Introduction: Although soap industry is known from hundreds of years, the development accompanied with this industry was little. The development implied the mechanical equipment and the additive materials necessary to produce soap with the best specifications of shape, physical and chemical properties. Objectives: This research studies the use of vacuum reactive distillation VRD technique for soap production. Methods: Olein and Palmitin in the ratio of 3 to 1 were mixed in a flask with NaOH solution in stoichiometric amount under different vacuum pressures from -0.35 to -0.5 bar. Total conversion was reached by using the VRD technique. The soap produced by the VRD method was compared with soap prepared by the reaction - only method which is known as the conventional method. The two kinds of soap were compared in yield, the reaction temperature, the volume of the co-product liquid and its composition, FTIR analysis, the density and the time of production. Results: It was shown that the yield of soap using VRD was 2.45 times that produced by the reaction - only method. The process temperature was reduced 0.11 times. The volume of the co-product liquid was reduced 95.76% consisting of water only. The analyses of FTIR were compared with a commercial soap regarded as a standard and they showed identical functional groups. Very little difference in density was recorded. The time of production was shorter than the conventional method giving another priority to the VRD method. Conclusion: It was beneficial to adopt VRD method in soap production in batch mode. Continuous mode of soap production using VRD method may be investigated in future study.
Concrete is widely used in construction materials since early 1800's. It has been known that concrete is weak in tension, so it requires some addition materials to have ductile behavior and enhance its tensile strength and strain capacity to improve their uses. In this study reactive powder concrete (RPC) was used with steel fiber by using different types of cement; (Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and/or Portland- Limestone cement (PLC)) with three types of mixtures (OPC at the first mix, 50 % OPC and 50 % PLC at the second mix and PLC at the third mix). The behavior of RPC with steel fibers on compressive strength and tensile strength of concrete with different ages of curing (7, 14, 28 and 60) days and shrinkage have been studied. The clo
... Show MoreThis work studies the performance of zeolite permeable reactive barrier in removing cadmium from a contaminated shallow aquifer. Batch tests have been performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of the zeolite in cadmium-containing aqueous solutions. A 1D numerical finite difference model has been developed to describe pollutant transport within groundwater taking pollutant sorption on the permeable reactive barrier (PRB), which is performed by Langmuir equation, into account. Numerical results show that the PRB starts to saturate after a period of time (~120 h) due to reduction of the retardation factor, indicating a decrease in the percentage of zeolite functionality. However, a reasonable agreement between model predict
... Show MoreEvery year, millions of tons of waste glass are created across the globe. It is disposed of in landfills, which is unsustainable since it does not disintegrate into the environment. This study aims to produce reactive powder concrete by using recycled glass powder and determine the influence on the mechanical properties. This study investigated the effect of partial replacement of cement with recycled glass powder at two percentages (0, 20) % by weight of cement on some mechanical properties (Fresh density, Splitting tensile strength, Impact Strength, and voids%) of reactive powder concrete containing 1 % micro steel (MSRPC). Furthermore, using steam curing for (5 hours) at 90 degrees celsius after hardening the sample directly, RPC was
... Show MoreTitanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films were prepared under different pressures with values (15, 30, 60 and 120) Pa using the DC reactive magnetron homemade system with mixed gases of argon and oxygen in ratio (50:50). The result of X-ray diffraction patterns discovered that the structure of the deposited films was polycrystalline, including the phase of anatase. All the appeared peaks were matched to the planes (101), (004), (105), and (211) of diffracted states. Both the intensities and the number of the appeared peaks are declined according to the increased pressure, and the plane of (101) is be considered the preferential grown plane, it is taking a maximum texture factor. Both the lattice constant and the atomic inter-planer spacing take th
... Show MoreIraqi kaolin was used for the preparation and characterization of NaY zeolite for biodiesel production via esterification reaction. Oleic acid was used usually as a typical simulated feedstock of high acid number for the esterification reaction.
The chemical composition for the prepared Nay zeolite is as following: (Ca2.6Na1.K0.1)(Al6.3Si17.7)O48.16H2O, the silica to alumina ratio in the prepared catalyst was found equal to 2.6 and Na2O content was 12.26 wt. %, with relative crystallinity equal to 147.4 % obtained by the X-ray diffraction. The surface area result shows that the prepared catalyst has 330 m2
... Show MoreThis study involves the design of 24 mixtures of fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing nano silica. Tap water was used for 12 of these mixtures, while magnetic water was used for the others. The nano silica (NS) with ratios (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3) % by weight of cement, were used for all the mixtures. The results have shown that the mixture containing 2.5% NS gives the highest compressive strength at age 7 days. Many different other tests were carried out, the results have shown that the carbon fiber reinforced magnetic reactive powder concrete containing 2.5% NS (CFRMRPCCNS) had higher compressive strength, modulus of rupture, splitting tension, str
... Show MoreSimulated annealing (SA) has been an effective means that can address difficulties related to optimization problems. is now a common discipline for research with several productive applications such as production planning. Due to the fact that aggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most considerable problems in production planning, in this paper, we present multi-objective linear programming model for APP and optimized by . During the course of optimizing for the APP problem, it uncovered that the capability of was inadequate and its performance was substandard, particularly for a sizable controlled problem with many decision variables and plenty of constraints. Since this algorithm works sequentially then the current state wi
... Show MoreBiodiesel is becoming one of the most attractive alternative biofuels for petroleum-based diesel fuels. The castor plant is one of the abundant non-edible oils found in many countries. This paper aims to study Libyan castor oil and its potential for diesel conversion. Experiments were carried out in the laboratories of the Specific Center for Training in the Oil Industries in Al-Zawiya. The oil was extracted using a Soxhlet extractor and n-hexane solvent at 60 °C. Transesterification reactions were conducted in a batch reactor (a three-neck flask was used, where the middle opening carries a reflux condensation unit) at 65 °C. The methanol-to-castor oil molar ratio was 6:1, with a catalyst concentration of 1 wt.% relative to the ca
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