Abstract It is known that plunging airfoil can produce both lift and thrust with certain combination of plunging amplitude and frequency. Motivated by our interest in micro air vehicles (MAVs), we utilize a NavierStokes equation solver to investigate the aerodynamics of a flapping airfoil. The roles of the plunging and pitching amplitude and frequency, and Strouhal number are studied. For a sym...

Insect wings are flexible. For rigid wings lift enhancing unsteady aerodynamics mechanisms, such as delayed stall via leading-edge vortices (LEVs), wake-capture, and rotational forces, characterize the lift generation of a hovering insect. We have uncovered a novel mechanism that fruit fly size insects can utilize to further increase the lift by adjusting its wing shape passively: A pair of a L...

Limited available water resources have rendered wastewater reuse an important issue to specialists in most developed countries, today. The current study works on membrane filtration for treatment of industrial wastewater. By comparing the two methods of membrane bioreactor (MBR) and hybrid membrane electro bioreactor (MEBR) processes, it finds that earlier fouling in the membrane occurs in the ...

Background and experimental approach A main challenge in cell therapies and other tissue regeneration approaches is to produce a therapeutically significant cell number. For expansion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) the cultivation on 2D plastic surfaces is still the conventional procedure, even though the culture conditions differ significantly from the 3D environment in vivo. Additionally, st...

Gas-driven sorption heat pumps (GDSHPs) exhibit possibilities in the reduction of energy use and environmental impact of heating systems that utilise natural gas. By utilising renewable thermal energy from the environment, that is, air, ground or water sources, significant reduction of primary energy use can be achieved. However, high cost, low coefficient of performance (COP) and large volume ...

An air-membrane surface (AMS) bioreactor was designed to allow bacteria to grow attached to a surface as a biofilm in contact with air. When Bacillus licheniformis strain EI-34-6, isolated from the surface of a marine alga, was grown in this reactor, cells produced antimicrobial compounds which they did not produce when they were grown in shake flask cultures. An unidentified red pigment was al...

Recently, a new type of bioreactor for air pollution control referred to as the foamed emulsion bioreactor (FEBR) has been developed. The process relies on the emulsion of an organic phase with a suspension of an actively growing culture of pollutant-degrading microorganisms, made into a foam with the air undergoing treatment. In the current paper, a diffusion and reaction model of the FEBR is ...

Aliphatic amines, including methylamine, are air-pollutants, due to their intensive use in industry and the natural degradation of proteins, amino acids, and other nitrogen-containing compounds in biological samples. It is necessary to develop systems for removal of methylamine from the air, since airborne methylamine has a negative effect on human health. The primary amine oxidase (primary ami...

The effects of sulfur concentration on the bioleaching of heavy metals from the sediment by indigenous sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were investigated in an air-lift reactor. Increasing the sulfur concentration from 0.5 to 5 g/l enhanced the rates of pH reduction, sulfate production and metal solubilization. A Michaelis-Menten type equation was used to explain the relationships between sulfur conce...