The increasing usage of petroleum-based compounds has prompted numerous environmental concerns. Consequently, there has been a steady rise in research on the synthesis of useful materials from natural sources. Paper technologists are seeking environmentally acceptable dry end and wet end additives. Among the bio-based resources available, nanocellulose is a popular sustainable nanomaterial additive in the paper industry because of its high strength, high oxygen barrier performance, low density, great mechanical properties, and biocompatibility. NC’s extensive hydroxyl groups provide a unique possibility to dramatically modify the hydrophilicity and charge of the surface in order to improve their potential applications in the paper industry. The current paper reviews two series of surface modifications, each with various subcategories, depending on why modified nanocellulose is added in the paper production: to improve barrier properties or to improve mechanical properties of packaging materials. The methods presented in this study use the minimum amount of chemically hazardous solvents to have the least impact on the environment. This review focuses on modifications of nanocellulose and their subsequent application in the papermaking. The knowledge and the discussion presented in this review will form a literature source for future use by various stakeholders and the sustainable paper manufacturers.

Industrial activities continuously generate diverse characteristics of various types of wastes. Industrial wastes varied from various process residues, wastes from pollution, or decontamination from operations and materials resulting from activities for contaminated soil remediation, ashes, oil, acidic wastes, plastic, paper, wood, fiber, rubber, metals, and glass. The circular tools indicate a restorative and regenerative system in which the streams of materials and products take place in a circular way. Considering social pressures, major industrial enterprises perceived the need for readjusting their production chains according to circular chains, which are more sustainable and consider the generated waste. This study aims to present the factors for sustainable waste management in major industrial enterprises based on the circular economy approach. The available data of a waste company is considered, and the model of circular economy such as fault tree analysis is applied to figure out the implementation of a circular process to industrial waste, especially those of lower value that have greater difficulties in being processed. The last section will propose a framework, opportunities, challenges, and trade-offs promoting circulatory industrial waste management.

Although numerous works have been done, most of the studies in fault diagnosis are limited to single fault type at a time. Majority of the works reported in the literature do not extend the diagnosis of the root cause of the fault for simultaneous faults specifically in the distillation column. However, an industrial system is susceptible to more than one fault at a time, which may or may not be interrelated. These faults not only reduce the diagnosis performance but also increase the computational complexity of the diagnosis algorithm. In this work, therefore, a multiple kernel support vector machine (MK-SVM) algorithm is proposed to diagnose simultaneous faults in the distillation column. In the developed MK-SVM algorithm, multilabel approach based on various kernel functions has been utilized for the classification of simultaneous faults. Dynamic simulation of a pilot-scale distillation column using Aspen Plus(R) is used for generating data in normal and faulty operation. Eight different fault types are considered, including valve sticking at reflux and reboiler, tray upsets, loss of feed flow, feed composition, and feed temperature changes. In the classification of simultaneous faults, a combination of two, three, and four faults is introduced for the performance evaluation of the proposed MK-SVM algorithm. The result showed that the proposed MK-SVM has a high fault detection rate (FDR) of 99.51% and a very low misclassification rate (MR) of 0.49%. The MK-SVM-based classification is better with the F1 score of >97% for all combinations of faults. Moreover, it is observed that the proposed MK-SVM shows better fault diagnosis for single, multiple, and simultaneous faults as compared to other established machine-learning algorithms.

The study proposes a novel integrated process in which ionic liquid is utilized to control carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the natural gas combined with a single mixed refrigerant-based liquefaction process to assist safe transportation over long distances providing a sustainable and cleaner energy. Commercially amines are utilized for CO2 sequestration, but amines entail energy-intensive regeneration with elevated process costs. The present study offers a solvent screening mechanism based on important parameters such as heat of dissolution, viscosity, selectivity, working capacity, vapor pressure, corrosivity, and toxicity. The selected solvents' performance is computed by sensitivity analysis suggesting imidazolium-based cation 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium[Hmim] functionalized with tricyanomethanide(tcm) as anion a potential natural gas sweetening solvent in comparison with commercially used solvent monoethanoloamine(MEA), conventional ILs 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexa-fluorophosphate [Bmim][Pf(6)] and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium methyl sulfate [Bmim][MeSO4]. The obtained sweet gas is liquefied using a single mixed refrigerant-based process providing 0.99 mol fraction of liquefied CH4 with less overall specific compression power requirement of 0.41 kW/kg of natural gas. Moreover, an exergy analysis demonstrates that the [Hmim][tcm] based process has lower total exergy destruction of 7.49 x 10(3) kW and is found to utilize less overall specific energy consumption 0.49 kWh/kg of NG in contrast to other studied solvents. Furthermore, a detailed economic analysis establishes [Hmim][tcm]-based CO2 integrated with liquefaction technology offers 50.7%, 74.4%, and 85.8% of total annualized cost (TAC) savings compared with the MEA-amim][Pf(6)]-, and [Bmim][MeSO4], respectively. Hence, [Hmim][tcm] for CO2 removal and integration with liquefaction process will incur unit cost based on the total annualized cost to be $2.2 x 10(4)/kmol of purified NG.

The efficiency of DC microgrid needs investigation from a smart grid perspective, since their spread has expected to prevail in comparison with AC counterparts. Furthermore, there is a need to address the limitations (majorly to cater the intermittency of distributed energy resources (DERs) as well as the time dependency of systematic parameters etc.) in previous model and propose a new mathematical model to evaluate system efficiency for given parameters and scenarios. The core focus of current study aims at formulation of an improved (composite) mathematical model, that is capable of bridging issues and serve as a tool to address requirements of future DC systems including microgrids (MGs) and multi-microgrids (MMGs). This research work offers such a mathematical model that consists of 3D matrices based on newly derived set of discrete time dependent equations, which evaluates the system efficiency of residential DC-MMGs. Each DC-MG is embedded with intermittent DERs, storage, components (with efficiency variations), and multi-class load (with discrete time dependency), for evaluation across worst, normal, and best scenarios. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis across various cases and respective scenarios are also presented to evaluate overall system performance. Also, the impacts of system parameters on various system variables, states, and overall system efficiency have presented in this paper.

The objective of this study is to build knowledge on the potential of agro-industrial residue gasification (AIRG) for use in captive power generation through a comprehensive case study. In order to evaluate the economic viability, key performance indicators, such as net present value (NPV), levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), and operating costs etc. are studied. The major textile industry located in the Raiwind area of Punjab province of Pakistan has been selected. The effect and variations of the capacity factor has also been studied coupled with the levelized cost of electricity. The agricultural residue as feedstock to the gasifier is rice husk that is the abundantly available in South Asia. Furthermore, the impact of government subsidies on natural gas is also under the scope of the study. The agro-industrial residue gasification system is found to be a potential alternative to furnace oil (FO) or gas-based captive power plants (CPPs). The results of residue-based gasification system imply a large potential when comparing the cost of electricity with national grid electricity during the peak hours. Therefore, the proposed gasification system offers economic incentives when the textile industry potentially utilizes gasification-based electricity during peak hours and national grid electricity during off-peak hours. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The aim of this work is to exploit the pyrolysis characteristics of microalgae Botryococcus braunii (BB) with a medium pore framework zeolite (MCM-22) and its delaminated counterpart with a higher external surface area zeolite (ITQ-2) using pyrolysis-gas-chromatography-mass-spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) and a fixed-bed reactor. The study evaluates the effect of synthesized zeolites that possess different pore size, shape and acidity on promoting deoxygenation reactions and producing aromatic compounds during the pyrolysis of microalgae. Further, the role of the shape of zeolites (layered & delaminated) for carbohydrate, protein and lipid-derived compounds formation is discussed. The Py-GC/MS results showed that the aromatic compounds (area%) was significantly higher (35.17 %) for delaminated & (28.76 %) for layered zeolites than non-catalytic pyrolysis (17.85 %) at the catalyst/biomass ratio of 10.1. The increase in catalyst/biomass ratio from 3 to 10 at 550 °C has increased the aromatics (90.66 % for ITQ-2 & 75.25 %) for MCM-22 zeolites. In addition, ITQ-2 zeolite produced 20.47 % higher aromatics than MCM-22 zeolites which is attributed to the thinner delaminated structure of ITQ-2 that makes reactants more accessible to the catalytic site and accelerate the deoxygenation reactions.

Oily sludge has the potential to utilize in pyrolysis process effectively because of higher product recovery and lower harmful emissions. Due to the complex nature of reactions, it is necessary to evaluate the thermo-kinetic behavior of the process to make it commercially feasible. This study includes thermal degradation behavior, the kinetic and thermodynamic analysis of dry oily sludge by applying Friedman and Vyazovkin method (model-free approach), and Coats-Redfern method (model-fitting approach) with the help of thermogravimetric analysis TGA at different heating rates (5, 20, 40 °C/min). The active region was from 20 to 60% conversion range because the maximum conversion occurs in this region. The overall activation energy decreases as the conversion increases from a lower range (60%) to a higher range (80%) for all satisfied models. The estimated range of pre-exponential coefficient for each model was to 4.91E+15 to 2.30E-01min−1 in the conversion range of 20–60% and 9.80E+02 to 4.89E-04min−1 in the conversion range 60–80%. The overall value of the change in enthalpy ΔH and change in Gibbs free energy ΔG decrease as the conversion increases from the lower range to the higher range.

Environmental protection agencies have begun imposing stringent regulations on the existing refineries to control the levels of gasoline additives. In this context, a novel compound, 2-methoxy-2-methylheptane (MMH), had drawn attention as fuel additive for cleaner combustion. The conventional process of MMH production features three distillation columns in a direct sequence. These columns are used to maintain the required product purities and to utilize the unreacted reactants through recycling streams. The distillation system of the existing MMH plant can afford significant energy savings, leading to a reduction in the total annual costs (TAC). The aim of this investigation is to demonstrate that the reported conventional process can be significantly enhanced by modifying the design and operational parameters and by replacing two distillation columns with an intensified dividing wall column (DWC) configuration. The DWC design is further optimized using several algorithms such as the modified coordinate method (MCD), robust particle swarm paradigm (PSP), and firefly (FF) with nonlinear constraints. Compared to conventional process, the optimized DWC resulted in 24% and 11.5% savings in the plant operating and total annual costs, respectively.

The performance of a multistage centrifugal compressor is highly influenced by the ambient conditions, especially during the summer seasons; their capacity shrinks and thus the power requirement for compression will increase. The prime cause of these constraints is the interstage cooling limitations. This study simulates various suction conditions of a multistage compressor on Aspen HYSYS (R) and suggests its debottlenecking by making the suction temperatures comparable to winter seasons. This is achieved by installing an additional exchanger at the downstream of each interstage cooler, cooling down the gas further by using absorption refrigeration chillers. These chillers are powered up by the waste heat recovered from the exhaust steam coming from the prime mover, steam turbine, of the same compressor. This modification will save a considerable amount of power (663 kW), net savings (Gross Savings - OPEX: 72 289 $/y), and reduce the carbon footprint (954 ton/y) of the overall process.