The objective of the study is developing a procedure for production and characterization of rice husk ash (RHA). The effects of rice husk (RH) amount, burning/cooling conditions combined with stirring on producing of RHA with amorphous silica, highest SiO2, lowest loss on ignition (LOI), uniform particle shape distribution and nano structured size have been studied. It is concluded that the best amount is 20 g RH in 125 ml evaporating dish Porcelain with burning for 2 h at temperature 700 °C combined with cooling three times during burning to produce RHA with amorphous silica, SiO2 90.78% and LOI 1.73%. On the other hand, cooling and stirring times affect the variation of nano structured size and particle shape distribution. However, no crystalline phases were found in RHA in all cases. Results proved that the Attritor ball mill was more suitable than vibration disk mill for pulverizing nano structured RHA with 50% of particle size (D50) lower than 45 mm and 99 % of particle size (D99) lower than 144 mm to nanosized RHA with D50 lower than 36 nm and D99 lower than 57 nm by grinding time 8.16 min to every 1 g RHA without changes in morphousity of silica.
Gaslift reactors are employed in several bioapplications due to their characteristics of cost-effectiveness and high efficiency. However, the nutrient and thermal gradient is one of the obstacles that stand in the way of its widespread use in biological applications. The diagnosis, analysis, and tracking of fluid paths in external draft tube gaslift bioreactor-type are the main topics of the current study. Several parameters were considered to assess the mixing efficiency such as downcomer-to-rizer diameter ratio (Ded/Dr), the position of the diffuser to the height of bioreactor ratio (Pd/Lr), and gas bubble size (Db). The multiple regression of liquid velocity indicates the optimal setting: Ded/Dr is (0.5), Pd/Lr is (0.02), and Db
... Show MoreResearchers are increasingly using multimodal biometrics to strengthen the security of biometric applications. In this study, a strong multimodal human identification model was developed to address the growing problem of spoofing attacks in biometric security systems. Through the use of metaheuristic optimization methods, such as the Genetic Algorithm(GA), Ant Colony Optimization(ACO), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for feature selection, this unique model incorporates three biometric modalities: face, iris, and fingerprint. Image pre-processing, feature extraction, critical image feature selection, and multibiometric recognition are the four main steps in the workflow of the system. To determine its performance, the model wa
... Show MoreThe purpose of this paper is to solve the stochastic demand for the unbalanced transport problem using heuristic algorithms to obtain the optimum solution, by minimizing the costs of transporting the gasoline product for the Oil Products Distribution Company of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. The most important conclusions that were reached are the results prove the possibility of solving the random transportation problem when the demand is uncertain by the stochastic programming model. The most obvious finding to emerge from this work is that the genetic algorithm was able to address the problems of unbalanced transport, And the possibility of applying the model approved by the oil products distribution company in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil to m
... Show MoreAmong a variety of approaches introduced in the literature to establish duality theory, Fenchel duality was of great importance in convex analysis and optimization. In this paper we establish some conditions to obtain classical strong Fenchel duality for evenly convex optimization problems defined in infinite dimensional spaces. The objective function of the primal problem is a family of (possible) infinite even convex functions. The strong duality conditions we present are based on the consideration of the epigraphs of the c-conjugate of the dual objective functions and the ε-c-subdifferential of the primal objective functions.
This paper proposes a novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called the fine-tuning meta-heuristic algorithm (FTMA) for solving global optimization problems. In this algorithm, the solutions are fine-tuned using the fundamental steps in meta-heuristic optimization, namely, exploration, exploitation, and randomization, in such a way that if one step improves the solution, then it is unnecessary to execute the remaining steps. The performance of the proposed FTMA has been compared with that of five other optimization algorithms over ten benchmark test functions. Nine of them are well-known and already exist in the literature, while the tenth one is proposed by the authors and introduced in this article. One test trial was shown t
... Show MoreIn this research TiO2 nano-powder was prepared by a spray pyrolysis technique and then adds to the TiO2 powder with particle size (0.523 μm) in ratio (0, 5, 10, 15 at %) atomic percentage, and then deposition of the mixture on the stainless steel 316 L substrate in order to use in medical and industrial applications.
Structure properties including x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM0, also some of mechanical properties and the effect of thermal annealing in different temperature have been studied. The results show that the particle size of a prepared nano-powder was 50 up to 75 nm from SEM, and the crystal structure of the powders (original and nano powder) was rutile with tetragonal cell. An improvement in
Membrane manufacturing system was operated using dry/wet phase inversion process. A sample of hollow fiber membrane was prepared using (17% wt PVC) polyvinyl chloride as membrane material and N, N Dimethylacetamide (DMAC) as solvent in the first run and the second run was made using (DMAC/Acetone) of ratio 3.4 w/w. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to predict the structure and dimensions of hollow fiber membranes prepared. The ultrafiltration experiments were performed using soluble polymeric solute poly ethylene glycol (PEG) of molecular weight (20000 Dalton) 800 ppm solution 25 °C temperature and 1 bar pressure. The experimental results show that pure water permeation increased from 25.7 to 32.2 (L/m2.h.bar) by adding a
... Show MoreAnise and thyme crude extract were used to prepare a lotion for topical application due to their antimicrobial, germicidal and antifungal effects. Two formulas were prepared using the mentioned natural plants, formula 2 (selected lotion) was the most acceptable one which contained veegum and xanthan gum as suspending agents in addition to other exceipients providing it good properties with high physical stability because of its flocculating, pouring, resuspending easily with sedimentation volume (F) 0.96. In addition to unchangeable odor and color with expiration date of one year. While the Preliminary clinical study was done using this lotion on 10 patients with infecious viral skin diseases, it was found that this lotion was successful
... Show MoreIn this work, silver (Ag) self-metallization on a polyimide (PI) film was prepared through autocatalytic plating. PI films were prepared through the solution casting method, followed by etching with potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution, sensitization with tin chloride (SnCl2), and the use of palladium chloride (PdCl2) to activate the surface of PI. Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) showed the highest peak in the (Ag) region and confirmed the presence of AgNPs. The diffraction peaks at 2θ = 38.2°, 44.5°, 64.6°, and 78.2° represented the 111, 200, 220, and 311 planes of Ag, respectively. The FT–IR an
... Show MoreHealth and environmental factors as well as operational difficulties are major challenges facing the development of an anaerobic digestion process. Some of these problems relate to the use of sludge collected from primary and secondary clarifier units in wastewater treatment plants for laboratory purposes.
The present study addresses the preparation of sludge for laboratory purposes by using a mixture that consists of the digested sludge, which is less pathogenic, compared to the collected sludge from the primary or secondary clarifier, and food wastes. The sludge has been tested experimentally for 19 and 32 days under mesophilic conditions. The results show a steady methane production rate from the anaerobic dig
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