The Siebel Institute of Technology is a for-profit, unaccredited vocational college located on Goose Island in Chicago that focuses on brewing science. The school is the oldest brewing school located in the United States and has been in operation since its founding in 1868 by German immigrant chemist John Ewald Siebel (1845-1919). Prior to immigrating to the United States in 1866, Siebel earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Berlin Originally named the Zymotechnic Institute, the school was renamed after its founder in 1872. During Prohibition, the institute diversified by adding courses in baking, refrigeration, engineering, milling, carbonated beverages and related topics; after the repeal of Prohibition, courses not concerned with brewing were discontinued.In 2013 the institute was moved to the Kendall College’s building.There are satellite campuses in Munich, Germany and Montreal, Quebec, Canada..
Microwave absorption materials with wide effective absorption bandwidth are highly desired in mitigating electromagnetic radiation in natural environment, where such radiation often exhibits broad frequency distribution and high intensity. In this work, we developed a novel non-magnetic nanomaterial design by synthesizing Co2C nanoparticles and uniformly embedding them into a hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC)/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composite aerogel via freeze-drying-assisted self-assembly followed by mild annealing. The HEC/rGO/ Co2C-2 aerogel with optimized compositions shows exceptional microwave absorption performance with a minimum reflection loss value of-59.15 dB and a maximum effective absorption bandwidth of 7.44 GHz. Mechanism investigations indicated that multiple attenuation pathways brought by Co2C and superior impedance matching facilitated by 3D porous structure, enable strong absorption behaviors spanning beyond the Ku band. This composite aerogel holds significant promise for electromagnetic radiation protection in increasingly complicated natural environments.
The development of an integrated air cathode is fundamental to flexible zinc-air batteries (ZABs) for wearable electronics. Nevertheless, its sluggish kinetics and multiple complex steps in electrochemical reaction make it necessary to persue highly active and durable electrocatalysts to meet practical application requirements. A simple one-pot hydrothermal strategy is proposed to prepare a cobalt and ruthenium dual-doped MoS2 (Co,Ru/ MoS2) supported by nitrogen-doped carbon foam (NCF) catalyst for use as the air cathode in flexible ZABs. The resulting catalyst features abundant catalytic active sites and an oriented structure, demonstrating excellent OER and ORR catalytic activity. The Co,Ru/MoS2@NCF exhibits an excellent overpotential of 1.57 V at 10 mA cm-2 in OER, half wave potential of 0.75 V in ORR, along with outstanding long-term cycling stability both in OER and ORR under alkaline environments. The flexible ZABs based on Co,Ru/MoS2@NCF catalyst achieved a large open-circuit voltage (1.32 V) as well as peak power density (36 mW cm-2), outperforming Ru/MoS2@NCF and Co/ MoS2@NCF in performance. Meanwhile, the flexible ZABs maintained stability even after over 1000 charge-discharge cycles (335 h). This achievement provides new insights for the development of flexible metal-air batteries.
The present research addresses key barriers in converting high-FFA, non-edible oils like neem into biodiesel, mainly low yields and process inefficiency using conventional catalysts and heating methods. Study reports a novel approach utilizing a graphene oxide based heterogeneous catalyst (KOH@GO), synthesised by a modified Hummer’s method, for the production of biodiesel from non-edible neem oil. For efficient transesterification, initially, the high free fatty acid (FFA) content of neem oil was reduced via esterification to lower its acid value. Subsequently, a microwave- assisted transesterification was adopted to enhance reaction kinetics and energy efficiency. Significant reaction parameters including methanol-to-oil molar ratio, reaction time, catalyst loading, and temperature, were systematically optimized to study their effects on production efficiency. This innovation enables efficient, high-yield biodiesel production while enhancing catalyst reusability and reducing energy input, thus offering a scalable and sustainable alternative for biodiesel production from challenging feedstocks.
The rapid increase in excess sludge generation poses significant challenges to conventional treatment methods, which often focus on volume reduction but overlook biomass minimization and resource recovery. This article presents a comprehensive review of recent advances in sludge disintegration and resource recovery technologies, with particular emphasis on ultrasound-based in-situ sludge reduction and resource recovery methods, summarizing their current progress and limitations while exploring underlying mechanisms, recovery pathways, and comparative evaluations. Building on ultrasound-based techniques advantages, an integrated process combining medium-intensity ultrasound with nanobubbles, high-intensity ultrasound, and low-frequency pulsed microcurrent has been developed, offering a novel pathway that simultaneously achieves sludge minimization and efficient resource recovery. The integrated process achieves around 50 % in-situ sludge reduction and 70 % disintegration efficiency, enabling similar to 90 % nitrogen and phosphorus recovery and 90 % denitrification efficiency. Life cycle and techno-economic analyses suggest disposal cost savings of 60 %-70 % and greenhouse gas emission reductions of 50 %-60 %. The synergy of comprehensive literature synthesis and experimental validation highlights the potential of this technology as a sustainable solution for achieving near-zero sludge discharge, aligned with low-carbon and circular economy goals, and providing valuable insights for future wastewater treatment innovation.
During sunflower harvesting, the pneumatic conveying process often suffers from insufficient conveying velocity, pipeline blockage, and kernel breakage, which significantly reduce harvesting efficiency and seed quality. To achieve efficient and stable conveying, this study systematically investigated the pneumatic conveying system integrated into sunflower combine harvesters and clarified its operating mechanism. The kinematic and dynamic behaviors of sunflower seeds during the lifting and conveying processes were analyzed, and the coupling relationships between key structural parameters and conveying performance were comprehensively examined. Based on the CFD-DEM coupling approach, a gas-solid two-phase flow simulation model was established to analyze the effects of key factors, including airflow velocity, bend ratio, and inlet width, on the internal flow field characteristics and particle trajectories. The study systematically quantified the impact of these key parameters on conveying performance using velocity conversion rate as the evaluation metric, and conducted a three-factor, three-level response surface optimization study based on Box-Behnken design. The optimal combination of parameters was determined to be an airflow velocity of 52 m/s, an inlet width of 73 mm, and a bend ratio of 1.7, corresponding to a velocity conversion rate of 9.69 %. Bench-scale validation tests under these conditions confirmed that the optimized system operated stably and achieved a 37.95 % improvement in velocity conversion rate compared with the original configuration. These results verify the accuracy and reliability of the simulation model and elucidate the influence of key parameters on conveying performance. This study provides both theoretical and technical support for the structural optimization and parameter configuration of pneumatic conveying systems in sunflower combine harvesters, offering practical guidance for enhancing overall harvesting efficiency.
