69,948 research outputs found

    Isopropyl alcohol recovery by heteroazeotropic batch distillation

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    Solvent recovery is becoming a major issue in the pharmaceutical and specialty chemical industries. Solvent recovery by conventional batch distillation is limited by the frequent presence of azeotropes in the used solvent mixtures. Most distillation processes for the separation of azeotropic or difficult zeotropic mixtures involve the addition of an entrainer (homogeneous and heterogeneous azeotropic distillation or extractive distillation). In this study the recovery of IPA (isopropyl alcohol) from an industrial waste stream (IPA/water mixture) was studied by conventional batch distillation and heteroazeotropic batch distillation, using cyclohexane as entrainer. First the ternary IPA/water/cyclohexane azeotrope (boiling temperature of 64.1 °C), then the binary IPA/cyclohexane azeotrope (boiling temperature of 69.3°C) and finally pure IPA was distilled. 99.96 mass% IPA could be obtained by heteroazeotropic distillation, using cyclohexane as entrainer. By using this procedure the IPA recovery is 97.6%, which is high compared to the conventional distillation techniques. The binary azeotrope could be reused in a subsequent heteroazeotropic batch distillation

    Measurement of the ratio of prompt χ c to J / ψ production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

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    The prompt production of charmonium χ c and J / ψ states is studied in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The χ c and J / ψ mesons are identified through their decays χ c → J / ψ γ and J / ψ → μ + μ - using 36 pb - 1 of data collected by the LHCb detector in 2010. The ratio of the prompt production cross-sections for χ c and J / ψ, σ (χ c → J / ψ γ) / σ (J / ψ), is determined as a function of the J / ψ transverse momentum in the range 2 < p T J / ψ < 15 GeV / c. The results are in excellent agreement with next-to-leading order non-relativistic expectations and show a significant discrepancy compared with the colour singlet model prediction at leading order, especially in the low p T J / ψ region

    Heterogeneous Extractive Batch Distillation of Chloroform - Methanol – Water : Feasibility and Experiments

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    A novel heterogeneous extractive distillation process is considered for separating the azeotropic mixture chloroform – methanol in a batch rectifying column, including for the first time an experimental validation of the process. Heterogeneous heavy entrainer water is selected inducing an unstable ternary heteroazeotrope and a saddle binary heteroazeotrope with chloroform (ternary diagram class 2.1-2b). Unlike to well-known heterogeneous azeotropic distillation process and thanks to continuous water feeding at the column top, the saddle binary heteroazeotrope chloroform – water is obtained at the column top, condensed and further split into the liquid – liquid decanter where the chloroform-rich phase is drawn as distillate. First, feasibility analysis is carried out by using a simplified differential model in the extractive section for determining the proper range of the entrainer flowrate and the reflux ratio. The operating conditions and reflux policy are validated by rigorous simulation with ProSim Batch Column® where technical features of a bench scale distillation column have been described. Six reproducible experiments are run in the bench scale column matching the simulated operating conditions with two sequentially increasing reflux ratio values. Simulation and experiments agree well. With an average molar purity higher than 99%, more than 85% of recovery yield was obtained for chloroform and methanol

    Diabetes and telemedicine

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    A comparative study of different strategies of batch effect removal in microarray data: a case study of three datasets

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    Batch effects refer to the systematic non-biological variability that is introduced by experimental design and sample processing in microarray experiments. It is a common issue in microarray data and could introduce bias into the analysis, if ignored. Many batch effect removal methods have been developed. Previous comparative work has been focused on their effectiveness of batch effects removal and impact on downstream classification analysis. The most common type of analysis for microarray data is differential expression (DE) analysis, yet no study has examined the impact of these methods on downstream DE analysis, which identifies markers that are significantly associated with the outcome of interest. In this project, we investigated the performance of five popular batch effect removal methods, mean-centering, ComBat_p, ComBat_n, SVA, and ratio based methods, on batch effects reduction and their impact on DE analysis using three experimental datasets with different sources of batch effects. We found that the performance of these methods is data-dependent: simple mean-centering method performed reasonably well in all three datasets, but the more complicated algorithms such as ComBat method’s performance could be unstable for certain dataset and should be applied with caution. Given a new dataset, we recommend either using the mean-centering method or carefully investigating a few different batch removal methods and choosing the one that is the best for the data, if possible. This study has important public health significance because better handling of batch effect in microarray data can reduce biased results and lead to improved biomarker identification

    Feasibility of Batch Reactive Distillation with Equilibrium-Limited Consecutive Reactions in Rectifier, Stripper, or Middle-Vessel Column.

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    A general overall feasibility methodology of batch reactive distillation of multireaction systems is developed to study all the possible configurations of batch reactive distillation. The general model equations are derived for multireaction system with any number of chemical equilibrium-limited reactions and for any number of components. The present methodology is demonstrated with the detailed study of the transesterification of dimethyl carbonate in two reversible cascade reactions in batch reactive distillation process. Pure methanol is produced as distillate, and pure diethyl carbonate is produced at the bottom simultaneously in middle-vessel column; in each section, continuous feeding of ethanol is necessary. The results of feasibility study are successfully validated by rigorous simulations

    New extractive configuration separating azeotropic mixture in semi-batch way

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    A new variant of batch extractive distillation, the so-called inverse-fed batch extractive distillation is presented. The total amount of the entrainer is pre-loaded to the boiler, and the mixture charge to be separated is continuously fed to the column in this novel configuration. The feasibility study of conventional extractive distillation was extended and a thorough study was performed to separate a maximum boiling azeotrope with intermediate boiling entrainer. The new configuration was found more efficient than the conventional one. The results of the feasibility study was validated and completed with a sensitivity analysis performed with commercial simulator software

    New double column system for heteroazeotropic batch distillation

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    A new double column system (DCS) operated in closed mode is suggested for heterogeneous batch distillation. This configuration is investigated by feasibility studies based on the assumption of maximal separation and is compared with the traditional batch rectifier (BR). We study the configurations also by dynamic simulation based on a detailed model using a professional simulator. For the new configuration the minimal duration of the process is determined. The influence of the most important operational parameters is studied. The calculations and the simulations are performed for a binary (n-butanol–water) and for a ternary heteroazeotropic mixture (isopropanol–water + benzene as entrainer). One of the advantages of the DCS is that distillation of binary and ternary systems is performed in only one step. Furthermore the recovery of components is usually higher and the amount of byproducts is lower

    Ecodesign of Batch Processes: Optimal Design Strategies for Economic and Ecological Bioprocesses

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    This work deals with the multicriteria cost-environment design of multiproduct batch plants, where the design variables are the equipment item sizes as well as the operating conditions. The case study is a multiproduct batch plant for the production of four recombinant proteins. Given the important combinatorial aspect of the problem, the approach used consists in coupling a stochastic algorithm, indeed a Genetic Algorithm (GA) with a Discrete Event Simulator (DES). To take into account the conflicting situations that may be encountered at the earliest stage of batch plant design, i.e. compromise situations between cost and environmental consideration, a Multicriteria Genetic Algorithm (MUGA) was developed with a Pareto optimal ranking method. The results show how the methodology can be used to find a range of trade-off solutions for optimizing batch plant design

    Multiobjective optimization for multiproduct batch plant design under economic and environmental considerations

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    This work deals with the multicriteria cost–environment design of multiproduct batch plants, where the design variables are the size of the equipment items as well as the operating conditions. The case study is a multiproduct batch plant for the production of four recombinant proteins. Given the important combinatorial aspect of the problem, the approach used consists in coupling a stochastic algorithm, indeed a genetic algorithm (GA) with a discrete-event simulator (DES). Another incentive to use this kind of optimization method is that, there is no easy way of calculating derivatives of the objective functions, which then discards gradient optimization methods. To take into account the conflicting situations that may be encountered at the earliest stage of batch plant design, i.e. compromise situations between cost and environmental consideration, a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA) was developed with a Pareto optimal ranking method. The results show how the methodology can be used to find a range of trade-off solutions for optimizing batch plant design
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