This work presents an experimental study that aims at investigating the effect of loading-ratio of coal in a coal-diesel fuel mixture on the combustion characteristics and exhaust emissions. Sub-bituminous coal from El-Maghara coal mine is utilized. It is washed, dried, and grounded to particle sizing of ≤ 30 μm. The experiments are conducted inside a horizontal, segmented water-cooled cylindrical furnace fitted with a coaxial burner having a central air assisted atomizer for oil-coal mixture admittance. All experiments are executed at constant input heat of 350 kW and air to fuel ratio of 15:1 while varying the percentage (mass basis: 5% and 10%) of coal in the fuel mixture. The measurements within the flame zone include mean gas temperatures, dry volumetric analyses of species (CO2, NOx, and O2) concentrations, and the accumulative heat transfer to the cooling jacket along the combustor. All measurements are compared regarding the pure oil flame. The results indicate that increasing the coal- loading ratio up to 5wt% leads to a progressive increase in the accumulated heat transferred and the combustor overall efficiency from 40% to 58% within a percentage increase around 45%. In addition a slight reduction in mean gas temperature within the flame zone when compared with the pure oil flame. The reduced flame temperature due to increasing the coal-loading ratio, caused a decline in the volumetric concentrations of NOx from 100 ppm to 20 ppm as expected.

This work aims to investigate the effect of X-rays on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) films and studying the ability to be a model of a synthetic cell membrane when compared to liposomes as biological models. The influence of X-ray irradiation on thin films of PVA doped with safranin (SAF) dye and liposomes encapsulated by SAF dye is studied using UV-visible spectrophotometry. These films are exposed to X-ray radiation with accumulated doses range of 10-50 Gy of 140 kVp at a constant dose rate of 2002 μGy/s. The absorption spectra of the PVA/SAF and the liposomes/SAF are measured. The absorption spectra of the PVA/SAF showed a decrease in the absorbance band peak with the increase of the dose with values are similar to those observed with the liposomes/SAF. The dose response function indicates the same radiation sensitivity of both samples. The results indicated that full width at half maximum of SAF/PVA and SAF/liposomes show linear decrease with an increase of dose. The variation in dose response is relatively small and found to be within 3.5% and the variations in a decrease of the absorbance peak are found to be with maximum 5%. These values can indicate that both of SAF/PVA and SAF/liposomes have the same behavior under the applied X-ray dose range. The results viewed that the PVA doped with SAF dye behave similarly as the liposomes doped with SAF dye. PVA may be used as a synthetic model for a cell membrane for probing X-ray-membrane interactions.