The resources on earth are limited; thus, the demand for energy, goods and materials is surging because of the growth of the advanced technology and population. The issues of using the resources effectively and changing them into a useful energy are then important. Taiwan creates a vast amount of agricultural waste every year. The traditional way of eliminating the agricultural waste would be burned and buried. However, it is not only the agricultural waste cannot be reused and recycled, but also the problem of air pollution occurred. The objectives of this thesis are thus to transfer the agricultural waste into a useful energy. This study contents two parts. The first part changes the agricultural waste into sugar. The agricultural waste is full of wood fiber and can be transformed to sugar by a microorganism method. A cane which is a common agricultural waste is used; the wood fiber in cane will be added to the thermostable cellulolytic bacterial Geobacillus thermoleovorans T4 isolated from sugar refinery wastewater in southern Taiwan. T4 can convert wood fiber into sugar. Experimental results showed that the rate of reducing sugar is 13.77%. The second part studies the biological hydrogen production by Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824, and the sugar will be added into the process. Also, this study uses ultrasonic treatment in the biological hydrogen production and calculates the natural frequency of ATCC 824. The experiment is designed using the Taguchi method for increasing hydrogen production, hydrogen production rate and hydrogen production efficiency by using an ultrasonic treatment to treat C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824. It is showed that the best combination is temperature 37¢XC, ultrasonic frequency 0.5 MHz, ultrasonic intensity 136 mW/cm2, exposure time 10 s, pH 7.5 and bacterial concentration 20%. This study can apply in bio-energy and fermentation food producing.

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In this study, the effect of ultrasonic treatment (UST) parameters such as amplitude, sonication time, and melt temperature on microstructure and microhardness of Al 6061 alloy is evaluated. The effect of UST on the dispersion of tungsten disulfide (WS2) and carbon nanotubes (CNT) as reinforcement particles in Al 6061 during casting is also studied. The cast Al 6061 with UST demonstrated 32% grain size reduction and 8% increase in the microhardness for optimum processing conditions. The cavitation process induced by UST is responsible for the refinement in microstructure and increase of hardness by enhancing the degassing and nucleation process. UST treated 6061 Al alloy demonstrated Hall-Petch relationship for all processing conditions. The UST process also aids in excellent dispersion of WS2 and CNT as reinforcement particles. UST treated WS2 and CNT reinforced Al 6061 composites displayed improved wear resistance as compared to samples without cavitation.

Abstract There is a rapidly increasing demand for iron resources with the fast-paced development of the iron and steel industry. For this reason, the iron and steel industry is facing the risk of a raw material shortage. Deposits of high-phosphorus iron ores are widely spread worldwide, but the use of these deposits in industry is limited owing to the high phosphorus content, which affects the cost of the iron making process and the quality of the produced steel. For the utilization of high phosphorus oolitic iron ore, many hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes have been proposed. However, these methods have disadvantages, such as causing environmental pollution, not being cost-effective, being overly time consuming and having low iron recovery. The aims of this present work are to study the possibility of the usage of microwave treatment to remove phosphorus from high phosphorus iron ore on a laboratory scale. This objective can be obtained through a combination of microwave pretreatment and physical separation methods. The findings into the microwave treatment of high phosphorus iron ore are quite promising. The results have indicated that microwave heating increase liberation, improves magnetic properties and reduces the processing time of iron ore. The results of ultrasound treatment showed that a significant increase in iron grade and a reduction in phosphorus content of the product can be obtained. The results indicate that microwave pretreatment should be considered as a factor significantly affecting the result of ultrasonic treatment. Depending on the sample texture and degree of phosphorus liberation, more than 59 % phosphorus removal can be obtained. / Tiivistelmä Raudan ja teräksen valmistusmäärien kasvaessa on tarve jalostaa aiemmin hyödyntämättömiä rautamalmeja ja ehkäistä siten mahdollinen raaka-ainepula tulevaisuudessa. Maailmalla on runsaasti rautamalmiesiintymiä, jotka sisältävät paljon fosforia. Näitä esiintymiä käytetään suuren fosforipitoisuuden vuoksi vain rajallisesti, koska fosfori heikentää raudan valmistusprosessin kustannustehokkuutta ja tuotetun teräksen laatua. Paljon fosforia sisältävän ooliittisen rautamalmin hyödyntämiseksi on ehdotettu monia erilaisia hydro- ja pyrometallurgisia prosesseja. Näihin menetelmiin liittyy kuitenkin haittapuolia, kuten huomattava ympäristörasitus, heikko kustannustehokkuus, prosessien hitaus ja alhainen raudan talteensaanti. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tutkia laboratorio-olosuhteissa mahdollisuutta käyttää mikroaaltokäsittelyä fosforin poistamiseen paljon fosforia sisältävästä rautamalmista. Fosforinpoistoa tutkittiin mikroaaltoesikäsittelyn ja mekaanisten erottamisprosessien avulla. Tutkimuksen perusteella mikroaaltokäsittely vaikuttaa olevan lupaava tapa poistaa fosforia paljon fosforia sisältävästä rautamalmista. Tutkimustulosten mukaan mikroaaltolämmitys parantaa erotustehokkuutta ja magneettisia ominaisuuksia sekä vähentää rautamalmin käsittelyyn kuluvaa aikaa. Ultraäänikäsittelyn tulokset osoittavat, että prosessin avulla voidaan parantaa merkittävästi rautarikasteen laatua ja pienentää rikastetuotteen fosforipitoisuutta. Tulokset viittaavat siihen, että mikroaaltoesikäsittelyllä voidaan merkittävästi vaikuttaa ultraäänikäsittelyn tehokkuuteen. Malmipartikkelien tekstuurista ja fosforin erottamisasteesta riippuen tutkitulla menetelmällä voidaan poistaa jopa 59 prosenttia fosforista.

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