School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

CH4220 Special Topics in Green Chemistry and Engineering. Yoel

Sasson

Assignment No. 4

(6 questions)

October 18th 2016. To be submitted by October 29th 2016

Submission of this assignment contributes 4% to the final course grade.
Please type your paper. Grading for papers written by hand will be lower.

[1] The absorption of chromium from waste water by a solid biosorbent based
on the brown algae Sargassum sp. was tested in a packed column. Three
parameters were suspected to have effect on the efficiency of the absorption (q
measured in mg/g adsorbent): (1) The amount of the biosorbent (g), (2) the
concentration of chromium in the waste water (mg/liter) and (3) the column feed
rate (ml/sec). The experimental high and low levels of these variables are
summarized in table 1. The design matrix and the experimental results are
shown in Table 2.
Determine which process variables and combination of variables are affecting
the observed results. Propose a model equation for the process based on these
variables.
Using your model predict the absorption efficiency using 5g of absorbent ,
chromium concentration of 500 mg/liter and column flow rate of 0.04 ml/second.
Download the demo version (and manual) of Statgraphics software
(www.statgraphics.com) and use the DOE module (screening) to calculate and
plot the above results.

Table 2
Experim
ent

Absorbe
nt
g

Cr
concentrat
ion

Flow
Rate
ml/sec

Absorpti
on
efficienc
y (mg/g)

mg/lit
1

-1

-1

-1

4.92

-1

-1

4.04

-1

-1

9.06

-1

12.71

-1

-1

4.33

-1

4.64

-1

15.47

16.57

[2]

Carbon nanofibers (CNF) are formed by decomposition of acetylene gas

over nickel metal catalyst in the presence or in the absence of hydrogen. It was

established that the effects of temperature and of C 2H4 and H2 flow rates are
important in determining the yield of the product CNF (g/g nickel), its surface
area (BET, m2/g) and its pore volume (cm3/g).
A full 23 factorial design experiments were carried out under the following low (1) and high (+1) conditions (ignore the central point):

Experimental results are displayed in the following table:

[a] Develop the models to predict the value of these response as function of
the experimental variables. Briefly discuss the meaning of the models. Apply
Statgraphics to plot Pareto Chart and 3d charts of these responses.
[b] Using your models, predict the value of the 3 responses under the following
conditions: Temperature of 6500C, C2H4 flowrate of 100 ml/min and hydrogen
flowrate of 25 ml/min.
[c] Assume you have identified additional inportant variable. Describe how you
can use the above martix to perform a 24-1 fractional factorial design.

[3] From the ISI Web of Science database select a recent article (2011-2016)
dealing with factorial design. Write down the model found and critically analyze
the topic, the methods, the results and the conclusions of the paper (1.5 page
maximum).

[4] For a given biological waste treatment facility, where phenol stream is
being treated without recycle, the following data is provided:
k = 0.80 g phenol/g VSS.d
KS = 0.15 mg phenol/L
Y = 0.45 g VSS/ g phenol
kd = 0.08 g VSS/g VSS. D
You have a stream containing 100 mg/liter phenol and the flow to the aeration
tank is 100 m3 per day. Calculate the concentration of phenol and the
concentration of the biomass at the reactor exit if the hydraulic retention time ()
is 4 days. Determine the amount of oxygen (kg per day) required by the system.
Note that you have to assess the COD of phenol in order to answer the later
question.

[5] Curves A and B in the following graph represent the Monod kinetics for two
different bacteria capable of degrading the same substrate S. You are to operate
a continuous flow bioreactor without recycle to degrade waste S that is
inoculated with bacteria A and B. In the first experiment you use high SRT (10
days) and in a second run you apply a low SRT (1.1 days). Which bacteria will
be the dominant in each experiment. Explain your answer.

[6]

A waste treatment reactor of volume of 1000 liters (without recycle)

receives a of 500 liter/day flow of waste containing 1800 mg/liter bsCOD.
The bsCOD at the exit of the reactor is 10 mg/lit. The oxygen uptake in the
system is 15 mg/liter per hour. Calculate the SRT, the rate of oxygen
consumption in the plant (kg/day), the VSS concentration at the exit of the
reactor and the yield of the process gVSS/gCOD removed.