Maintaining the quality of apricot fruits during storage is not an easy task due to the changes in their physical and chemical properties, so it is necessary to use less expensive, easy to apply, environmentally friendly, and safer preservatives to maintain the nutritional value of apricot. The damage to some fruits during storage can be a source of infection, which leads to the damage of healthy fruits more quickly, which requires building an intelligent model to detect damaged fruits. The aim of the research is to study the effect of immersing apricots in lemon juice once and sugar-water solution again on the quality properties of apricots, including sweetness, color, hardness, and water content. On the other hand, the YOLOv7 algorithm was used to detect healthy fruits and damaged areas using a camera. The results showed that sweetness increased with increasing immersion time in sugar-water solution to reach 22.1 Brix, while it decreased with increasing immersion time in lemon juice to 19.12 Brix. Also, hardness increased with increasing immersion time in sugar-water solution to reach 3.7 kg/cm2. The water content of apricots decreased with increasing immersion time in different immersion media from 77.14 g to 73.93 g. In addition, CIE-L*a*b levels increased with increasing immersion time in different immersion media. For the performance indicators of the YOLOv7 algorithm, precision of 84.5%, recall of 87%, F1 of 0.77, and [email protected] of 77.2 were obtained, respectively. Therefore, this study is expected to reduce the workload in post-harvest fruit processing and help in the rapid identification and detection of damaged fruits based on smart detection algorithms, thus improving sorting efficiency and reducing both waste and economic losses, which enhances smart agriculture technologies.
Mechanical degradation hampers the practical usage of polymers for turbulent drag reduction
application. Mechanical degradation refers to the chemical process in which the activation energy of
polymer chain scission is exceeded by mechanical action on the polymer chain, and bond rupture
occurs. When a water-soluble polymer and surfactant are mixed in water solution, the specific structures
(aggregates) are formed, in which polymer film is formed around micelle. In this work, Xanthan gum (XG) –
Sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SELS) complex formation and its effect on percentage viscosity reduction
(%VR) was studied. It was found that SELS surfactant reduced the mechanical degradation of XG much
more efficiently than th
This article introduces a numerical study on heat exchange and corrosion coefficients of Zinc–water nanofluid stream in a circular tube fitted with swirl generator utilizing CFD emulation. Different forms of swirl generator which have the following properties of plain twisted tape (PTT) and baffle wings twisted tape (BTT) embeds with various ratio of twisting (y = 2.93, 3.91 and 4.89), baffle inclination angles (β = 0°, - 30° and 30) joined with 1%, 1.5% and 2% volume fraction of ZnO nanofluid were utilized for simulation. The results demonstrated that the heat and friction coefficients conducted by these two forms of vortex generator raised with Reynolds number, twist ratio and baffle inclination angles decreases. Likewise, t
... Show MoreThe effect of superficial gas velocity within the range 0.01-0.164 m/s on gas holdup (overall, riser and down comer), volumetric oxygen mass transfer coefficient, liquid circulation velocity was studied in an internal loop concentric tubes airlift reactor (working volume 45 liters). It was shown that as the usg increases the gas holdup and also the liquid circulation velocity increase. Also it was found that increasing superficial gas velocity lead to increase the interfacial area that increases the overall oxygen mass transfer coefficient. The hydrodynamic experimental results were modeled with the available equations in the literature. The predicted data gave an acceptable accuracy with the empirical data.
The final
... Show MoreBiodiesel is an environmentally friendly fuel and a good substitution for the fossil fuel. However, the purity of this fuel is a major concern that challenges researchers. In this study, a calcium oxide based catalyst has been prepared from local waste eggshells by the calcination method and tested in production biodiesel. The eggshells were powdered and calcined at different temperatures (700, 750, 800, 850 and 900 °C) and periods of time (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hr.). The effect of calcination temperature and calcination time on the structure and activity of the solid catalyst were examined by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Brunaure-Emmett-Teller (BET). The optimum catalyst performance was obtained at 900 °C
... Show MoreDouble-layer micro-perforated panels (MPPs) have been studied extensively as sound absorption systems to increase the absorption performance of single-layer MPPs. However, existing proposed models indicate that there is still room for improvement regarding the frequency bands of absorption for the double-layer MPP. This study presents a double-layer MPP formed with two single MPPs with inhomogeneous perforation backed by multiple cavities of varying depths. The theoretical formulation is developed using the electrical equivalent circuit method to calculate the absorption coefficient under a normal incident sound. The simulation results show that the proposed model can produce absorption coefficient with wider absorption bandwidth compared w
... Show MoreAsbestos is a hazard pollutant to human health, exposure to asbestos cause serious health effects and wide range of asbestos-related diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma and it has been classified as carcinogen by the World Health Organization WHO which cause a carcinogenic effects. Fibers of asbestos are mainly released from friction product in brakes and clutch linings and from reinforce agent in the asbestos cement industry. The aim of this was to evaluate the levels of asbestos fibers in surroundings air of some dense traffic points in Baghdad, through winter 2020. Materials and Methods: Samples of airs was carried out by directing air flow to a mixed cellulose ester membrane filter mounted on an open face
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