Improper land application of excess poultry waste (PW) causes environmental issues and other problems. Meanwhile there is an increasing trend of using PW as an alternative energy resource. The Higher Heating Value (HHV) is critical for designing and analyzing the PW conversion process. Several proximate-based mathematical models have been proposed to estimate the HHV of biomass, coal, and other solid fuels. Nevertheless, only a small number of studies have focused on a subclass of fuels, especially for PW. The aim of this study is to develop proximate-based regression models for an HHV prediction of PW. Sample data of PW were collected from open literature to develop regression models. The resulting models were then validated by additional PW samples and other published models. Results indicate that the most accurate model contains linear (all proximate components), polynomial terms (quadratic and cubic of volatile matter), and interaction effect (fixed carbon and ash). Moreover, results show that best-fit regression model has a higher R 2 (91.62%) and lower estimation errors than the existing proximate-based models. Therefore, this new regression model can be an excellent tool for predicting the HHV of PW and does not require any expensive equipment that measures HHV or elemental compositions.

Electricity generation and emission characteristics during the poultry litter and natural gas co-combustion process has rarely been studied. In this study, a Stirling engine was successfully integrated into the existing lab-scale swirling fluidized bed combustion system in order to further investigate the poultry litter and natural gas co-combustion process. Electricity, gaseous emissions, particulate matter (PM), and fly ash composition were analyzed under various operating conditions. Results indicated that the electricity reached 905 W under a water flow rate of 13.1 L/min and an engine head temperature of 584 °C. It was found that excess air (EA) ratios between 0.79 and 1.08 can relatively produce more electricity with lower emissions. At a secondary air (SA) height of 850 mm, secondary air/total air (SA/TA) ratios between 0.22 and 0.44 may significantly reduce NOx and CO emissions. By increasing the mixing ratio (MR), SO2 was reduced while NOx increased at the beginning of co-combustion process but then decreased again. Additionally, PM results were lower than Maryland emissions standards. The fly ash results showed a higher nutrient content (close to 16%). This study shows the possibility of using poultry litter as a sustainable energy source for energy production while emitting lower emissions in the small decentralized combustion system

The prediction and pre-evaluation of the thermal properties and combustion-related problems (e.g., emissions and ash-related problems) are critical to reducing emissions and improving combustion efficiency during the agricultural crop residues combustion process. This study integrated the higher heating value (HHV) model, specific heat model, and fuel indices as a new systematic approach to characterize the agricultural crop residues. Sixteen linear and non-linear regression models were developed from three main compositions of the ultimate analysis (e.g., C, H, and O) to predict the HHV of the agricultural crop residues. Newly developed HHV models have been validated with lower estimation errors and a higher degree of accuracy than the existing models. The specific heat of flue gas during the combustion process was estimated from the concentrations of C, H, O, S, and ash content under various excess air (EA) ratios and flue gas temperatures. The specific heat of agricultural crop residues was between 1.033 to 1.327 kJ/kg·K, while it was increased by decreasing the EA ratios and elevating the temperature of the flue gas. Combustion-related problems, namely corrosions, PM1.0 emissions, SOx, HCl, and ash-related problems were predicted using the fuel indices along with S and Cl concentrations, and ash compositions. Results showed that agricultural crop residues pose a severe corrosion risk and lower ash sintering temperature. This integrated approach can be applied to a wide range of biomass before the actual combustion process which may predict thermal-chemical properties and reduce the potential combustion-related emissions.

In the past few decades, water and air were commonly used as working fluid to evaluate shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE) performance. This study was undertaken to estimate heat transfer coefficients and evaluate performance in the pilot-scale twisted tube-based STHE using the flue gas from biomass co-combustion as working fluid. Theoretical calculation along with experimental results were used to calculate the specific heat of flue gas. A simplified model was then developed from the integration of two heat transfer methods to predict the overall heat transfer coefficient without tedious calculation of individual heat transfer coefficients and fouling factors. Performance including water and trailer temperature, heat load, effectiveness, and overall heat transfer coefficient were jointly investigated under variable operating conditions. Results indicated that the specific heat of flue gas from co-combustion ranging between 1.044 and 1.338 kJ/kg·K while specific heat was increased by increasing flue gas temperature and decreasing excess air ratio. The developed mathematical model was validated to have relatively small errors to predict the overall heat transfer coefficient. A flue gas mass flow rate of 61.3–98.8 kg/h, a water flow rate of 13.7–14.1 L/min, and a parallel arrangement of two water-to-air heaters in an empty trailer were found to be optimal conditions for space heating purpose. In addition, a lower poultry litter feeding rate decreased heat loss of flue gas and increased heat gain of water, while a lower water flow rate also provided a lower maximum possible heat transfer rate with a higher actual heat transfer rate to quickly achieve heat equilibrium that ultimately improves the performance. This study demonstrates the possibility of collecting residual heat from the flue gas using the pilot-scale STHE system while outlining a systematic approach and process for evaluating its performance.

Poultry litter is one type of biomass and waste generated from the farming process. This study performed a performance and process analysis of poultry litter to energy using the lab-scale shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE) system along with a Stirling engine and a swirling fluidized bed combustor (SFBC). The effects of tube shape, flow direction, and water flow rates on water and trailer temperature changes were investigated during the poultry litter co-combustion process. Energy flow analysis and emissions were also studied. Results showed that the water outlet temperature of 62.8 ° C in the twisted tube was higher than the straight tube case (58.3 ° C ) after 130 min of the co-combustion process. It was found that the counter-current direction had higher water temperature changes, higher logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD), and higher trailer temperature changes than the co-current direction. A water flow rate of 4.54 L/min showed adequate heat absorption in the lab-scale STHE system and heat rejection in the trailer. Results indicated that the lab-scale STHE system has a conversion efficiency of 42.3% and produces hot water (at about 63.9 ° C ) along with lower emissions. This research study confirmed that poultry litter can be used to generate energy (e.g., hot water and electricity) by using a lab-scale biomass conversion system for space heating applications.

Compared with the waste-to-heat and electricity-based hybrid refrigeration system, the innovative lab-scale refrigeration system integrated with the DC and AC cooling units that able to use solar and electricity as energy resources. Previous studies found that temperature control and uniform temperature distribution in refrigeration systems are both critical factors reducing vibrio growth on raw oysters and saving energy consumption. Therefore, this refrigeration system also equipped a specially designed divider and was used to test various air circulation strategies to achieve uniform temperature distribution in six individual compartments. The objective is to investigate and evaluate the effects of air circulation strategies and operating conditions on the cooling performance, including temperature distribution, standard deviation of compartment temperatures, and cooling time using a factorial design method. Results indicated the maximum temperature difference between the compartments was 8.9 ± 2.0 °C, 6.7 ± 2.0 °C, and 4.8 ± 2.0 °C in the scenarios of no air circulation, natural air circulation, and combined natural and forced air circulation, respectively. The interaction of fan location and fan direction showed a significant effect on the compartment temperatures while there was no significant effect on cooling time. A circulation fan on the lower part of the 12-volt section with an air supply from the 12- to 110-volt section was determined as the optimal condition to achieve relatively uniform temperature distribution. Refrigeration system also achieved a cooling temperature of 7.2 °C within 150 min to meet regulations. To that end, the innovative hybrid oyster refrigeration system will benefit oyster industries, as well as the aquaculture farmers in terms of complying with regulations and energy savings.

Iron cyanide complexes are common contaminants at former manufactured gas plant sites. Although combined forms of cyanide have low toxicity, iron cyanide complexes can be decomposed to HCN through photolysis. This experiment was designed to evaluate the efficiency of phytoremediation and investigate potential toxic effect for iron cyanide complexes (i.e., ferric ferrocyanide) using the cyanogenic and non-cyanogenic plants in soil. Results showed that Sorghum (a cyanogenic plant) had the highest cyanide degradation in the root zone with the removal of approximately 32% while Switchgrass (a non-cyanogenic plant) and Flax (a cyanogenic plant) had 21% and 17% removal, respectively, with 4% dissipation in unvegetated soil. It was found that roots had higher cyanide concentrations than plant shoots. Water-soluble cyanide and the weak acid dissociable (WAD) fraction in the soil had increased at the end of the experiment, suggesting that plant may enhance the mobility and bioavailability of cyanide by root exudation. The risk associated with the leaching of cyanide compounds was assessed with the toxicity assay (Microtox). However, results indicated that the leachate from the pots was not toxic.

Slipping and falling on ascent and descent stairs often lead to high risk of injuries and fatalities. In this paper, factorial analysis was used to study various factors influential to the biomechanics, such as ground reaction force (GRF) and required coefficient of friction (RCOF). The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the factors, such as stairs, climbing style, climbing mode and participants on vertical GRF and RCOFs. Ten healthy younger adults were asked to perform two replicates of each trial under twelve different conditions (two climbing modes: Ascent and decent; three different stair heights: 0.165 m, 0.173 m and 0.178 m; two climbing styles: Walking and running). Force platform was used to measure both vertical and horizontal GRF. In addition, participant's body weight, stature and average time spent on each condition were recorded. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the effect of climbing mode, climbing style and participants on vertical GRF were significant. Descending requires more vertical GRF than ascending while running requires more vertical GRF than walking. The possible reason of increasing vertical GRF may be explained by increasing gait speed as well as whole body momentum. Compared with vertical GRF, only climbing mode and style show significant effects on RCOFs. RCOF during foot landing (RCOF FL ) is larger than RCOF during pushoff (RCOF PO ) for stair descent and ascent while both RCOF FL and RCOF PO of running are higher than walking. These results indicate that running is not recommended when descending, as it requires highest vertical GRF as well as RCOFs during stair climbing. In the future study, more female participants and force platforms can be used to study the effect of gender and position of steps on GRF and RCOFs during complete cycle of stair descending and ascending. In addition, different stair heights with same stair total length may be selected to identify effect of stair height on biomechanics.