Catalytic microwave-assisted pyrolysis of biomass is gaining popularity as an alternative to fossil fuels due to health, environmental, climate, and economic issues. This study conducted a catalytic pyrolysis process of the Albizia plant's branches using an Iraqi clay catalyst (bentonite) focusing on the variables including the biomass-particle size, experimental time, microwave power level, and the catalyst-to-biomass ratio. The physical and chemical properties of the resulting biofuel were analyzed presented by HHV, acidity, density, viscosity, GC-MS, FTIR for bio-oil and SEM, EDX, BET, HHV, FTIR for biochar. The study revealed that addition of bentonite as a catalyst led to enhanced production of biogas produced from 5% to 45% and decreased the power level used from 700 W to 450 W. Also, it raised the production of bio-oil generated with less power level and duration time. The addition of catalyst also affected the characteristics of bio-oil produced such as reducing the acidity by increasing its pH from 5 to 5.7, lowering the viscosity from 4.8 to 3.3 cSt, and the density from 1045 to 1039.2 kg/m3. Adding catalyst increased the percentage of aromatic and alcoholic substances in the bio-oil which led to improve the calorific value from 19.5 to 23 MJ/kg. Additionally, the biochar properties also improved, where the surface area and pore volume increased from 0.5512 to 40.384 m2/g and 0.00011 to 0.0361cm3/g respectively. The higher heating value was raised from 23.5 to 25 MJ/kg also. CH4 is also increased from 3.6 to 8.6% which is one of the essential fuel gasses.
In this research, a variable stiffness actuator is proposed to enhance the damping of the mechanical vibrating system. The frequency response analysis of the vibrating system is dependant in order to analyze and synthesis this semi-active damping, where the suggested process is using active filter to estimate the present frequency of the vibration system, and this will limit the value of the stiffness of the vibrated system. Two active filter s are needed, low-pass-filter (LPF) to choose the higher stiffness of the actuator at small frequencies as well as more damping and high-pass-filter (HPF) to choose the lower stiffness of the actuator at high frequencies as well as more damping, and so
... Show MoreRoot research requires high throughput phenotyping methods that provide meaningful information on root depth if the full potential of the genomic revolution is to be translated into strategies that maximise the capture of water deep in soils by crops. A very simple, low cost method of assessing root depth of seedlings using a layer of herbicide (
Coal fines are highly prone to be generated in all stages of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) production and development. These detached fines tend to aggregate, contributing to pore throat blockage and permeability reduction. Thus, this work explores the dispersion stability of coal fines in CSG reservoirs and proposes a new additive to be used in the formulation of the hydraulic fracturing fluid to keep the fines dispersed in the fluid. In this work, bituminous coal fines were tested in various suspensions in order to study their dispersion stability. The aggregation behavior of coal fines (dispersed phase) was analyzed in different dispersion mediums, including deionized-water, low and high sodium chloride solutions. Furthermore, the effect of Sodium
... Show MoreSuicidal ideation is one of the most severe mental health issues faced by people all over the world. There are various risk factors involved that can lead to suicide. The most common & critical risk factors among them are depression, anxiety, social isolation and hopelessness. Early detection of these risk factors can help in preventing or reducing the number of suicides. Online social networking platforms like Twitter, Redditt and Facebook are becoming a new way for the people to express themselves freely without worrying about social stigma. This paper presents a methodology and experimentation using social media as a tool to analyse the suicidal ideation in a better way, thus helping in preventing the chances of being the victim o
... Show MoreElemental capture spectroscopy (ECS) is an important tool in the petroleum industry for determining the composition and properties of rock formations in a reservoir. Knowledge of the types and abundance of different minerals in the reservoir is crucial for accurate petrophysical interpretation, reservoir engineering practices, and stratigraphic correlation. ECS measures the elemental content of the rock, which directly impacts several physical properties that are essential for reservoir characterization, such as porosity, fluid saturation, permeability, and matrix density. The ability to accurately determine these properties leads to better reservoir mapping, improved production, and more effective resource management. Accurately determi
... Show MoreModified asphalt is considered one of the alternatives to address the problems of deficiencies in traditional asphalt concrete, as modified asphalt addresses many of the issues that appear on the pavement layers in asphalt concrete, resulting from heavy traffic and vehicles loaded with loads that exceed the design loads and the large fluctuations in the daily and seasonal temperatures of asphalt concrete. The current study examined the role of polyphosphoric acid (PPA) as a modified material for virgin asphalt when it was added in different proportions (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%) of the asphalt weight. The experimental program includes the volumetric characteristics associated with the Marshall test, the physical properties, and th
... Show MoreIn cognitive radio system, the spectrum sensing has a major challenge in needing a sensing method, which has a high detection capability with reduced complexity. In this paper, a low-cost hybrid spectrum sensing method with an optimized detection performance based on energy and cyclostationary detectors is proposed. The method is designed such that at high signal-to-noise ratio SNR values, energy detector is used alone to perform the detection. At low SNR values, cyclostationary detector with reduced complexity may be employed to support the accurate detection. The complexity reduction is done in two ways: through reducing the number of sensing samples used in the autocorrelation process in the time domain and through using the Slid
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