نشریه پژوهش های کاربردی مهندسی شیمی - پلیمر
سال دوم شماره 3 (پیاپی 5، پاییز 1397)

One of the miniaturization of heat transfer equipment is enhancing the convective heat transfer coefficient. The main aim of this study is design and producing a kind of nanofluid based on water and ethylene glycol. Graphene was synthesized via electrochemical method and its successful production was confirmed with XRD, FTIR spectrum and, SEM and TEM images. By using different amount of graphene i.e. 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25, and 1.5%, water/ethylene glycol/graphene nanofluid was produced. Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was used as surfactant to improve graphene stability in the base fluid. The designed experimental setup was composed of spiral tube with constant wall temperature and equipped with flow meter and pressure and temperature indicators. Nusselt number and pressure drop were measured for pure water and compared with those obtained from theoretical relations and it was found that the setup works properly. Convective heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, and heat transfer rate were investigated for water/ethylene glycol (60/40 wt.%) and nanofluid with different amount of graphene using experimental setup. The results showed that by adding 1 wt.% graphene into the based fluid the convective heat transfer coefficient increased about 50% while pressure drop was also increased about 50%. Overall, the findings of this research work support the potential of water/ethylene glycol/graphene nanofluid for using in heating/cooling equipment.

Due to increase in global demand of propylene, many extensive studies and research have been done to find alternative method for lower energy consumption and efficiency. In this research, gamma alumina is used for molybdenum catalyst base in oxidative dehydrogenation ‎process of propane, in order to produce the propylene. The catalysts are prepared based on wet impregnation method. The analysis of  FTIR, XRD, BET, SEM, and XRF are done to evaluate and determine the  characteristics of prepared catalysts. Central composition method is employed to study the influence of reaction temperature, molybdenum ‎loading percentage, oxygen to propane ratio, and the effect of interactions between them in propylene ‎production. The molybdenum in the range of 4-16%, propane to oxygen ratio in ‎the range of 1-3%, and temperature in the range of 380-540 ºC are the input parameters of ‎the central composite method. Finally, according to reactor test and analysis of the results of the Design expert software, it is shown that the predicted models for propane conversion, propylene selectivity, ‎and efficiency persentage of oxidation dehydrogenation are about 95%. Maximum of efficiency percentage with a value of 14.02% is obtained at 487 ºC, 11.22% molybdenum‎ percentage, and propane to oxygen ratio of 1.5, which in experimental results, achieving an accuracy of 94% is possible as compared to the optimal design of the test design model.

In graded structure aerogels, change of pores diameter through the thickness affects the effective thermal conductivity. As the pores diameter is reversely correlated to the density, the effective thermal conductivity of aerogel is often normalized to the density and it is expressed as the B parameter. Lower values of B would be the optimum conditions for the resulting aerogel. The objective of this work is to simulate the heat transfer of the homogenous structures and to compare it with structures that pore diameter vary through the thickness. For this purpose, the structure characteristics and properties of silica aerogel along with the effect of coupling thermal conductivity have to be taken into consideration. Using the COMSOLMultiphysics®software, the heat transfer was modeled for a number of cases, including homogenous structures with minimum density (L), maximum density (H) and for an optimum structure (OPT) having a minimum value of the B parameter. The results were compared to thestructurally graded aerogels in which the density was varied in two fashions, from higher values to lower (HtL) and from lower to higher values (LtH). The change of temperature with time was tracked for all the cases. Results indicated that the minimum value of heat transfer was obtained for the structurally graded aerogel of the type of LtH (a 2-percent increase of efficiency for LtH when compared to the optimum structure (OPT)). Therefore, this structure introduce as the best candidate for producing a thermal insulator.

In this study, the effect of chemical modification on adsorption behavior of scleroglucan polymer on carbonate rock of oil reservoir was studied. The chemical modification was performed to increase hydrophobicity of scleroglucan while substituting ionic and hydrophobic groups on its structure simultaneously. Investigation of adsorption behavior of the samples on carbonate rock surfaces revealed an increase in uptake of the modified samples compared to the original one. Evaluation of various factors affecting the adsorption process showed that the Langmuir isotherm can describe the adsorption behavior of primary and hydrophobic scleroglucan samples better that Freundlich & Temkin isotherms. However, the adsorption behavior of the ionic-hydrophobic sample was hard to explain using the Langmuir model. A pseudo-second-order & Intra-particle diffusion models could express uptake kinetics of the samples. Thermodynamic studies indicated the temperature-dependency of free energy, ΔG, and the dominant role of entropic phenomena, rather than enthalpic phenomena, in the adsorption process of samples. In addition, ΔH values of different samples (about 6 KJ/mol for the primary scleroglucan, 5 KJ/mol for the hydrophobic scleroglucan and 9 KJ/mol for the ionic-hydrophobic scleroglucan) suggested the physical adsorption of samples onto the carbonate particles surface in both water and brine solutions.

The pot life of high-energy composites is one of the most important parameters of their manufacturing process. This is mainly influenced by the pot life of the binder system. In this research, the effect of different amounts of two types of curing catalyst (dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL) and triphenyl bismuth (TPB)) and different ratios of NCO / OH (R) on the pot life and physical properties of the polyurethane binder system  based on Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) was investigated. By increasing the amount of curing catalyst for both types of catalysts, the viscosity build-up of the binder system measured by the rotation viscometer was intensified. Also, increasing the amount of R from 0.8 to 1 increases the viscosity and crosslink density. Isophorone Diisocyanate (IPDI) binder system shows two distinct steps of increasing viscosity with two different rates, which is attributed to the presence of two different isocyanate groups in the molecular structure of IPDI with different reactivity. In the following, the physical properties and swelling of binder samples were investigated. Based on these results, binders with the highest crosslink density have the lowest swelling. The pot life value increases from R of 1 to 1.1, contrary to expectation, with pot life range value between R of 1 to 0.9. When using the DBTDL catalyst, it is clearly identifiable between different reactivity of two groups IPDI isocyanates, but when used with the TPB curing catalyst, this difference was not observed significantly.

Molecular imprinting is a novel technique for preparing specific absorbents with selective sites for binding to the target molecule. Molecularly imprinted polymers, because of their high selectivity and stability, low cost and easy methods of preparation, have been widely employed in separation procedures. In this study, we evaluated the synthesized electrospun imprinted membrane (MIM) as a specific sorbent for herbicide mecoprop (MCPP). The films were prepared using methacrylic acid (MAA) as functional monomer and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a main part of polymeric solution and in the presence of dichloromethane (DCM) and Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as the solvents. The template was extracted through washing, results in the free specific memory sites within the films. Then, the synthesized electrospun imprinted membrane (MIM) was evaluated as a specific sorbent for herbicide mecoprop (MCPP). The results showed that the solution with 20% w/v of PET was the optimal solution for electrospinning process and at all different MCPP/MAA molar ratios (1:2, 1:4. 1:6 and 1:8), MIM had higher removal ability for template molecule (p<0.05) compared to NIM. The template/monomer ratio of 1:4 had the best binding amount. We also investigated the capability of MIM to be used as sorbent for pesticide 2,4-D, that is, the analogue of the main template molecule and diazinon, that is, the pesticide with different structure to the template. In addition, we used synthesized MIM and NIM films to extract MCPP analyte from environmental aqueous samples (bottled water and groundwater) and the results indicated successful performance of MIM compared to NIN.