The present invention relates to a method for producing carbon nanostructures using a fluidized bed reactor. According to the method, some of the as-produced carbon nanostructures remain uncollected and are used as fluidic materials to improve the fluidity in the reactor. The method enables the production of carbon nanostructures in a continuous process. In addition, the fluidity of the catalyst and the fluidic materials in the reactor is optimized, making the production of carbon nanostructures efficient.

Devices and methods for controlling the properties of chemical species during time-dependent processes. A device includes a reactor for containing one or more chemical species of a time-dependent process, an extraction pump for automatically and continuously extracting an amount of the one or more chemical species from the reactor, one or more detectors for measuring property changes of the one or more extracted chemical species and generating a continuous stream of data related to the one or more property changes to the one or more chemical species during a time interval, and a process controller configured to fit the continuous stream of data to a mathematical function to predict one or more properties of the one or more chemical species at a future time point and make one or more process decisions based on the prediction of one or more properties at the future time point.

An actuator is provided that includes a housing, a linear actuating shaft disposed within the housing, a piston coupled with the shaft, and a fluid barrier disposed on an end of the shaft and encircled by the piston. The piston is movable longitudinally between an extended configuration and a retracted configuration upon rotation of the shaft. The fluid barrier engages an inner surface of the piston preventing fluid communication across the fluid barrier. The fluid barrier has a shaft engaging side which receives the shaft and a fluid facing side. A cavity is formed between the piston and the fluid facing side and expands when the piston moves to the extended configuration and contracts when the piston moves to the retracted configuration. A port is disposed in the piston and extends from the cavity to external the piston thereby permitting fluid communication between the cavity and external the piston.

A fuel tank inerting system includes a primary catalytic reactor comprising an inlet, an outlet, a reactive flow path between the inlet and the outlet, and a catalyst on the reactive flow path. The catalytic reactor is arranged to receive fuel from the fuel tank and air from an air source that are mixed to form a combined flow, and to react the combined flow along the reactive flow path to generate an inert gas. The system also includes an input sensor that measures a property of the combined flow before it enters the primary catalytic reactor and an output sensor that measures the property of the combined flow after it exits the primary catalytic reactor.

A method for fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) of petroleum oil feedstock includes reacting the petroleum oil feedstock with a catalyst mixture in a reaction zone of an FCC unit to obtain a product stream including desulfurized hydrocarbon product, unreacted petroleum oil feedstock, and spent catalyst. During the reacting a process control system develops a process model based on data collected during the reacting, the process model characterizing a relationship among the feed rate of the base cracking catalyst, the feed rate of the FCC additive, the operating conditions, the composition of the product stream, and emissions from the reaction; and one or more of (i) a target feed rate of the base cracking catalyst, (ii) a target feed rate of the FCC additive, and (iii) one or more target operating conditions of the reaction in the reaction zone to reduce the emissions from the FCC unit and to increase a yield of the desulfurized hydrocarbon product in the product stream are determined.

Disclosed are systems, servers and methods for improving temperature profile control in a reactor with at least three fixed beds, exothermic reactions and interstage cooling. A model of the temperature differential across the first bed is developed and its error is used to infer unmeasured feed composition disturbances, which are used in the control of the downstream fixed beds for faster response to unmeasured feed composition changes and improved control of the temperature profile throughout the reactor. The first bed model error is then used as an input into an overall model that predicts reactor temperature profiles, which provides advanced notice of reactions in downstream beds, and enables efficient adjustment and compensation to a feed composition change. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm is applied to adjust the bed intercooling and first bed feed temperature so that the reactor temperature profile can be more precisely controlled.

A method of assistance and documentation of a filling of tubular reactors comprising recording of filling materials and fill levels of filling materials and documenting the filling materials used, fill levels and results of a catalysis process of tubular reactors produced in such a way.

Systems and methods useful in determining the superficial gas velocity in fluidized bed reactors may utilize a pressure drop across a portion of the system but not associated with a flowmeter. For example, method may comprise: obtaining a pressure for each of two different locations within a fluidized bed reactor system that comprises a reactor capable of containing a fluidized bed and a cycle gas loop, wherein one or both of the two different locations is not at a flowmeter; calculating a pressure drop based on the two pressures; calculating a first superficial gas velocity (SGV.sub.alt) for the fluidized bed based on the pressure drop; and operating the fluidized bed reactor system based at least in part on the SGV.sub.alt.

Systems and methods of dehydrogenating a hydrocarbon in a fixed bed dehydrogenation unit. A method for dehydrogenating a hydrocarbon is applied to a fixed bed reactor. The hydrocarbon flows to a fixed bed reactor to be dehydrogenated in presence of a catalyst in the fixed bed reactor. The catalyst in the fixed bed reactor is then regenerated. The period for dehydrogenation, the period for catalyst regeneration and the period for total slack time are controlled such that total slack time is less than both half of the period for dehydrogenation and half of the period for regeneration. One of the advantages of the process comes from optimization of the slack time, thereby increasing the catalyst utilization rate and number of reactors concurrently online.

Provided is a fuel-reforming device comprising: an ammonia tank (4); a reformer (5) for reforming ammonia and generating high-concentration hydrogen gas having a hydrogen content of at least 99%; a mixing tank (7) for mixing ammonia and hydrogen for temporary storage; and a control means (10) for controlling the respective supply amounts of ammonia and high-concentration hydrogen gas that are supplied to the mixing tank (7). The control means (10) calculates the combustion rate coefficient C of mixed gas with respect to a reference fuel on the basis of equation (1). Equation (1): S.sub.0=S.sub.H×C+S.sub.A×(1−C). In equation (1), S.sub.0 is the combustion rate of the reference fuel, S.sub.H is the combustion rate of hydrogen, S.sub.A is the combustion rate of ammonia, and C is the combustion rate coefficient of mixed gas. In addition, on the basis of equation (2), the control means (10) determines the volume fractions of ammonia and hydrogen that are supplied to the mixing tank. Equation (2): C=1−exp(−A×M.sub.B). In equation (2), M is the volume fraction of hydrogen in mixed gas, and A and B are constants.