Sharif Digital Repository

In this research performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) in continuous flow mode was studied. Different anodic chambers were tested and it was found that granular activated carbons (GACs) produced the highest power density (1228 mW/m3) in comparison with multiple anodes (731 mW/m3), single anode (294 mW/m3) and polymeric packings (40 mW/m3). It was also shown that in a plug-anodic chamber (PAC) the power output is reduced by reducing agitation of anodic volume. Adding more GACs to anodic chamber results in power increase, however by increasing occupied volume from 80% to 100% the power increase was negligible in result of cathodic reactions limitations. Feed flowrate was increased from... 

The petroleum industry is one of the technological applications which more platinum-group metals (PGM) employs. Therefore, the recovery of the PGMs from the waste catalysts of petroleum industry could be an important source to obtain these precious metals, with economic and environmental consequences.
In this work, the recovery of platinum and palladium from petroleum catalysts has been studied using waste RG-582 and LD-265 catalysts. Both catalyst were characterized through XRF, XRD and AAS. Aqua regia used as a leaching agent and The effect of dissolution temperature and time, liquid/ solid ratio (L/S), size of particles and elimination of coke was investigated. Under optimized... 

Activated Carbon as a highly efficient and low price absorbent has manifold functions in separation and absorption processes in liquid or gas phases. These applications in liquid phase include bleaching in sugar syrup, water and wastewater treatment and in gas phase utilizing them in gas masks and solvent recycling process. Wide variety of base materials could be used to produce activated carbon. For instance rare cellulose materials -wood, coconut shell, Pyrenees and agricultural wastes-, carbon materials-coal, petroleum coke, tar- and polymer materials- tires and plastics wastes- could be mentioned. In this thesis, feasibility of producing activated carbon based on using walnut, almond... 

Cane sugar impurities cause reduse production sugar in cane sugar industry.These impurities include polysaccharide for example starch, dextran and inorganic ash constituent such as potassium, sodium calcium magnesium and silica .The amount of impurities in the cane sugar depend on many factors including variety , grooving conditions and regional climate. Removal of impurities from cane sugar juice by clarification is an essential part of process of raw sugar manufacture. This process is based on the addition of lime, phosphates and polyelectrolyte. In this study effect of the amount of lime, phosphates and poly electrolyte on removal of various impurities has been investigated.In addition... 

Nowadays, increased pollutants in the air threat the society health condition and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are the most hazardous ones among them. In the present study, catalytic oxidation as a prominent of the VOCs removal method from air, have attracted attentions due to high removal efficiency and suitable kinetic reaction. Because of its common industrial applications, toluene is intended to be eliminated through a low cost carbon supported catalyst which is synthesised in the laboratory. Construction method, carbonaceous support type, catalyst metal and its load, calcination temperature and time are among influencing design characteristics. A combination of Impregnation and... 

Pure NanoParticles of TiO2 and Nanocomposite catalysts of TiO2 , activated carbon (TiO2/AC) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (TiO2/MWCNT) were prepared by a sol –Gel method using TetraisoPropylorthotitanat (Tipt) as a precursor. The catalysts were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance uv-vis spectroscopy (DRS) and N2 adsorption – desorption measurements. The photoactivity of samples was evaluated by Acid Blue 92 (AB 92) degradation. The analysis results show that compared with pure Nanoparticles of TiO2, the spherical – shaped TiO2 particles are well – dispersed in TiO2/AC. In TiO2/MWCNT, the coating has special mechanism that... 

CO2 as a green house gas plays a significant role in the global warming and weather changes. Absorption by means of amine solutions is the main industrial technique for separating of CO2 from gas mixtures. Hazards associated with high temperature during solvent recovery, large size of equipment, corrosion, solvent degradation, and other reasons has made researchers to look for alternative processes such as adsorption. The aim of this study was to synthesis and modify the nano adsorbent for CO2 capture. To fulfill this purpose, various nano silica structures were synthesized and the amount of adsorption of each sample was determined. To investigate the performance capability nano_adsorbents,... 

One of the methods for adsorption of natural gas that has economical, operational and environmental preferences as an alternative energy source is storage as an adsorbed phase in porous material. ANG is superior to CNG and LNG technologies in terms of economy and safety. Carbonaceous nanostructures with pore diameter of 0.8-1.4 nm can be proper adsorbents for methane adsorption. In this work, cellulose and lignin which form lignocellulosic material’s structure, has been used as precursor for producing activated carbon. The activated carbon prepared has been used as adsorbent for adsorption of methane. The use of hydrothermal pretreatment followed by carbonization and chemical activation is... 

In the present thesis, the adsorption ability of the functionalized magnetic nano-particles supported on the walnut and almond based activated carbons was evaluated to prepare the efficient and low cost adsorbents for removal of Pb(II), Cr(VI) and Hg(II) ions aqueous solutions in the presence of salinity. The activated carbons were derived from almond and walnut shell by the physical activation method. The functionalized nano-magnetic activated carbons were synthesized by co-precipitation consisting of AC(almond)@Fe3O4@SiO2-NH2-COOH and AC(walnut)@Fe3O4-NH2-COOH which were modified by the oxygen containing functional groups to enhance the adsorption capacity. The prepared carbonaceous... 

Heavy metals such as lead, chromium, nickel are considered as environmental pollutants. These substances are highly toxic and dangerous to humans and other organisms at low concentrations and many problems are caused by them. Chromium belongs to the group of heavy and toxic metals. Form 6-valent chromium for humans is considered a definite carcinogen and also creates other problems. One common method of chromium removal is chemical precipitation which caused a large volume of waste. Other methods such as ion exchange, solvent extraction, reverse osmosis and biological methods are used to remove chromium. Adsorption is another effective method with very few disadvantages compared to other... 

The increasing utilization of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) in industrial and consumer products has raised concern to wastewater treatment utilities, due to its antimicrobial activity. In this research, recovery of silver nanoparticles from wastewater via using activated carbon and convert it into usable nanoparticles is presented. real waste of silver nanoparticles have been used and activated carbon as adsorbent has a high absorption recovery for silver. Under the optimized experimental parameters e.g. pH, temperature, time of process, and amount of activated carbon, an absorption maximum was achieved and over than 99% of silver nanoparticles can be removed from wastewater. After the... 

During fuel combustion, aromatic sulfur compounds in energy fuels convert into sulfur oxides, which cause major environmental problems such as acidic rain, global warming, and air pollution. Absorption desulfurization is one of the promising and economical methods to remove these sulfur compounds from fuels. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of nanoporous materials that are of interest for use as adsorbents due to their high specific surface area, unique surface adsorption properties, high adsorption capacity, tunable porosity, flexible dynamic behavior, and diversity in functional and metal groups. In this research, we first synthesized five metal-organic frameworks, namely... 

In this thesis was investigated the effect of solid retention time (SRT), Hydraulic retention time (HRT), activated carbon and suspended carrier on styrene and ethylbenzene biological removal and also on membrane fouling. In addition to the typical analysis (COD, MLSS, MLVSS, and SVI), the flocculation ability, sludge particle size distribution (PSD), FTIR analysis, excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy, soluble microbial product (SMP), extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), microscopic observations, microbial activities, microorganism population, and filamentous bacteria are considered to determine sludge characteristics. This study was done in five sections: in the... 

The progress and the development of various industries, pollutants derived from the agricultural and industrial processes contaminate the environment. The degradation of these pollutants have an important effect on the environment.Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles and magnetite supported on functionalized activated carbon were synthesized and characterized by different techniques such as SEM, FT-IR, XRD, BET and VSM. The catalyst activity of these nanocatalysts was evaluated by the degradation of reactive red ME4BL (RRME4BL) textile dye in heterogeneous Fenton and electro-Fenton processes as a model pollutant. The effect of several parameters such as H2O2, RRME4BL concentration, the amount of...