No abstract

Dried sewage sludge was physically mixed with waste paper (paper-to-sludge ratios from 25% to 75%). To increase the catalytic activity, from 1% to 6% calcium hydroxide was added to the mixtures. Then the precursors were carbonized at 950 degrees C. The performance of materials as H2S adsorbents was tested using a home-developed dynamic breakthrough test. The samples, before and after the adsorption process, were characterized by adsorption of nitrogen, potentiometric titration, thermal analysis, XRF, and SEM. Differences in the performance were linked to the surface properties. Itwas found that mixing paper with sludge increases the amount of H2S adsorbed/oxidized in comparison with that adsorbed/oxidized by the adsorbents obtained from pure precursors (sludge or waste paper) and the capacity is comparable to those of the best activated carbons existing on the market. Although both sewage sludge and waste paper provide the catalytic centers for hydrogen sulfide oxidation, the dispersion of the catalyst and its location within accessible pores is an important factor. The presence of cellulose in the precursor mixture leads to the formation of a light macroporous char whose particles physically separate the inorganic catalytic phase of the sewage sludge origin, decreasing the density of the adsorbent and thus providing more space for storage of oxidation products. This, along with calcium, contributes to a significant increase in the capacity of the materials as hydrogen sulfide adsorbents. On their surface about 30 wt % H2S can be adsorbed, mainly as elemental sulfur or sulfates. The results demonstrate the importance of the composition and arrangement of inorganic/ organic phases for the removal of hydrogen sulfide. The interesting finding is that although some microporosity is necessary to increase the storage area for oxidation products, the carbonaceous phase does not need to be highly microporous. It is important that it provides space for deposition of sulfur, which is formed on the inorganic-phase catalyst. That space can be in meso- and macropores as shown in the case of char derived from the waste paper.

Gas-dynamic virtual nozzles (GDVNs) play a vital role in delivering biomolecular samples during diffraction measurements at X-ray free-electron laser facilities. Recently, submicrometer resolution capabilities of two-photon polymerization 3D printing techniques opened the possibility to quickly fabricate gas-dynamic virtual nozzles with practically any geometry. In our previous work, we exploited this capability to print asymmetric gas-dynamic virtual nozzles that outperformed conventional symmetric designs, which naturally leads to the question of how to identify the optimal gas-dynamic virtual nozzle geometry. In this work, we develop a 3D computational fluid dynamics pipeline to investigate how the characteristics of microjets are affected by gas-dynamic virtual nozzle geometry, which will allow for further geometry optimizations and explorations. We used open-source software (OpenFOAM) and an efficient geometric volume-of-fluid method (isoAdvector) to affordably and accurately predict jet properties for different nozzle geometries. Computational resources were minimized by utilizing adaptive mesh refinement. The numerical simulation results showed acceptable agreement with the experimental data, with a relative error of about 10% for our test cases that compared bell- and cone-shaped sheath-gas cavities. In these test cases, we used a relatively low sheath gas flow rate (6 mg/min), but future work including the implementation of compressible flows will enable the investigation of higher flow rates and the study of asymmetric drip-to-jet transitions.