No abstract

Production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.          The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared  catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified catalyst gave identical results to that of commercial one. Simulation study was adopted from basic principles of reactive distillation and the results were close to an acceptable degree.  

The current study deals with the removal of cationic dye (brilliant green) and anionic dye (methyl orange) from wastewater by using sunflower husk as an adsorbent. The operation takes place batch wise by applying several concentrations of the dye solution with various adsorbent amounts, at a range of initial PH values and particle sizes at varying contact time intervals. The percent of dye removed for two dyes increased with increasing time and adsorbent dose and decreased with increasing the dye concentration and particle size. The equilibrium time differed according to conditions used. The optimum removal for brilliant green dye was 98 %, which was achieved at 50 ppm dye concentration, 2 g\l adsorbent dose, 75 µm particles size and pH 7 at contact time of 1 h, compared with low removal for methyl orange that reached 54 % under optimum conditions (dye concentration 10 ppm, adsorbent dose 4 g/l, pH 3 at the same particles size and time). Kinetic studies were conducted and revealed that the adsorption was well defined by pseudo-second order model and could be described by the Langmuir isotherm.

The efficiency of many of conversion-processes in petroleum and industrial improves upon application of materials with the nanosized scale dimension, which is caused by enhancements and advances of improved properties as the particle size decreases. Nickel nanoparticles has numerous applications in petroleum industry with its own catalytic in additional to the magnetic properties. In this study, high purity nanosized magnetic nickel particles has been effectively prepared by chemical reduction of nickel chloride using hydrazine hydrate as reducing agent in aqueous solutions containing ethylene glycol and water and using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as anti-agglomeration agent. Nanosized Ni particles samples with different hydrazine to nickel chloride mole ratios and PVP to nickel chloride ratios were obtained at constant temperature of 80 °C. The morphology and structural properties of the produced magnetic nickel nanoparticles were characterized by powder XRD and AFM methods. XRD study revealed that the prepared nanoparticles were pure nickel nanoparticles without considerable oxides or other impurity phases. AFM test revealed that all prepared Ni nanoparticles was in nano scale, it was stated that Ni nanoparticles size was very affected by the hydrazine/nickel mole ratio. Experimental results showed that particle size decreases from 94.35 nm to 71.48 nm when increases the [N2H4]/[Ni2+] molar ratio from 15:1 to 45:1.

Adsorption process has been proven to be one of the best water treatment technologies around the world. The present study attempts to use waste material (eggshell) as adsorbent for salicylic acid removal and compare its activity with activated carbon.Many variables were studied to indicate their influence on removal efficiency. They have been included pH of solution were (2-11), salicylic acid concentration (10-50ppm) and adsorbent concentration (10g/l -25 g/l) for eggshell while for activated carbon (1g/l -5g/l).From the experimental results, there were noticed that the percentage removal increased with increasing adsorbent concentration, acidic solution while decreased with increasing salicylic acid concentration. Also, the results indicated that eggshell gave lower removal compared with activated carbon. Therefore the best conditions are pH solution was 2, salicylic acid concentration 10ppm, activated carbon amount 5g/l while for eggshell 25g/l that achieved percent removal reached 97 % and 24% for activated carbon and eggshell respectively.