Abstract: Power industry boiler tube failures are a major cause of utility forced outages in the United States, with approximately 41,000 tube failures occurring every year at a cost of $5 billion a year. Accordingly, early tube leak detection and isolation is highly desirable. Early detection allows scheduling of a repair rather than suffering a forced outage, and significantly increases the chance of preventing damage to adjacent tubes. The instant detection scheme starts with identification of boiler tube leak process variables which are divided into universal sensitive variables, local leak sensitive variables, group leak sensitive variables, and subgroup leak sensitive variables, and which may be automatically be obtained using a data driven approach and a leak sensitivity function. One embodiment uses artificial neural networks (ANN) to learn the map between appropriate leak sensitive variables and the leak behavior.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method to catalyze the oxidation of Hg(0) in a flue gas stream prior to standard emissions control equipment. The oxidized mercury has been found to be more condensable than Hg(0) and consequently more easily removed from the gas phase. Accordingly, mercury in its oxidized form can be trapped from a flue gas stream or the like by absorption onto a solid mass or can be more efficiently removed from flue gas streams by wet processes such as a two-stage wet FGD. The gist underlying the inventive concept of the instant invention relates to the use of a porous bed of gold-coated material that is saturated with Hg(0) to the point that the gold in the presence of HCl in the exhaust stream catalyses the oxidation of Hg(0).

Abstract: A process, system, and apparatus for effectively and economically producing fermentable sugars from cellulosic feedstocks is described. The economic viability of using wood and/or agricultural waste, containing large fractions of cellulose and hemicellulose is highly dependent on the method used for hydrolysis. Underlying the gist of this invention are newly discovered methods, means, and techniques by which both the pentosans and hexosans comprising the hemicellulose fraction of the selected feedstock and the hexosans comprising the cellulose fraction of the selected feedstock can be quickly and efficiently converted in a single pass through a single device to fermentable sugars containing minimal quantities of degradation products known to inhibit fermentation.

Abstract: Soils are decontaminated in situ by transporting peroxysulfate ions through the soil under the influence of an electric field. The electric field is maintained between one or more anodes and one or more cathodes inserted directly into the contaminated soil and geometrically disposed relative one to the other to take full advantage of a positively biased DC voltage applied between said one or more anodes and one or more cathodes. An aqueous solution of a strong oxidant, either peroxymonosulfate or peroxydisulfate, is added to the contaminated soil. The electric field induces the movement of peroxysulfate ions principally by electromigration and to a lesser extent by electroosmosis. Organic contaminants in the soil are oxidized by the peroxysulfate ions. For very recalcitrant contaminants, electric field-induced heating of the soil produces sulfate radical anions. In most cases the peroxysulfate ions or sulfate radical anions oxidize the contaminants to carbon dioxide and mineral acids.

Abstract: A process, system, and apparatus for effectively and economically producing fermentable sugars from cellulosic feedstocks is described. The economic viability of using wood and/or agricultural waste, containing large fractions of cellulose and hemicellulose is highly dependent on the method used for hydrolysis. Underlying the gist of this invention are newly discovered methods, means, and techniques by which both the pentosans and hexosans comprising the hemicellulose fraction of the selected feedstock and the hexosans comprising the cellulose fraction of the selected feedstock can be quickly and efficiently converted in a single pass through a single device to fermentable sugars containing minimal quantities of degradation products known to inhibit fermentation.