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A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Chemical Processes and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 January 2025 | Viewed by 12714

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Dr. Piotr Rybarczyk

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Department of Process Engineering and Chemical Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdansk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland
Interests: air biofiltration; biotrickling filtration; energetic valorization of biomass; ion flotation; precipitate flotation; phytoremediation
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Dear Colleagues,

The continuous development of technology requires new approaches and demands existing processes to be modified in chemical industry production in order to meet the sustainable usage of materials and circular economy policy. This can be approached via the more efficient use of energy and materials, fulfilling the requirements of the circular economy, increasing the process efficiency, and minimizing impacts on different compartments of the environment.

Researchers are invited to submit both original and review papers. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

technological processes, with a special focus on process tuning to sustainability and circular economy approaches;
unit operations for chemical engineering (hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer);
technologies and processes for Industry 4.0;
processes for gas, liquid, and solid waste management;
mitigation of industry-related air, water, and soil pollution, using chemical, physico-chemical, and biological methods (absorption, filtration, biofiltration, phytoremediation, and others);
processes for biomass management and valorization towards a broad range of applications;
modification and novel processes for the petrochemical industry.

Dr. Piotr Rybarczyk
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

chemical industry
petrochemical operations
chemical synthesis
chemical technology
chemical engineering
circular economy
Industry 4.0
sustainability in chemical technologies
air, water, and soil treatment
pollution mitigation

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 4409 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Selective Processing of the Kaolinite Fraction of High-Silicon Bauxite

by Sergey Gladyshev, Symbat Dyussenova, Yerkezhan Abikak, Nazym Akhmadiyeva, Leila Imangaliyeva and Arina Bakhshyan

Processes 2024, 12(11), 2323; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12112323 - 23 Oct 2024

Viewed by 513

Abstract

When processing low-quality gibbsite–kaolinite bauxites, technologies that involve different methods of mechanical and chemical enrichment with the separation of a difficult-to-utilize fine kaolinite fraction for disposal are used. Before production, problems related to waste storage and disposal arise. To solve the problem of utilization, it is necessary to develop an effective technology for the selective processing of the kaolinite fraction. The efficiency of the technology will depend on the quality of pretreatment of raw materials prior to processing for Al₂O₃ extraction. Preliminary preparation of kaolinite fraction is associated with the maximum removal of excess silica during chemical enrichment by treatment with an alkaline solution. The presence of silica reduces the quality of final alumina products and requires a large consumption of reagents during the desiliconization of aluminate solutions. During the chemical enrichment of kaolinite fraction in alkaline solution, a serious problem of the co-dissolution of Al₂O₃ with silica arises. The solution to this problem can be the transformation of phase composition with the transformation of kaolin into a chemically resistant compound corundum, which will create conditions for the selective removal of silica. Kazakhstan’s alumina refinery, Pavlodar Aluminum Smelter, processes low-quality gibbsite–kaolinite bauxite from the Krasnogorsk deposit. To improve the quality of bauxite, preliminary gravity enrichment is carried out to separate the kaolinite fraction to a quantity greater than 50%. The purpose of this work was to study the possibility of the selective processing of the kaolinite fraction via various techniques, including preliminary thermal transformation, through sintering, chemical enrichment, autoclave leaching in a circulating aluminate solution, and low-temperature desiliconization, to obtain a solution for decomposition. As a result of this study, the possibility of obtaining a corundum phase after sintering at a temperature of 900–1000 °C was established, which made it possible to obtain 58.8% chemical enrichment through the extraction of SiO₂ into solution. Further use of the enriched kaolinite fraction in autoclave leaching in a circulating aluminate solution with low-temperature desiliconization made it possible to obtain an aluminate solution with a caustic modulus of 1.65–1.7, which is suitable for decomposition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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25 pages, 3591 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predicting Petroleum SARA Composition from Density, Sulfur Content, Flash Point, and Simulated Distillation Data Using Regression and Artificial Neural Network Techniques

by Ivelina Shiskova, Dicho Stratiev, Sotir Sotirov, Evdokia Sotirova, Rosen Dinkov, Iliyan Kolev, Denis D. Stratiev, Svetoslav Nenov, Simeon Ribagin, Krassimir Atanassov, Dobromir Yordanov and Frans van den Berg

Processes 2024, 12(8), 1755; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12081755 - 20 Aug 2024

Viewed by 866

Abstract

The saturate, aromatic, resin, and asphaltene content in petroleum (SARA composition) provides valuable information about the chemical nature of oils, oil compatibility, colloidal stability, fouling potential, and other important aspects in petroleum chemistry and processing. For that reason, SARA composition data are important for petroleum engineering research and practice. Unfortunately, the results of SARA composition measurements reported by diverse laboratories are frequently very dissimilar and the development of a method to assign SARA composition from oil bulk properties is a question that deserves attention. Petroleum fluids with great variability of SARA composition were employed in this study to model their SARA fraction contents from their density, flash point, sulfur content, and simulated distillation characteristics. Three data mining techniques: intercriteria analysis, regression, and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were applied. It was found that the ANN models predicted with higher accuracy the contents of resins and asphaltenes, whereas the non-linear regression model predicted most accurately the saturate fraction content but with an accuracy that was lower than that reported in the literature regarding uncertainty of measurement. The aromatic content was poorly predicted by all investigated techniques, although the prediction of aromatic content was within the uncertainty of measurement. The performed study suggests that as well as the investigated properties, additional characteristics need to be explored to account for complex petroleum chemistry in order to improve the accuracy of SARA composition prognosis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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16 pages, 1348 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integration of Chemical Looping Combustion to a Gasified Stream with Low Hydrogen Content

by Guadalupe S. Fraga-Cruz, Mario A. Pérez-Méndez, Gladys Jiménez-García, Rafael Huirache-Acuña, Fabricio Nápoles-Rivera, Jaime Espino-Valencia and Rafael Maya-Yescas

Processes 2024, 12(5), 1033; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12051033 - 19 May 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 972

Abstract

Global population growth requires the use of various natural resources to satisfy the basic needs of humanity. Fossil fuels are mainly used to produce electricity, transportation and the artificial air conditioning of habitats. Nevertheless, countries around the world are looking for alternative energy sources due to the decrease in the availability of these fuels and their high environmental impact. The mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (H₂ + CO), commonly called syngas, is a high-value feedstock for various industrial applications. By varying the composition of syngas, especially the H₂/CO molar ratio, it can be used to produce methanol, fuels or synthetic natural gas. However, when this ratio is very low, the separation of this gas usually represents a great problem when making the energy balance, which is why it is proposed to adapt a combustion process in chemical cycles, taking advantage of the energy of this gas, reducing the energy impact of the process. During the present project, mass and energy balances were developed for combustion in chemical cycles, using ilmenite as a carrier, integrating heat exchangers to take advantage of the residual energy at the output of the process, to preheat the inlet current in the regenerator. Here, a comparative was made at different temperatures of the air stream and evaluating the mechanism of the ilmenite when a syngas stream is used as fuel. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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16 pages, 6547 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Automatic Control of Nucleation and Crystal Growth Using Online Raman Analyzer

by Aofei Li, Boxue Chang, Zhen Li, Biao Chen, Kaidi Ji, Yangshun Chen, Shiqiang Ou, Fengming Zhang, Jiaoning Wei and Yinlan Ruan

Processes 2024, 12(4), 774; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12040774 - 12 Apr 2024

Viewed by 1137

Abstract

The accurate determination of crystal formation during crystallization is crucial for obtaining crystal products with consistent quality and quantity. In this study, we aimed to identify the feasibility of using Raman spectroscopy to monitor the crystal growth stage in the crystallization process using cephalosporin intermediate 7-ACT as an example molecule. By observing the changes in the characteristic peak of the 7-ACT crystal (504 cm⁻¹) and the characteristic peak of the solvent acetonitrile (914 cm⁻¹), a correlation between the crystal growth stage and the change in the Raman intensity of the crystal solution was discovered. The determination of the optimal starting time for the crystal growth stage through a Raman analyzer significantly improves the consistency of crystal product quality. This led to a fivefold reduction in the variation in the weight and water content of the final 7-ACT crystal products compared to those obtained via manual control. In addition, our experiments also indicated that Raman monitoring could be more efficient at enabling the chemical synthesis reaction to be completed compared to manual control. Thus, our work demonstrates the potential of Raman spectroscopy in the real-time control of chemical synthesis reactions and crystallization processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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21 pages, 4751 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On Using CFD and Experimental Data to Train an Artificial Neural Network to Reconstruct ECVT Images: Application for Fluidized Bed Reactors

by Carlos Montilla, Renaud Ansart, Anass Majji, Ranem Nadir, Emmanuel Cid, David Simoncini and Stephane Negny

Processes 2024, 12(2), 386; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12020386 - 15 Feb 2024

Viewed by 1018

Abstract

Electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) is an experimental technique capable of reconstructing 3D solid volume fraction distribution inside a sensing region. This technique has been used in fluidized beds as it allows for accessing data that are very difficult to obtain using other experimental devices. Recently, artificial neural networks have been proposed as a new type of reconstruction algorithm for ECVT devices. One of the main drawbacks of neural networks is that they need a database containing previously reconstructed images to learn from. Previous works have used databases with very simple or limited configurations that might not be well adapted to the complex dynamics of fluidized bed configurations. In this work, we study two different approaches: a supervised learning approach that uses simulated data as a training database and a reinforcement learning approach that relies only on experimental data. Our results show that both techniques can perform as well as the classical algorithms. However, once the neural networks are trained, the reconstruction process is much faster than the classical algorithms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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16 pages, 1790 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceArticle

The Pursuit of Energy Reduction in Generation of Stable Nanobubbles

by Karol Ulatowski, Andrzej Cecuga and Paweł Sobieszuk

Processes 2023, 11(9), 2739; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11092739 - 14 Sep 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1848

Abstract

The repeatable and cost-efficient generation of nanobubbles is still a challenge. In most cases, the hydrodynamic generation of nanobubbles is used at larger scales. Therefore, every cost reduction possible in nanobubble generation is needed. In this work, we decided to check how the generation of nanobubbles changes when the surrounding liquid properties change. The generation of nanobubbles was carried out in a novel setup, designed by us. We investigated the minimum liquid velocity needed for nanobubble generation and propose correlations describing this based on the physicochemical properties of the liquid and gas phases. As carbon dioxide nanobubbles are commonly used for the treatment of ischemia and chronic wounds, the investigation of their stability enhancement is crucial for the wider public. We investigated the minimum rotation rate of the impeller needed for CO₂ nanobubble generation and the influence of a biomedical surfactant (Pluronic P-123) addition and concentration change on the size of nanobubbles and their stability over time. Nanobubbles were stable in the presence of surfactant additions and showed the impact of both changes in generation time and shear stress on their size. We hope that this study will be a step in the direction of the cost-efficient generation of stable carbon dioxide nanobubble dispersions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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13 pages, 7746 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Gangue Source Reduction Technology and Process Optimization Based on Underground Coal Gangue Photoelectric Separation

by Wei Zhou, Wanghao Xia, Liangliang Liu, Liansheng Li, Qiuyu Zeng, Shujie Wang and Jinbo Zhu

Processes 2023, 11(9), 2519; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11092519 - 22 Aug 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1389

Abstract

The precise identification of damp, sticky coal gangue; efficient jet nozzle separation; and process layout in a narrow, restricted space are essential technologies for gangue source reduction based on underground gangue photoelectric separation, which is critical for the long-term growth of coal mines. In this paper, the X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) method was used to identify the X-ray absorption law of different atoms in coal-based minerals and explore the differences in the microscopic crystal properties of coal gangue; the numerical simulation calculation of four commonly used nozzles—namely, flat, convergent, flat–convergent, and streamline—was carried out using Fluent software for coal gangue jet separation to optimize the nozzle morphology and parameters. The technical characteristics of the underground layout of the photoelectric separation system for coal gangue were expounded, and the technological layout of the separation system was explored. The results showed that the absorption coefficients μ(E) of Al and Si atoms in minerals to X-rays are significantly different, and the XAFS method has the ability to identify coal, gangue, and other minerals. The streamlined nozzle has a long jet core area, slow decay of jet velocity, low gas consumption per unit time, and better performance than the other three types of nozzles. Based on the development and mining system of the Renjiazhuang Coal Mine, three kinds of photoelectric separation system layout schemes of coal gangue were designed, namely centralized layout, distributed layout, and mobile layout. The advantages and disadvantages of each scheme were compared, which enriched the technical means of gangue source reduction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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20 pages, 3121 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimating APC Model Parameters for Dynamic Intervals Determined Using Change-Point Detection in Continuous Processes in the Petrochemical Industry

by Yoseb Yu, Minyeob Lee, Chaekyu Lee, Yewon Cheon, Seungyun Baek, Youngmin Kim, Kyungmin Kim, Heechan Jung, Dohyeon Lim, Hyogeun Byun and Jongpil Jeong

Processes 2023, 11(8), 2229; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11082229 - 25 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1247

Abstract

Several papers have proven that advanced process controller (APC) systems can save more energy in the process than proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller systems. Therefore, implementing an APC system is ultimately beneficial for saving energy in the plant. In a typical APC system deployment, the APC model parameters are calculated from dynamic data intervals obtained through the plant test. However, depending on the proficiency of the APC engineer, the results of the plant test and the APC model parameters are implemented differently. To minimize the influence of the APC engineer and calculate universal APC model parameters, a technique is needed to obtain dynamic data without a plant test. In this study, we utilize time-series data from a real petrochemical plant to determine dynamic intervals and estimate APC model parameters, which have not been investigated in previous studies. This involves extracting the data of the dynamic intervals with the smallest mean absolute error (MAE) by utilizing statistical techniques such as pruned exact linear time, linear kernel, and radial basis function kernel of change-point detection (CPD). After that, we fix the hyper parameters at the minimum MAE value and estimate the APC model parameters by training with the data from the dynamic intervals. The estimated APC model parameters are applied to the APC program to compare the APC model fitting rate and verify the accuracy of the APC model parameters in the dynamic intervals obtained through CPD. The final validation of the model fitting rates demonstrates that the identification of the dynamic intervals and the estimation of the APC model parameters through CPD show high accuracy. We show that it is possible to estimate APC model parameters from dynamic intervals determined by CPD without a plant test. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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13 pages, 2091 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Synthesis and Physicochemical Characteristics of Chitosan-Based Polyurethane Flexible Foams

by Agnieszka Piotrowska-Kirschling, Adam Olszewski, Jakub Karczewski, Łukasz Piszczyk and Joanna Brzeska

Processes 2021, 9(8), 1394; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9081394 - 12 Aug 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2270

Abstract

The use of shrimp waste to obtain chitosan (Ch) is an essential issue, considering a circular economy, waste management, and its application to environmentally friendly materials. In this study, northern prawn shells were utilized to obtain Ch, which could then be used for synthesizing chitosan-based polyurethane (PUR+Ch) foams with different Ch concentration. The chemical structure, morphology, hardness, thermal properties, viscoelastic properties, and sorption properties in relation to oil and water of these materials were determined. The results present that the addition of Ch into PUR influences the physicochemical characteristics and properties of the tested materials. PUR+Ch foams with 1–3 wt% Ch had more open cells and were softer than neat PUR. PUR+Ch1 had the best thermal properties. PUR+Ch2 foam with 2 wt% Ch as a whole was characterized as having the highest water sorption. The PUR+Ch1 foam with 1 wt% Ch had the best oil sorption. This paper shows that the modification of PUR by Ch is a very promising solution, and PUR+Ch foams can be applied in the water treatment of oil spills, which can be dangerous to the water environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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19 pages, 1676 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Impact of Adsorption Property Modification by Crosslinkers on Graphene Oxide Membrane Separation Performance

by Martin Ayala-Claveria, Carlos Carlesi, Julieta Puig and Gianni Olguin

Processes 2024, 12(11), 2320; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12112320 - 23 Oct 2024

Viewed by 619

Abstract

The health risks associated with the presence of heavy metals in drinking water can be severe. To address this issue, membrane separation technology is one of the consolidated alternatives. Inorganic, porous membranes were found in applications where low energy consumption is highly desirable. The selectivity of these membranes is attained by functionalisation. Graphene oxide functionalised membrane technology is promising for removing heavy metal ions. This work summarises, discusses and presents the relationship between adsorption and overall membrane separation process performance for heavy metal ions removal from wastewater when a graphene oxide-functionalised membrane is used. The separation performance depends on the hydrophobic interactions of the membrane and the solute. The electrostatic interaction between the negatively charged membrane surface and positively charged metal ions facilitates the adsorption, leading to the rejection of these metal ions. The influences of the chemical nature of the modifiers of graphene oxide layers are highlighted. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Processes for Chemical and Related Industries)

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