Sharif Digital Repository

A mini-column was made by packing α-diphenylglyoxime (DPG), a known ligand for complexation with nickel ions, loaded on activated charcoal (AC). Water samples were buffered at the pH range 8-9 and then passed through the column. After the preconcentration step, the column was eluted with 0.2 M nitric acid into the atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS). Mixed-level orthogonal array design (OAD) was used as a chemometric approach to study the effect of various factors on recovery of extraction. Factors such as pH, amount of sorbent, flow rate of sample, concentration and volume of the sample were investigated. Effects of interference ions, i.e., Co, Cu, Bi, Fe(I1), Pt and Pd was also studied.... 

The majority of environmental legislators advise pollution prevention (P2) for reducing the environmental impact of industrial activities. This approach calls for assessing different methods to reduce the final concentration of environmentally harmful species in process effluents; one method is source reduction, e.g. by modifying process conditions to hinder production of pollutants. There are methods for predicting (targeting) furnace CO2, NO(x) and SO(x) emissions in an industrial site indirectly and via the level of energy consumed in the process. However, no method exists for targeting process-related emissions when they are not related directly to energy use. In this paper, a method is... 

Kinetics of dissolution of silver present in precious metal scraps in HNO3 was studied in temperature range of 26-85°C. Dissolution rate of silver was much faster than that of copper at all temperatures. Effects of particle size, stirring speed, acid concentration and temperature on the rate of dissolving of silver were evaluated. Dissolution rate decreases with particle size and increases with temperature. Dissolving was accelerated with acid concentrations less than 10 mol/L, Concentrations greater than 10 mol/L resulted in slowing down of the dissolution rate. Shrinking core model with internal diffusion equation t/τ = 1 - 3 (1-x)2/3 + 2 (1-x) could be used to explain the mechanism of the... 

Urea is a major source of nitrogen pollution in domestic sewage and its denitrification is difficult since it is very likely to be converted into ammonia or nitrate instead of expected N2. Herein, we propose an exhaustive denitrification method for urea via the oxidation of amine/ammonia-N with chlorine oxide radical, which induced from a bi-functional RuO2//WO3 anode, and the highly selective reduction of nitrate-N on cathode in photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). Under illumination, the WO3 photoanode side promotes the quantities hydroxyl and reactive chlorine radical, and these radicals are immediately combined to stronger chlorine oxide radical by RuO2 side, which obviously enhances the... 

The sole industrial process which currently used for adipic acid production is nitric acid oxidation of either cyclohexanol or cyclohexanol/cyclohexanone mixture. Emission of greenhouse nitrous oxide (N2O) gas from this process strongly contributes to global warming, resulting in acid rain and ozone depletion. Herein, we report a catalytic application of a novel dual task-specific ionic liquid (an ionic liquid with two catalytic functions) for oxidation of cyclohexene to adipic acid using 30% hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst showed desirable activity toward oxidation of cyclohexene and some cyclic olefins to produce their corresponding dicarboxylic acids  

Corrosion of lead silicate glass (LSG) contacting 0.5 M aqueous nitric acid (HNO 3) was investigated via scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma analysis, and weight-loss measurement to determine the respective contributions of the ion-exchange vs. the hydrolysis reactions. The LSG having X M ≡ Pb+K+Na/Si mole ratios of less than 0.7 showed very little weight loss with no Si network deterioration. At X M > 0.7, the mechanism changed into the hydrolysis, which caused the formation of a networkless gel layer resting at the solid/liquid interface. Addition of titania (TiO 2) and zirconia (ZrO 2) had disparate effects: X M < 0.7 improved corrosion... 

In this study, 40% CaO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was used for biodiesel production from corn oil. A transesterification reaction was done for 5h at a temperature of 65°C in the presence of corn oil, methanol (methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1), and CaO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst (0.06g/g (6wt%)). Catalyst used in this study was synthesized using the sol-gel method. In this method, two parameters of gelation temperature and nitric acid concentration were used as variables in the catalyst synthesis step, and experiments were designed using central composite design (CCD). The results indicate that the optimal point is achieved at a gelation temperature of 70°C and... 

The leaching of rare earth elements (REEs) including cerium, lanthanum and neodymium from apatite concentrate obtained from iron ore wastes by nitric acid was studied. The effects of nitric acid concentration, solid to liquid ratio and leaching time on the recoveries of Ce, La and Nd were investigated using response surface methodology. The results showed that the acid concentration and solid to liquid ratio have significant effect on the leaching recoveries while the time has a little effect. The maximum REE leaching recoveries of 66.1%, 56.8% and 51.7% for Ce, La and Nd, respectively were achieved at the optimum leaching condition with 18% nitric acid concentration, 0.06 solid to liquid... 

Molybdenum resources around the world are mainly associated with porphyry copper ores. Molybdenite (MoS2) is the main Mo mineral that has rhenium in its crystal lattice. This paper investigates the recovery of rhenium and molybdenum from a molybdenite concentrate using a hydrometallurgical treatment method. The molybdenite concentrate is leached with nitric acid and subjected to solvent extraction to recover and separate rhenium and molybdenum from the leached liquor. The effects of pH and the chemicals' concentration on extraction characteristics of Mo and Re are investigated to define the best condition for selective extraction of these metals. The tested leached liquor contained of 8.2... 

The current study was carried out to investigate the kinetics of reactions for the pressure oxidative leaching of a molybdenite concentrate in less than one hour. The effects of oxygen pressure, stirring speed, pulp density, acid concentration and temperature on the leaching rate of the molybdenum were studied. It was found that about 85% of molybdenite was oxidized to molybdic oxide precipitate with remaining molybdenum dissolved in the leaching liquor. Analysis of experimental data showed that the reaction is chemically controlled with activation energy of 68.8 kJ/mol. Furthermore SEM images showed no significant boundary diffusion layer and it was noted that the molybdic oxide... 

This study is concerned with investigation of pressure oxidative leaching of entire molybdenum of a molybdenite concentrate. Effects of oxygen pressure, stirring speed, pulp density, acid concentration, and temperature on the leaching rate of molybdenum were studied. A three-layer feed-forward artificial neural network was applied to model the effect of the abovementioned parameters on the leaching ability. The leaching efficiency was considered as a target value for modeling. The quantified leaching efficiencies obtained by applying different parameters demonstrated a good agreement with neural network predictions  

The optimization of leaching parameters for the Ni recovery of the used catalyst was developed using response surface methodology. The relationship between the Ni recoveries, and four main leaching parameters, temperature, acid concentration, leaching time and particle size were presented as empirical model equations. The predicted values of nickel recoveries were found to be in a reasonable agreement with the experimental values, with R2 as correlation factor being 0.9669 and 0.9869 for sulfuric and nitric acids, respectively. The model equations were then optimized using the quadratic programming method to maximize nickel recovery. The optimum conditions were found to be 103.4°C... 

Hydrothermal synthesis of CuO nanoparticles under near-critical and supercritical conditions was investigated from two different standpoints in the current study. The first standpoint was optimization of "yield", "purity", and "size of the nanoparticles" that were optimized at T = 500 °C, time = 2 h, [Cu(NO3)2] = 0.1 mol dm-3, and pH 3. This was achieved by undertaking an orthogonal experiment design methodology and performing different instrumental analyses, such as X-ray diffractometry, inductively coupled plasma spectrometry, and transmission electron microscopy, along with treatment of the data by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The second goal of the study was elucidation of the... 

Preparing a selective, efficient, and low-cost solar absorber is one of the main challenges in solar to thermal energy conversion. In this paper, black electroless Ni–P (ENi-P) solar absorber has been fabricated, and the effect of nanoporous TiO2 antireflection layer (ARL) on its optical and corrosion properties has been investigated. The optimum black coating was obtained by blackening in 9 M nitric acid solution at 50 °C for 40 s, in which a solar absorptance of 99.3% was achieved. Deposition of TiO2 ARL increased the solar absorptance of coating to 99.7% and addition of 0.8 g Pluronic F127 (F127) as pore former, further increased this value to 99.9% and solar-to-heat efficiency of the... 

Carbonaceous radioactive waste is produced by adsorption of effluent gases of UF6 production line, on a bed of charcoal. Current research was aimed at developing a process for recovery of uranium from this waste in a laboratory and at pilot scale. As a first step, leaching of uranium from carbonaceous radioactive waste was undertaken by successive steps using Al(NO3)3 and nitric acid, the former used to eliminate corrosivity of the F− ions. The stoichiometry of reaction between F− and Al3+ ions form complexes ranging from AlF2+, AlF2+ to AlF3 depending upon their molar ratio. The results showed that the increase of NO3−/U ratio increased the uranium leaching efficiency. Presence of some... 

This study was aimed at evaluating the effects of alkali activator solution and utilization of silica fume (SF) on durability and microstructural characteristics of alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) pastes. The pastes were activated with sodium silicate (SS) blended with NaOH (SH) solution with molar concentrations of 8 M, 12 M, and 16 M and SS:SH ratios of 1.0, 2.5, and 4.0. The same mixes were prepared with SF as partial replacement of GGBFS at a dosage of 10% by weight. The initial and final water absorption as well as the electrical resistivity of the specimens were measured. The optimal paste fabricated with 12 M NaOH solution and SS:SH ratio of 2.5 showed... 

This study was aimed at evaluating the effects of alkali activator solution and utilization of silica fume (SF) on durability and microstructural characteristics of alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) pastes. The pastes were activated with sodium silicate (SS) blended with NaOH (SH) solution with molar concentrations of 8 M, 12 M, and 16 M and SS:SH ratios of 1.0, 2.5, and 4.0. The same mixes were prepared with SF as partial replacement of GGBFS at a dosage of 10% by weight. The initial and final water absorption as well as the electrical resistivity of the specimens were measured. The optimal paste fabricated with 12 M NaOH solution and SS:SH ratio of 2.5 showed...