Sustainable Biological Ammonia Production towards a Carbon-Free Society

A sustainable society was proposed more than 50 years ago. However, it is yet to be realised. For example, the production of ammonia, an important chemical widely used in the agriculture, steel, chemical, textile, and pharmaceutical industries, still depends on fossil fuels. Recently, biological approaches to achieve sustainable ammonia production have been gaining attention. Moreover, unlike chemical methods, biological approaches have a lesser environmental impact because ammonia can be produced under mild conditions of normal temperature and pressure. Therefore, in previous studies, nitrogen fixation by nitrogenase, including enzymatic ammonia production using food waste, has been attempted. Additionally, the production of crops using nitrogen-fixing bacteria has been implemented in the industry as one of the most promising approaches to achieving a sustainable ammonia economy. Thus, in this review, we described previous studies on biological ammonia production and showed the prospects for realising a sustainable society.

The finishing of textiles goes digital!

The focus of the work of the interdisciplinary team of the funded futureTex project digiTex-Pro is on the development of a digital textile finishing process, which based on digital technologies for chemical textile treatment. The project team consists of the German companies Zschimmer & Schwarz Mohsdorf GmbH & Co. KG, Burgstädt, Suchy Textilmaschinenbau GmbH, Korbußen, Textilausrüstung Pfand GmbH, Lengenfeld, and druckprozess GmbH & Co. KG, Eisenach, as well as the STFI, Chemnitz.

Development of Virtual Textile Chemistry Laboratory in Learning Making Cellulose-Based Regeneration Fibers Based on Learning Paradigms in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 Era

This study aims to design and create a virtual chemical textile laboratory model as an effort to improve students' understanding of learning Textile Chemistry, especially on the subject of making cellulose-based regenerative textile fibers that have a high level of abstraction and complexity. Theoretical learning in the form of verbal symbols, empirically is not representative enough to explain the concept of the system that is needed, so that the possibility is not affordable (likely to inaccessible) by students which effected to the lessen of learning experiences. These conditions have implications for the lack of student understanding of these processes which is indicated by the acquisition of low learning outcomes. The specific target of this research is to produce a virtual laboratory device as a simulation medium for learning textile chemistry on the subject of making effective cellulose-based regenerative fibers. Furthermore, the model developed is validated to get input from experts related to the technology used, design and process content in the developed model. The validation results show that this model is suitable for use in the study of textile chemistry and can be used to improve students' understanding of the material for making cellulose-based regenerative textile fibers. In the limited trials that have been carried out, there are some features, image choices, and some simulations that need to be refined to avoid students' misinterpretations of the planned chemical process concept. Students involved in the trials are more motivated to continue learning related concepts that have been learned. In subsequent studies this model will be tested on a broader scale to measure its effect on the mastery of concepts and its ability to improve learning outcomes in textile chemistry courses, on the material for making cellulose-based regenerative fibers.

Probability-Based Validation of the Forensic Method "Microscopic Analysis of Textile Fibers"

The results of validation of the method “Microscopic analysis of textile fibers” used in forensic fiber examination are presented. An attempt is made to estimate reliability of testing of this method numerically by the proportions of right and false results and credibility ratio.The testing method under consideration consists in establishing a set of external characteristics of natural and chemical textile fibers: color, peculiarities of coloration, morphological features, presence/absence of a matting agent. These generic characteristics are used in forensic textile analysis. As the objects of testing fiber samples from comparative collection of a forensic fiber laboratory were used. Four experts participated in the experiment independently examining eleven fiber samples by eleven external characteristics for a week.A low (2,2 %) rate of false results in relation to the total number of tests was established as well as the low (less than 3,0 %) rate of each expert’s false results. The probability of the right results of characteristics’ assessment is 30 times higher than the probability of false results.The results of the experiment permit the conclusion that the method is suitable to be used in forensic fiber examination when dealing with various tasks: classification, identification, situational and diagnostic.

Use of ANCF Finite Elements in MBS Textile Applications

The objective of this investigation is to present a new flexible multibody system (MBS) approach for modeling textile roll-drafting sets used in chemical textile industry. The proposed approach can be used in the analysis of textile materials which have un-common material properties best described by specialized continuum mechanics constitutive models, for instance, the lubricated polyester filament bundles (PFB) presented in this paper. In this investigation, PFB is modeled as a hyper-elastic transversely isotropic material using absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF). The PFB strain energy density function is decomposed into a fully isotropic component and an orthotropic, transversely isotropic component expressed in terms of five invariants of the right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor. Using this energy decomposition, the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress and the elasticity tensors can also be split into isotropic and transversely isotropic parts. Constitutive equations are used to evaluate the generalized material forces associated with the coordinates of three-dimensional fully-parameterized ANCF finite elements. The proposed model allows for modeling the dynamic interaction between the rollers and PFB and allows for using spline functions to specify the PFB forward velocity. The paper demonstrates that the textile material constitutive equations and the MBS algorithms can be used effectively to obtain numerical solutions that define the state of strain of the textile material and the relative slip between rollers and PFB and therefore provide a good method to study the roll-drafting process in the chemical textile industry.