Catalytic pyrolysis of digestate to produce aromatic hydrocarbons can be combined with anaerobic fermentation to effectively transform and utilize all biomass components, which can achieve the meaningful purpose of transforming waste into high-value products. This study explored whether catalytic pyrolysis of digestate is feasible to prepare aromatic hydrocarbons by analyzing the thermogravimetric characteristics, pyrolysis characteristics, and catalytic pyrolysis characteristics of digestate. For digestate pyrolysis, an increase in temperature was found to elevate the CO, CH₄, and monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (benzene, toluene, and xylene; BTX) content, whereas it decreased the contents of phenols, acids, aldehydes, and other oxygenates. Furthermore, the catalytic pyrolysis process effectively inhibited the acids, phenols, and furans in the liquid, whereas the yield of BTX increased from 25.45% to 45.99%, and the selectivity of xylene was also increased from 10.32% to 28.72% after adding ZSM-5. ZSM-5 also inhibited the production of nitrogenous compounds.

Struvite (MAP) crystallization technology is widely used to treat ammonia nitrogen in waste effluents of its simple operation and good removal efficiency. However, the presence of heavy metal ions in the waste effluents causes problems such as slow crystallization rate and small crystal size, limiting the recovery rate and economic value of the MAP. The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of concentrations of three heavy metal ions (Cu²⁺, Zn²⁺, and Pb²⁺) on the crystal morphology, crystal size, average growth rate, and crystallization kinetics of MAP. A relationship was established between the kinetic rate constant K_t calculated by the chemical gradient model and the concentrations of heavy metal ions. The results showed that low concentrations of heavy metal ions in the solution created pits on the MAP surface, and high level of heavy metal ions generated flocs on the MAP surface, which were composed of metal hydroxides, thus inhibiting crystal growth. The crystal size, average growth rate, MAP crystallization rate, and kinetic rate constant K_t decreased with the increase in heavy metal ion concentration. Moreover, the K_t demonstrated a linear relationship with the heavy metal concentration ln(C/C^*), which provided a reference for the optimization of the MAP crystallization process in the presence of heavy metal ions.

Organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes have a great application prospect in organic solvent separation, but the development of OSN membranes is mainly restricted by trade-off between permeability and rejection rate. In this work, a TA/Fe³⁺ polymer was introduced into polyetherimide (PEI) ultrafiltration membranes crosslinked with hexamethylene diamine as the intermediate layer, and OSN membranes with high separation performance and solvent permeability were obtained through interfacial polymerization and solvent activation. The interlayer with high surface hydrophilicity and a fixed pore structure controlled the adsorption/diffusion of the amine monomer during interfacial polymerization, forming a smooth (average surface roughness < 5.5 nm), ultra-thin (separation layer thickness reduced from 150 to 16 nm) and dense surface structure polyamide (PA) layer. The PA--HDA/PEI membrane retained more than 94% of methyl blue (BS) in 0.1 g·L^-1 BS ethanol solution at 0.6 MPa, and the ethanol permeation reached 28.56 L^-1·m^-2·h^-1. The average flux recovery ratio (FRR) of PA--HDA/PEI membrane was found to be 84%, which has better fouling resistance than PA-HDA/PEI membrane, and it was found to have better stability performance through different solvent immersion experiments and continuous operation in 0.1 g·L^-1 BS ethanol solution. Compared with thin-film composite nanofiltration membranes, the PA--HDA/PEI membrane can be manufactured from an economical and environment-friendly method and overcomes the trade-off between permeability and rejection rate, showing great application potential in organic solvent separation systems.

Molecular property depends on the property, the number of the elements, and the interaction between elements (such as chemical bonds). Based on the above-mentioned idea, two methods to estimate the isobaric heat capacity of liquids organic compounds were developed. Ten elements groups and 32 chemical bond groups were defined by considering the structure of organic compounds. The group contribution values and correlation parameters were regressed by the ridge regression method with the experiment data of 1137 compounds. The heat capacity can be calculated by summating the contributions of the elements and chemical bond groups. The two methods were compared with existing group contribution methods, such as Chickos, Zabransky-Ruzicka, and Zdenka Kolska. The results show that those new estimation methods' overall average relative deviations were 5.81% and 5.71%, which were lower than the other three methods. Those methods were more straightforward in compound splitting. Those new methods can be used to estimate the liquid heat capacity of silicon-containing compounds, which the other three methods cannot estimate. The new methods are more accessible, broader, and more accurate. Therefore, this research has important scientific significance and vast application prospects.

Direct epoxidation of propylene with H₂/O₂, being the dream reaction for propylene oxide (PO) production, has raised wide scientific and industrial interests. Fundamentally understanding the formation mechanism of acrolein, as the main by-product of this epoxidation process, is very important to achieve the high yield of PO. In this study, we perform the spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate the reaction pathway from propylene to acrolein over two representative Au surfaces, that is, Au(1 1 1) and Au(1 0 0), which incorporates propylene adsorption, methyl hydrogen activation and acrolein formation. The results show that the oxygenated species (mainly O^*, OH^* and OOH^*) are able to stabilize the adsorption of propylene to decrease the energy barrier for its activation. It is demonstrated that the OOH^* on Au(1 1 1) surface emerges as the most easily formed oxygenated species via the H-assisted O₂ dissociation, which is also the most active for the cleavage of methyl C-H bond in propylene. Furthermore, three pathways of acrolein formation activated by O^*/OH^*/OOH^* are analyzed, in which O^* is found as the key species to form acrolein. Finally, Bader charge analysis was conducted to explore the reasons behind the promotion effect of the oxygenated species. The insights reported here could be valuable in the design and optimization of gold catalysts for the direct epoxidation of propylene.

Lignin is the world's greatest renewable aromatic biofeedstock, and it has promising applications in high value-added chemical products. Herein, N-Co/ATP-CZO was used as a catalyst for the depolymerization of alkali lignin in ethanol and isopropanol systems, and explored the effects of formic acid (FA) amount, reaction time, reaction temperature and other factors on the depolymerization of alkali lignin. Among them, formic acid serves as both catalytic and in situ-hydrogen donor. Ultimately, the highest yield of bio-oil (59.28% (mass)), including 30.05% (mass) of monomer, was obtained after a reaction of FA to alkali lignin mass ratio of 4 and 240 ℃ for 8 h. Among the monomers, the yield of Guaiacol was the highest (5.94% (mass)), followed by 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (5.74% (mass)). This study, the modification of attapulgite was carried out to reduce the acidity while enhancing the catalytic activity for depolymerization, and the selection of hydrogen donor was investigated. A feasible pathway for lignin depolymerization research was opened.

Occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles of the tau protein is a hallmark of tau-related neurodegenerative diseases, i.e. Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia. The pathological mechanism underlying AD remains poorly understood, and effective treatments are still unavailable to mitigate the disease. Inhibiting of tau aggregation and disrupting the existing fibrils are key targets in drug discovery towards preventing or curing AD. In this study, grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSPs) was found to effectively inhibit the repeat domain of tau (tau-RD) aggregation and disaggregate tau-RD fibrils in a concentration-dependent manner by inhibiting β-sheet formation of tau-RD. In cells, GSPs relieved cytotoxicity induced by tau-RD aggregates. Molecular dynamics simulations indicated that strong hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interaction and π-π stacking between GSPs and tau-RD protein were major reasons why GSPs had high inhibitory activity on tau-RD fibrillogenesis. These results provide preliminary data to develop GSPs into medicines, foodstuffs or nutritional supplements for AD patients, suggesting that GSPs could be a candidate molecule in the drug design for AD therapeutics.

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) causes considerable economic losses in the commercial poultry industry worldwide. The principal way to control IBD virus (IBDV), the causative agent of IBD, is still through vaccination programs. Virus-like particles (VLPs) are recognised as a safe and potent recombinant vaccine platform. This research work explores the characterisation and separation of infectious bursal disease virus-like particles (IBD-VLPs) from crude feedstock. Various characteristics were studied with high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HP-SEC), sodium dodecyl sulphate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses. Subsequently, the separation of IBD-VLPs using polyethylene glycol (PEG)/sodium citrate-based aqueous two-phase systems (ATPSs) was conducted and optimised. Moreover, a scale-up study of the best ATPS constituted of 15% PEG 6000, 11% sodium citrate and 10% crude feedstock was performed to compare the separation performance of IBD-VLPs with and without centrifugation-assisted. The results indicated that the optimised ATPS with centrifugation-assisted for both 5 g and 50 g systems showed good recovery of IBD-VLPs of >97% in the interphase between the PEG-rich top and salt-rich bottom phases. These optimised systems also showed high removal efficiencies of impurities of >95%. The results demonstrated that aqueous two-phase extraction could be a promising technology for efficient VLPs separation.

The promoting effect of zirconium addition on Pd/Beta catalysts has been investigated in the selective hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone in the aqueous phase. The activity of the catalyst in the reaction was greatly improved by introducing Zr atoms into the framework of H-Beta zeolite. An important synergy between the Zr species and Pd, affecting the Pd dispersion state on the support, has been observed. The modification of the support with Zr⁴⁺ improves the Lewis/Brønsted acid ratio of the catalyst, suppressing the further transformation of cyclohexanone. The kinetics of Pd/Zr-Beta catalyst showed high selectivity to cyclohexanone. The catalytic results showed that the Pd/Zr-Beta had the best catalytic performance at the desired temperature of 80 ℃ for 5 h.

Among the numerous transition metal catalysts, manganese-based compounds are considered as promising peroxymonosulfate (PMS) catalysts due to their low cost and environmental friendliness, such as cryptomelane manganese oxide (K_2-xMn₈O₁₆: abbreviation KMnO). However, the limited catalytic performance of KMnO limits its practical application. In this work, iron-doped KMnO (Fe-KMnO) was prepared by one-step hydrothermal method to optimize its catalytic performance. Compared with KMnO/PMS system, Fe-KMnO/PMS system possessed more excellent removal efficiency of tetracycline (TC). Meanwhile, the Fe-KMnO/PMS system also exhibited good practical application potential and excellent stability. The mechanism of Fe-KMnO activation of PMS was further analyzed in detail. It was found that Fe participated in the redox of high-valent Mn, which promoted the activation of PMS. Moreover, The Fe site as an adsorption site enhanced the TC enrichment ability of the catalyst, reducing the mass transfer resistance and further enhancing the TC removal ability of Fe-KMnO/PMS system. This work not only provides an excellent PMS catalyst, but also offers new insights into the mechanism of PMS activation by bimetallic manganese-based catalysts.

Pd/Cu liquid-phase composite was utilized as the catalyst in this study to remove PH₃ at low temperatures. The anti-heterotoxicity of catalysts in the PH₃ catalytic oxidation purification process was carefully explored and pioneered. The catalytic performance, thermodynamics, kinetics, and catalytic oxidation mechanism of Pd/Cu liquid-phase catalyst catalytic oxidation of PH₃ were thoroughly investigated. The results showed that Pd/Cu has a superior catalytic effect on the removal of PH₃ in the gas mixture under low temperature. With CO as the carrier gas, the removal efficiency of PH₃ could be maintained at 100% for nearly 450 min, indicating that the Pd/Cu liquid phase catalyst has good resistance to heterotoxicity. According to the thermodynamic, kinetic, and related characterization results of the PH₃ purification process, the kinetic region of the gas–liquid reaction of PH₃ absorption by Pd/Cu solution was an interfacial reaction. Pd was the primary catalyst and Cu was the secondary catalyst, and the adsorption of PH₃ was a primary reaction. PH₃ was spontaneously oxidized to H₃PO₄ in the Pd/Cu catalytic system during the removal process. Pd was regenerated by O₂ and Cu, increasing the activity and stability of the Pd/Cu catalyst in the sustain and efficient purification of PH₃ in tail gas.

Sinomenine is the main bio-active ingredient of Sinomenii Caulis and usually produced by solvent-extraction techniques. However, the extraction of sinomenine suffers from the lack of highly efficient and environmentally-benign solvents. In this work, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) based on fragrances were synthesized, hydrogen-bond donors (HBDs) and hydrogen-bond acceptors (HBAs) components of DESs were identified and their extraction ability for sinomenine was evaluated and the extraction conditions were optimized by single-factor and orthogonal design experiments. It was found that the hydrogen-bonding interaction between sinomenine and DESs was the main extraction driving force and there was no explicit relationship between the extraction ability and the hydrophobicity of the DESs. The DESs could be recycled and sinomenine could be recovered quantitatively via back-extraction. High-purity sinomenine ((95.0 ±2.3)%) could be produced. These findings suggest that DESs are highly-effective solvents for the isolation of sinomenine and exhibit great potential for the extraction of other bio-active compounds.

To date, there is no research that deals with biological waste as fillers in polyphenylene sulfide (PPS). In this study, oyster shells were recycled and treated to prepare thermally-treated oyster shells (TOS), which were used as PPS fillers to make new bio-based antibacterial composite materials. The effect of varying the content of TOS was studied by means of structure and performance characterization. PPS/TOS composites were demonstrated to have an antibacterial effect on the growth of E coli and S. aureus. Qualitative analysis showed that when the TOS content was ≥ 30% and 40%, the composite materials had an apparent inhibition zone. Quantitative analysis showed that the antibacterial activity increased with the TOS content. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicated the formation of hydrogen bonds between the molecular chains of TOS and PPS and the occurrence of a coordination reaction. At 10% TOS, the composite tensile strength reached a maximum value of 72.5 MPa, which is 9.65% higher than that of pure PPS. The trend of bending properties is the same as that of tensile properties, showing that the maximum property was reached for the composite with 10% TOS. At the same time, the crystallinity and contact angle were the highest, and the permeability coefficient was the lowest. The fatigue test results indicated that for the composite with 10% TOS, the tensile strength was 23% lower than static tensile strength, and the yield strength was 10% lower than the static yield strength. The results of the study showed that TOS not only could reduce the cost of PPS, but also could impart antibacterial properties and enhance the mechanical and, barrier properties, the thermostability, as well as the crystallinity.

This study evaluated the bioaugmentation potential of a quinoline-degrading strain Pseudomonas citronellolis LV1 inoculation into activated sludge for treating quinoline wastewater, and results indicated the inoculation of LV1 in aerobic continuous MBBR could substantially improve the quinoline removal performance with an improved removal efficiency of 34% averagely when quinoline was used as the sole carbon and nitrogen source. Additionally, efficient removal of quinoline in enhanced MBBR occurred at the influent pH of 7.0–8.0, hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24–28 h and influent quinoline concentration of 100–700 mg·L^-1. High-throughput sequencing analysis indicated that bioaugmentation could increase microbial diversity and shape the microbial community structure. Although the inoculant LV1 did not remain its dominance in stage III, bioaugmentation indeed induced the formation of effective microbial community, and the indigenous microbes including Flavobacterium, Pseudoxanthomonas, Pseudomonas, Vermamoeba, Dyadobacter and Sphingomonas might play the key role in quinoline removal. According to the PICRUSt, the enhanced genes encoding aromatic ring-cleavage enzyme, especially for N-heterocyclic ring-cleavage enzymes, could lead to the improved removal performance of quinoline in bioaugmentation stage. Moreover, the enhanced MBBR treated well actual coking wastewater, as indicated by high removal performance of quinoline, phenol and COD.

Selective hydrogenation of hydroxyaldehydes to polyalcohols is challenging due to the competitive hydrogenation of C=O and C-O. This study develops heterogeneous Cu catalysts for the selective synthesis of ethylene glycol via batch liquid-phase hydrogenation of glycolaldehyde. SiO₂ supported Cu, fabricated by ammonia evaporation, enables to catalyze the C=O bond hydrogenation with retaining the C-O bond intact, yielding higher selective hydrogenation activity with ethylene glycol selectivity up to 99.8 % relative to MgO, Al₂O₃, CeO₂, and TiO₂ supports and Cu/SiO₂ synthesized by deposition–precipitation and impregnation. Characterizations confirm that highly efficient 20Cu/SiO₂-AE-623 K catalyst fabricated by ammonia evaporation is featured with larger Cu⁰ and Cu⁺ surface areas, of which the Cu⁺ species created from reducing copper phyllosilicate exhibit higher reactivity. A synergistic effect between Cu⁺ and Cu⁰ facilitates the selective adsorption/activation of glycolaldehyde on Cu⁺ sites and the dissociation of H₂ on Cu⁰ sites, bringing a remarkable improvement in the selective hydrogenation performance.

The large blast furnace is essential equipment in the process of iron and steel manufacturing. Due to the complex operation process and frequent fluctuations of variables, conventional monitoring methods often bring false alarms. To address the above problem, an ensemble of greedy dynamic principal component analysis-Gaussian mixture model (EGDPCA-GMM) is proposed in this paper. First, PCA-GMM is introduced to deal with the collinearity and the non-Gaussian distribution of blast furnace data. Second, in order to explain the dynamics of data, the greedy algorithm is used to determine the extended variables and their corresponding time lags, so as to avoid introducing unnecessary noise. Then the bagging ensemble is adopted to cooperate with greedy extension to eliminate the randomness brought by the greedy algorithm and further reduce the false alarm rate (FAR) of monitoring results. Finally, the algorithm is applied to the blast furnace of a large iron and steel group in South China to verify performance. Compared with the basic algorithms, the proposed method achieves lowest FAR, while keeping missed alarm rate (MAR) remain stable.

Efficiently and thoroughly degrading organic dyes in wastewater is of great importance and challenge. Herein, vertically oriented mesoporous α-Fe₂O₃ nanorods array (α-Fe₂O₃-NA) is directly grown on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass and employed as the photoanode for photoelectrocatalytic degradation of methylene blue simulated dye wastewater. The O_v sites on the α-Fe₂O₃-NA surface are the active sites for methylene blue (MB) adsorption. Electrons transfer from the adsorbed MB to Fe-O is detected. Compared with electrocatalytic and photocatalytic degradation processes, the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) process exhibited the best degrading performance and the largest kinetic constant. Hydroxyl, superoxide free radicals, and photo-generated holes play a jointly leading role in the PEC degradation. A possible degrading pathway is suggested by liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy analysis. This work demonstrates that photoelectrocatalysis by α-Fe₂O₃-NA has a remarkable superiority over photocatalysis and electrocatalysis in MB degradation. The in-depth investigation of photoelectrocatalytic degradation mechanism in this study is meaningful for organic wastewater treatment.

2,4(5)-Dinitroimidazole (2,4(5)-DNI) is an important organic intermediate, and itself can also be used for energetic material. In this work, the solubility of 2,4(5)-DNI in (methanol + water, acetonitrile + water, acetone + water) binary solvents were measured by using a dynamic test method from 278.15 K to 323.15 K under 101.1 kPa. The Jouyban–Acree model, van’t Hoff–Jouyban–Acree model, Apelblat–Jouyban–Acree model, Ma model, and Sun model were used to correlate the experimental data. The values of relative average deviation (RAD) and root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) were very small, indicating that the error between the experimental value and the correlated value was very small. The thermodynamic parameters such as dissolution enthalpy, dissolution entropy and Gibbs energy were calculated based on solubility data. High-purity of 2,4(5)-DNI was efficiently obtained by using cooling and dilution crystallization method.

Latex wastewater is a kind of refractory organic wastewater containing high concentrations of organics and ammonia nitrogen. In this work, the combined process of forward osmosis (FO) and reverse osmosis (RO) was designed to treat the latex wastewater in the whole process, achieving the water recovery rate of 99% and basically no waste discharge after the catalytic oxidation process. The turbidity of the latex wastewater was decreased to below 1 NTU by microfiltration pretreatment, and then using MgCl₂ worked as the draw solution for FO process to treat the latex wastewater. Different operation conditions including adding acid or scale inhibitor as the pretreatment methods were conducted to improve the treatment performance of the combined process. After the treatment of the whole process, the concentration of COD was less than 20 mg·L^-1, the concentration of NH₃-N was less than 10 mg·L^-1, and the concentration of TP was less than 0.5 mg·L^-1 for the treated latex wastewater. The water quality met standards of industrial water reuse after the complete analysis of the treated latex wastewater, meanwhile, useful substances of L-Quebrachitol (L-Q) were successfully extracted from the concentrated solution. Therefore, the combined process of FO and RO could realize the efficient treatment and reuse of latex wastewater, which provided with some important guidance on the industrial application.

Separation membrane with high flux is generally encouraged in industrial application, because of the tremendous needs for decreasing membrane areas, usage costs and space requirements. The most effective and direct method for obtaining the high flux is to decrease membrane thickness. Polyamide (PA) nanofiltration membrane is conventionally prepared by the direct interfacial polymerization (IP) on substrate surface, and results in a thick PA layer. In this work, we proposed a strategy that constructing triazine-based porous organic polymer (TRZ-POP) as the interlayer to prepare the ultrathin PA nanofiltration membranes. TRZ-POP is firstly deposited on the polyethersulfone substrate, and then the formed TRZ-POP provides more adhesion sites towards PA based on its high specific surface areas. The chemical bonding between terminal amine group of TRZ-POP and the amide group of PA further improves the binding force, and strengthens the stability of PA layer. More importantly, the high porosity of TRZ-POP layer causes the higher polymerization of initial PA owning to the stored sufficient amino monomer; and H-bonding interaction between amine groups of TRZ-POP and piperazine (PIP) can astrict the release of PIP. Thus, IP process is controlled, and the thinnest thickness of prepared PA layer is only < 15 nm. As expected, PA/TRZ-POP membrane shows a more excellent water flux of 1414 L·m^-2·h^-1·MPa^-1 than that of the state-of-the-art nanofiltration membranes, and without sacrificing dye rejection. The build of TRZ-POP interlayer develops a new method for obtaining a high-flux nanofiltration membrane.

Titanium nitride (TiN), characterized by its high hardness and strength, was widely used as ceramic coating to improve the wear resistance of matrix materials. In this work, AlCrFeNiTi_x high-entropy alloy (HEA) powders were synthesized by direct electrochemical reduction in molten salt from the mixed metal oxides. Then, TiN ceramic coating on the AlCrFeNiTi_x bulk HEA containing the topologically close-packed (TCP) phase (σ phase, Laves phase, and Ti₃Al phase) was prepared by vacuum hot pressing sintering, where nitride element come from boron nitride parting agent sprayed on the graphite mold. The effect of titanium content on the crystal structure, microstructure, hardness, and wear resistance of the products were investigated by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope, field emission electron-probe microanalysis, Vickers hardness tester, and friction–abrasion testing machine. The bulk HEAs exhibit excellent hardness and its hardness increases significantly with the increase of titanium content. The wear mechanism changes from both of predominantly delamination and accompanied oxidative wear to single delamination wear, which is due to ultra-high melting point and high hot hardness of TiN, that can effectively prevent the oxidation and deformation of the worn surface. Formation of the ceramic coatings containing the TiN second phase and TCP phase are the key factor to AlCrFeNiTi_x alloy with the excellent hardness and wear properties.

To solve the environmental pollution and low yield during the sythesis of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and their derived materials, a KOH-assisted aqueous strategy is proposed to synthesize cobalt zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-67) polyhedrons, which are used as precursors to prepare cobalt selenide/carbon composites with different crystal phases (Co_0.85Se, CoSe₂). When evaluated as anode material for lithium ion batteries, Co_0.85Se/C composites deliver a reversible capacity of 758.7 mA·h·g^-1 with a capacity retention rate of 90.5% at 1.0 A·g^-1 after 500 cycles, and the superior rate capability is 620 mA·h·g^-1 at 2.0 A·g^-1. The addition of KOH accelerates the production of ZIF-67 crystals by boosting deprotonation of dimethylimidazole, resulting in rapid growth and structures transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional of ZIF-67 in aqueous solution, which greatly promotes the application of MOFs in the field of energy storage and conversion.

Catalytic oxidation of CH₄ has been proved to be an attractive option for landfill gas (LFG) upgrading. However, coking of catalysts in catalytic LFG deoxygen has been clearly observed in industrial applications. In this regard, it is necessary to investigate whether coke deposition originates from CH₄ or volatile organic compounds present in LFG, and the influence of coke deposition on catalytic performance. Herein, we evaluate the LFG deoxygen on Pt/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst in simulated LFG (CH₄, CO₂, O₂, N₂) and its co-feed with representative volatile organic compounds, ethylbenzene, toluene, benzene and cyclohexane. The results show that the coking of the catalyst is originated from volatile organic compounds rather than CH₄. The Pt/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst does not deactivate during LFG deoxygen process, even significant amount of coke deposited, up to 18.15% (mass). Characterization analyses reveal that although coke deposition overall covers the catalyst surface, resulting in mesopores blockage and a reduced number of accessible Pt sites, however, the coke formed, H-rich carbonaceous components, behaves as counterpart for O₂ elimination. Besides, the coke deposited is mainly filamentous. Thus, coke formation has little negative effect on the overall catalytic performance of Pt/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst ultimately. The results obtained in this work are helpful for the rational design of robust Pt based catalysts for LFG deoxygen without undue attention to their coking properties, and also favor the innovation of more attractive purification scheme configurations.

In this study, the benign target double terpyridine parts based amphiphilic ionic molecules (AIMs 1, 2) and the reference single terpyridine segment included AIMs (AIMs 3, 4) were synthesized through a multi-step method, and the molecular structures were fully characterized. The excellent anticorrosion of the target AIMs for copper surface in H₂SO₄ solution was demonstrated by the electrochemistry analysis, which was more superior over those of the reference AIMs. The standard adsorption free energy changes of the target AIMs calculated by the adsorption isotherms were lower than –40 kJ·mol^-1, suggesting an intensified chemical adsorption on metal surface. The molecular modeling and molecular dynamic computation of the studied AIMs were performed, demonstrating that the target AIMs exhibited lower highest occupied molecular orbital-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy gaps and greater adsorption energies than the reference ones. The chemical adsorption of the AIMs on metal surface was revealed by various spectroscopic methods including scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy, Raman and X-ray diffraction.

For dividing-wall distillation columns (DWDCs) separating a heavy-component dominated and wide boiling-point ternary (HCDWBT) mixture, a significant amount of excessive heat exists inevitably in stripping the heavy-component from the intermediate-component and it can be employed to initiate the development of vapor recompression heat pump (VRHP) assisted DWDC (VRHP-DWDC). Despite dividing wall may locate in the top, middle, and bottom, the optimum VRHP-DWDC is found to involve uniformly-two VRHP circles. While the first one serves to compress and transform the excessive heat resulted from the separation of the heavy-component from the intermediate-component, the second one to compress and transform the overhead vapor stream of the light-component pre-heated sequentially with the condensate from the first one and the bottom product stream of the heavy-component, both releasing the temperature-elevated latent heat to the pre-fractionator’s or common stripping section. The processing of two HCDWBT mixtures of benzene/toluene/o-xylene and n-pentane/n-hexane/n-heptane are selected to assess the derived optimum topological configurations of the VRHP-DWDC and their optimality is confirmed through detailed comparisons with the DWDC and two VRHP-DWDCs involving only one VRHP circle. The proposed strategy helps to tap the full potential of the VRHP-DWDC with considerably alleviated complication in process development.

An integrated vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) and Rectisol process is proposed for CO₂ capture from underground coal gasification (UCG) syngas. A ten-bed VPSA process with silica gel adsorbent is firstly designed to pre-separate and capture 74.57% CO₂ with a CO₂ purity of 98.35% from UCG syngas (CH₄/CO/CO₂/H₂/N₂ = 30.77%/6.15%/44.10%/18.46%/0.52%, mole fraction, from Shaar Lake Mine Field, Xinjiang Province, China) with a feed pressure of 3.5 MPa. Subsequently, the Rectisol process is constructed to furtherly remove and capture the residual CO₂ remained in light product gas from the VPSA process using cryogenic methanol (233.15 K, 100% (mass)) as absorbent. A final purified gas with CO₂ concentration lower than 3% and a regenerated CO₂ product with CO₂ purity higher than 95% were achieved by using the Rectisol process. Comparisons indicate that the energy consumption is deceased from 2.143 MJ·kg^–1 of the single Rectisol process to 1.008 MJ·kg^–1 of the integrated VPSA & Rectisol process, which demonstrated that the deployed VPSA was an energy conservation process for CO₂ capture from UCG syngas. Additionally, the high-value gas (e.g., CH₄) loss can be decreased and the effects of key operating parameters on the process performances were detailed.

The aggregation behavior of the mixture of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC), a cationic surfactant, and moxifloxacin hydrochloride (MFH), a fourth-generation fluoroquinolone antibiotic drug, has been studied using the conductivity technique in aqueous and alcoholic (EtOH, 1-PrOH, and 2-BuOH) media. The study was performed at several temperatures between 298.15 and 323.15 K at 5 K intervals. The assembly has been characterized by evaluating the micellar parameters, such as the critical micelle concentration (CMC) and the counter ion binding (β), of the CTAC + MFH mixture. The values of the CMC for the assembly of the CTAC + MFH mixture were reliant on the composition of alcohols in the mixed solvents and the temperature. The CMC values of the CTAC + MFH mixture increased with increasing temperature; that is, assembly was delayed by increased temperature. The micellization of the CTAC + MFH mixed system was delayed in alcoholic media. The observed -ΔG_m⁰ values for the association of the CTAC + MFH mixed system demonstrated a spontaneous aggregation process under all study conditions. Based on the -ΔH_m⁰ and -ΔS_m⁰ values, the association of the CTAC + MFH mixture is exothermic and the interaction forces acting between the CTAC and MFH species are hydrophobic, ion–dipole, and electrostatic interactions. The transfer properties and enthalpy–entropy compensation were also assessed and described comprehensively.

The direct emission of waste refinery gas after combustion will cause a severe greenhouse effect. Recovering high-value-added ethylene from wasted refinery gas has fundamental economic and environmental significance. Due to the complexity of the composition of refinery waste gas, designing and optimizing the whole recovery process is still a challenging task. Herein, a novel process (SCOAS) was proposed to obtain polymer-grade ethylene from wasted refinery gas through a direct separation process, and heat pump-assisted thermal integration optimization (HPSCOAS) was carried out. The unique feature of the novel approach is that a new stripper and ethylene reabsorber follow the dry gas absorber to ensure ethylene recovery and methane content. An industrial model, shallow cooling oil absorption (SCOA), and concentration combined cold separation system of ethylene unit using wasted refinery gas was established to analyze the technology and environment. Based on the detailed process modeling and simulation results, the quantitative sustainability assessment of economy and environment based on product life cycle process is carried out. The results show that compared with the traditional process when the same product is obtained, the total annual cost of the HPSCOAS process is the lowest, which is 15.4% lower than that of the SCOA process and 6.1% lower than that of the SCOAS process. In addition, compared with the SCOA process and the HPSCOAS process, the SCOAS process has more environmental advantages. The non-renewable energy consumed by SCOAS is reduced by about 24.8% and 6.1%, respectively. The CO₂ equivalent is reduced by about 38.6% and 23.7%.

In this study, a new tannic acid adsorbent (ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether crosslinked tannic acid, TA-EGDE) for adsorptive removal of dyes from water was prepared using EGDE as a cross-linking agent. The resultant TA-EGDE was in particulate form with rough surface morphology and a diameter ranging from 10 to 30 μm. The adsorption performance of the TA-EGDE was evaluated in a flow-through mode using water samples contaminated with methylene blue (MB) and two-component mixed dyes, respectively. The TA-EGDE provided adsorption capacity up to 721.8 mg·g^-1 at 65 ℃ for MB. It showed a high removal efficiency (99%) of MB (50 mg·L^–1) from the water sample and could recovery 90% of the adsorbed MB by eluting with acidic ethanol aqueous solution. The excellent adsorption of MB and neutral red on the TA-EGDE may be the result of the synergy of electrostatic interaction and π–π interaction. Furthermore, the TA-EGDE could separate dyes from water samples contaminated with two-component mixed dyes with a separation coefficient ranging from 1.8 to 36.5. The anionic TA-EGDE would be an effective adsorbent to remove and recycle dyes from the contaminated water.

The introduction of bifunctional groups into low-cost adsorbents for selective adsorption of Ag(I) through synergistic effect will have a profound impact on the recovery of precious metals. Organo silica nanosheets (organo-SiNSs) functionalized by series of azole derivatives (2-mercaptoimidazole (MI), 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (MBT) and 1H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiol (MTT)), are fabricated and employed for selective removal of Ag(I). The structures of the organo-SiNSs are investigated using several characterization methods. The results of batch adsorption experiments display that the maximum adsorption amounts are 70.3, 103.2 and 139.5 mg·g^-1 on MI-SiNSs, MBI-SiNSs and MTT-SiNSs for Ag(I) ions, and reach rapid equilibrium within 10–30 min. The adsorption processes are chemisorption and fit pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. Notably, MTT-SiNSs is greatly selective for Ag(I) in multicomponent system, and the distribution coefficient value of Ag(I) ions reaches 2331.26 ml·g^-1. The reusability of organo-SiNSs is verified by four cycles of regeneration tests with 0.1 mol·L^–1 HNO₃ as the eluent. A combination of experimental, structural along with theoretical analysis is conducted to proclaim the structure-adsorptivity relationship: (i) The adsorption mechanisms are attributed to complexation. (ii) The amino group and sulfhydryl group of MTT-SiNSs as well as MBI-SiNSs may have synergistic impacts on Ag(I) capture. (iii) The differences in adsorption behavior and selectivity of the three organo-SiNSs are mainly related to the form of function groups, charge density and steric hindrance of adsorbent. This work not only sheds light on the promise of functionalized organo-SiNSs for the rapid and selective removal/enrichment of Ag(I) ions in complex water systems, but also provides new insights for designing cost-effective SiNSs-based adsorbents.

To break through the thermodynamic limitation that sodium fluosilicate only can be completely decomposed at high temperature, the technology of pre-decomposition under SiF₄ atmosphere and deep decomposition under air condition at lower temperature was developed. The hydrolysis reaction of sodium fluosilicate can be effectively restrained when drying under vacuum or low temperature. Thermal decomposition results of sodium fluosilicate indicate that temperature has a very significant effect on its decomposition. The decomposition ratio can reach 79.4% at 600 ℃ for 1 h, and 99.6% at 700 ℃ for 1 h under air condition, respectively. Gas velocity and the type of inert gas have no significant effect on its decomposition. Fine particles affect its decomposition performance due to agglomeration, while coarse particles have good thermal decomposition performance without significant differences. The decomposition reaction process in fluidized bed satisfies the classical Avrami Erofe'EV model, with the reaction order of 1.5 and the activation energy of 61.35 kJ·mol^-1.

Catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) can degrade some refractory pollutants at a low cost to improve the biodegradability of wastewater. However, in the presence of high temperature and high pressure and strong oxidizing free radicals, the stability of catalysts is often insufficient, which has become a bottleneck in the application of CWAO. In this paper, a copper-based catalyst with excellent hydrothermal stability was designed and prepared. TiO₂ with excellent stability was used as the carrier to ensure the long-term anchoring of copper and reduce the leaching of the catalyst. The one pot sol–gel method was used to ensure the super dispersion and uniform distribution of copper nanoparticles on the carrier, so as to ensure that more active centers could be retained in a longer period. Experiments show that the catalyst prepared by this method has good stability and catalytic activity, and the catalytic effect is not significantly reduced after 10 cycles of use. The oxidation degradation experiment of m-cresol with the strongest biological toxicity and the most difficult to degrade in coal chemical wastewater was carried out with this catalyst. The results showed that under the conditions of 140 ℃, 2 MPa and 2 h, m-cresol with a concentration of up to 1000 mg·L^-1 could be completely degraded, and the COD removal rate could reach 79.15%. The biological toxicity of wastewater was significantly reduced. The development of the catalyst system has greatly improved the feasibility of CWAO in the treatment of refractory wastewater such as coal chemical wastewater.