Abstract

Esters are major flavor compounds in fruits, which are produced in high volume. The widespread availability of these compounds in nature attracts interest on their behavior in anaerobic digestion in waste and wastewater treatments. The aim of this work was to study the effects of various esters at different concentrations in anaerobic digestion followed by determination of their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and to study the effect of chain length of functional group and alkyl chain of ester on methane production. Addition of methyl butanoate, ethyl butanoate, ethyl hexanoate, and hexyl acetate at concentration up to 5 g L−1 increased methane production, while their higher concentrations inhibited the digestion process. The MIC values for these esters were between 5 and 20 g L−1. Except hexyl acetate, the esters at concentration 5 g L−1 could act as sole carbon source during digestion. For ethyl esters, increasing number of carbon in functional group decreased methane production. For acetate esters, alkyl chain longer than butyl inhibited methane production. Effect of ester on methane production is concentration-dependent.

Abstract

Corrosion inhibition and adsorption characteristics of elephant grass extracts on mild steel in 1 M HCl solution were investigated. Mass loss, corrosion rate measurements, inhibition efficiency, atomic adsorption spectroscopy (AAS), FT-IR spectroscopy and scanning electron spectroscopic analysis were used to assess the inhibitory properties of the extract in the acid solution. The results show that the steel dissolution rate in the acidic solution was sensitive to the extract concentration as mass loss and corrosion rates were observed to decrease with increase in the extract concentration. The inhibition efficiencies were averagely above 95% at room temperature increasing with increase in concentration of the extract but decreases with increasing temperature. FTIR results showed that the inhibition was essentially by absorption through the functional groups present in the extract while the activation energies and Langmuir adsorption isotherms confirm the mechanism to be physical adsorption. The SEM images of the corroded substrates confirmed pitting as the primary corrosion mechanism which was substantially mitigated with the use of the extract. Overall, the elephant grass extract was found to be efficient for corrosion inhibition of mild steel in HCl environment.