Lightweight Materials Obtained by Utilization of Agricultural Waste

Lightweight ceramic materials in the form of bricks and blocks are widely used in modern construction. They may be obtained by adding of rice husk, rye straw, etc, as porous forming materials. Rice husk is a major by-product of the rice milling industry. Its utilization as a valuable product has always been a problem. Various technologies for utilization of rice husk through biological and thermochemical conversion are being developed. The purpose of this work is to develop lightweight ceramic materials with clay matrix and filler of rice husk and examine their main physicomechanical properties. The results obtained allow to suppose that the materials synthesized on the basis of waste materials can be used as lightweight materials for construction purpose.

Design of Laboratory Pilot Reactor for Filtering and Separation of Water – oil Emulsions

The present paper deals with problems related to the possibilities to use fractal systems to solve some important scientific and practical problems connected with filtering and separation of aqueous phases from organic ones. For this purpose a special separator have been designed. The reactor was filled with a porous material with fractal dimension, which is an integral part of the set for filtration and separation of emulsions. As a model emulsion hexadecan mixture with water in equal quantities (1:1) was used. We examined the hydrodynamics of the separation of the emulsion at different rates of submission of the entrance of the reactor.

A Kinetic Study on the Adsorption of Cd(II) and Zn(II) Ions from Aqueous Solutions on Zeolite NaA

The present paper reports the removal of Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions using synthetic Zeolit NaA. The adsorption capacity of the sorbent (Zeolite NaA) strongly depends on simultaneous or not simultaneous (concurrent) presence of Cd(II) and Zn(II) in the sorbate. When Cd(II) and Zn(II) are present simultaneously (concurrently) in the sorbate, Zn(II) ions were sorbed at higher rate. Equilibrium data fitted Langmuir, Freundlich and Tempkin isotherms well. The applicability of the isotherm equation to describe the adsorption process was judged by the correlation coefficients R2. The Langmuir model yielded the best fit with R2 values equal to or higher than 0.970, as compared to the Freundlich and Tempkin models. The fact that 1/n values range from 0.322 to 0.755 indicates that the adsorption of Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions from aqueous solutions also favored by the Freundlich model.

The Removal of Cu (II) Ions from Aqueous Solutions on Synthetic Zeolite NaA

In this study the adsorption of Cu (II) ions from aqueous solutions on synthetic zeolite NaA was evaluated. The effect of solution temperature and the determination of the kinetic parameters of adsorption of Cu(II) from aqueous solution on zeolite NaA is important in understanding the adsorption mechanism. Variables of the system include adsorption time, temperature (293- 328K), initial solution concentration and pH for the system. The sorption kinetics of the copper ions were found to be strongly dependent on pH (the optimum pH 3-5), solute ion concentration and temperature (293 – 328 K). It was found, the pseudo-second-order model was the best choice among all the kinetic models to describe the adsorption behavior of Cu(II) onto ziolite NaA, suggesting that the adsorption mechanism might be a chemisorptions process The activation energy of adsorption (Ea) was determined as Cu(II) 13.5 kJ mol-1. The low value of Ea shows that Cu(II) adsorption process by zeolite NaA may be an activated chemical adsorption. The thermodynamic parameters (ΔG0, ΔH0, and ΔS0) were also determined from the temperature dependence. The results show that the process of adsorption Cu(II) is spontaneous and endothermic process and rise in temperature favors the adsorption.

Simulation Design of Separator for the Treatment of Emulsions

A prototype model of an emulsion separator was designed and manufactured. Generally, it is a cylinder filled with different fractal modules. The emulsion was fed into the reactor by a peristaltic pump through an inlet placed at the boundary between the two phases. For hydrodynamic design and sizing of the reactor the assumptions of the theory of filtration were used and methods to describe the separation process were developed. Based on this methodology and using numerical methods and software of Autodesk the process is simulated in different operating modes. The basic hydrodynamic characteristics - speed and performance for different types of fractal systems and decisions to optimize the design of the reactor were also defined.