Chemical Engineering / Kimya Mühendisliği

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/14

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 40
    Citation - Scopus: 47
    Boron in Geothermal Energy: Sources, Environmental Impacts, and Management in Geothermal Fluid
    (Elsevier, 2022) Mott, A.; Baba, Alper; Hadi Mosleh, Mojgan; Ökten, Hatice Eser; Babaei, Masoud; Gören, Ayşegül Yağmur; Feng, C.; Recepoğlu, Yaşar Kemal; Uzelli, Taygun; Uytun, Hüseyin; Morata, Diego; Yüksel Özşen, Aslı
    The problem of hazardous chemicals in geothermal fluid is a critical environmental concern in geothermal energy developments. Boron is among the hazardous contaminants reported to be present at high concentrations in geothermal fluids in various countries. Poor management and inadequate treatment of geothermal fluids can release excessive boron to the environment that has toxic effects on plants, humans, and animals. Despite the importance of boron management in geothermal fluid, limited and fragmented resources exist that provide a comprehensive understanding of its sources, transport and fate, and the treatment strategies in geothermal energy context. This paper presents the first critical review from a systematic and comprehensive review on different aspects of boron in geothermal fluid including its generation, sources, toxicity, ranges and the management approaches and treatment technologies. Our research highlights the origin of boron in geothermal water to be mainly from historical water-rock interactions and magmatic intrusion. Excessive concentrations of boron in geothermal fluids have been reported (over 500 mg/L in some case studies). Our review indicated that possible boron contamination in geothermal sites are mostly due to flawed construction of production/re-injection wells and uncontrolled discharge of geothermal water to surface water. The dominancy of non-ionic H3BO3 species makes the selection of the suitable treatment method for geothermal waters limited. Combining boron selective resins and membrane technologies, hybrid systems have provided effluents suitable for irrigation. However, their high energy consumption and course structure of boron selective resins encourage further research to develop cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternatives.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 12
    Citation - Scopus: 13
    Development of Agcl-Tio2 Xerogels Entrapped Antibacterial Polyacrylonitrile Membranes: the Effect of High Salinity Water on Silver Release, Antibiofouling and Antibacterial Efficacies
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2020) Uz, Metin; Yaşar Mahlıçlı, Filiz; Şeker, Erol; Alsoy Altınkaya, Sacide
    Silver-containing antibacterial membranes are commonly used to control biofouling during bacteria filtration. Unfortunately, fast and uncontrolled release of silver to water is a challenge since this causes mass accumulation of silver in water resources and insufficient long-term antimicrobial effect. To overcome these disadvantages, we propose to add AgCl-TiO2 xerogels (0–0.8 wt%) in the polyacrylonitrile membranes. The long-term silver retaining of the membranes was evaluated by measuring the silver release under filtration of deionized water in the absence and the presence of 1 M NaCl up to 5 days. The antibiofouling and the antibacterial efficacies were determined by measuring the changes in antibacterial activity and DI water flux of the membranes at the end of 5 days of E. coli filtration. The 0.2 wt% AgCl-TiO2 xerogel incorporated polyacrylonitrile membrane demonstrated a constant ~1 ?g of silver release/cm2 per filtration cycle after a total filtration of 0.05 L/cm2 with 1 M NaCl solution. Additionally, it showed antibacterial efficacy and ~100% recovery of deionized water flux by simple backwashing with water after having been used in many E. coli filtration cycles. Thus, this membrane could potentially be used up to ~5.8 years for 8000 h a year for the filtration of high salinity water. Statement of novelty: Silver-containing antibacterial membranes are commonly used to control biofouling during bacteria filtration. Uncontrolled release of silver from the membrane causes massive silver accumulation in water which in turn leads to contamination of water resources and threat to aquatic organisms. Although silver release is strongly influenced by the salinity of water, the release data was collected through filtration of pure DI water or tap water in literature. To overcome the shortcomings of the published studies, we propose to use AgCl-TiO2 xerogels in membranes due to low solubility of AgCl in water and measure the release by filtering high-salinity water. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
  • Conference Object
    Electrolysis of Alcohols in High Temperature-High Pressure Water
    (Materials Research Society, 2013) Yüksel, Aslı; Sasaki, Mitsuru; Goto, Motonobu
    The design of clean, efficient and environmentally friendly routes that reduce the waste production and fuel emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere, produce clean, affordable, and renewable energy sources to lessen energy consumption and toxicity on the environment, has become a central issue of chemical research both in industry and academia. One of the approaches being used in green chemistry practices is to use water as a solvent and reaction medium where possible. Much of this work deals with liquid water at temperatures exceeding the normal boiling point which is denoted as sub-critical water. Electrochemical reaction, usually operated at atmospheric condition in water, is generally slow, although it has advantages over chemical reaction such as suppression of side reaction by tuning operating conditions. Since sub-critical water (7 MPa and 250 °C) has remarkable properties such as high ion product and low dielectric constant, it could be a suitable reaction media. We have been studying electrolysis of organic compounds in sub-critical water as waste treatment and molecular degradation technologies. Electrolysis in sub-critical water could degrade harmful and thermally stable organic compounds into innocuous compounds such as hydrogen and water. In this research, we focused on the investigation of the electrochemical reactions of alcohols in sub-critical water to evaluate possibility for the selective production of hydrogen and value-added chemicals. Electrochemical reactions were carried out in sub-critical water using a specially designed autoclave made of SS 316 with a volume of 500 mL. For comparison, thermal degradation experiments of alcohols were also conducted without any direct current loading at identical conditions. Here we employed glycerol and 1-butanol as model compounds of alcohols. As a result of 1-butanol experiments, butanal and butyric acid were produced via partial oxidation at 250 °C and by applying 1-3 A of direct current while no oxidation products were observed at the hydrothermal degradation run. As a gaseous product, hydrogen gas was generated according to the electrochemical reaction mechanism. In the case of glycerol experiments, the main gaseous product was hydrogen gas, whereas glycolaldehyde, lactic acid, and formic acid were generated as the main liquid products at 280 °C. Results indicated that greater than 92% of the glycerol could be decomposed under optimum conditions by hydrothermal electrolysis technique. This presented research will help to degrade stable organic materials in an environmentally friendly way and without need for secondary treatment processes. It will also address the need for novel more efficient techniques for the degradation of stable organic compounds in aqueous conditions and it will advance the use of water as a reaction medium in an efficient way without any organic solvent.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 39
    Citation - Scopus: 44
    Layer-By Surface Modification of Polyethersulfone Membranes Using Polyelectrolytes and Agcl/Tio2 Xerogels
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2015) Kaner, Papatya; Johnson, Daniel J.; Şeker, Erol; Hilal, Nidal; Alsoy Altınkaya, Sacide
    In this study, the layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly method was employed to modify a commercial polyethersulfone (PES) membrane by successive adsorption of chitosan and alginate as cationic and anionic polyelectrolytes. To enhance anti-biofouling property, pure, PEG mixed and PEGylated AgCl/TiO2 xerogels were incorporated solely in the top layer of the LbL-modified membranes. Organic and biological foulings were addressed separately using alginate and Escherichia coli bacteria suspensions as the organic and biological model foulants, respectively. LbL-modifying the commercial PES membrane successively with chitosan and alginate polyelectrolyte multilayers prevented organic fouling extensively. In addition, we found that AgCl/TiO2-incorporated membranes show higher water permeability and improved resistance to biological fouling as compared to the PES membrane. Silver amounts in consecutively collected permeate samples were quantified by ICP-MS analysis to assess the stability of AgCl/TiO2-incorporated layers. Silver loss per filtration cycle followed an increasing trend initially, up to a filtration volume totaling 3000L/m2, leading to 4.2% reduction in the immobilized silver amount. After that, silver loss per filtration cycle stabilized at ~7.44μg/L, which extrapolates to ~265 days time-span for the remaining silver to be released at a filtration rate of ~1000L/m2 h. Antibacterial activity tests showed that AgCl/TiO2-incorporated layers do not permit bacterial growth on the membrane surface.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 52
    Citation - Scopus: 60
    A Step Forward To a More Efficient Wastewater Treatment by Membrane Surface Modification Via Polymerizable Bicontinuous Microemulsion
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2015) Galiano, Francesco; Figoli, Alberto; Deowan, Shamim Ahmed; Johnson, Daniel; Alsoy Altınkaya, Sacide; Veltri, Lucia; De Luca, Giorgio; Mancuso, Raffaella; Hilal, Nidal; Gabriele, Bartolo; Hoinkis, Jan
    An innovative hydrophilic and anti-fouling coating material for application in membrane technology for wastewater treatment has been developed by polymerization of a polymerizable bicontinuous microemulsion (PBM) and used for surface modification of a commercial flat polyethersulfone (PES) membrane. The novel nanostructured coating has been produced using acryloyloxyundecyltriethylammonium bromide (AUTEAB) as a co-polymerizable surfactant, obtained through a synthetic method characterized by a lower cost and a higher reproducibility compared to other known polymerizable surfactants. The novel composite membranes have been characterized and compared with the uncoated PES membranes. Coated membranes resulted in a smoother surface and a higher hydrophilicity with respect to the uncoated ones, and showed a particular nano-size channel-like morphology making them highly resistant to the fouling phenomenon. The covalent anchorage of the surfactant on the membrane surface ensured the embedment of the molecule in the polymeric matrix avoiding its leaching and also leading the coated membranes to have significant antimicrobial activity, which is very important for reducing the biofouling phenomenon.All these aspects make the tailored coating material an ideal and efficient coating for modifications of commercial membrane surfaces, to be used in membrane processes in wastewater treatment.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 123
    Citation - Scopus: 131
    A New Methodology for Removal of Boron From Water by Coal and Fly Ash
    (Elsevier Ltd., 2004) Polat, Hürriyet; Vengosh, Avner; Pankratov, Irena; Polat, Mehmet
    High levels of boron concentrations in water present a serious problem for domestic and agriculture utilizations. The recent EU drinking water directive defines an upper limit of 1 mgB/I. In addition, most crops are sensitive to boron levels >0.75 mg/1 in irrigation water. The boron problem is magnified by the partial (∼60%) removal of boron in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination due to the poor ionization of boric acid and the accumulation of boron in domestic sewage effluents. Moreover, high levels of boron are found in regional groundwater in some Mediterranean countries, which requires special treatment in order to meet the EU drinking water regulations. Previous attempts to remove boron employed boron-specific ion-exchange resin and several cycles of RO desalination under high pH conditions. Here, we present an alternative methodology for boron removal by using coal and fly ash as adsorbents. We conducted various column and batch experiments that explored the efficiency of boron removal from seawater and desalinated seawater using several types of coal and fly ash materials under controlled conditions (pH, liquid/solid ratio, time of reaction, pre-treatment, regeneration). We examined the effect of these factors on the boron removal capacity and the overall chemical composition of the residual seawater. The results show that the selected coal and fly ash materials are very effective in removing boron such that the rejection ratio of boron can reach 95% of the initial boron content under certain optimal conditions (e.g., pH = 9, L/S = 1/10, reaction time > 6 h). Our experiments demonstrated that use of glycerin enables regeneration of boron uptake into coal, but the boron uptake capacity of fly ash reduces after several cycles of treatment-reaction. The boron removal is associated with Mg depletion and Ca enrichment in the residual seawater and conversely with relative Mg enrichment and Ca depletion in the residual fly ash. We propose that the reaction of Ca-rich fly ash with Mg-rich seawater causes co-precipitation of magnesium hydroxide in which boron is co-precipitated. The new methodology might provide an alternative technique for boron removal in areas where coal and fly ash are abundant.