Low grade crude palm oil (LGCPO) presents as an attractive option as feedstock for biodiesel production due to its low cost and non-competition with food resources. Typically, LGCPO contains high contents of free fatty acids (FFA), rendering it impossible in direct trans-esterification processes due to the saponification reaction. Esterification is the typical pre-treatment process to reduce the FFA content and to produce fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). The pre-treatment of LGCPO using two different acid catalysts, such as titanium oxysulphate sulphuric acid complex hydrate (TiOSH) and 5-sulfosalicylic acid dihydrate (5-SOCAH) was investigated for the first time in this study. The optimum conditions for the homogenous catalyst (5-SOCAH) were determined as: 1.5 wt% of acid catalyst dosage, 60 °C reaction temperature, 8:1 methanol molar ratio at 60 min. For the heterogeneous TiOSH, higher catalyst dosages such as 7 wt% is required with a methanol loading of 10:1 (molar ratio) at 120 min to reduce the initial FFA to less than 3%. Under these optimum conditions for both types of catalysts; the FFA levels were reduced from 11.3 % to less than 3 %, individually. This study introduces for the first time two types of acidic catalysts with high catalytic activity for the esterification of FFA content in low grade oils for biodiesel production which could be used for the treatment of wide range of low quality oils.
This paper presents a new algorithm in an important research field which is the semantic word similarity estimation. A new feature-based algorithm is proposed for measuring the word semantic similarity for the Arabic language. It is a highly systematic language where its words exhibit elegant and rigorous logic. The score of sematic similarity between two Arabic words is calculated as a function of their common and total taxonomical features. An Arabic knowledge source is employed for extracting the taxonomical features as a set of all concepts that subsumed the concepts containing the compared words. The previously developed Arabic word benchmark datasets are used for optimizing and evaluating the proposed algorithm. In this paper,
... Show MoreNonlinear differential equation stability is a very important feature of applied mathematics, as it has a wide variety of applications in both practical and physical life problems. The major object of the manuscript is to discuss and apply several techniques using modify the Krasovskii's method and the modify variable gradient method which are used to check the stability for some kinds of linear or nonlinear differential equations. Lyapunov function is constructed using the variable gradient method and Krasovskii’s method to estimate the stability of nonlinear systems. If the function of Lyapunov is positive, it implies that the nonlinear system is asymptotically stable. For the nonlinear systems, stability is still difficult even though
... Show MoreA low speed open circuit wind tunnel has been designed, manufactured and constructed at the
Mechanical Engineering Department at Baghdad University - College of Engineering. The work is one of
the pioneer projects adapted by the R & D Office at the Iraqi MOHESR. The present paper describes the
first part of the work; that is the design calculations, simulation and construction. It will be followed by a
second part that describes testing and calibration of the tunnel. The proposed wind tunnel has a test
section with cross sectional area of (0.7 x 0.7 m2) and length of (1.5 m). The maximum speed is about (70
m/s) with empty test section. The contraction ratio is (8.16). Three screens are used to minimize flow
distu
The Ratawi Oil Field (ROF) is one of Iraq's most important oil fields because of its significant economic oil reserves. The major oil reserves of ROF are in the Mishrif Formation. The main objective of this paper is to assess the petrophysical properties, lithology identification, and hydrocarbon potential of the Mishrif Formation using interpreting data from five open-hole logs of wells RT-2, RT-4, RT-5, RT-6, and RT-42. Understanding reservoir properties allows for a more accurate assessment of recoverable oil reserves. The rock type (limestone) and permeability variations help tailor oil extraction methods, extraction methods and improving recovery techniques. The petrophysical properties were calculated using Interactive Petroph
... Show MoreThis study is achieved in the local area in Eridu oil field, where the Mishrif Formation is considered the main productive reservoir. The Mishrif Formation was deposited during the Cretaceous period in the secondary sedimentary cycle (Cenomanian-Early Turonian as a part of the Wasia Group a carbonate succession and widespread throughout the Arabian Plate. There are four association facies are identified in Mishrif Formation according the microfacies analysis: FA1-Deep shelf facies association (Outer Ramp); FA2-Slope (Middle Ramp); FA3-Reef facies (Shoal) association (Inner ramp); FA4-Back Reef facies association. Sequence stratigraphic analysis show there are three stratigraphic surfaces based on the abrupt changing in depositional
... Show MoreReservoir study has been developed in order to get a full interesting of the Nahr Umr formation in Ratawi oil field. Oil in place has been calculated for Nahr Umr which was 2981.37 MM BBL. Several runs have been performed to get matching between measured and calculated of oil production data and well test pressure. In order to get the optimum performance of Nahr Umr many strategies have been proposed in this study where vertical and horizontal wells were involved in addition to different production rates. The reservoir was first assumed to be developed with vertical wells only using production rate of (80000–125000) STB/day. The reservoir is also proposed to produce using horizontal wells besides vertical wells with production rat
... Show More: Cervical cancer representsone of the possibly preventable cancer. The study was designed to find the possible correlation of Tafazzin on the progression of cervical carcinoma. Two groups of paraffinized blocks were included. The study group of 30 cervical tumors as well as 15 biopsies of healthy cervical tissues. After sectioning on a positive charge, immunohistochemical application (IHC) was performed to detect Tafazzin expression. Nighnty percentage (27 out of 30) of the studies group showed positive overexpression as shown in with a significant association of the expression with cervical cancer with a significant association. There is a possible role of TAZ in hastening the development of cervical cancer through different mechanisms. F
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