundancies in process data. It is largely applied in modern process industries, being commercially available in software tools. Based on industrial appl...

The radical copolymerization kinetics of acrylamide (AM) and the water-soluble monomer sodium 4-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-methylene butanoate (SHMeMB), formed by saponification of the bio-sourced monomer γ-methyl-α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone (MeMBL), are inv...

This paper is about the incremental computation of control sequences for discrete event systems in uncertain environments where uncontrollable events may occur. Timed Petri nets are used for this purpose. The aim is to drive the marking of the net fr...

With our growing understanding of the impact of microbial communities, understanding how such communities function has become a priority. The influence of microbial communities is widespread. Human-associated microbiota impacts health, environmental...

The partition coefficients, K_mim, of N-methylimidazole (mim) in two-component systems composed of ionic liquid (IL) and a series of organic solvents immiscible with ILs (butyl acetate, ethyl acetate, tert-butyl methyl ether, diethyl ether and cyclohe...