In most industrial fiuidization units, two- or three-stage cyclone systems are used to
clean the product gases. To return the solids to the bed, these cyclones are fitted with
diplegs. By pass of gas from the bed through the dipleg is partially overcome by the back
pressure build-up in the dipleg and by adding a trickle valve at the bottom of the dipleg.
Diplegs of primary cyclones, operating at a high solid loading behave differently from
diplegs of secondary and tertiary cyclones which operate at low solid loading. Both types
have been investigated by pressure drop measurements, visual observation and by
measurements of the air flow rate flowing up the riser. The primary dipleg was also studied
using electrical capacitance tomography. The results are reported hereafter and will give a
first indication towards the right design of the dipleg and the selection of the trickle
valve. The influence of gas flow in the dipleg on the conversion in a catalytic fluidized
bed reactor is found to be negligible.

An analytical potential for cylindrical pores has been derived by introducing a variational
method into the integration for the calculation of the interaction energy between the wall
molecules and a test molecule, all of which are represented by Lennard-Jones potential. The
model proposed gives good fito the results from the cylindrical surface model and the
pseudoatom model. To test the potential proposed rigorously, we have carried out grand
canonical ensemble Monte Carlo(GCMC) simulation of nitrogen in the MCM-41 pore at 77 K, and
compared the simulated adsorption isotherm with the experimental data reported in the
literature. The simulated isotherm from our model is in almost qualitative agreement with
experiment. Consequently, the model proposed provides an explicit and accurate description
of cylindrical pores represented by the Lennard-Jones potential. Moreover, the model can be
easily applied to a variety of cylindrical pores, ranging from cylindrical surface to
finite thickness walls, in both theoretical studies and computer simulations.

Ebulliometric method based on the error analysis equation is presented for systems with the
large phase equilibrium constant. Application is given for the determination and
calculation of binary vapor-liquid equilibrium data for the ethanol-l-n-hexane system. It
is also given the comparison results between the ebulliometric method based on the error
analysis equation and the quasi-static method.

This paper consists of two parts. (1) For a hollow sphere with sudden temperature changes
on its inner and outer surfaces, the hyperbolic heat conduction equation is employed to
describe this extreme thermal case and an analytical expression of its temperature
distribution is obtained. According to the expression, the non-Fourier heat conduction
behavior that will appear in the hollow sphere is studied and some qualitative conditions
that will result in distinct non-Fourier behavior in the medium is ultimately attained. (2)
A novel experiment to observe non-Fourier heat conduction behavior in porous material
(mainly ordinary duplicating paper) heated by a microsecond laser pulse is presented. The
conditions for observing distinct non-Fourier heat conduction behavior in the experimental
sample agree well with the theoretical results qualitatively.

Gas phase polymerization of butadiene by neodymium catalyst was modeled. The effects of
mass and heat transfer resistances in the external boundary layer and within particles,
sorption of butadiene in polybutadiene,and deactivation of active sites on polymer particle
growth and morphology were studied. Simulation results show that the effects of
intraparticle mass and heat transfer resistances on the growth rate of polymer particles
are insignificant, and that there is no significant effect of mass transfer resistance on
the morphology of polymer particles.The simulation results were compared with the
experimental results.

The bulk polymerization of styrene catalyzed by Nd(P204)3/MgBu2/HMPA (hexamethyl phospho-
ramide) was carried out in capped glass tubes. The effects of reaction conditions on
polymerization conversion and molecular weight in the range of high conversion were
investigated. The molecular weight of the resultant polymers is dramatically high and its
distribution is relatively narrow. The polymerization process demonstrates the feature of
living polymerization and auto-acceleration phenomenon. The auto-acceleration phenomenon is
attributed to the non-instantaneous formation of the active species. The experimental data
suggest that chain transfer to MgBu2 is one of the factors governing the molecular weight
development. A mechanism of polymerization is presented with the chain transfer process
incorporated.

A nonequilibrium stage model was used to simulate countercurrent multicomponent catalytic
distillation processes for methyl acetate hydrolysis. Computations of stage eiliciencies
or height equivalent to a theoretical plate (HETP) were entirely avoided by this model. The
consistency of simulated results and experimental data in conversions and concentration of
each component along a column indicates that the model predicts the actual process well.
The influences of operating parameters on hydrolytic conversions, such as feed molar
ratios, feed locations, feed and reflux rates, heights of reactive and stripping sections,
were analyzed adequately by simulating calcuiations. A good operating mode was then
obtained, which is helpful to the development of a new process.

Internal thermally coupled distillation column(ITCDIC) is a frontier in energy saving
distillation research. In this paper, the optimal assessment on the energy saving and the
operating cost for ITCDIC of nonideal mixture is explored. An evaluating method is
proposed, and the pertinent optimization model is then derived. The ethanol-water system is
studied as an illustrative example. The optimization results show that the maximum energy
saving in ITCDIC process is about 35% and the maximum operating cost saving in ITCDIC
process is about 30%,as compared with a conventional distillation column(CDIC) under the
minimum reflux ratio operating; the optimal operating pressure of the rectifying section is
found to be around 0.25 MPa; the effects of the feedcomposition,operating pressure and the
heat transfer rate on operation are also found and analyzed. It is revealed that ITCDIC
process possesses high energy saving potential and promising economical prospect.

Towards integration of supply chain, manufacturing/production and investment decision
making, this paper presents a hierarchical model architecture which contains six sub-models
covering the areas of manufacturing control, production operation, design and revamp,
production management, supply chain and investment decision making. Six types of flow,
material, energy, information, humanware, partsware and capital are ciasified. These flows
connect enterprise components/subsystems to formulate system topology and logical
structure. Enterprise components/subsystems are abstracted to generic elementary and
composite classes. Finally, the model architecture is applied to a management system of an
integrated suply chain, and suggestion are made on the usage of the model architecture and
further development of the model as well as imvlementation issues.

Most studies on investment evaluation mainly focus on enterprise economic benefits only,
without process operability and sustainability considered. In this paper, we suggest that
investment evaluation in process industries should be executed under three strategic
objectives--enterprise benefits, social benefits and customer benefits. A systematic
investment evaluation and decision-making method with a four-step procedure based on the
analytic hierarchyprocess (AHP) is proposed to evaluate various qualitative and
quantitative elements with various criteria. At the first step, the decision hierarchy is
constructed under the three strategic objectives. Second, pair-wise comparison is utilized
to evaluate the weights of elements and criteria. Third, qualitative elements are
quantified by pair-wise comparison and quantitative elements are re-scaled by a uniform
criterion. At the last, the best choice is made through synthesizing values upward in the
hierarchy. An investment decision support system (DSS) is developed based on Microsoft
Excel, and applied to a retrofit investment of united fluid catalytic cracking(FCC) and
liquefied gas separation process in a refinery plant.

Exogenous Vitreoscilla globin gene (vgb), lytic genes of phage γ with S amber mutation
(S^-RRz) and poly(fl-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) biosynthetic genes (phbCAB) were cloned into a
same Escherichia coil cell,simultaneously or respectively. Six novel strains containing
phbCAB and vgb with or without lyticgenes were constructed. Strain VG1 (pTU14), in which
vgb, phbCAB and S-RRz could all be successfully expressed, has superior characteristics in
cell growth and PHB accumulation, while the results of strains containing vgb and phbCAB
without S- RRz were not better than that of strains harbored phbCAB only. The simultaneous
expression of vgb and S-RRz in the recombinant VG1 (pTU14) showed a great potential for
low-cost production of PHB.

Influence of reaction temperature, pressure and space velocity on the direct synthesis of
dimethyl ether (DME) from syngas is studied in an isothermal fixed-bed reactor. The
catalyst is a physical mixture of C30 copper-based methanol (MeOH) synthesis catalyst and
ZSM-5 dehydration catalyst. The experimental results show that the chemical synergy between
methanol synthesis reaction and methanol dehydration reaction is evident. The conversion of
carbon monoxide is over 90%.

Chemical potentials of charged hard-dumbbell fluids are obtained by Monte Carlo simulations
using Widom’s test-particle method, corresponding compressibility factors are achieved by
integration of chemical potentials at different densities. A molecular thermodynamic model
is also developed for these charged hard-dumbbell fluids where the residual Helmholtz
function is composed of two terms: a reference term responsible for the charged hard
spheres and a bonding contribution measuring the sticky interactions between positive and
negative hard ions.Model predictions are in good agreement with simulationresults.

In the two-parameter corresponding states principle(CSP), the critical compressibility
factors of the fluid under study(called "α" fluid) and the reference fluid(called "o"
fluid) must be identical. This is not generally observed in nature. To overcome this
limitation, a perfect shape factor CSP is proposed in which the compressibility factors of
"a" and "o" fluids are corresponded perfectly by introducing a new pressure shape factor 5.
Using methane as the "o" fluid, the shape factors of many fluids are calculated from PVT
properties at saturation state and the second virial coefficients. Models are also
formulated for the shape factors with the assumption of φ is a function of temperature and
volume while θ and δ are temperature dependent only. The models described the shape
factors satisfactorily in whole region including vapor, liquid and their co-existing
phases. The perfect shape factor CSP could be applied for both polar and non-uolar fluids.

Effects of ultrasound on intensification of separation process were investigated through
the experiment of desorption equilibrium behavior. Tri-butyl phosphate (TBP) on NKA-X resin
and phenol on a solvent impregnated resin, CL-TBP resin, were used for desorption
processes. The desorption rate was measured with and without ultrasound. Desorption
equilibrium was studied under various ultrasonic power densities or thermal infusion.
Results showed that the desorption rate with ultrasound was much higher than that with
normal thermal infusion. Both ultrasound and thermal infusion broke the desorption
equilibrium existed at room temperature. However, after the systems were cooled down, the
amount of solute desorbed in the liquid phase in the presence of ultrasound was much higher
than that at the temperature corresponding to the same ultrasound power. It is proved that
the initial desorption equilibrium was broken as a result of the spot energy effect of
ultrasound.

Production of 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) by hydrolysis using penicillin acylase (PA)
was studied as a model of an enzymatic emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) process. The loss of
PA activity was examined for various membrane compositions (organic solvent, surfactant,
carrier). The effects of some experimental variables on the stability of emulsion were
investigated. It was found that the choice of organic solvent greatly affected
tilestability of the emulsion. Increasing the concentration of the carrier in the membrane
phase increases the transfer rate of substrate and products but also has a destabilizing
effect on the emulsion. The recovery of 6-APA obtained by a di-carrier system (N263-N1923)
was much higher than those when either of the di-carriers was used separately.The whole
process was controlled both by the enzymatic reaction rate and by the transfer rate of the
substrate and the products, however, the ratio of them could be changed by varying the
composition of the system. For an optimum condition, it was obtained that the recovery
ratio of 6-APA was over 80% and the conversion of benzyl penicillin (PG) was up to 90% in
the external phase after 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the breakage percentage of the emulsion was
less than 2%.

In order to investigate the influence of the entrance effect on the spatial distribution of
phases, the experiments on gas-liquid two-phase slug flow in a vertical pipe of 0.03m ID
were carried out by using optical probes and an EKTAPRO 1000 high speed motion analyzer. It
demonstrates that the radial profile of slug flow void fraction is parabolic. Influenced by
the falling liquid film, the radial profile curve of liquid slug void fraction in the wake
region is also parabolic. Since fully turbulent velocity distribution is built up in the
developed region,the void fraction profile in this region is the saddle type. At given
superficial liquid velocity, the liquid slug void fraction increases with gas velocity. The
radial profiles of liquid slug void fraction at different axial locations are all saddle
curves, but void fraction is obviously high around the centerline in the entrance region.
The nearer the measuring station is from the entrance, the farther the peak location is
away from the wall.

One-dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model of an axial flow converter and one-dimensional
heteroge-neous model of a horizontal converter have been presented, which describe the
distribution of gaseous composition,temperature and pressure along the height in the two
converters, respectively. Design optimization methods of the two converters have been
proposed, by which the minimum catalyst volume can be obtained to satisfy the productive
capacity of 1000 tons per day, when the operating pressure is 15.0, 10.0 and 7.5 MPa,
respectively.

The studies for raising potash feldspar utilization ratio by physical, biological and
chemical methods are carried out in laboratory and the results are presented. It is shown
that calcinatory and biological methods have positive effects on conversion of K in potash
feldspar into water-soluble form, but the conversion is low; chemical method can change
most of insoluble potassium into available form, and might be significant in industry to
some extent.