Production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.

       The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared  catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified c

An assembled pulsed Nd:YAG laser-robot system for spot welding similar and dissimilar metals is presented in this paper. The study evaluates the performance of this system through investigating the possibility and accuracy of executing laser spot welding of 0.2 mm in thickness stainless steel grade AISI302 to 0.5 mm in thickness low carbon steel grade AISI1008. The influence of laser beam parameters (peak power, pulse energy, pulse duration, repetition rate, and focal plane position on the final gained best results are evaluated. Enhancement of the experimental results was carried by a computational simulation using ANSYS FLUENT 6.3 package code.

The Indian costus plasma properties are investigated including electron temperature (Te), "electron density (ne)", "plasma frequency (fp)", " Debye sphere length", and amount of Debye(Nd),  using the spectrum of optical emission technique. There are several energies used, with ranging from 300 to 600 mJ. The Boltzmann Plot is used to calculate the temperature; where as Stark's Line Broadening is used to calculate the electron density. The Indian costus was spectroscopically examined in the air with the laser  at 10 cm away from the target and the optical fiber  at 0.5 cm away. The results were obtained for an electron temperature range of (1.8-2.2) electron volts (ev) and a wavelength range of (300-600) nm. The XRF analysis reveals th

Institutions and companies are looking to reduce spending on buildings and services according to scientific methods, provided they reach the same purpose but at a lower cost. On this basis, this paper proposes a model to measure and reduce maintenance costs in one of the public sector institutions in Iraq by using performance indicators that fit the nature of the work of this institution and the available data. The paper relied on studying the nature of the institution’s work in the maintenance field and looking at the type of data available to know the type and number of appropriate indicators to create the model. Maintenance data were collected for the previous six years by reviewing the maintenance and financial dep

      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

Array antennas have an interesting role in the radio astronomy field. The array antennas allow astronomers to obtain high-resolution signals with high sensitivity to weak signals. This paper estimates the meteors' positions entering the Earth's atmosphere and develops a simulation for array antenna radar to analyze the meteor's echoes. The GNU radio software was used to process the echoes, which is a free open-source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement in radio projects. Then, the simulation determines the azimuth and elevation of the meteors. An improved Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm has been suggested to analyze these echoes. The detected power of each meteor echo has

The performance of a batch undivided electrochemical reactor with a rotating cylinder electrode of woven-wire (60 mesh size), stainless steel 316, is examined for the removal of copper from synthetic solution of o.5 M sodium chloride containing 125 ppm at pH ≈ 3.5. The effect of total applied current, rotation speed on the figures of merit of the reactor is analyzed. For an applied current of 300 mA at 100 rpm, the copper concentration decreased from 125 to  mg l^-1 after 60 min of electrolysis with a specific energy consumption of 1.75 kWh kg^-1 and a normalized space velocity of 1.62 h^-1. The change in concentration was higher when the total applied currents were increased because of the turbulence

Ex-situ bioremediation of 2,4-D herbicide-contaminated soil was studied using a slurry bioreactor operate at aerobic conditions. The performance of the slurry bioreactor was tested for three types of soil (sand, sandy loam and clay) contaminated with different concentration of 2,4-D, 200,300and500mg/kg soil. Sewage sludge was used as an inexpensive source of microorganisms which is available in large quantities in wastewater treatment plants. The results show that all biodegradation experiments demonstrated a significant decreases in 2,4-D concentration in the tested soils. The degradation efficiency in the slurry bioreactor decreases as the initial concentration of 2,4-D in the soils increases.A 100 % removal was achieved at initial con

Background: One of the most common problems that encountered is postburn contracture which has both functional and aesthetic impact on the patients. Various surgical methods had being proposed to treat such problem. Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of square flap in management of postburn contracture in several part of the body. Patients and methods: From April 2019 to June 2020 a total number of 20 patients who had postburn contracture in various parts of their body were subjected to scar contracture release using square flap. The follow up period was ranging between 6 months to 12 months. Results: All of our patients had achieved complete release of their band with maximum postoperative motion together with accepted aesthetic outcome. A

In present work examined the oxidation desulfurization in batch system for model fuels with 2250 ppm sulfur content using air as the oxidant and ZnO/AC composite prepared by thermal co-precipitation method. Different factors were studied such as composite loading 1, 1.5 and 2.5 g, temperature 25 ^oC, 30 ^oC and 40 ^oC and reaction time 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The optimum condition is obtained by using Tauguchi experiential design for oxidation desulfurization of model fuel. the highest percent sulfur removal is about 33 at optimum conditions. The kinetic and effect of internal mass transfer were studied for oxidation desulfurization of model fuel, also an empirical kinetic model was calculated for model fuels