Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2008

Industrialised nations have a legacy of contaminated land, which is often abandoned and derelict, and pose unprecedented risks to human health, animals and protected resources like surface and groundwater, flora and fauna, and the ecosystem as a whole. The management and clean-up processes of these lands are complex and time intensive, with high cost overruns and depend on input from a range of disciplines. This paper gives an overview of contaminated land, its effects and current management techniques and practices, with references to the UK regulatory framework. It reviews some recent and important patents relevant to contaminated land management, highlighting the significance and limitations of reviewed patents. It concludes by highlighting current and future developments in the field.

Titanium dioxide represents an effective photocatalyst for water and air purification and for self-cleaning surfaces. Additionally, it can be used as antibacterial agent because of strong oxidation activity and superhydrophilicity. TiO2 shows relatively high reactivity and chemical stability under ultraviolet light (λ<387nm), whose energy exceeds the band gap of 3.3 eV in the anatase crystalline phase. The development of photocatalysts exhibiting high reactivity under visible light (λ> 400 nm) should allow the main part of the solar spectrum, even under poor illumination of interior lighting, to be used. Visible light-activated TiO2 could be prepared by metal-ion implantation, reducing of TiO2, nonmetal doping or sensitizing of TiO2 with dyes. This paper reviews preparation methods of doped-TiO2 with metallic and nonmetallic species, including various types of dopants and doping methods currently available. The mechanism of heterogeneous photocatalysis in the presence of TiO2 is also discussed.

Some recent patents on tensegrity structures are reviewed and placed in the context of previous patents and other state-of-the-art research. While new applications seem to elaborate on the potential of tensegrity design for the construction of modern lightweight structures in environmental engineering and related fields, the fundamental design principles underlying such structures and their complex geometry and mechanical behaviour are often not fully understood.

A large number of recent patents for cooling of high power electronic components are reviewed. Along with the progresses in the developments of material, fabrication, and packaging techniques, various single and two phase cooling devices are developed for thermal managements of electronic devices. In this respect, practical patents for heatsink developments and implementations of nanotechnology and two-phase devices are reviewed through which the innovative concepts matching their future developing trends are disclosed.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation process with nitrite to N2 (anammox) has become a main focus and been widely introduced as a cost-effective biological nitrogen removal way in wastewater treatment. This paper reviews various patents which were well developed to achieve this process, such as SHARON-Anammox, CANON, and OLAND. To deal with the long start-up period problem of anammox process, the methods for collecting bacterial cell and regulating the feed rate are discussed. In order to avoid inhibition of substance and pH, some improvement methods, such as pH adjustment, adding back flow denitrification vessel and simultaneously shortcut denitrification and anammox process are also described. The list of patents reviewed is not extensive,but it shows the extent of the subjects covered patents in this area during recent years. Additionally, the current status regarding application and the future developments of the technologies are discussed.

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. Unlike more traditional organic and inorganic catalysts, enzymes are large and fragile molecules, so over the years, scientists and engineers have found it more difficult to immobilize enzyme catalysts on easily separateable supports for use and re-use in a variety of technologies. Over the last decade, enzyme immobilization has become more important in industry, medicine, and biotechnology. This review will detail recent patents for techniques for enzyme immobilization, along with patents for chemical and biotechnological processes that can employ immobilized enzymes, which allow for the re-use of the enzymatic catalysts. These techniques include methods varying from physical adsorption and covalent attachment to entrapment in polymers and sol-gels. These techniques have shown value in the development of biosensors, bioprocessing for the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry, and bioremediation.

The purpose of liquid atomizing is to increase the surface area of droplets and thereby raise the reaction speed with the surrounding air and enhance the effects of the heat and mass transfer. Higher surface to volume ratio can lead to increase contact areas between droplets and ambient air, and thereby achieve better atomization. Atomization is used for a wide range of applications in many fields, ranging from spray coating, powder metallurgy, evaporative cooling, medical nebulizers, to driving the movement of micro satellites. In this paper, we will discuss the use of some patented droplets ejection apparatuses and methods.

The concerns of energy consumption and environmental pollution urge researchers to work on the development of clean energy and the utilization of waste energy. Sorts of novel technologies were developed and the achievements were patented. Among these patents, chemical heat pump system, is one important topic. It utilizes the transformation between potential energy and thermal power energy to realize the performance of heat pumping and refrigeration. The thermal-potential tansformation reversible reaction in chemical heat pump mainly includes liquid-gas absorption, solid-gas reaction and solid adsorption. According to the characteristic of transformation reaction, chemical heat pump is classified into mono-variant system and di-variant system. The mono-variant system includes solid-gas reaction system and liquid-gas reaction system, etc, the di-variant system is also known as solid adsorption system. In this paper, novel technology on chemical heat pump system and its components was surveyed and typical patents were introduced. With the achievements disclosed in these critical patents, the performance of chemical heat pump could be significantly improved.

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