Recent Patents on Chemical Engineering - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2009

The transportation of heavy and extra-heavy crude oils from the head-well to the refinery is of significant economical, technical and scientific concern since the production of such crude oils is rising over the world in the last years. In this paper, the current technological solutions to move the crude oils from the production site to the processing facilities are discussed through the analysis of recent and first innovative patents on the field. The patent survey on crude oil transportation covers the viscosity reduction of crude oil, friction diminution during transport and partial upgrading of crude oils.

The development of photodynamic therapy is indebted to the work of chemistry researchers as well as to that of all experts in complementary areas such as physics, biology and clinical sciences. The search for new photosensitizer structures and improvements in delivery methodologies has deserved attention and has focused the efforts of several research groups. The first photosensitizer approved for use in PDT, in spite of its drawbacks, was a natural occurring compound. But soon, complete synthetic molecules with structures designed to fulfill physical and pharmacokinetic parameters appeared, and in some cases they showed strong anti-tumor potential. Search for better selectivity, recognizing structures were mainly addressed to photosensitizers or particular delivery systems designed to target cancer cells. All the contributions have been significant but somewhat dispersed. A general analysis of the state of the art and collection of the information related to the intellectual property area seems appropriate at this point. In this review, recent patents on State of research tracks and property protection of photodynamic sensitizers and delivery methodologies have been presented.

A hot topic in the process systems engineering community is the so called integration of decision levels. Industrial process systems are operated at different levels of decisions; in the lowest level, actual process operating conditions are chosen, while at the intermediate and higher level production and planning are strategically scheduled. Modeling and optimization at each of the levels is often done sequentially and this leads to the question whether optimization of individual levels will result in a ‘global optimum’. For this reason integration is applied. Integration could mean that targets are closer to their global optima, but it also encompasses the increasing complexity of the overall optimization problem. This is the reason, that for many industrially scaled optimization problems, the approach is still on the basis of a sequential approach. In this paper we discuss, on the basis on patent literature of the last 20 years, which tools are available to handle these complex integrated optimization problems.

Membrane distillation is an emerging membrane technology used for desalination of seawater or brackish water, solution concentration, recovery of volatile compounds from aqueous solutions and other separation and purification processes. Membrane distillation differs from other membrane technologies in that the driving force for separation is the difference in vapor pressure of volatile compound across the membrane, rather than total pressure. The main advantage of membrane distillation over the conventional thermal distillation is that membrane distillation could occur at a much lower temperature than the conventional thermal distillation. The membranes used in membrane distillation are hydrophobic, which allow water vapor to pass through but not liquid solution. The vapor pressure gradient is created by heating the feed solution and cooling/purging the condensate in the permeate side. Therefore, membrane distillation enables separation to occur below the normal boiling point of the feed solution and could utilize low-grade heat from alternative energy sources. The objective of this review is to cover the basic principles and configurations of membrane distillation process, membrane physical characteristics, heat and mass transfer characteristics, and the effect of operating conditions. Also, major applications of this new technology in desalination, food industry and environmental protection, and latest patent developments and future trend in membrane distillation are presented.

Magnetorheological gels and elastomers demonstrate the phenomenon that viscoelastic properties such as elastic modulus change in response to magnetic fields. The magnetorheological materials consist of polymeric matrices and magnetic particles. As the viscoelastic properties can be controlled by the magnetic field, the materials have been used for active dampers that are able to control the attenuation of vibration. The magnetic effect on the elastic modulus has been extensively improved for the last ten years. This review is a short survey of past investigations and patents on magnetorheological gels and elastomers, and presents feature problems of the materials.

The production of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from three non-edible oils i.e Putranjiva roxburghii (putranjiva, a new source), Pongamia glabra (karanja) and Jatropha carcus (jatropha) by acid, base and enzyme (catalyst) methods were compared. Sulphuric acid (1.0% w/w) as acid catalyst gave maximum conversion of jatropha oil (83.51%) than karanja (76.22%) and putranjiva oil (66.03%) at 3 hr. Sodium methoxide (1.5% w/w of total reactant) as base catalyst gave the conversion of 57.45%, 96.30% and 97.03% for oils of jatropha, karanja and putranjiva respectively at 3 min. In enzymatic transesterification jatropha, karanja and putranjiva gave the conversion of 52.0%, 27.4% and 17.3% respectively at 40 0C and 8 hr. The percentage conversion was measured by NMR analysis. It was observed in transesterification reaction that degummed vegetable oils gave better yield of biodiesel than crude vegetable oils. A secondary alcohol also gave higher conversion to biodiesel than methanol due to its higher miscibility in oil. In this article, a review of the patents on different aspects of the comparision of biodiesel production from three non-edible oils by acid, alkali and enzyme methods is presented.

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