The wastewater treatment industry is increasingly focusing on the development of new coagulants and new flocculants in order to enhance the efficiency of the process and reduce operational costs. This paper presents the design of a flocculation-thickening test bench for laboratory operations, with a focus on the use of Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) in the design process and systems modeling language (SysML) via the CESAM modeling and architecting framework. The test bench is designed to simulate different operational conditions, allowing for the study of the effect of parameters on the thickening process. The approach provides a comprehensive overview of the entire system and allows for easier communication between stakeholders. The test bench represents a significant contribution to the field of wastewater treatment and provides a valuable platform for research and education. The study aims to design a robust, efficient, and user-friendly system and to demonstrate the benefits of using MBSE in the design process.

Automation in flotation cells has become an increasingly popular topic in the mineral processing industry due to its ability to increase efficiency and reduce operational costs. This paper discusses the design and implementation of an automated flotation cell system for a mineral processing plant. The system utilizes advanced control algorithms and sensors to optimize the flotation process, resulting in improved product quality and reduced energy consumption. This manuscript outlines the first stage in the creation and development of an automated flotation cell for use in educational and research settings, using model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and systems modeling language (SysML) via the CESAM modeling and architecting framework. Our case study employs this method to construct and demonstrate an operational perspective layout of the flotation cell's initial design phase. Moreover, the potential for the automation of flotation cells is highlighted as a promising avenue for improving sustainability and revolutionizing the mineral processing industry.

A series of magnesium phosphate samples modified by incorporation of aluminium, denoted MgAlP-x (where x indicates the Al molar ratio%; x = 0; 10; 20; 40%), have been prepared by coprecipitation method followed by characterization. Their structures have been investigated by using powder X-ray diffraction, the surface area by physisorption of nitrogen (BET), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) were used to characterize the functional groups of solids and MAS–NMR spectroscopy. X-ray diffractograms for synthesized materials suggest the formation of mixed solids, such as Mg3(PO4)2, AlPO4 and Al2O3. Incorporation of aluminium into magnesium orthophosphate increased the temperature of crystallization, so that MgAlP-x systems retained amorphous up to 973 K. The specific surface area increases with aluminium content. 31P MAS–NMR spectra of calcined MgP shows a single peak at δ = +0.4 ppm and two overlapped signals for calcined MgAlP-x (x = 20 and 40%). But the dry solids present more than a single peak. The varying values of chemical shifts are due to the existence of different types of 31P structural configurations and oxygen environment. 27Al MAS-NMR spectra of sample exhibit two peaks, which were characteristic of the octahedral and tetrahedral environments of Al3+ ions. It was observed that the incorporation of Al in MgP material decreases the patent blue V (PB) photodegradation. The highest dye degradation was obtained over the MgP catalyst (without Al). No correlation between the adsorption before UV irradiation and the rate of photodegradation.

The development of phase change materials (PCM) for thermal energy storage is a promising technology. However, the liquid PCM leaks and low thermal conductivity limit the practical PCM applications. This article aims to solve these problems; it presents the preparation and thermal characterisation of PCM enhanced by carbon-based nanoparticles. The polyethene glycol 6000 (PEG 6000) is used as PCM and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as a shell matrix and thermal conductivity enhancer. The sample was prepared by the sonification method under vacuum conditions. Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) tested the chemical and thermal compatibility of the prepared samples. The storage performances are tested by modulated differential scanning calorimetry characterisation. The nano-enhanced-PCM (NPCM) with 1 wt% MWCNTs showed excellent shape stability without any liquid leakage when the temperature was about 110 degrees C for 30 minutes. Drying method has a significant effect on the thermal storage capacity of the NPCM. The melting, solidification points and the latent heats of the NPCM were measured as 61.75, 35.50 degrees C, and 174.24, 167.84 J g(-1), respectively. Meanwhile, the specific heat is 2.63 J g(-1)degrees C-1 for the solid-state and 2.14 J g(-1)degrees C-1 for the liquid-state. The thermal conductivity of pristine PEG was improved by 49%.

Hereby, we are describing the synthesis and characterisation concerning acid-basic properties of catalysts containing varied amounts of NiMo (2-14 wt % of NiMoO4) worn on copper orthophosphate whose preparation was executed employing a Co-precipitation method, to which we introduced the Nickel Molybdenum by impregnation with a porous volume at several stages, succeeded by calcination under air at a different temperature. The employed techniques for solid characterisation were XRD to identify different phases, Nitrogen adsorption at -196 degrees C. and catalytic conversion of isopropanol at different temperatures reaction ranging from 180 to 400 degrees C. The outcome revealed that the solids NiMo/CuP mainly consisted of copper phosphate Cu-3(PO4)(2) together with NiMoO4 as minor phase. The NiMoO4 crystallinity's degree increases by increasing Nickel Molybdenum. It was discovered that the specific area (S-BET) of the studied system will slightly increase by the increase in NiMoO4 content. The catalytic activity in isopropanol conversion which proceeds via dehydration yielding propene increases as a function of the extent of loading.

The catalytic performance of Fe supported on nickel phosphate (NiP) was evaluated for the removal of bisphenol A (BPA) by catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) at 140 °C and 25 bar of pure oxygen pressure. The prepared NiP and Fe/NiP materials were fully characterized by XRD, N2-physisorption, H2-TPR, TEM, and ICP analysis. Iron (Fe/NiP) impregnation of NiP support enhanced the BPA removal efficiency from 37.0 to 99.6% when CWAO was performed. This catalyst was highly stable given the operating conditions of acidic medium, high temperature, and high pressure. The Fe/NiP catalyst showed an outstanding catalytic activity for oxidation of BPA, achieving almost complete removal of BPA in 180 min at a concentration of 300 mg/L, using 4 g/L of Fe/NiP. No iron leaching was detected after the CWAO of BPA. The stability of Fe/NiP was performed over three consecutive cycles, noting that BPA conversion was not affected and iron leaching was negligible. Therefore, this catalyst (Fe/NiP) could be considered as an innocuous and effective long-lasting catalyst for the oxidation of harmful organic molecules.

Passive latent energy storage technologies with Phase Change Materials (PCM) provide a potential solution to reduce energy demand and regulate thermal comfort in occupied buildings. However, leakage of liquid PCM and low thermal conductivity limit the PCM building applications. In this context, the objective of this study is to develop a new shape stable PCM enhanced by carbon-based nanoparticles. The paraffin, Low-Density Polythene (LDPE) and Multi-Walled Carbon Nano-Tube (MWCNT) are used as PCM, supporting matrix and thermal conductivity enhancer, respectively. The PCM composites with different ratios were prepared by melt blending method, using a parallel co-rotating twin-screw micro-extruder. A series of experimental tests were achieved. Thermophysical and chemical analyses (Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (MDSC), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), thermal conductivity, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)) were carried out to characterize the raw materials and the prepared PCM composites, to optimize the energetic and phenomenological behaviors of samples. The results indicate a good chemical and physical compatibility of the prepared samples. Besides, the LDPE maintains the molten paraffin in compact shape during the solid-liquid transition. Thus, paraffin-LDPE-MWCNT with 70-29-1 wt.% exhibit the best thermal properties with a latent heat of 93 J/g. 1 wt.% of MWCNT improves the thermal conductivity of paraffin- LDPE by 28%. The results of this study demonstrate a significant potential of the prepared shape stable PCM to improve the thermal inertia of construction materials and thermal comfort inside buildings.

Sulfuric acid is the largest volume chemical currently produced in the world. Is manufactured by the contact process, it involves three stages: combustion, conversion and absorption. The SO 2 conversion reaction is the key step in the process, it uses catalysis. The objective of this work is to synthesize a series of mixed vanadium oxides X% / MO 2 with M (Si, Al and Ti) by sol-gel process followed by calcination at 400 ° C, in order to study their reactivity in the catalytic oxidation of SO 2 to SO 3 . Characterization of those materials was carried out by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis (TDA/TGA) and N 2 adsorption at 77 K. Their acid-base properties are studied by the decomposition reaction of isopropanol (propan-2-ol). In this work, we have studied the reactivity of the catalysts prepared in the conversion of SO 2 to SO 3 by an iodometric as dosage which consists in assaying the iode with sodium thiosulfate.

Synthesis of a pure copper orthophosphate ( CuP ) prepared by Coprecipitation, and CuP modified by impregnation of NiMo (2-14 wt % of Ni-Mo oxide) have been carried out. The solids obtained were investigated as synthesized or after calcination by various physico-chemical techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Infrared Spectroscopy (IR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential thermal analysis (DTA). The results revealed that the solids NiMo/CuP consisted of copper orthophosphate Cu 3 (PO 4 ) 2 as major phases, together with NiMoO 4 as minor phase. The diffraction lines of NiMoO 4 increase by increasing the nickel-molybdenum content.

Thermal energy storage technology with Phase Change Materials (PCM) is an attractive option to optimise energy resources and to recover and promote excess heat. The phase change behaviour of PCM requires advanced research to understand and better control the thermal energy storage using PCM, which is a crucial step to develop a powerful latent storage system. This paper aims to analyse the multiphysics phenomena of three regenerator configurations, horizontal case and two injection direction of Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF): top and bottom in vertical case. The study is done for the charge and discharge cycles of the solid-solid and solid-liquid phase transitions of PCM. First, the temperature dependence of the thermal and physical properties of paraffin as PCM is characterised. Second, an experimental study of an annular latent storage system was carried out. Also, an experimental mesh method was introduced to compare the energy behaviour of the three cases. Third, a numerical analysis of the experimental storage unit with low thermal diffusion is performed. The experimental results are confronted with the numerical results obtained with ANSYS Fluent and COMSOL Multiphysics commercial software. Last, the three configurations are compared to a reference case without gravitational field. The results show that specific mechanisms control the thermal and energetic behaviour of the regenerator. Furthermore, several parameters, such as storage density, distribution of energy storage rate in the different regenerator components (PCM, HTF, and heat exchanger), were analysed. Altogether, the results supply important information to understand the dynamics of passive storage systems.

This paper investigated the thermal behavior of biomass, coal, municipal solid waste (MSW) and their 50/50 in weight % mixtures using thermogravimetric analysis. The thermo-kinetic behavior was modeled using Coats and Redfern method. In fact, this work presented a complementary study between single and multiple steps process to determine the activation energy (Ea). Thus, Ea values were in average 21, 18 and 40 kJ/mol for biomass, coal and MSW respectively and showed a significant synergism effect between experimental and theoretical data.

Investigation of thermal behaviors of biomass waste, biochar, coal, municipal solid waste (MSW) and their mixtures were aimed in the present study using both thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimeter techniques. In fact, this paper intends to interpret the influence of mixtures on activation energy. In this purpose, Coats and Redfern were used. Then, the relative error Δmerror was calculated to quantify the synergism degree. Precisely, it was about 5.34% for biomass/coal, 5.52% for biomass/cardboard, 5.67% for biomass/biochar, 5.93% for biomass/synthetic rubber and 6.05% for biomass/plastic mixtures. This phenomenon was justified by the interaction between C-C bond of biochar, coal and MSW radicals with C-H and C-O bonds of biomass.

The higher heating value (HHV) is a significant parameter for the determination of fuel quality. However, its measurement is time-consuming and requires sophisticated equipment. For this reason, several researches have been interested to develop mathematical models for the prediction of HHV from fundamental composition. The purpose of this study is to develop new correlations to determine the biomass HHV from ultimate analysis. As a result, two models were elaborated. The first was developed using multiple variable regression analysis while the second has adopted genetic programming formalism. Data of 171 from various types of biomass samples were randomly used for the development (75%) and the validation (25%) of new equations. The accuracy of the established models was compared to previous literature works in terms of correlation coefficient (CC), average absolute error (AAE), and average bias error (ABE). The proposed models were more performing with the highest CC and the smallest errors.

In this work, TiO2 supported on bovine bone powder by-product (BBP) was used as photo-catalyst for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye in aqueous solutions under UV-irradiation. The main parameters which govern the photo-catalytic treatment efficiency, such as pH, weight of catalyst added to solution, UV-irradiation period, initial concentration of MB and presence of ethanol have been investigated. The new product, BBP-Ti11%, exhibited a good behavior towards the photochemical degradation of methylene blue mainly in basic medium. Photo-degradation performance is inversely proportional to the initial dye concentration. The photo-degradation kinetics of MB is satisfactorily described by the pseudo-first order reaction kinetic model. On the other hand, photo-degradation experiments carried out under UV-irradiation in the presence of ethanol show a decrease of the photo-catalytic activity of the prepared catalyst. This confirm that the discoloration process is mainly done by the action of free radicals OH• generated on the surface of BBP-Ti 11%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that describes the use of bovine bone powder by-product as support of TiO2 for the photochemical oxidation of organic dyes.

In this paper, a novel structured carbon foam has been prepared from argan nut shell (ANS) was developed and applied in bisphenol A (BPA) removal from water. The results showed that the prepared carbon foam remove 93% of BPA (60 mg/L). The BPA equilibrium data obeyed the Liu isotherm, displaying a maximum uptake capacity of 323.0 mg/g at 20 °C. The calculated free enthalpy change ( ∆H ° = − 4.8 kJ/mol) indicated the existence of physical adsorption between BPA and carbon foam. Avrami kinetic model was able to explain the experimental results. From the regeneration tests, we conclude that the prepared carbon foam has a good potential to be used as an economic and efficient adsorbent for BPA removal from contaminated water. Based on these results and the fact that the developed structured carbon foam is very easy to separate from treated water, it can serve as an interesting material for real water treatment applications.

Porous carbon from Laminaria digitata algae activated using NaOH (PCLD@NaOH) was prepared by a chemical activation approach and has been tested for the adsorption of ketoprofen and aspirin molecules. The prepared PCLD@NaOH was characterized using XPS, FTIR, Raman, N2-physisorption, SEM, acidic/basic character (Boehm), and pHPZC. The batch adsorption of ketoprofen and aspirin was investigated under different parameters. The adsorption kinetics on PCLD@NaOH were well described by the Avrami-fractional kinetic model and the equilibrium data by Liu isotherm model. The adsorption capacity of aspirin (970.88 mg g-1 at 25 °C) was higher than ketoprofen (443.45 mg g-1 at 25 °C). The thermodynamic values indicate that the adsorption of ketoprofen and aspirin is exothermic and spontaneous. These results were in good agreement with DFT calculation that shows that the aspirin molecule presents high reactivity, electrophilicity, and softness compared to the ketoprofen molecule. Finally, the response surface methodology was used to optimize the removal efficiency of ketoprofen and aspirin.

Algae Bifurcaria bifurcata (BB) was used to prepare carbonaceous material (CMBB@H2SO4). The prepared CMBB@H2SO4 was characterized using X-Ray diffraction, Nitrogen Physisorption, Fourier Transform Infrared, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Boehm titration method. The CMBB@H2SO4 was found to have a high surface area of 898.2 m(2) g(-1). The adsorption kinetics of aspirin on CMBB@H2SO4 followed the pseudo first order and Langmuir model at equilibrium with a high adsorption capacity 2633.04 mg/g. The regeneration of CMBB@H2SO4 was investigated and show a low decrease in the removal performance of CMBB@H2SO4. Finally, the effect of pH, adsorbent mass, and concentration of aspirin were assessed using response surface modeling, the predicted a maximum aspirin removal (98.30 +/- 6.57) under the optimum conditions, which was very close to the experimental value (99.16 +/- 5.34).

Dichloromethane (DCM) is a noxious chemical that is widely used in industry. The current work focuses on the catalytic abatement of DCM from industrial effluents to minimize its harmful effects to the environment and human wellbeing. Three transition metal oxide catalysts (V, Cu and Mn) supported on gamma-Al2O3 were synthetized for total oxidation of DCM in presence of steam. Thermodynamic modelling was used to reveal information related to the stability of the used transition metal oxides in the abatement conditions. The results showed that with 10 wt-% CuO and 10 wt-% V2O5 containing catalysts 100% conversion of DCM together with 90% HCl yield and insignificant by-product formation can be achieved at temperature around 500 degrees C. According to modelling, V2O5 should be stable at the conditions of DCM oxidation, while CuO would be more stable at higher temperature level (decomposition of CuCl2 starts at 300 degrees C). MnCl2 remains stable until 800 degrees C, which leads to deactivation of MnO2 catalyst. Presence of steam inhibits the poisoning of the materials by chlorine based on thermodynamic calculation. XRF analysis supports the results of thermodynamic modelling used MnO2 and CuO catalysts contain chlorine, which was not detected in case of V2O5/Al2O3. CuO/gamma-Al2O3 seems to be a good alternative to noble metal catalysts for the total oxidation of dichloromethane when used in the presence of steam and the temperatures above 300 degrees C to minimize Cl-poisoning. The outcomes of this study showed that the prepared metal oxides are promising catalysts to minimize pollution caused by chlorinated volatile organic compounds. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The study of the reaction of the conversion of isopropanol at atmospheric pressure and under inert gas was carried out on a series of vanadium catalysts and on a porous support activated carbon prepared from vegetable waste (dates). This reaction competitively produces acetone and propene; it is widely used as a test reaction to study acidic and basic sites. The decomposition of isopropanol occurs by two parallel reactions, the dehydration requires strong Bronsted acid sites giving olefin (propene) and the dehydrogenation is done either in basic sites or in a basic acid pair, either in a redox couple. All samples were characterized by different techniques: FT-IR, DRX, SEM-EDX, and SBET.

Hydrochar derived from Argan nut shell (ANS) was synthesized and applied to remove bisphenol A (BPA) and diuron. The results indicated that the hydrochar prepared at 200 °C (HTC@ANS-200) possessed a higher specific surface area (42 m 2 /g) than hydrochar (HTC@ANS-180) prepared at 180 °C (17 m 2 /g). The hydrochars exhibited spherical particles, which are rich in functional groups. The HTC@ANS-200 exhibited high adsorption efficiency, of about 92% of the BPA removal and 95% of diuron removal. The maximum Langmuir adsorption capacities of HTC@ANS-200 at room temperature were 1162.79 mg/for Bisphenol A and 833.33 mg/g for diuron (higher than most reported adsorbents). The adsorption process was spontaneous (− ΔG°) and exothermic (− ΔH°). Excellent reusability was reclaimed after five cycles, the removal efficiency showed a weak decrease of 4% for BPA and 1% for diuron. The analysis of Fourier transforms infrared spectrometry demonstrated that the aromatic C=C and OH played major roles in the adsorption mechanisms of BPA and diuron in this study. The high adsorption capacity was attributed to the beneficial porosity (The pore size of HTC@ANS-200 bigger than the size of BPA and diuron molecule) and surface functional groups. BPA and diuron adsorption occurred also via multiple adsorption mechanisms, including pore filling, π–π interactions, and hydrogen bonding interactions on HTC@ANS-200.