The aim of the current study was to investigate the feasibility of membrane contactors for continuous ammonia (NH₃-N) removal in an anaerobic digestion process and to counteract ammonia inhibition. Two laboratory anaerobic digesters were fed slaughterhouse wastes with ammonium (NH₄⁺) concentrations ranging from 6 to 7.4 g/L. One reactor was used as reference reactor without any ammonia removal....

Membrane fouling in UF/MF is a problem that has been attracting considerable intellectual and engineering resources over almost 40 years. A lot of efforts, such as high tangential flows, vibration, air sparging and the like, have been taken to minimize its negative impact on the performance of UF/MF filters [1]. All these efforts are associated with increased operating and maintenance costs, an...

Ceramic fiber, with a major composition of Al₂O₃ and SiO₂, has advantages of stability at relatively high temperature, big specific surface area and resistance to external mechanical vibration. It has the potential contribution of improving the rutting resistance and temperature sensitivity of modified asphalt binder by proper modification design. In this research, ceramic fiber was introduced ...

A glass-ceramic optical fiber containing Ba2TiSi2O8 nanocrystals fabricated using a novel combination of the melt-in-tube method and successive heat treatment is reported for the first time. For the melt-in-tube method, fibers act as a precursor at the drawing temperature for which the cladding glass is softened while the core glass is melted. It is demonstrated experimentally that following he...

Orange press liquor is a by-product generated by the citrus processing industry containing huge amounts of natural phenolic compounds with recognized antioxidant activity. In this work, an integrated membrane process for the recovery of flavonoids from orange press liquors was investigated on a laboratory scale. The liquor was previously clarified by ultrafiltration (UF) in selected operating c...

An apparatus and methodology were de®eloped to measure the oxygen and carbon ( ) dioxide permeance of hollow fiber membranes HFMs in a gas-liquid en®ironment. The gas-liquid permeance measurements were compared with measurements made in a gas-gas en®ironment to ®alidate the methodology and to determine whether the permeance of an HFM in a gas-liquid en®ironment differs inherently than in a gas-...

Since hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation (HF FIFFF) utilizes a cylindrical channel made of a hollow-fiber membrane, which is inexpensive and simple in channel assembly and thus disposable, interests are increasing as a potential separation device in cells, proteins, and macromolecules. In this study, performance of HF FIFFF of proteins is described by examining the influence of flow rat...

The use of thulium fiber laser (TFL) as a potential alternative laser lithotripter to the clinical holmium:YAG laser is being studied. The TFL's Gaussian spatial beam profile provides efficient coupling of higher laser power into smaller core fibers without proximal fiber tip degradation. Smaller fiber diameters are more desirable, because they free up space in the single working channel of the...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical performance of posterior, metal-free polymer crowns with and without a glass-fiber framework, in comparison to metal-ceramic crowns. METHODS After randomisation, 80 single crowns, manufactured from a newly designed polymer composite, were set in posterior teeth. Half of these received a glass-fiber framework, while half were prepar...