Search

Vanadium, one of the heavy metals present in crude oil, harmfully affects the equipment of oil refineries and the quality of petroleum products. As a result, it is important to innovate effective methods for reducing or removing its concentration. This paper aims to study removing vanadium metal from Iraqi crude oil using activated carbon as an effective adsorbent material. Different experimental factors, i.e., the activated carbon dose, contact time, and agitation speed, were regulatory varied to evaluate their impact on vanadium adsorption efficiency. The outcomes revealed an exceptionally good efficacy of activated carbon to eliminate vanadium. The results exhibited that the maximum remediation was 86.33%, recorded at optimum factors, i.e., 0.5 g of activated carbon, 400 rpm of agitation speed, 75 °C temperature, and time of 400 minutes. According to these findings, activated carbon has a great ability to adsorb vanadium from crude oil. Thus, it can be considered a sustainable material for treating petroleum. Furthermore, this approach will help the refineries by reducing costs by eliminating the heavy metals that lead to corrosion or poisoning catalysts.

De-Hua Chang,1 Karin Slebocki,2 Ekaterina Khristenko,1 Jan Herden,3 Johannes Salem,3 Nils Große Hokamp,2 Kamal Mammadov,2 Martin Hellmich,4 Christoph Kabbasch21Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; 2Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; 3Department of Urology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; 4Institute of Medical Statistics and Computational Biology (IMSB), Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Cologne, GermanyPurpose: Retrospective evaluation and comparison of image quality generated by low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) from obese patients with urolithiasis using alternative reconstruction algorithms.Materials and methods: Twenty-five obese patients (body mass index [BMI]>25 kg/m2,) underwent LDCT scans for suspected urolithiasis. The scans were recompiled using filtered-back projection (FBP), statistical iterative reconstruction (iDose) and iterative model-based reconstruction (IMR). Dose-length product (DLP) and patient details were obtained from the CT dose report and clinical charts, respectively. Objective image noise was assessed by measuring the SD of Hounsfield units (HUs) in defined locations. Additionally, subjective image evaluation was independently performed by two radiologists using a 3-point Likert scale. The inter-reviewer agreement of image quality was calculated.Results: Ureteral concretions were observed in all CT scans, two of which revealed bilateral stones. The assessed patients’ mean BMI was 29.29±3.74 kg/m,2 and the DLP of the CT scans was 100.04±10.00 mGy*cm. All scans were rated diagnostic with the iDose and iterative model-based reconstructions, whereas 41% of the scans performed with FBP reconstruction were nondiagnostic. With respect to image quality, IMR was superior to iDose and FBP, both in the objective (P

Involvement of attentional processes is generally evidenced by disruption of behavior in the presence of distracting stimuli. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) seems to play a role in fine-tuning activity during attentional tasks. A novel titration variant of the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-choice serial reaction time titration variant [5CTV]) that adjusts task difficulty based on subject performance was used to evaluate the effects of audiovisual distraction (DSTR) on performance and mPFC single spike activity and local field potential (LFP). Attention was impaired in the 5CTV from DSTR, and mPFC spike activity was increased, whereas LFP was reduced. The increased spike activity in the mPFC in conjunction with DSTR suggests that conflicting attentional demands may contribute to the reduced task performance. As both hypo- and hyperactivation of the mPFC may contribute to attentional disruption, further studies using the 5CTV are needed to understand mPFC activity changes in real time during disruption of performance by other types of behavioral or neurobiological manipulations.

Copyright of Tikrit Journal of Engineering Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)