Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 6, Issue 3, 2012

With the depletion of resources, biomass becomes a promising source of chemicals and fuels, currently obtained from petroleum. Cellulose is the most abundant material produced in earth, but it is difficult to dissolve which makes its transformation limited. Dissolution of cellulose requires severe temperature, non-conventional solvents and/or extreme acid or basic conditions. Thus, its processing is very pollutant. Ionic liquids are presented as clean solvents for cellulose. These are substances composed entirely of ions that are liquid at room temperature. Among other interesting properties, ionic liquids are non volatile and they are good solvents for a number of substances. Processes for cellulose processing in ionic liquids have been patented for several applications, the most important being: pre-treatment for biomass prior to fermentation for bio-ethanol production, hydrolysis for obtaining chemicals from biomass and substitution reaction for obtaining derivatives of cellulose and other natural polymers.

This review discusses the recent developments in supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of bioactive compounds from botanic matrices during the period of 2007-2012. The main operational parameters affecting the extraction yields that are presented and discussed include: pressure, temperature, extractor geometry, average size of particles, extraction time, solvent flow rate and use of cosolvents. Emphasis is given to extractor geometry. The data compiled herein show the influence of the vessel height vs. internal diameter ratio on the overall extraction curves. Several extractor volumes (2 cm3 to 2×104 cm3) and height to internal diameter ratios (1.9 to 63.6) were used for SFE of substances from several types of raw materials. The study of extractor geometry is important when plant scale up is proposed. To succeed in scale up, similar profiles for the extraction curves obtained for SFE of plants with different bed geometries must be obtained. Hence, the process parameter calculations are exhibited by comparing equations available in scientific literature and explaining the use of these equations in different extraction situations. Aspects concerning the cost of manufacturing a product are described and also discussed. Various recent studies that mention the economic feasibility of extracting components from solid matrices in pilot or larger plants using supercritical technology are summarized. These works also present some specific costs in investment and raw material as the dominant costs for the process, indicating that the cost of manufacturing of target substances decreases when the extraction vessel capacity increases.

Solid-state fermentation has emerged as a potential technology for production of microbial products such as feed, fuel, food, industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical. This technology is worth of attention not only from researchers but also from industry, especially in the last two decades. Based on these aspects, a review of patents and scientific articles is presented to cover the application of solid-state fermentation on different areas, including process development, substrate and microorganism preparation, process modeling and design of bioreactors.

Ventricular fibrillation (VF) and ventricular tachycardia (VT) are lift-threatening cardiac arrhythmias that could be catastrophic if no defibrillation shock is applied to the subject within a few minutes. Correct and prompt detection of these shockable rhythms and preparedness to intervene with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and especially the delivery of an electrical shock are potentially lifesaving. The automated external defibrillators (AEDs), which detect these shockable rhythms without interpretation of the electrocardiogram by qualified medical personnel, enable early defibrillation and increase the survival rate of cardiac arrest in out-of-hospital conditions. Hence it is of vital importance that VF/VT detection algorithms used by AEDs differentiate well between shockable and non-shockable rhythms. This paper reviews recent published patents in algorithms used for VF/VT detection. The advantages and efficacy of different algorithms are also compared and discussed. The new techniques presented demonstrate increased efficacy, accuracy and ability to detect VF/VT during uninterrupted CPR.

In this paper, we have proposed and experimentally demonstrated an optical access network based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology. The OFDM based passive optical network (PON) employs multicarrier to carry different information transmitted to different optical network units (OUNs). In this paper, we have systematically analyzed the system performance of OFDM-PON under different conditions, including modulation formats, laser line widths, access distances and wavelength intervals. The colorless upstream transmission in the OFDM-PON is also analyzed in this paper. Finally, we have proposed a 40Gb/s base band OFDM-PON with two optical carriers, and the experimental result shows a receive sensitivity of-14dBm at BER of 3×10-3(EFEC limit) after 25km fiber transmission. Patents relevant to the topic have also been discussed in this paper.

With the increasing requirement of communication rate and capacity, Raman amplifiers are becoming the most promising technologies in optical communication systems. There are many patents about Raman amplifiers. In this paper, some important inventions in the patents about Raman amplifiers published since the last 3 years will be presented as typical examples. This paper will introduce various types of inventions about Raman amplifiers individually: multipleorder Raman amplifiers, tunable multimode pump sources Raman amplifiers, automatic gain control Raman amplifiers and lumped Raman amplifiers with a highly-nonlinear medium. These inventions are classified from the principle of Raman amplification effect, the implementation way, deployment mode and optical materials and devices to realize innovation. Above all, Raman amplifiers are developing towards greater capacity, lower noise and nonlinearity, higher gain and longer fiber span lengths.

The paper gives a brief overview of current state of patents in Serbia. Preview includes the number of applicants and registered patents. Here are presented two most important patents in the field of petroleum industry. System for thermal paraffin removal in tubing and Piston pump with hydraulic power transmission are related to the efficient production of oil. The System for thermal paraffin removal in tubing won first place in the competition for the best technological innovation in Serbia in 2009, and nominated for ENI Awards 2012th.