Humic acids (HAs) are components of natural organic matter found in soil and are considered responsible for its fertility. They can be extracted from sources such as peat and lignite on an industrial scale. In order to increase the efficiency and reduce the duration of the alkaline extraction step, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) was used in this study. Statistical analysis was implemented to describe the influence of microwave power, temperature, and time on the yield of HA extraction. Experimental points were created on the basis of the matrix, according to the Box-Behnken design. Statistical analysis showed the importance of linear correlations between the process parameters and the response. The last part of the presented study was to create the polynomial model and response surface plots, attached in poster form, which describe the result as a function of parameters of the MAE process.

In this study continuous pilot plant configuration for helical flow type Ultrasound Assisted Extraction (UAE) reactor is decribed, and carotenoid extraction results from carrot- water extraction system are presented. The pilot plant configuration consists of all necessary unit operations from washed raw material to extracted natural ingredient product. According to our best knowledge the published data from the whole processing line of continuous UAE has not been described. One of the subjects in this study has been patented in-house UAE design which enables to prolong extractable solids material residence time under ultrasound field. Process operation was verified with several hour pilot tests. Extraction results have been presented in case of carotenoids from fresh carrots and strawberry extract from frozen strawberries. The extracted carotenoid concentration was improved 40 % comparison to macerated carrot results, and absorbance ratio of strawberry extract increased by factor 5.

The paper presents research on a novel catalytic carrier, called "streamlined structure". The carrier is a short-channel monolith, whose walls are shaped like an airfoil profile (airplane wing). The intention is heat transfer intensification coupled with moderate flow resistance. Streamlined structures with triangular channel cross-section, 3mm, 6mm and 12 mm long, were designed and manufactured using the SLM (Selective Laser Melting) technique for the experimental verification. The structures were modelled using the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software to derive flow resistance, flow patterns and heat transfer coefficients. Compared to classic structures, CFD showed intensified heat transfer, combined with acceptable flow resistance increase. CFD proved the lack of an inlet vortex, which in classical structures seriously reduces the intensity of heat transfer. The CFD has been satisfactorily verified by experiments.

Control of reaction conditions, short residence times and completely inert surfaces are of major importance when studying aging mechanisms by soot formation. The use of ceramics as reactor material in combination with a special reactor design allows control over industrially relevant reaction conditions (T _max = 1100 °C, t _Residence = 50 ms) and sample shapes while avoiding interfering side reactions. We have successfully tested new ceramic kinetic reactors in two model systems of propane dehydrogenation and reactor coil material. The presented reactor setup allows long-term measurements with industrially relevant material samples under controlled conditions. In both model reactions it was possible to perform studies on regeneration methods by oxidation and to study the effects on the material using different in-situ and ex-situ techniques including 31 ^P MAS NMR measurements.

Currently, there is a tendency for new forms of carrier-drug systems to appear with prolonged and controlled release. However, in order to design medical or pharmaceutical devices, which have to be characterized by high quality and the assumed parameters in real conditions, it is necessary to analyze this process based on in vitro release (IVR) testing methods. For this purpose, extracorporeal studies are carried out, which enable the determination of the release profiles of active substances using a simulated tissue-like environment. Here, we focused on the release tests of poorly water-soluble compounds (salicylic acid and fluocinolone acetonide) from the dual drug delivery system using the flow-through cell method (USP4). Additionally, bio-hybrid hydrogel matrix containing the system of thermosensitive nanocarrier with salicylic acid and fluocinolone acetonide was subjected to the following investigations: physicochemical (swelling ability, gel fraction), morphological (SEM analysis) and structural using FT-IR spectroscopy. On the basis of results, we can conclude that the USP4 method may be suitable, especially for the release tests of poorly water-soluble components introduced into modern forms of drug administration, such as polymeric matrices, hydrogels, nano- and microcarriers as well as hybrid systems.

Humic substances (HS) are hydrophobic parts of dissolved organic matter, which are hard to degrade using biological processes. When exposed to disinfection processes, the HS present in wastewater could lead to the formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs), which are harmful and dangerous to health. Thus, a chemical coagulation process is commonly used for HS removal. This work used a cylindrical galvanic cell (CGC) with an iron anode and a copper cathode, where the dissolution of the anode served as an alternative source of metal ions for HS coagulation. The galvanic cell current for CGC stabilized at around 0.6 mA, and the voltage fluctuated, ca. 0.5 V for all solutions. The peaks observed on cyclic voltammograms could be associated only with oxidation and dissolution of iron; no other process was identified. After the process, the structures and molecular composition of the anode surface suggest the loss of Fe mass and the formation of iron oxides due to corrosion. The initial pH of the tested solution influenced the total Fe concentration in the solution as well as colour and turbidity. The quantitative removal of HS by electrolysis and membrane filtration processes at initial pHi = 6.0 yielded 72% and 90%, respectively, after 6 and 10 min. The mechanism of sorption on the flocs of hydroxides as a primary factor in HA removal was suggested.

The hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass results in the production of so-called fermentation inhibitors, which reduce the efficiency of biohydrogen production. To increase the efficiency of hydrogen production, inhibitors should be removed from aqueous hydrolysate solutions before the fermentation process. This paper presents a new approach to the detoxification of hydrolysates with the simultaneous formation of in-situ deep eutectic solvents (DES). In the first stage of the study, inhibitors were identified in the real hydrolysate samples using highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Four monoterpenes were tested for their potential to extract furfural (FF) with simultaneous DES formation. An optimization process of the most important parameters affecting the extraction process and DES formation (Thymol:FF) was conducted using the Central Composite Design (CCD) model. A temperature of 40 °C, pH of 7, mHBD:mHYD ratio of 2:1, and time of 50 min were selected as the optimal conditions. These results indicate the high efficiency of FF removal from hydrolysates (92.1 - 94.6 %) in a onestep process. Meanwhile, the structural properties of the formed DES measured by Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) differed only slightly from those of the DES composed of pure substances (Furfural and Thymol).

The development of efficient carbon dioxide sequestration and utilization technologies is an indispensable aspect of a wide range of measures directed at reducing the negative effects of anthropogenic emissions on the environment. One route is its capture via physical adsorption and further conversion to methane in the Sabatier reaction. The sorption process can be carried out, among others, in fixed-bed adsorptive reactors, in which the packing is made up of adsorbent and catalyst particles. Proper structuring of such a hybrid bed can contribute to increasing the efficiency of both stages of the process. Of importance in this regard is, first of all, the proper management of heat transfer. This study examines the sorption step of the operation of an adsorptive reactor for CO2 sequestration and methanation using a one-dimensional non-isothermal model of a layered fixed bed. Numerical calculations for different configurations and different volume adsorbent to catalyst ratios were carried out to determine how the hybrid structure of the bed and the atypical thermal waves it induces affect the sorption process. The results obtained prove that proper tailoring of the bed can be an excellent tool to control the temperature profiles and thus the performance of the apparatus and possibly its optimization.

Radiation therapy can be adopted for many cancers, and it can damage healthy tissues and often induces skin lesions (pain/skin irritation/itchiness/dryness/swelling/redness). Many factors influence the adverse effects of radiotherapy, such as radiation dosage, dose frequency and fractioning, the area of skin exposed to radiation and treatment length. In this paper, multiple emulsions with a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-NSAID (diclofenac) were developed and evaluated for effective topical treatment of skin lesions following anticancer therapy. Multiple emulsions with different drop sizes were prepared in a Couette- Taylor flow contactor. High encapsulation efficiency (> 90%) of diclofenac and high volume packing fraction of the internal droplets (0.54–0.96) were obtained. In addition, due to the presence of a polymer with adhesive properties - sodium carboxymethylcellulose, high emulsion stability (> 60 days) was achieved. The emulsions displayed properties of shearthinning fluids. The release study of diclofenac from a complex emulsion structure confirmed the possibility of modifying the release rates. The effectiveness of emulsion formulations was evaluated based on the viability tests of the fibroblast cell line irradiated with UV dose (15 J/m2) and then treated with the emulsion with diclofenac. The results showed that the multiple emulsion-based formulations might be appropriate carriers for the topical delivery of NSAID drugs.

Ammonia solutions are considered to be effective solvents for carbon dioxide absorption. Despite numerous advantages of these solvents, their high volatility is a significant technical and economic problem. Therefore, in this work, silica particles were used as additives to improve CO ₂ absorption and inhibit NH ₃ desorption. SiO ₂ microparticles and colloidal SiO ₂ particles in the concentration range of 0-0.15 wt.% were used in this study. The most favorable mass transport for CO2 absorption was at the concentration of colloidal particles of 0.05 wt.%. Under these conditions, the enhancement in the number of moles of absorbed CO ₂ was above 30%. However, in solvents containing 0.01 wt.% SiO2 microparticles, the increase in CO ₂ absorption was about 20%. At the same time, the addition of SiO2 particles significantly reduced the escape of ammonia from the solution. The best improvement was obtained when colloidal SiO ₂ particles were added, and then NH ₃ escape was decreased by about 60%. This unfavorable phenomenon was also inhibited in ammonia solutions containing SiO2 microparticles at a concentration of 0.01 wt.%.

In the present study, peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation was proposed for efficient photocatalytic degradation of aspartame, acesulfame, saccharin, and cyclamate - artificial sweeteners frequently present in wastewaters and surface waters worldwide. TiO ₂ nanosheets with exposed {0 0 1} facets were synthesised using the fluorine-free lyophilisation technique as a green concept for the synthesis and used for the photodegradation of selected sweeteners not susceptible to biodegradation. The synergetic effect of photocatalysis with the sulfate radical-based process was for the first time investigated. It was found that the studied artificial sweeteners were practically not susceptible to photolysis within 60 minutes of irradiation. In the presence of 2D titanium (IV) oxide, the artificial sweeteners were degraded entirely in less than 30 min, whereas the addition of peroxymonosulfate resulted in complete degradation after 10 – 15 minutes of the process.

Environmental contamination is an urgent topic to be solved for sustainable society. Among various pollutants, microorganisms are believed to be the most dangerous and difficult to be completely inactivated. In this research, a new hybrid photoreactor assisted with rotating magnetic field (RMF) has been proposed for the efficient removal of two types of bacteria, i.e., gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Staphylococcus epidermidis. Three selfsynthesized photocatalysts were used, based on commercial titanium(IV) oxide - P25, homogenized and then modified with copper by photodeposition, as follows: 0.5Cu@HomoP25, 2.0Cu@HomoP25 and 5.0Cu@HomoP25 containg 0.5, 2.0 and 5.0 wt% of deposited copper, respectively. The response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to design the experiments and to deteremine the optimal conditions. The effects of various parameters such as copper concentration [% w/w], time [h] and frequency of RMF [Hz] were studied. Results: Analysis of variance (ANOVA), revealed a good agreement between experimental data and proposed quadratic polynomial model ((R2=0.86 for E. coli and R2=0.69 for S. epidermidis). Experimental results showed that with increasing copper concentration, time and decreasing of frequency of RMF removal efficiency was increased. Accordingly, the water disinfection efficiency of 100% in terms of the independent variables was optimized, including cooper concentration c =5 % and 2.5% w/w, time t = 3 h and 1.3 h and frequency of rotating magnetic field f = 50 Hz and 26.6 for E.coli and S. epidermidis, respectively. This study showed that response surface methodology is a useful tool for optimizing the operating parameters for photocatalytic disinfection process.

One of the parameters characterizing the quality of the gaseous fuel transported in gas pipeline network to consumers and being the basis for the classification of gaseous fuels is the heat of combustion. The main research hypothesis of this paper is the analysis of the possibility of using MLP 18-yi-1 neural network model to forecast the natural gas heat of combustion with a forecast error smaller than in case it calculates the heat of combustion based on the composition of natural gas predicted using the MLP 18-65-5 (Szoplik and Muchel, 2023). The training of the models was carried out on the basis of 8760 real data, presenting the hourly heat of natural gas combustion at one of the measurement points of this parameter in the pipeline network. The model takes into account the influence of calendar factors (month, day of the month, day of the week and hour of the day) and weather factors (ambient temperature) on the amount of heat of natural gas combustion in a given location of the gas network. Many MLP 18-yi-1 models were trained, differing in the number of neurons in the hidden layer and activation functions of neurons in the hidden and output layers.

The process of obtaining alginate microspheres (AMs) by emulsification method was optimized by applying statistical analysis software. Ten batches of microspheres were prepared using the fractional plan 3 ^(K-p). AMs were obtained with two different methods: an ultrasonic homogenization (UH) process and a rotor-stator mechanical homogenization (MH). The amount of a cross-linking agent (CaCl ₂), calcium chloride rate addition, and the sonication amplitude (UH) or the speed of rotor rotation (MH) were selected as formulation variables. All the batches were evaluated in terms of stability and size of the alginate microspheres. Approximation profiles were developed. As a result of the conducted research, stable alginate microspheres with sizes ranging from 10 to 30 micrometres were obtained. The obtained results showed that the quality of AMs was mainly affected by the concentration and the rate of calcium chloride addition into the system. Therefore, the role of calcium ions in the mechanisms of shell structuring was discussed. Lactobacillus casei bacteria were encapsulated into the batches found to be optimum. The high encapsulation efficiency (EE) of the bacteria (72-94%) depending on the form) and their viability over time were obtained. The model developed in the study can be effectively utilized to achieve the AMs formulations.

A significant challenge of modern technology is the design of high-efficiency filters that allow more effective removal of aerosol particles suspended in the air, e.g. micron and submicron oil droplets. Our previous work has proven that aerogel structure deposition on fibre surface is a promising method for post-production improvement of the oil-mist filter performance. In this work, a modification of the previously described method was proposed, consisting in carrying out the process in the flow (semi-batch) regime, i.e. the streams of reagents successively pass through the filter in a self-designed and self-made modification chamber. The effect of the reactant flow rate and the order of reactants (precursor/catalyst or catalyst/precursor solutions) on the mass of deposited aerogel, and thus - also on the filtration efficiency during the removal of oil mist droplets and the pressure drop accompanying the airflow - is presented and described. The possible routes of modification scaling-up are discussed with defined unit operations.

The publication presents experimental verification of a mathematical model of silver nanowire (AgNWs) fabrication in a continuous flow process in a helical tubular reactor. Silver nanowires were synthesised with a polyol process, with ethylene glycol as the reductant of the nanomaterial precursor and solvent of the reactants. The observed average diameters and lengths of AgNWs were 98-226 nm and 5-45 μm, respectively. The experimental conversions of the precursor were 0.71-0.90. A comparison of calculated and measured conversions for the investigated range of residence times and temperatures showed that the observed error was less than 20%.

The reaction of ilmenite raw materials with sulfuric acid has been investigated to find out the influence of diffusion processes on the course of this reaction. Three different laboratory methods were used to initiate the reaction: mixing ilmenite with 83–85% sulfuric acid at a temperature of 80 °C, mixing ilmenite with 90% sulfuric acid at temperatures of 20–40 °C and adding water, and mixing ilmenite with water and adding 95% sulfuric acid. Changes of thermal power during the process (thermokinetics) were studied with the use of calorimetry. It was found that diffusion processes play an important role when the reaction is initiated by mixing ilmenite with water followed by the addition of sulfuric acid and are less important when the reaction is initiated by mixing ilmenite with concentrated sulfuric acid followed by the addition of water. To explain the influence of diffusion processes on the reaction, the model calculations based on mass and heat balance equations were involved. Model calculations showed that the diffusion and mass transport processes are so fast that the reaction kinetics is mainly influenced by the reaction on the surface of ilmenite particles. The adopted model of calculations showed a very good agreement with experimental results.

The study examines various approaches oriented towards conceptual and numerical reduction of first-principle models, data-driven methodologies for surrogate (black box) and hybrid (grey box) modeling, and addresses the prospect of using digital twins in chemical and process engineering. In the case of numerical reduction of mechanistic models, special attention is paid to methodologies in which simulation data are used to construct light but robust numerical models while preserving all the physics of the problem, yielding reduced-order datadriven but still white-box models. In addition to reviewing various methodologies and identifying their applications in chemical engineering, including industrial process engineering, as well as fundamental research, the study outlines associated problems and challenges, as well as the risks posed by the era of big data.

The results of a study on axial dispersion in commercially available open cell metal (Nickelchromium) and ceramic (Vukopor A) foams with different pore density are presented. Residence time distributions were determined using tracer pulse experiments applying the convolution method to post process the recorded tracer concentration signals. The influence of liquid viscosity (water and 45 wt.% glycerol solution) and bed length (from 0.1 to 0.9 m) on axial dispersion was tested. It was found that fluid velocity, viscosity and foam morphology affected axial dispersion. Moreover, the axial dispersion coefficient for solid foams is lower than that of packed beds.

Hydraulic and transport properties of periodic open cellular structures (POCS) based on cubic cells were investigated numerically. Different cell and strut dimensions, as well as strut shapes, were examined. Numerical results of heat transfer and flow resistance, as well as modeled morphological parameters were verified experimentally. The most beneficial properties were obtained for the POCS with convex triangular, circular and hexagonal struts.

The work concerned the introduction of simplifications in a one-dimensional mathematical model of a chemical reactor. Fecralloy foam with a pore density of 16 PPC (pores per centimetre) was used as catalyst support. The analysed process was the combustion of methane with a typical concentration found in the ventilation air of hard coal mines. The process was carried out using a palladium catalyst.

Process intensification is one of the key branches of process engineering. High gravity equipment achieves intensification by substituting gravity with much higher centrifugal force. Rotating Packed Bed is the leading example of high gravity solutions, strongly facilitating gas-liquid mass transfer. However, cylindrical packings come with certain drawbacks, such as dry spots, that can be overcome with new solutions, such as baffle-based packing geometries. However, when baffles are arranged too close to each other, liquid bridges are formed between them, which may lead to decrease in mass transfer efficiency. This work is concerned with improvement of a Zickzack-like internal by the means of visual studies with the use of high-speed camera. According to measured ligament break-up length, two new packings were designed for particular rotational speeds and tested experimentally for effective mass transfer area and wet pressure drop.