Thermal hazards analysis of styrene in contact with impurities

Styrene is a reactive monomer commonly used to produce polystyrene and other copolymers. Unintended thermal runaway polymerization reactions of styrene keep reoccurring and have led to catastrophic consequences. One of the possible causes of these runaway incidents involves the contamination of the styrene monomer by incompatible species, which was not adequately investigated and documented. This study focuses on the quantification of thermal runaway hazards of styrene in contact with a series of contamination substances by adopting calorimetric analysis. Both Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) and Advanced Reactive System Screening Tool (ARSST) were employed to examine the exothermic characteristics of styrene mixed with contaminating substances at different concentration levels and mixing conditions. Key safety parameters of the exothermic reaction, such as the onset temperature, the overall heat release, the maximum self-heating rate, as well as the activation energy, were obtained. The results indicated that the thermal runaway polymerization of purified styrene was significantly altered by the presence of contaminant species. Water effectively retarded and quenched the runaway polymerization at a higher temperature range. Alkaline had no substantial effect on the thermal runaway characteristics. The presence of acid solution under both static contact and vigorous mixing condition significantly promoted the thermal polymerization of styrene. A trace amount of concentrated acid initiated violent exothermic activity even at room temperature; and the severity of the reaction was profoundly impacted by the mass-transfer. Our study demonstrates significant implications in the prevention of runaway incidents during transportation and storage of styrene.     

固体吸附-热脱附/气相色谱-质谱法测定固定污染源废气中50种挥发性有机物

采用Tenax GR吸附-热脱附-气质联用法对固定污染源废气中50种挥发性有机物(VOCs)进行测定。结果显示,Tanax GR吸附管对于丙酮、环戊酮、2-庚酮、2-壬酮及六甲基二硅氧烷的吸附能力相对较差,但丙酮、环戊酮、2-庚酮、2-壬酮在2~30 ng范围内呈现良好的线性关系,且相关系数(R 2)>0.99,六甲基二硅氧烷在2~50 ng范围内呈现良好的线性关系,R^2=0.994,其他45种化合物在2~100 ng范围内呈现良好的线性关系,R^2>0.995。当采样体积为300 mL时,50种化合物的检出限为0.0003~0.0096 mg/m^3,测定下限为0.0011~0.0384 mg/m^3,相对标准偏差(RSD)<15.98%,加标回收率为78.15%~120.90%。该方法操作简单、灵敏度高、准确性好,能够满足固定污染源废气中痕量VOCs的快速检测。     

王滩电厂脱硫系统经济运行初探

介绍了王滩电厂2×600MW机组石灰石—石膏湿法脱硫系统实现经济运行的经验,提出了降低电耗、水耗、石灰石耗量的具体措施。王滩电厂脱硫装置已投运三年多,其运行实践表明,通过采取上述措施,在额定工况下可保证脱硫效率达95%,且脱硫系统多项运行指标均优于设计值。     

细水雾抑制18650型锂离子电池热失控实验研究

为研究细水雾灭火系统对18650型锂电池热失控的抑制效果,利用自设计实验平台进行抑爆实验,对比初爆与燃爆两个关键点及有无外部热源的温度变化图。研究表明,细水雾能够明显抑制18650型锂电池热失控,但施加细水雾的时间点对抑制效果影响较大,初爆后施加细水雾能够有效抑制,在燃爆后施加细水雾10s内温度降低200℃以上,但由于锂电池内部电解液复燃的特点,温度回升。温升速率的变化使得电池初爆的时间和温度分别提前了67.4%和44.4%,据此提出通过探测18650型锂电池初爆释放气体发现热失控发生并在最短时间内移除异常行为电池来控制电池热失控及其热量的异常传播。     

Strategies for emission reduction from thermal power plants

Major polluters of man's environment are thermal power stations (TPS) and power plants, which discharge into the atmosphere the basic product of carbon fuel combustion, CO2, which results in a build-up of the greenhouse effect and global warm-up of our planet's climate. This paper is intended to show that the way to attain environmental safety of the TPS and to abide by the decisions of the Kyoto Protocol lies in raising the efficiency of the heat power stations and reducing their fuel consumption by using nonconventional thermal cycles. Certain equations have been derived to define the quantitative interrelationship between the growth of efficiency of the TPS, decrease in fuel consumption and reduction of discharge of dust, fuel combustion gases, and heat into the environment. New ideas and new technological approaches that result in raising the efficiency of the TPS are briefly covered: magneto-hydrodynamic resonance, the Kalina cycle, and utilizing the ambient heat by using, as the working medium, low-boiling substances.     

Monitoring of pathogenic microorganisms contamination during heat drying process of sewage sludge

The sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plant is a potential source of infectious organism. The number and type of pathogens in sludge depends on various factors namely, the wastewater source, the type of treatment plant, and other environmental factors such as the biological medium offered by the sewage sludge. The principal sludge-borne diseases are presented followed by discussion on biological aspect of growth and occurrence. The overall objective of this work is to estimate kinetic reduction of pathogen population in sludge during different thermal-drying process including: the agitated conductive drying, drum drying, solar drying, and fry-drying. The temperature curves were reported from literature except frying data which were determined in experiment. In order to apply the temperature influence on pathogens population, kinetic parameters for the thermal inactivation (D, z-values) were chosen from literature. Values of concentrations of each pathogen were also extracted from scientific review of pathogens in bio-solids. This study conducted to resolve the survival kinetic of Hepatitis A viruses. The result showed that a concentration of 7 × 10⁴ cfu/100 ml initially present in the sewage sludge is significantly reduced during the heat drying processes except the solar plant. The sewage sludge is completely disinfected when heated for 20 min, 10 min, and 10 s, respectively, during the agitated conductive process, vacuum fry-drying, and drum drying process.     

Ignition characteristics, conditions of criticality and disappearance of criticality of cumene hydroperoxide reaction by modeling approach

The thermal explosion problem of cumene hydroperoxide exothermic reaction which is used in chemical industries for production of some chemical materials is investigated. The analytical solutions of the problem to determine the margin between ignition and non-ignition systems are presented. The solution offers different analytical expressions which relate between the critical parameters for both steady and unsteady-states in different planes of solutions for different cases. The numerical solutions in different planes offer different trajectories of solution as sub-critical (non-ignition) and supercritical (ignition). Also from the numerical solution the relations between the critical parameters are presented. The critical behaviors from both analytical and numerical solutions are concise and pertained the same results.     

Investigation of an accidental explosion in a nitromethane rectification process

An explosion that occurred during a nitromethane rectification process is investigated. Experiments were performed in an effort to elucidate the cause of the explosion. All test samples analyzed, including reaction product, crude product, 99% pure product and raffinate, were collected from the accident site. Gas chromatography was used to analyze the components of the samples, thermal analysis determined the exothermic character of the samples and the sample evaporating experiment recorded the reaction phenomena occurring at low liquid level. Based on the experimental results, the excess heat released by the decomposition of overheated raffinate is pinpointed as the root cause of the explosion.     

Priority and emerging pollutants in sewage sludge and fate during sludge treatment

This paper aims at characterizing the quality of different treated sludges from Paris conurbation in terms of micropollutants and assessing their fate during different sludge treatment processes (STP). To achieve this, a large panel of priority and emerging pollutants (n = 117) have been monitored in different STPs from Parisian wastewater treatment plants including anaerobic digestion, thermal drying, centrifugation and a sludge cake production unit. Considering the quality of treated sludges, comparable micropollutant patterns are found for the different sludges investigated (in mg/kg DM – dry matter). 35 compounds were detected in treated sludges. Some compounds (metals, organotins, alkylphenols, DEHP) are found in every kinds of sludge while pesticides or VOCs are never detected. Sludge cake is the most contaminated sludge, resulting from concentration phenomenon during different treatments. As regards treatments, both centrifugation and thermal drying have broadly no important impact on sludge contamination for metals and organic compounds, even if a slight removal seems to be possible with thermal drying for several compounds by abiotic transfers. Three different behaviors can be highlighted in anaerobic digestion: (i) no removal (metals), (ii) removal following dry matter (DM) elimination (organotins and NP) and iii) removal higher than DM (alkylphenols – except NP – BDE 209 and DEHP). Thus, this process allows a clear removal of biodegradable micropollutants which could be potentially significantly improved by increasing DM removal through operational parameters modifications (retention time, temperature, pre-treatment, etc.).     

Transesterification of waste vegetable oil under pulse sonication using ethanol,methanol and ethanol–methanol mixtures

This study reports on the effects of direct pulse sonication and the type of alcohol (methanol and ethanol) on the transesterification reaction of waste vegetable oil without any external heating or mechanical mixing. Biodiesel yields and optimum process conditions for the transesterification reaction involving ethanol, methanol, and ethanol–methanol mixtures were evaluated. The effects of ultrasonic power densities (by varying sample volumes), power output rates (in W), and ultrasonic intensities (by varying the reactor size) were studied for transesterification reaction with ethanol, methanol and ethanol–methanol (50%-50%) mixtures. The optimum process conditions for ethanol or methanol based transesterification reaction of waste vegetable oil were determined as: 9:1 alcohol to oil ratio, 1% wt. catalyst amount, 1–2 min reaction time at a power output rate between 75 and 150 W. It was shown that the transesterification reactions using ethanol–methanol mixtures resulted in biodiesel yields as high as >99% at lower power density and ultrasound intensity when compared to ethanol or methanol based transesterification reactions.