A process flowsheet was developed in ChemCad 6.4 to study the effect of feed moisture contents on the pre-esterification of waste oils. Waste oils were modelled as a mixture of triolein (90%), oleic acid (5%) and water (5%). The process mainly consisted of feed drying, pre-esterification reaction and methanol recovery. The results showed that the process energy requirements would be minimized w...

Soil moisture (SMC) is a key state variable that influences both global water and energy budgets by controlling the redistribution of rainfall into infiltration, runoff, percolation in soil, and evapotranspiration. Due to these characteristics and to the great effect on the surface energy exchange, soil moisture content may have a strong impact on climate change dynamics and it is, therefore, a...

The effect of carcass weight, age at slaughter and sex on some chemical components was evaluated in twenty-two Boutsiko lambs (twelve females and ten males). Chemical composition of meat was expressed as percentage of fat, protein, collagen and moisture content. Measures of the four chemical components were taken by carcass cuts included shoulder, leg, racks, kidney, rear flank, breast ribs and...

Litter moisture contents vary greatly between and within practical poultry barns. The current experiment was designed to measure the effects of 8 different dietary characteristics on litter and excreta moisture content. Additionally, free water content and water activity of the excreta and litter were evaluated as additional quality measures. The dietary treatments consisted of nonstarch polysa...

Dynamical subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) weather forecasting has made strides in recent years, thanks partly to better initialization and representation of physical variables in models. For instance, realistic initializations of snow and soil moisture in models yield enhanced temperature predictability on S2S time scales. Snow depth and soil moisture also mediate month-to-month persistence of ne...

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) are often stored dry with 14% or less moisture, which during rainy periods may require that grains are dried after harvest. The hypothesis is that air-tight storage of high-moisture barley and wheat will increase nutrient digestibility due to chemical conversions prior to feeding. The objective was to evaluate the effect of high moisture co...

Gentle in-store drying of popping corn may reduce the risk of stress fissures being generated, an effect which reduces popcorn expansion volume. In order to allow optimisation studies of in-store drying to be conducted, thermophysical properties of two current Australian popping corn varieties were measured in the range 30-50°C, at moisture contents from 12% to 20% wb. Models were developed for...

Particleboard and solid wood stakes were treated with either an isocyanate or phenol formaldehyde resin and exposed in soil beds comprising three different soil types and two moisture contents. The treatments resulted in a marked improvement in the dimensional stability of particleboard but had no effect on solid wood. Higher moisture uptakes in stakes exposed in sandy soils indicated that the ...

-Despite evidence of its economic impact, very little is known about transplant shock. This study was designed to evaluate transplant shock in relation to root volume and soil water content for two year-old Douglas-fir seedlings. Preliminary results found that new growth decreased and days to budbreak increased with higher moisture stress. This effect was most pronounced for high root volume se...