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Casein/starch composites are shown to act as potential candidates for binders of symmetric carbonaceous electrodes used in the capacitive deionization (CDI) of water. Casein and potato-starch biopolymers are cheap and environmentally friendly and may be implemented throughout a green process to obtain a carbonaceous CDI electrode using sole water as a solvent. It was found that among the different starch/casein mass ratios considered in this study (0 : 1, 1 : 1, 2 : 1, 1 : 2, 1 : 4 and 1 : 0), the ratio 1 : 2 resulted in an optimal CDI performance corresponding to 12.7 mg g−1, 50% and 1.01 W h g−1 for salt adsorption capacity, charge efficiency, and specific energy consumption, respectively. The outstanding performance observed is attributed to the formation of a binder with a hydrophilic mesoporous network carrying inherent positive and negative charges throughout the internal surface area, inducing both anion and cation-exchange membrane characteristics in the binder layer. For the optimal binder composition, the latter network possesses a dominant pore diameter of 4.65 nm, while the dominant pore diameter is less than 3.00 nm for the other samples, eventually enhancing ion species mass transfer through the polymer matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different configurations of impinging streams (IS) reactors are designed and widely applied in multiphase reactions. The great properties of IS reactors is to enhance the reaction kinetics by attenuating mass transfer resistances. It is highly important to have information on the residence time distribution (RTD) of fluid elements inside these devices to determine the kinetic behavior of the multiphase reactions performed in IS reactors. Herein, the RTD of fluid inside a two tangentially IS reactor is experimentally measured and theoretically modeled using simple conventional models like the stirred tank in series model. A new and more realistic model is presented that predicts the RTD of such IS reactors with larger precision. It consists of an ideal PFR reactor followed by a recycle reactor consisting of a cascade of tank in series reactor with a recycle stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]