The weather is getting colder outside, but things are heating up in the December issue of The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering (CJCE). The Editor’s Choice article, “Optimization of firefighting strategies in process plants with emphasis on domino effects and safe evacuation,” aims to improve the safety of process plants by supporting emergency response planning. “An ideal firefighting plan involves simultaneous extinguishment and cooling of all the burning units and exposed units, respectively. However, when the extent of fire exceeds the available firefighting resources, firefighters should decide which burning units to extinguish or which exposed units to cool first to best satisfy the safety objectives of the affected plant. The present study aims to facilitate the foregoing decision-making process by developing a methodology based on domino effect models and goal programming.”
December’s first issue highlight is “Deep chemometrics using one-dimensional convolutional neural networks for predicting crude oil properties from FTIR spectral data,” with demonstrates “the effectiveness of one-dimensional convolutional neural networks (1D-CNNs) to estimate crude oil properties based only on their Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. 1D-CNNs are attractive due to their reduced computational demand while offering predictive models that are as accurate as conventional CNNs…Additionally, this study also highlights the explainability of the results provided by the 1D-CNN. The ideas discussed in this work readily extend beyond the petrochemistry application.”
Highlighted next is “Performance assessment of drop tube reactor for biomass fast pyrolysis using process simulator,” in which “the effects of temperature and feedstock composition on product yield and constituents were evaluated for different biomasses.” The process “was modelled in a plug flow reactor using Aspen Plus process simulation software. A kinetic mechanism for pyrolysis was developed considering the recent improvements and updated kinetic schemes.” “The model captured the experimental conditions well, confirming its validity as a predictive tool for biomass pyrolysis.”
Finally, the last issue highlight for December is “Kinetic modelling: Regression and validation stages, a compulsory tandem for kinetic model assessment,” by Sébastien Leveneur. “Establishing kinetic models for complex chemical systems such as biomass valorization is cumbersome because the kinetic modeller must test different models and fit several experimental observables (or concentrations). Usually, in chemical reaction engineering, kinetic model assessment is based solely on the regression stage outputs. The implementation of a validation stage can aid in choosing the most reliable kinetic models, essentially in the case of complex chemical systems.”
All of these December issue highlights are open access! That means anyone can read, share, download, and cite them. Open access publishing makes crucial research accessible to everyone. If you are a researcher with a Canadian institution, you may be able to publish open access in CJCE at no personal cost. Learn more on Wiley Author Services or submit today.