An organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is often used in waste heat recovery applications. These are typically small-scale applications where cycle thermal efficiency is low, and the benefits of traditional cycle enhancements (such as reheat stages or feed-water heaters) do not typically outweigh the costs required to implement them. An ORC with flooded expansion and internal heat regeneration is an alt...

In the spring of 2015, investigators in Switzerland reported a cluster of six patients with invasive infection with Mycobacterium chimaera, a species of nontuberculous mycobacterium ubiquitous in soil and water. The infected patients had undergone open-heart surgery that used contaminated heater-cooler devices during extracorporeal circulation (1). In July 2015, a Pennsylvania hospital also ide...

Constellations and platoons of small satellites can offer an assortment of benefits over larger, single function spacecraft. The strict mass, volume, and power limitations of small satellites will require unique micro-technologies to help develop efficient propulsion systems for maneuvering. The Free Molecule Micro-Resistojet (FMMR) has been analyzed and tested in this study to determine its ap...

Maintaining growth through intensification in the New Zealand dairy industry is a challenge for various reasons, in particular sustainably managing the large volumes of effluent. Dairy farm effluents have traditionally been treated using two-pond systems that are effective in the removal of carbon and suspended solids, however limited in their ability to remove nutrients. In the past these nutr...

A commercial solar water heating system was evaluated for its effectiveness in decontaminating drinking water with a view to use in emergency situations. A total of 18 seeding experiments carried out over 6 months with 10(5) to 10(7)Escherichia coli/ml showed that the solar heater produced 125 l of bacteriologically safe water in 4 h when the ambient temperature was above 30 degrees C, with a h...

The performance of membrane elements operating in a reverse osmosis system is affected by the feed water composition, feed temperature, feed pressure, and permeate recovery ratio. Membrane compaction and fouling also affect membrane performance. Performance at a given set of system operating parameters can be calculated from nominal membrane performance at reference test conditions. I. FEED WAT...

Nanofluids are engineered fluids that contain a suspension of nanoparticles in a pure substance. Nanoparticles can be any variety of metals, metal oxides, or ceramics. They have been shown to increase heat transfer properties such as thermal conductivity, convective heat transfer, and critical heat flux(CHF). An optical probe used to detect phase was used to measure the void fraction during boi...