Sharif Digital Repository

Synthesis temperature and purity of perovskite materials are key challenges facing the scientific community. This work aims to address these challenges by developing an innovative low temperature synthesis pathway for preparation of carbonate-free perovskite nanocrystals. The method is based on an ultrasound-Assisted wet chemical processing method. Nanocrystals are characterized and observed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy techniques. XRD studies show that very fine BaTiO3 nanocrystals (<11 nm) free from any by-products such as BaTi2O5 and BaCO3 are synthesized at 50°C. Moreover, the method developed... 

Synthesis of the optimum distillation column sequence (DCS), which incorporates a huge search space composed of both conventional and complex arrangements, is a highly complicated combinatorial problem in the field of chemical process design and optimisation. In this study, a novel procedure for the synthesis of optimum DCS proposed by Boozarjomehry et al. [Boozarjomehry et al., Can. J. Chem. Eng. 87, 477-492 (2009)] is expanded to include the complex distillation arrangements. The method is based on evolutionary algorithms, and the total annual cost (TAC) is the main criterion used to screen alternatives. Efficient procedure has been proposed for encoding mechanism to include and classify... 

Shortcut design methods can be valuable tools for rapid screening of different separation process alternatives to assess feasibility and determine minimum energy demand. This work presents a variant of the feed angle method (Kraemer et al., 2011), which applies to single- and double-feed reactive distillation columns. The proposed method relies on pinch point analysis and determines the minimum energy demand from the calculation of a tray at the feed pinch. It is fully algorithmic and insensitive to impurities in product specifications. Its validity and performance is illustrated by a variety of case studies covering multi-component and multi-reaction systems, mixtures with potential... 

New chemical process design strategies utilizing computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) can provide significant improvements in process safety by designing chemicals with required target properties and the substitution of safer chemicals. An important aspect of this methodology concerns the prediction of properties given the molecular structure. This study utilizes one such emerging method for prediction of a hazardous property, flash point (FP), which is in the center of attention in safety studies. Using such a reliable data set comprising 1651 organic and inorganic chemicals, from 79 diverse material classes, and robust dynamic binary particle swarm optimization for the feature selection... 

The water-gas shift reaction occurs competitively to the main reaction of the Ir-catalysed methanol carbonylation process. To study the effect of seven factors including temperature, pressure, iridium, ruthenium, methyl iodide, methyl acetate and water concentrations on the formation of hydrogen and carbon dioxide as a result of the water-gas shift reaction and other side reactions in the carbonylation of methanol to acetic acid, the experimental design method combined with response surface methodology (RSM) was utilised. Central composite design at five levels (with α=1.63) was used to design experiments. A quadratic model that included the main and interaction effects of variables for H 2... 

The paper presents an inventory, perhaps the most comprehensive till date, of the major process-industry accidents involving 'domino effect'. The inventory includes, among other relevant information, the sequence of accidents that had occurred in each domino episode. The information has been analyzed to identify several patterns which may be useful in further work on understanding domino effect and reducing the probability of its occurrence in future. A concept of 'local domino effect' has been introduced  

Abstract Inorganic NiTiO3 nano-pigments have received recent attentions as possible candidates for cool pigment materials to be used in building roofs and facades. In this paper, we have attempted to develop an innovative low temperature (50 °C) synthesis pathway for obtaining NiTiO3 nanocrystals based on an ultrasound-assisted wet chemical processing method. The crystallite size, average particle size and band gap are found to be 11 nm, in the range of 10-20 nm and 3.72 eV, respectively. Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) reflectance spectra show that NiTiO3 nanoparticles have a high reflection peak at ∼580 nm, which is associated with the brilliant yellow color... 

A new methodology is presented with which the likely impact of accident in one process unit of an industry on other process units can be forecast and assessed. The methodology is based on Monte Carlo Simulation and overcomes the limitations of analytical methods, used hitherto, which were inherently limited in their ability to handle the uncertainty and the complexity associated with domino effect phenomena. The methodology has been validated and its applicability has been demonstrated with two case studies  

ABSTRACT: Pyrolysis, so-called devolatilization, is one of the first steps of all thermochemical processes occurring in an inert atmosphere. The authors discuss the main kinetic features of heavy oil pyrolysis, on the basis of the data derived m from a TGA analysis and by using a kinetic model. The samples were heated over a range of temperature from 400 K to 430°C at various heating rates between 10 and 80°C/min. Experimental results showed that the effect of time is considerable in the case of tar conversion, compared to char and gases  

Different processes in chemical industries deal with particles and multiphase flow. In such processes, particle or bubble size distribution (PSD) influences the final product quality and also process design. On the other hand, solutions to the dominant hydrodynamic and thermo-kinetic equations ignoring these distributions will make it impossible to accurately simulate these processes. Solutions to population balance equations (PBE's) are needed to attain the PSD. One of the most common methods for the solution of a PBE is the classes method (CM). However, as this method requires a large number of classes to give a reasonable result, it needs a huge amount of calculations and time. To... 

A dynamical hybrid observer is proposed for online reconstruction of the active mode and continuous states of Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) processes as an integral part of a hybrid control system. A mode observer is designed for estimation of the active mode, and the continuous spatial profiles are estimated by a Distributed and Decentralized Switching Kalman Filter. The proposed hybrid observer has been applied, in silico, for a two-bed, six-step PSA process. The active mode of the process along with the continuous spatial profiles of its adsorption beds have been estimated quite accurately based on very limited number of noise corrupted temperature and pressure measurements. © 2017  

Microalgae as a candidate for production of biodiesel, possesses a hard cell wall that prevents intracellular lipids leaving out from the cells. Direct or in situ supercritical transesterification has the potential for destruction of microalgae hard cell wall and conversion of extracted lipids to biodiesel that consequently reduces the total energy consumption. Response surface methodology combined with central composite design was applied to investigate process parameters including: Temperature, Time, Methanol-to-dry algae, Hexane-to-dry algae, and Moisture content. Thirty-two experiments were designed and performed in a batch reactor, and biodiesel efficiency between 0.44% and 99.32% was... 

Tar formation and CO2 emission represent the strongest barrier for use of gasification technology for biomass conversion, whereas sufficing for both is only possible with expensive physical methods and further chemical processing. The use of CaO as a CO2 sorbent within an advanced high-temperature gasification system is able to achieve efficient cracking of the tars to the primary syngas with low emissions. The present work aims to propose a semi-kinetic model on the basis of an Aspen Plus model to describe specific catalytic behavior of calcium oxide on the gasification of rice husk. There has also been an attempt to validate the developed model by means of an experimental study and explore... 

An efficient dye decolorization platform was developed through one-step hydrothermally route based on magnetic polymeric resin and employed in aqueous crystal violet (CV) adsorption. The polymer nanohybrid composed of ZnFe2O4 and hydroxybenzoic acid–resorcinol resin as metal and organic fragment, respectively. Several techniques such as X-ray diffraction, N2 – adsorption desorption, vibration sample magnetometer, field emission scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were employed for characterization of as-prepared nanohybrid. CV adsorption showed low equilibrium time within 10 min with the adsorption capacity of 83.3 mg g–1. Regeneration of the sorbent... 

In this paper, a new approach is presented for optimal control of large-scale chemical processes. In this approach, the chemical process is decomposed into smaller sub-systems at the first level, and a coordinator at the second level, for which a two-level hierarchical control strategy is designed. For this purpose, each sub-system in the first level can be solved separately, by using any conventional optimization algorithm. In the second level, the solutions obtained from the first level are coordinated using a new gradient-type strategy, which is updated by the error of the coordination vector. The proposed algorithm is used to solve the optimal control problem of a complex nonlinear... 

Synthesis of the optimum conventional (with non-sharp separations) distillation column sequence (DCS) is a challenging problem, in the field of chemical process design and optimization, due to its huge search space and combinatorial nature. In this paper, a novel procedure for the synthesis of optimum Conventional Distillation Column Sequence is proposed. The proposed method is based on evolutionary algorithms. The main criterion used to screen alternative DCS's is the Total Annual Cost (TAC). In order to estimate the TAC of each DCS alternative all columns that exist in the DCS are designed using short-cut methods. The performance of the proposed method and other alternatives are compared... 

Fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) as a robust and intelligent nonlinear control technique is proposed to control processes with severe nonlinearity and unknown models. The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated for both single input single output (SISO) and MIMO nonlinear systems through its application in three severely nonlinear processes that are frequently used as benchmarks of nonlinear process control strategies. The evaluation shows that, despite its lack of dependence on the process model, the proposed method performs almost the same as conventional sliding mode control alternatives that utilize all the information that exists in the mathematical model of the process.... 

In this paper, ultra-small CuO nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized through a mechanochemical method using two different Cu-containing precursors (i.e. CuSO4·5H2O and CuCl2·2H2O), and their structure and antibacterial activity were studied. From the microstructural studies, it was observed that CuO NPs have a spherical morphology and a narrow size distribution with 7 and 14 nm median particle sizes for CuCl2·2H2O and CuSO4.5H2O precursors, respectively. The CuCl2·2H2O derived nanoparticles showed more antibacterial activity than CuSO4.5H2O derived nanoparticles. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the synthesized nanoparticles (derived from both precursors) against E. coli and...