To optimize the compatibility with target ingredients in food processing and ensure standardized application, it is essential to characterize thyme's volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from specific species and origins. In this study, 116 VOCs were identified in thyme samples from four main Chinese production regions by two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS). Among them, eight compounds- thymol (5.27 %–13.28 %), eucalyptol (9.25–12.23 %), thymoquinone (11.16–15.98 %), etc.- were identified as the most abundant constituents. Samples NX, WQ, JB, and NM were classified into different chemotypes: thymol/eucalyptol/thymoquinone/p-cymene, thymoquinone/eucalyptol/thymol, thymoquinone/eucalyptol/p-cymene, and thymoquinone/carvacrol/isoborneol, respectively. Forty odor-active compounds were determined through relative odor activity value (ROAV) analysis. Furthermore, the variable importance in projection (VIP) method was applied to identify 14 and 5 VOCs as potential markers for thyme volatility and odor activity, respectively. These findings provide a valuable reference for expanding the application of Chinese thyme as a culinary herb in the food processing industry.
Nutrition. Foods and food supply, Food processing and manufacture
Maksim S. Maramygin, Natalya B. Boldyreva, Lyudmila G. Reshetnikova
In the new economic reality, air quality protection behaviour of companies remains a burning issue shifting the em phasis towards saving human life and health. The article explores the relationship between the air quality protection behav iour of public companies and stock returns in different economic sectors. The research methodology is based on environmental management theory, financial management theory, and stakeholder theory. The analytical procedures performed on the data involved cross-sectoral economic analysis and econometric analysis. Empirical data are retrieved from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the Moscow Exchange and cover statistics on 45 public joint-stock companies (PAOs) from five sectors of the economy for the period of 2014–2022. Cross-sectoral economic analysis has shown that investors lack interest in PAOs’ air quality protection behaviour and invariably favour companies from the sectoral indices paying higher dividends compared to the Moscow Exchange, such as Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Metals and Mining, Oil and Gas. By integrating air quality protection factors into the Fama-French-Carhart model through econometric modelling, we estimated the dependence of returns of indus try portfolios on these factors and classical risk premiums. The study demonstrates a positive impact of market premium and size premium on returns of industry portfolios. No statistically significant impact of air quality protection factors on stock returns was found. Our empirical findings confirm that businesses are poorly motivated to take air environment protection measures and air pollution-reducing behaviour should be encouraged at the state level.
This study aimed to systematically characterize the volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles of safflower (<i>Carthamus tinctorius</i> L.) from eight major production regions, providing a scientific basis for quality evaluation and geographical traceability. VOC profiling was conducted using gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (GC–IMS), and regional differences were assessed through multivariate statistical analyses, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Orthogonal Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (OPLS–DA), Euclidean distance, and hierarchical clustering. Key differential compounds were identified by variable importance in projection (VIP) and relative odor activity value (ROAV) analyses, with aldehydes and esters emerging as the primary contributors to the discrimination of samples across regions. VOC fingerprints of safflower were further established, and a combined VIP–ROAV strategy was proposed for the screening of characteristic compounds. These findings provide a reliable reference for safflower quality control and offer practical guidance for its geographical authentication in the food industry.
In the continuous scaling-up process of the separating system, a mechanism exists that transforms the behavior of the flow field, resulting in deviations from the original model and conclusions. The paper examined the effects of the scale up of a fluidized bed by CFD. It was observed that increasing the diameter reduces the amplitude of axial density fluctuations. Similarly, increasing the static height increases the amplitude. Moreover, increasing the static bed height enhances the visibility of the cyclic flow structure of gas and solid phases. The flow structure in large bed diameters is disrupted. The impact of changing the bed diameter on bed density is more significant than the static height. As the bed diameter increases, the bubble disturbance decreases and the aggregation phase gradually disappears while the proportion of the emulsified phase keeps increasing. This study will guide and assist in the future application of separated fluidized beds in industry.
NI Xiaoming, FENG Dong, HAO Shaowei, WANG Kai, SU Erlei
Determining the gas source and contribution in coal measure gas commingled production lays the foundation for developing commingled production schemes. Based on coal measure gas exploration and development data from the Wulihu mining area in the Lu’an mining area, carbon and hydrogen isotope tests of CH4 from the No. 3+4 coal measure strata and the No. 15 coal seam were conducted. Using a binary gas source model, the gas source and proportions of six commingled wells were identified. Additionally, considering factors such as gas content, permeability, and desorption capacity, the production contributions of gas from the No. 3+4 coal measure strata and the No. 15 coal seam in three commingled wells were calculated based on catastrophe theory. The results showed that when isotopic differences in carbon and hydrogen values were observed between multiple gas-producing layers, these differences could be used to determine the source and proportion of gas from each layer. When the No. 3+4 coal measure strata consistently produced gas while the No. 15 coal seam did not desorb gas, the produced gas entirely originated from the No. 3+4 coal measure strata. When both the No. 3+4 coal measure strata and the No. 15 coal seam stably produced gas, the gas productions were 42%-45% and 55%-58%, respectively. The production split coefficients calculated based on catastrophe theory closely matched experimental results, confirming the feasibility of this method. This study provides a method and reference for accurately identifying gas sources and contributions in coal measure gas commingled production for this mining area.
Petroleum refining. Petroleum products, Gas industry
Liquid atomization is widely used in industry, agriculture and other fields. During the atomization process, the liquid first forms a liquid film, and the liquid film becomes unstable in the gas-liquid boundary layer, resulting in the liquid film being broken. Therefore, the instability of the liquid film plays a very important role in the liquid atomization, and it is necessary to study the instability of the liquid film. In this paper, the instability of viscous planar liquid film in compressible gas was studied by numerical calculation method. Firstly, the velocity distributions of viscous planar liquid film and gas were derived, based on which the instability of viscous planar liquid film was investigated by spectral methods. It is found that in the sinuous and varicose modes, applying an electric field will accelerate the breakup of the plane liquid film. The sinuous mode is more unstable than the varicose mode, indicating that the sinuous mode plays a leading role in the instability of the plane liquid film. Increases of gas Mach number, electrical Euler number, gas Reynolds number, Weber number and momentum flux ratio accelerate the breakup of the liquid film. With the increase of the thickness ratio of gas boundary layer to liquid film and the liquid Reynolds number, the growth rate of the disturbance wave decreases, and the liquid film becomes more stable.
Oil-rich coal is a special coal resource with a tar yield ≥ 7% and a combination of coal, oil, and gas attributes. It is an important resource and development direction for the clean utilization of coal, and has important scientific value in alleviating the shortage of national oil and gas resources and promoting the breakthrough development of coal chemical industry. There are a large number of tar-rich coal resources in the eastern basin of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In order to find out the occurrence and distribution of tar-rich coal, the coal accumulation and occurrence characteristics of tar-rich coal were studied by means of sedimentary environment analysis, proximate analysis of coal, ultimate analysis of coal, and Gray-King assay for coal. The geological block method was used to estimate the resources of tar-rich coal. The results show that the tar-rich coal seams in the Santanghu Basin are mainly distributed in the upper section of the Badaowan Formation (J1b2), the Sangonghe Formation (J1s) and the lower section of the Xishanyao Formation (J2x1), the tar yield is about 13.67%, which is high tar-rich coal. The tar-rich coal seams in the Turpan-Hami Basin are developed in the middle section of the Xishanyao Formation (J2x2), and the tar yield is about 7.6%, which are tar-bearing coal and tar-rich coal. The tar-rich coal in the area is generally characterized by ultra-low to medium-low water content, low to medium-low ash content, medium-high to high volatile content, high tar yield, rich in oil generating components such as vitrinite and lipitnite, low degree of coalification, and formed in the lacustrine-deltaic sedimentary environment. The potential of rich oil coal resources in the study area is large. The resources of tar-rich coal in the Santanghu Basin is estimated to be 67.083 billion tonnes above a depth of 2 000 m, and the resources of tar-rich coal in the Turpan-Hami Basin is estimated to be 41.755 billion tonnes above a depth of 2 000 m, and the average thickness of the coal seams is more than 9 m. In order to effectively utilize the development of oil rich coal resources, the technical assumption of Underground Coal Pyrolysis (UCP) is proposed. The UCP refers to the establishment of heat introduction and product production channels in underground coal seams through petroleum engineering technology. Through artificial heating, coal undergoes in-situ carbonization reactions. The pyrolysis products include tar, gas (CH4, H2, light hydrocarbon C2+, etc.), and water. The carbon element in coal is mainly left underground in the form of semicoke, and the generated carbon dioxide can be used to drive oil in the Santanghu and Turpan-Hami Basins. The remaining carbon dioxide can be buried in-situ using the semicoke layer. The UCP achieves a clean conversion of coal resources through “hydrogen extraction and carbon retention”, which is expected to become a technical direction for the low-carbon green development of tar-rich coal.
In this work, it is reported the detailed evaluation of filtering scripts for comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC×GC–HRMS). Automated scripts were built to perform group-type analysis of naphthenic acids (NAs) in complex mixtures, like produced water (PW) samples. The logical operations were based on high-resolution mass spectral information acquired by using electron ionization (EI) and chemical ionization in the positive mode (PCI). The most common derivatization methods were carefully evaluated for group-type analysis. The performance of the scripts was evaluated using the rank metric (RM), wherein the sum-normalized absolute difference was calculated for true positives versus false positives. The best performing approach for qualitative analysis was attained by combining the derivatization with N-tert-butyldimethylsilyl-N-methyltrifluoroacetamide (MTBSTFA) with EI due to the high intensity and characteristic pseudo-molecular ions (even-electron [M-57]+). The data obtained supported the development of selective scripts, exhibiting accuracy values above 98 % and 88 % for the reference and unknown PW samples, respectively. The retention pattern of GC×GC was also used as a discriminant parameter for ambiguous identification, highlighting the synergy between GC×GC and HRMS. The proposed scripts are an interesting alternative to profile 154 classes of MTBSTFA-derived NAs, which considerably reduced the time spent in manual data curation and annotation, while improving the reliability of the results. This is an important step to aid in the development of standard methods for the study and regulation of water-soluble compounds found in PW samples.
Laurent Maurin, Nicolas Roussel, Guillaume Laffont
Pipe internal pressure measurement is of utmost importance in the oil & gas industry to monitor the extraction process, and thus to prevent hydrate-plugs formation which may occur in specific temperature and pressure conditions. Traditional solutions usually rely on pressure sensors in direct contact with the fluid to monitor, therefore requiring one hole per sensor, but they also weaken the pipe structure, which may prematurely lead to significant leaks. Attempts to develop non-intrusive pressure sensors relying, for instance, on acoustic waves detection or even strain measurements (the pipe wall acting, in some way, like the membrane of a traditional intrusive sensor), are up to now not fully satisfying, mainly due to poor temperature cross-sensitivity compensation. Thus, 1 °C temperature compensation error typically leads for Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) transducers to pressure measurement biases greater than 26% at 100 bar (e.g.: Ø 4” NPS Sch. 160 steel pipe). Consequently, if such non-intrusive, but biased, solutions could possibly have been considered to monitor, for instance, a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) primary coolant circuit, it was with the risk of dramatic consequences since the fluid can reach temperatures up to 320 °C. On the other hand, the solution detailed here truly achieves to cancel the temperature cross-sensitivity, and potentially any additional effect on pressure measurement, provided that each effect has the same influence on all transducers. It first relies on a better understanding of the pipe behavior under hydrostatic pressure, supported by a dedicated model developed on purpose, which demonstrates that the internal pressure and the surface temperature variations of a closed pipe can be recovered with at least two direction-sensitive transducers, the temperature dependence of the pressure measurement being simply removed by a straightforward compensation process. This paper explains the underlying principle, thanks to a formal model established with only few hypotheses, but extended to more complex field conditions. It ends with a lab-test validation involving FBG transducers attached to a pressure circuit submitted to temperature variations greater than several tens of °C, and concludes about the advantages and limitations of this novel approach for non-intrusive sensing, and its potential extensions to other measurement techniques.
Purification technology is required to separate the liquid impurities of natural gas during its transportation. However, the filtration performance of coalescing filter element used for natural gas purification at present needs to be improved. Therefore, the new filtering materials were developed by a nanofiber composite method. Besides, the permeability and gas-liquid filtration performance of the 4 types of composite filtering materials were tested with the experimental devices under the pressures from 0.1 MPa to 0.5 MPa. The results show that the Darcy coefficient of the composite filtering materials decreases with the increasing of the surface density of nanofiber, and more significant decrease is observed after the substrate with high permeability is composited with the nanofiber. Meanwhile, the increasing of operating pressure can lead to the compression of filtering material structure, which further results in the change of the mutual relationship between the Darcy coefficient and non-Darcy coefficient. Moreover, the filtration efficiency of filtering materials is improved after compositing with nanofiber, but the pressure drop also increases. Under the condition of same surface density of nanofiber, the pressure drop in oleophobic filtering material is more significant than the oleophilic filtering material. Hence, too high surface density will result in excessive pressure drop, further causing the reduction of the comprehensive performance of filtering materials. Generally, the research results could provide reference for the selection of filtering materials for natural gas purification.
Biodiesel production process was attracted more attention recently due to the surplus quantity of glycerol (G) as a byproduct from the process. Glycerol Utilization must take in to consideration to fix this issue also, to ensure biodiesel industry sustainability. Highly amount of Glycerol converted to more benefit material Glycerol carbonate (GC) was one of the most allurement compound derived from glycerol by transesterification of glycerol with dimethyl carbonate (DMC). Various parameters have highly impact on transesterification was investigated like catalyst loading (1-5) %wt., molar ratio of DMC: glycerol (5:1 – 1:1), reaction time (30 - 150) min and temperature (40 – 80) ᴼC. The Optimum glycerol carbonate yield (YGC) and glycerol conversion (XG) was obtained 94.2% and 94.5% respectively at catalyst loading 5% wt., temperature 70ᴼC, DMC:G ratio 5:1 and 120 min. GC has large scale of uses such as liquid membrane in gas separation, surfactants ,detergents , blowing agent , in plastics industry, in Pharmaceutical industry and electrolytes in lithium batteries.
Danilo Aros, Nicole Garrido, Constanza Rivas
et al.
The main function of floral scent is to attract and guide pollinators, but it is also an important character in the ornamental plant industry. Several studies have considered the chemical evaluation of floral scent during vase life, but only a few have considered sensorial analysis of this character, which is a very important quality trait for the marketing of ornamental plants. This study focused on assessing the floral scent of three fragrant cut flowers of high economic importance: Lilium, chrysanthemum, and freesia. Eighty individuals were included in a sensorial analysis where the attributes of floral scent liking and intensity were evaluated. The composition of the floral scent was analyzed through the collection of headspace followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The floral scents of oriental lily and freesia were perceived as more intense, compared to chrysanthemum. A total of 28 volatile compounds were detected and the monoterpenes β-pinene (40.7 ± 1.8 μg·L<sup>−1</sup>), β-cis-ocimene (5552 ± 990 μg·L<sup>−1</sup>), and linalool (11,800 ± 220 μg·L<sup>−1</sup>) were the major volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in chrysanthemum, lilium, and freesia, respectively. The results presented in this study confirm that the concentration and abundance of volatile compounds is not directly related to the human perception of floral scent.
The aim of this paper is to present a model that quantifies the level of QHSE culture maturity in a segment of the oil and gas industry, with recommendations to increase the level of QHSE awareness. The theoretical reference is based on the understanding of the premises about safety culture and its aspects, while the methodological approach of this article is based on an exploratory study supported by a research with QHSE specialists in the segment. After analyzing the results and discussions, it was verified that the safety maturity level is high but needs some improvement points. Results showed that the presented evaluation method can be effective to evaluate the current state of the safety maturity, however, it is necessary to follow some basic prerequisites for its implementation.
Industries. Land use. Labor, Social sciences (General)
Oil and Gas (Otherwise known as Petroleum) provide a vital contribution to the Global Energy mix. Economic development and progression are known to be symmetrically linked with increasing hydrocarbon consumption but there is increasing evidence of global demand with attendant impact on alleged global warming and carbon footprint. This has led to a clamour for reduction in hydrocarbon exploration and production operations. The question therefore is: Is there a future for Petroleum? In this paper the question is answered with an emphatic YES. The paper goes further to present appropriate facts and data to support the claim as well as forward-looking statements, particularly those regarding Global/African economic growth, population and productivity growth, energy consumption, energy mix, policy support for gas utilisation and renewable energies, sources of energy supply and growth of hydrocarbon supply.
There is increasing gap between global demand and supply especially in developing economies of China, India and in particular Nigeria where increasing economic growth/development, inward consumption by growing modern population, manufacturing industries and energy consumption and current low hydrocarbon recovery factor are identified as the catalysts for the demand outstripping supply. There is evidence that there will be a gap of almost 5million barrels per day between demand and supply in Nigeria by the year 2030 which will inevitably turn Nigeria into an oil importing country if there is no urgent intervention.
There is scope/opportunity for aggressive exploration into and production from Deepwater environment and existing mature assets using game changing fit-for-purpose technologies and skilled manpower development supported by forward looking strategic framework enabler policies by Government working with industry the details of which are presented in the paper.
The state of Oklahoma has experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of measurable seismic activities over the last decade. The needs of a petroleum-driven world have led to increased production utilizing various technologies to reach energy reserves locked in tight formations and stimulate end-of-life wells, creating significant amounts of undesirable wastewater ultimately injected underground for disposal. Using Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data, we performed a differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) technique referred to as the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS)-based analysis over east central Oklahoma to identify ground surface deformation with respect to the location of wastewater injection wells for the period of December 2006 to January 2011. Our results show broad spatial correlation between SBAS-derived deformation and the locations of injection wells. We also observed significant uplift over Cushing, Oklahoma, the largest above ground crude oil storage facility in the world, and a key hub of the Keystone Pipeline. This finding has significant implications for the oil and gas industry due to its close proximity to the zones of increased seismicity attributed to wastewater injection. Results southeast of Drumright, Oklahoma represent an excellent example of the potential of InSAR, identifying a fault bordered by an area of subduction to the west and uplift to the east. This differentiated movement along the fault may help explain the lack of any seismic activity in this area, despite the large number of wells and high volume of fluid injected.
Research and development of water lock inhibiting measures is very crucial in verifying the link mechanism between the internal factors of water lock and its extent of damage. Based on conventional water-lock physics experiments, however, only the consequence of macro water lock damage can be investigated, while the microscopic mechanism cannot be studied. In this paper, 3D digital cores of low-permeability sandstones were prepared by means of high-resolution micro-CT scan, and their equivalent pore network model was built as well. Virtual “imbibition” experiments controlled by capillary force were carried out by using pore-scale flow simulation. Then the link mechanism between the microscopic internal factors (e.g. wettability, water saturation and pore–throat structure parameters) and the water-lock damage degree was discussed. It is shown that the damage degree of water lock reduces gradually as the wettability transits from water wet to gas wet. Therefore, the water lock damage can be reduced effectively and gas-well productivity can be improved so long as the capillary environment is changed from strong water wettability to weak gas wettability. The more different the initial water saturation is from the irreducible water saturation, the more serious the water lock damage is. The damage degree of water lock is in a negative correlation with the coordinate number, but a positive correlation with the pore–throat ratio. Based on the existing research results, water lock tends to form in the formations composed of medium-sized throats. It is concluded that there is a critical throat radius, at which the water lock is the most serious.
The article is devoted to the study of ecological and socio-economic environment as well as the development of effective
methodological tool for the assessment of its stability. This tool allows to ascertain the level of economic activity of the regions
within the limits of the sustainability of biosphere. In the article, the regional system is considered as the total of industrial
enterprises, social infrastructure and natural environment creating a specific territorial ecological and socio-economic
environment, whose stability depends on the level of economic activity measured by the capacity of territorial ecosystem. The
use of a technique for the comparative assessment of the energy indicators of economic activity creating a specific ecological
and socio-economic environment of the region as well as of the indicator of the ecological capacity of the territory is proved.
The ecological capacity of the territory enables to better estimate the level of the sustainability of the region within the limits
of sustainability of biosphere. This method allows to forecast the development of the studied territory by the measurement of general energy flow on the basis of closed material and energy flows. The research revealed an indicator of the sustainability of
ecological and socio-economic environment of Ural Federal District. Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District is the most stable, the
Chelyabinsk region is the least stable, which is associated with both natural conditions and the specificities of economic structure.
The labour productivity indicator, expressed in energy units, has revealed regions with rich natural resources. It was found that
in these regions, there are significant material flows in the electricity industry that leads to a large proportion of greenhouse
gas emissions. The assessment of the demographic capacity fully correlates with the calculations of the stability indicator of
the regional system and the analysis of labour productivity in the region. In the future, these methodological tools will allow
to develop a model of the management of a sustainable ecological and socio-economic environment of the region, taking into
account the environmental capacity of biosphere
The hypothesis described in this article proposes that energy visualisation diagrams commonly used need additional changes to continue to be relevant in a world with greater low-carbon generation. The diagrams that display national energy data are influenced by the properties of the type of energy being displayed, which in most cases has historically meant fossil fuels, nuclear fuels or hydro. As many energy systems throughout the world increase their use of electricity from wind or solar based renewables, a more granular display of energy data in the time domain is required. This article also introduces the shared axes energy diagram that provides a simple and powerful way in which to compare the scale and seasonality of the demands and supplies of an energy system. This aims to complement rather than replace existing diagrams, and has an additional benefit of promoting a whole systems approach to energy systems, as differing energy vectors such as natural gas, transport fuels, and electricity can all be displayed together. This in particular, is useful to both policy makers and to industry, to build a visual foundation for a whole systems narrative, which provides a basis for discussion of the synergies and opportunities across and between different energy vectors and demands. The diagram’s ability to wrap a sense of scale around a whole energy system in a simple way is thought to explain its growing popularity.