Topics

106

Faculty Forum / top oil reserving countries

« on: September 30, 2014, 11:28:45 AM »

1. Venezuela

Proven oil reserves in 2013 (billion barrels): 297.6

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 2,489.2

Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia last year to become the holder of the largest oil reserves in the world. However, annual oil production of the OPEC supplier is considerably less than the Kingdom.
2. Saudi Arabia

Proven oil reserves (billion barrels): 267.91

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 11,545.7

Saudi Arabia has almost one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves and ranks as the largest producer and exporter of oil in the world.
3. Canada

Proven oil reserves: 173.105

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 3,854.4

Canada’s oil sands are a significant contributor to the recent growth in the world’s liquid fuel supply and comprise the vast majority of the country’s proven oil reserves.
4. Iran

Proven oil reserves: 154.58

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 3,538.4

International sanctions have drastically impacted Iran’s energy sector – the country’s oil production fell dramatically in 2012, from over 35 million barrels per day in 2011 to just over 3.5 million bpd in 2012.
5. Iraq

Proven oil reserves: 141.35

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 2,986.6

Despite having large proven oil reserves, increases in oil production have fallen behind ambitious targets because of infrastructure constraints and political disputes, says EIA.
6. Kuwait

Proven oil reserves: 104

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 2,796.8

Kuwait boasts the second largest oil reserves in the GCC, behind Saudi Arabia and is also among the world’s top 10 largest exporters of total oil products.
7. United Arab Emirates

Proven oil reserves: 97.8

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 3,213.2

Enhanced oil recovery techniques continue to underpin strong crude oil production totals and are an important strategy for extending the life of the country’s aging oil fields, states EIA.
8. Russia

Proven oil reserves: 80

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 10,397

Russia, which also holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and the second-largest coal reserves, is the second biggest oil supplier in the world after Saudi Arabia.
9. Libya

Proven oil reserves: 48.01

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 1,483

The holder of Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, Libya saw a disruption in oil production in 2011 due to conflict, but the country has recovered, and subsequently, has begun to increase supplies.
10. Nigeria

Proven oil reserves: 37.2

Total oil supply in 2012 (thousand barrels per day): 2,524.1

Nigeria’s hydrocarbon resources are the mainstay of the country’s economy, but EIA states that development of the sector is often constrained by instability in the Niger Delta.

Reference,
http://gulfbusiness.com/2013/04/top-10-countries-with-the-worlds-biggest-oil-reserves/#.VCo6WslqTDc

107

Faculty Forum / oil reserves in the world

« on: September 30, 2014, 11:24:17 AM »

Different sources (OPEC, CIA World Factbook, oil companies) give different figures and there are different types of oil, ranging from cheap and easy to recover oils to shale oil or oil sands, which are more expensive and difficult to recover.  Reserves may be for a well, for a reservoir, for a field, for a nation, or for the world. Different classifications of reserves are related to their degree of certainty as  reservoir characteristics and limitations in petroleum extraction technologies, only a fraction of this oil can be brought to the surface, and it is only this producible fraction that is considered to be reserves. The ratio of reserves to the total amount of oil in a particular reservoir is called the recovery factor. Determining a recovery factor for a given field depends on several features of the operation, including method of oil recovery used and technological developments.

OPEC covers 1,112,448 - 1,199,707 in MMbbl oil reserve, where Venezwela, KSA, Canada, Iran Iran and  Iraq comes from top  in the Que

108

Departments / Where Does the Word “Alcohol” Come From?

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:14:10 AM »

 The word “alcohol” comes from the Arabic term alkohl meaning “the fine powder.” Originally, thisreferred to an antimony sulfide compound used foreye shadow, which was ground up to form a finepowder, but then later came to refer to any finely divided powder.In the Middle Ages, this term came to mean the “essence” of anything.• When the Europeans took up alchemy in the MiddleAges, they referred to vapors from evaporating orboiling compounds as “spirits,” since they did notbelieve them to be material in the same sense that
solids and liquids were. Alchemists began referring to “spirits of wine,” and since an alcohol when it boils away seems to powder away to nothing, they also began to refer to “alcohol of wine” and then simply “alcohol”.

109

Departments / Contact angle

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:10:16 AM »

The contact angle is the angle, conventionally measured through the liquid, where a liquid/vapor interface meets a solid surface. It quantifies the wettability of a solid surface by a liquid via the Young equation. Generally, if the water contact angle is smaller than 90°, the solid surface is considered hydrophilic and if the water contact angle is larger than 90°, the solid surface is considered hydrophobic.

110

Departments / Capillary Action

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:09:42 AM »

Capillary action, or capillarity, is the ability of a liquid to flow in narrow spaces without the assistance of, and in opposition to, external forces like gravity. The effect can be seen in the drawing-up of liquids between the hairs of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, in porous materials such as paper, in some non-porous materials such as liquified carbon fiber, and in a cell. It occurs because of intermolecular attractive forces between the liquid and solid surrounding surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by cohesion within the liquid) and adhesive forces between the liquid and the container act to lift the liquid.

111

Departments / why meniscus forms on a liquid surface?

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:09:02 AM »

Meniscus is the curvature of a liquid's surface within a container such as a graduated cylinder. However, before we explain why some liquid have a concave up meniscus while others share a concave down meniscus, first we have to understand the adhesive forces at work on surface tension. Water, for example, is a polar molecule that consists of a partial positive charge on the hydrogens and a partial negative charge on the oxygen. Thus, within liquid water, each molecule's partial positive charge is attracted to its neighbor's partial negative charge. This is the origin of the cohesive forces within water. Water molecules buried inside the liquid is then being pulled and pushed evenly in every direction, producing no net pull. Meanwhile, the molecules on the surface of the liquid, lacking pulling forces in the upward direction thus encompass a net downward pull.

112

Departments / concepts of wetting a surface

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:07:47 AM »

When liquid is placed on a smooth surface, the relative strengths of the cohesive and adhesive forces acting on that liquid determine the shape it will take (and whether or not it will wet the surface). If the adhesive forces between a liquid and a surface are stronger, they will pull the liquid down, causing it to wet the surface. However, if they cohesive forces among the liquid itself are stronger, they will resist such adhesion and cause the liquid to retain a spherical shape and bead the surface.

113

Departments / Cohesive Forces and Adhesive Forces

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:06:41 AM »

Cohesive forces are the intermolecular forces (such as those from hydrogen bonding and Van der Waals forces) which cause a tendency in liquids to resist separation. These attractive forces exist between molecules of the same substance. For instance, rain falls in droplets, rather than a fine mist, because water has strong cohesion which pulls its molecules tightly together, forming droplets. This force tends to unite molecules of a liquid, gathering them into relatively large clusters due to the molecules' dislike for its surrounding.

Adhesive forces are the attractive forces between unlike molecules. They are caused by forces acting between two substances, such as mechanical forces (sticking together) and electrostatic forces (attraction due to opposing charges). In the case of a liquid wetting agent, adhesion causes the liquid to cling to the surface on which it rests. When water is poured on clean glass, it tends to spread, forming a thin, uniform film over the glasses surface. This is because the adhesive forces between water and glass are strong enough to pull the water molecules out of their spherical formation and hold them against the surface of the glass, thus avoiding the repulsion between like molecules.

114

Departments / Reynolds number and its importance

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:05:16 AM »

The inertial force is proportional to the velocity pressure of the fluid rv2 and the viscous drag is proportional to mv/D where D is the diameter of the pipe. The ratio of these forces is:
rv2D/mv = Dvr/m
This ratio is very important in the study of fluid flow. As it is a ratio, it is dimensionless and so it is numerically independent of the units of measurement so long as these are consistent. It is called the Reynolds number and is denoted by the symbol (Re).

From a host of experimental measurements on fluid flow in pipes, it has been found that the flow remains calm or "streamline" for values of the Reynolds number up to about 2100. For values above 4000 the flow has been found to be turbulent. Between above 2100 and about 4000 the flow pattern is unstable; any slight disturbance tends to upset the pattern but if there is no disturbance, streamline flow can be maintained in this region.
To summarise for flow in pipes:
For (Re)  < 2100 streamline flow,
For 2100 < (Re) < 4000 transition,
For (Re)  > 4000 turbulent flow.

115

Departments / Laminer (streamline) and turbulent flow

« on: September 30, 2014, 10:03:49 AM »

When a liquid flowing in a pipe is observed carefully, it will be seen that the pattern of flow becomes more disturbed as the velocity of flow increases. Perhaps this phenomenon is more commonly seen in a river or stream. When the flow is slow the pattern is smooth, but when the flow is more rapid, eddies develop and swirl in all directions and at all angles to the general line of flow.
At the low velocities, flow is calm. In a series of experiments, Reynolds showed this by injecting a thin stream of dye into the fluid and finding that it ran in a smooth stream in the direction of the flow. As the velocity of flow increased, he found that the smooth line of dye was broken up until finally, at high velocities, the dye was rapidly mixed into the disturbed flow of the surrounding fluid.

From analysis, which was based on these observations, Reynolds concluded that this instability of flow could be predicted in terms of the relative magnitudes of the velocity and the viscous forces that act on the fluid. In fact the instability which leads to disturbed, or what is called "turbulent" flow, is governed by the ratio of the kinetic and the viscous forces in the fluid stream. The kinetic (inertial) forces tend to maintain the flow in its general direction but as they increase so does instability, whereas the viscous forces tend to retard this motion and to preserve order and reduce eddies..

116

Genetic & Biotechnology / Mechanism of blood glucose detection

« on: August 16, 2014, 08:10:16 PM »

Glucose oxidase is an enzyme extracted from the growth medium of Aspergillus niger (Schomburg, D; Witt, S; Wohlfahrt, G; Hecht, H; Kalisz, H M (2000) Conserved arginine-516 of  Penicillium amagasakiense glucose oxidase is essential for the efficient binding of glucose. Biochemical Journal, 347,553-559) (Gibson, Q H; Bright, H J (1967) The oxidation of 1-Deuterated Glucose by glucose oxidase Journal of Biological Chemistry, 242(15), 994-1003) (Kalisz HM, Hecht HJ, Schomburg D, Schmid RD. Effects of carbohydrate depletion on the structure, stability and activity of glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger. Biochim Biophys Acta 1991;1080(2):138–42.)( Hatzinikolaou DG, Hansen OC, Macris BJ, Tingey A, Kekos D, Goodenough P, et al. A new glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger characterization and regulation studies of enzyme and gene. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 1996; 46:371–81.) and like many proteins act outside of cells.

 
The glucose oxidase enzyme is oxido-reductase that catalyses the oxidation of glucose to hydrogen peroxide and D-glucono-δ-lactone (Kalisz, H M; Hendle, J; Schmid, R D (1997) Structural and Biochemical Properties of glycosylated and deglycosylated glucose oxidase from Penicillium amagasakiense Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 47, 502-507) (Hatzinikolaou DG, Macris BJ. Factors regulating production of glucose oxidase by Aspergillus niger. Enzyme Microb Technol 1995;17:530–4). In solution at pH 7 glucose exists in cyclic hemiacetal form as 63.6% β-D-glucopyranose and 36.4% α-D-glucopyranose where glucose oxidase binds to only β-D-glucopyranose due to the specificity of the enzyme. It converts all of the glucose in solution because the equilibrium between the α and β anomers is driven towards the β side as it is consumed in the reaction as time passed by. Glucose oxidase catalyzes the oxidation of β-D-glucose into D-glucono-1,5-lactone, which then hydrolyzes to gluconic acid. (Danneel HJ, Rossner E, Zeeck A, Giffhorn F. Purifcation and characterization of a pyranose oxidase from the basidiomycete Peniophora gigantea and chemical analyses of its reaction products Eur J Biochem 1993;214:795–802.) (Pluschkell S, Hellmuth K, Rinas U. Kinetics of glucose oxidase excretion by recombinant
Aspergillus niger. Biotechnol Bioeng 1996;51:215–20.)

GOx has a cofactor, flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD- a common component in biological oxidation-reduction (redox reactions). As Redox reactions involve a gain or loss of electrons from a molecule, hence,  in the GOx-catalyzed redox reaction, accepts electron and reduced to FADH2 (Witt S, Wohlfahrt G, Schomburg D, Hecht H, Kalisz H. Conserved arginine-516 of Penicillium amagasakiense glucose oxidase is essential for the efficient binding of β-D-glucose. J Biochem 2000;347:553–9) . Then FADH2 is again regain FAD form by oxidized to molecular oxygen (O2) which converts O2 to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) (Witteveen C, Veenhuis M, Visser J. Localization of glucose oxidase and catalase activities in Aspergillus niger. Appl Environ Microbiol 1992;58(4):1190–4)

 

Glucose oxidase reaction mechanism (Witt S, Wohlfahrt G, Schomburg D, Hecht H, Kalisz H. Conserved arginine-516 of Penicillium amagasakiense glucose oxidase is essential for the efficient binding of β-D-glucose. J Biochem 2000;347:553–9)

Glucose oxidase is widely used coupled with peroxidase for the determination of free glucose in sera or blood plasma for diagnostics, using spectrometric assays manually or with automated procedures (Wilson, R; Turner, P F (1992) Glucose oxidase: an ideal enzyme, Biosensor and Bioelectronics, 7,165-185). In the glucose oxidase assay, the glucose is first oxidized by glucose oxidase to produce gluconate and hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide is then oxidatively coupled with a chromogen to produce a colored compound which may be measured spectroscopically. For example, hydrogen peroxide together with 4 amino-antipyrene (4-AAP) and phenol in the presence of peroxidase yield a red quinoeimine dye that can be measured at 505nm. The absorbance at 505 nm is proportional to concentration of glucose in the sample.

117

Genetic & Biotechnology / Blood glucose and its function

« on: August 16, 2014, 08:09:31 PM »

Glucose is a simple sugar which is a permanent and immediate primary source of energy to all of the cells in our body. The glucose in blood is obtained from the food that you eat. This glucose gets absorbed by intestines and distributed to all of the cells in body through bloodstream and breaks it down for energy.
Body tries to maintain a constant supply of glucose for your cells by maintaining a constant blood glucose concentration. The concentration of glucose in blood, expressed in mg/dl, is defined by the term glycemia. The value of blood sugar in humans generally ranges from 70 - 100 mg/dl. Blood sugar levels are regulated by the hormones insulin and glucagon which act antagonistically. These two hormones are secreted by the islet cells of the pancreas, and thus are referred to as pancreatic endocrine hormones. When the blood glucose levels are high, insulin hormone secreted which causing liver to convert more glucose molecules into glycogen and when the blood glucose levels are low glucagon secreted and act on liver cells to promote the breakdown of glycogen to glucose and increases the blood glucose concentrations. Essentially blood glucose levels determine the time of secretion of these hormones.
The blood glucose level is easily changed under the influence of some external and internal factors such as body composition, age, physical activity and sex. Diabetes is a disease related by the abnormal metabolism of blood sugar and defective insulin production. So blood sugar levels are an important parameter for the study of diabetes. The level of glucose circulating in blood at a given time is called as blood glucose level. The blood glucose level varies at different time on various part of the day. Hypoglycemia is a possible side effect of diabetes medications in which blood glucose level drops below 70mg/dl. In people with diabetes, the body doesn't produce enough insulin or respond to insulin properly. The result is that sugar builds up in the blood stream, damaging the body's organs, blood vessels and nerves. The condition in which too much sugar is found in the blood stream is called hyperglycemia.
The blood glucose analysis is ordered to measure the amount of blood at the time of sample collection. It is used to detect both hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia and via helping the diagnosis of diabetes. An ideal blood glucose estimation method should determine only glucose. It is adaptable for both macro- and semi micro- techniques.

118

Latest Technology / Advancements on HPLC

« on: August 16, 2014, 08:05:56 PM »

in analytic chemistry, High-performance liquid chromatography is a technique used to separate the components in a mixture, to identify each component, and to quantify each component. It relies on pumps to pass a pressurized liquid solvent containing the sample mixture through a column filled with a solid adsorbent material.

Shimadzu,  Japan,  introduces environment friendly HPLC model LC-2010CHT which offers total solution in a single module with plug and play ease of use environment benchmarking its performance and reliability.

119

Story, Article & Poetry / Last day with students of Summer'14 at DIU

« on: August 16, 2014, 07:32:38 PM »

All of the classes, quiz, presentation are taken, marking is finished up-to midterm, and the final exam to be started by 20 th august, everything is happening sequentially, every duty has been made with satisfaction..... but....... why I am feeling lonely? why missing the classes with a folk of young future Engineers from TE to EEE ? Because,  probably in between conducting class activities, sharing jokes, or giving students important information for their future, I started to feel them as my friend.... yes, it happened and awaiting new students in the upcoming semester.

120

Departments / The specific gravity of the lipid solution obtained from Sperata Aor

« on: August 11, 2014, 12:41:43 PM »

The specific gravity of the lipid solution  of Sperata aor (Ayre fish) was determined and found to be 0.941 at 30ºC .  The specific gravity of fats and oils does not vary as a general rule to an extent which makes this property useful in discriminating between one and another. The specific gravity of practically all fats or oils lies between: 0.90 to 0.95. So, the value came in expected level.