1,721,012 research outputs found
Membrane bioreactor for waste gas treatment
No full textSummaryThis thesis describes the design and testing of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) for removal of organic pollutants from air. In such a bioreactor for biological gas treatment pollutants are degraded by micro-organisms. The membrane bioreactor is an alternative to other types of bioreactors for waste gas treatment, such as compost biofilters and bioscrubbers. Propene was used as a model pollutant to study the membrane bioreactor.A membrane bioreactor for waste gas treatment consists of a gas and a liquid compartment, separated by a membrane. Gaseous pollutants diffuse through the membrane and are consumed by microorganisms present in the liquid phase. The organisms are supplied with water and inorganic nutrients via this liquid phase. Various membrane bioreactors described in the literature are reviewed in Chapter 2. In the work presented in this thesis, microporous hydrophobic material was selected because of its low mass transfer resistance and the availability of both sheets and fibres. For the removal of propene from air the mass transfer resistance of this type of membrane was found to be negligible (Chapter 3).The propene-degrading bacterium Xanthobacter Py2 was shown to form biofilms in membrane bioreactors. Continuous propene removal by biofilms of Xanthobacter Py2 was demonstrated in both flat sheet reactors and hollow-fibre reactors. In both configurations the biofilms are situated on the membrane in the liquid phase. Propene consumption rates could be described quite accurately with the computer programme BIOSIM, that describes simultaneous diffusion and reaction in a biolayer (Chapter 3).During continuous operation of hollow-fibre reactors at inlet concentrations of 0.5 to 6 gram propene per m 3, the propene conversion decreased after several weeks (Chapter 4). Clogging of the fibres by excess biomass formation and acidification due to ammonium oxidation, were identified as possible causes. However, when both clogging and ammonium oxidation were prevented, the propene conversion still decreased in time.Apparently other factors than clogging and nitrification affect the long-term performance of biofilms of Xanthobacter Py2, growing In an MBR. These factors might be Identified with new methods for biofilm analysis, which allow the localization of activity within the biofilm.According to the Dutch emission standards, hydrocarbons such as propene, in offgas have to be reduced to less than 150 mg m -3. In Chapter 5, two propenedegrading strains were compared for their ability to degrade such low concentrations of propene and the faster growing strain, Xanthobacter Py2, was selected. At a concentration of 300 to 600 mg m -3in the gas phase, a 20 days startup period was required for biofilm formation. Once the biofilm had been established, the amount of active biomass adapted to the amount of propene available Within several days. Propene could be removed continuously from air at a concentration of 15 to 50 mg m -3in the gas phase without supplying other organic nutrients to the microbial population (Chapter 5).Besides the removal of poorly water soluble pollutants like propene, the membrane bioreactor is also suitable for the removal of pollutants that result in acidification, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons. Therefore, in Chapter 6 the biodegradation of trichloroethene (TCE) by Xanthobacter Py2 was tested during growth on propene in a stirred vessel. The aerobic biodegradation of TCE is difficult because of toxic intermediates that are formed. With Xanthobacter Py2 continuous cometabolic degradation of TCE was shown to be feasible with concentrations up to 206 μM in the liquid phase. The amount of TCE that could be degraded, depended on the TCE concentration and ranged from 0.03 to 0.34 grams of TCE per gram of biomass.Membrane bioreactors for gas-liquid contact have several potential applications. They are suitable for the removal of poorly soluble pollutants from air because of their large gas-liquid interface and small mass transfer resistance. Especially if biodegradation of a poorly soluble pollutant results in acidification, the membrane bioreactor might be a unique tool, since the acidic product can be removed via the liquid phase. Other applications might be the removal of highly chlorinated hydrocarbons from air by an aerobic or a combined anaerobic/aerobic: process, as was recently suggested in literature. Membrane bioreactors may also be useful tools in biofilm research, because of easy handling and processing of biofilm samples, excellent oxygen transfer properties and the possibility to apply counter gradients
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Membrane bioreactor for waste gas treatment: removal of pollutants with a low solubility in water.
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