Catalytic Reduction of Nitrogen Oxides in Automobile Exhaust

The catalytic reduction of oxides of nitrogen from leaded automobile exhaust has been demonstrated to be technically feasible. These studies made with copper-containing catalysts are based upon the reducing nature of exhaust caused by the carbon monoxide present. The reaction involves 2 CO + 2 NO → + N₂ + CO₂ + 178.5 Kcal.     

Screening Models for Estimating Toxic Air Pollution Near a Hazardous Waste Landfill

This paper is directed to environmental scientists concerned with assessing toxic air pollution downwind of hazardous waste landfills to determine whether potential health threats or exceedances of air quality standards exist. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of four air quality screening models.

The emission rate of vinyl chloride from the BKK co-disposal landfill in West Covina, California is estimated. Ambient vinyl chloride concentrations are estimated using a ground level point source model, two virtual point source models, arid the simple box model with meteorological and landfill input data representative of periods when ambient monitoring was conducted. The two virtual point source models are most precise and accurate in estimating 24-hour vinyl chloride concentrations. However, the results could include compensating errors in the emission rate and dispersion calculations because the emission rate estimate could not be independently evaluated.     

Metagenomic assessment of the microbial diversity in ground pork products from markets in the North Central Region of South Korea

The purpose of this study was to characterize the microbial community in ground pork using molecular approaches. Forty six ground pork products were purchased from local stores in the north central area of South Korea. Aerobic plate counts varied 4.23 ± 5.14 × 10⁵ CFU/g with the range between 5.00 × 10³ and 1.85 × 10⁶ CFU/g for ground pork samples. Four ground meat samples were further processed for metagenomic analysis. Pseudomonas species was the most relative abundant with a wide range occurring (1.72 to 77.7%) as part of the microbial genera in ground pork. Bacteria such as Carnobacterium, Yersinia, Photobacterium were also identified in ground pork. Despite the prominence of certain genera across all samples there was still extensive microbial diversity among ground pork products that originated from different slaughter houses and were processed in different markets. Such diversity indicates that designing interventions to extend shelf life may be hampered by the extensive variability in the microbial consortia associated with pork products. However, this diversity may be useful for developing microbial traceability signatures unique to a slaughter house or a particular market.     

Beta estimates of shares on the JSE Top 40 in the context of reference-day risk

A topic of interest in the finance world is measuring systematic risk. Accurately measuring the systematic risk component—or Beta—of an asset or portfolio is important in many financial applications. In this work, we consider the efficiency of a range of Beta estimation methods commonly used in practice from a reference-day risk perspective. We show that, when using the industry standard data sample of 5 years of monthly returns, the choice of reference-day used to calculate underlying returns has a significant impact on all of the Beta estimation methods considered. Driven by this finding, we propose and test an alternative nonparametric bootstrap approach for calculating Beta estimates which is unaffected by reference-day risk. Our primary goal is to determine a point-estimate of Beta, independent of reference-day.     

Subregional differences in Australian climate risk perceptions: coastal versus agricultural areas of the Hunter Valley,NSW

‘Environmental cognitive stress’ a hybrid model combining environmental stress and cognitive determinants of pro-environmental behavior is explored among Australians living in contrasting ‘micro’ climates in the same river catchment system. Peoples’ climate risk perceptions are mediated by their connections to local environment, observations of environmental change and personal weather experiences. A longitudinal study randomly sampled 1,162 Hunter Valley coastal and rural residents in New South Wales. Telephone interviewers (2008) recruited lakeside homeowners ‘at risk’ of sea level rise, nearby ‘control’ residents and a comparable farming area group. Follow-up interviews (2011) located 81.5 % of the original sample. Fifty-six items based on the model asked about climate change observations, concerns, impacts and actions. Statistically significant rural–suburban and time differences were found. The rural sample was attuned to conditions affecting agricultural productivity: They worried about drought and heat, saw trees dying and changes to seasons and natural rhythms. They anticipate the impact of water scarcity, conserve water and value protecting plants and animals. Compared to higher elevation residents, lake dwellers observed marine life loss, worry about sea level rise and predict the decline of property values. Across time, all groups’ perceptions of warming indicators declined. Concerns and impacts were high and generally stayed high, as did actions related to energy use. No differences emerged in beliefs about climate warming. Climate change observations, along with concerns and actions, have important implications for the environmental cognitive stress model. Overall, dynamic changes in residents’ understandings are related to a changing policy environment, the vicissitudes of climate debates and weather experiences, including extreme swings from inundation to drought.     

The Value of Better Information on Technology R&D Programs in Response to Climate Change

Expert elicitations are a promising method for determining how R&D investments are likely to have an impact on technological advance in climate change energy technologies. But, expert elicitations are time consuming and resource intensive. Thus, we investigate the value of the information gained in expert elicitations. More specifically, given baseline elicitations from one study, we estimate the expected value of better information (EVBI) from revisiting and improving these assessments. We find that the EVBI is very large in comparison with the cost of performing expert elicitations. We also find that EVBI is higher on technologies with larger budgets and with net values that are not too high or too low.     

Natural Jordanian zeolite: removal of heavy metal ions from water samples using column and batch methods

The adsorption behavior of natural Jordanian zeolites with respect to Cd(2 + ), Cu(2 + ), Pb(2 + ), and Zn(2 + ) was studied in order to consider its application to purity metal finishing drinking and waste water samples under different conditions such as zeolite particle size, ionic strength and initial metal ion concentration. In the present work, a new method was developed to remove the heavy metal by using a glass column as the one that used in column chromatography and to make a comparative between the batch experiment and column experiment by using natural Jordanian zeolite as adsorbent and some heavy metals as adsorbate. The column method was used using different metal ions concentrations ranged from 5 to 20 mg/L with average particle size of zeolite ranged between 90 and 350 mum, and ionic strength ranged from 0.01 to 0.05. Atomic absorption spectrometry was used for analysis of these heavy metal ions, the results obtained in this study indicated that zeolitic tuff is an efficient ion exchanger for removing heavy metals, in particular the fine particle sizes of zeolite at pH 6, whereas, no clear effect of low ionic strength values is noticed on the removal process. Equilibrium modeling of the removal showed that the adsorption of Cd(2 + ), Cu(2 + ), Pb(2 + ), and Zn(2 + ) were fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Kaganer-Radushkevich (DKR). The sorption energy E determined in the DKR equation (9.129, 10.000, 10.541, and 11.180 kJ/mol for Zn(2 + ), Cu(2 + ), Cd(2 + ) and Pb(2 + ) respectively) which revealed the nature of the ion-exchange mechanism.     

Comparative study of hotplate wet digestion methods for the determination of mercury in biosolids

The re-use of biosolids is becoming increasingly popular for land applications. However, biosolids may contain elevated levels of metals and metalloids (including mercury) relative to background environmental concentrations. Consequently, reliable mercury analysis is important to allow classification of biosolids and to determine appropriate options for beneficial uses. This paper reports on a comparative study of 12 hotplate wet digestion methods for their suitability for the determination of mercury in biosolids. The methods were applied to mercury biosolids samples from four localities of two different sewage treatment plants in the State of Victoria, Australia. Samples were also spiked with methylmercury chloride and mercury sulphide to evaluate the Hg recovery in each hotplate digestion method. Aqua regia (HCl:HNO(3)=3:1), reverse aqua regia (HCl:HNO(3)=1:3), nitric, hydrochloric, sulphuric acid and their combinations with or without hydrogen peroxide were studied as wet digestion solutions. The method providing the best mercury recoveries was optimized. Under optimal conditions the corresponding analytical procedure consisted of 1h pre-digestion of 0.4 g biosolids sample with 10 ml reverse aqua regia with temperature increasing to 110 degrees C and 3h digestion at this temperature. In the last 10 min of the digestion step, 2 ml hydrogen peroxide were added to ensure complete decomposition of all mercury containing compounds. After filtering and dilution with deionised water (1:10), the concentration of mercury was determined by cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry. It is expected, that the wet acid digestion method developed in this study will be also applicable to biosolids from other sewage treatment plants and to other types of solid mercury samples with elevated levels of organic matter.     

Effects of filtration and pH perturbation on freshwater organic matter fluorescence

Fluorescence of organic matter from six contrasting freshwaters was analysed after filtration (1.2 microm and 0.2 microm filter sizes) and pH perturbation (+/-2 pH units from ambient conditions). Two fluorophores were compared in detail: tryptophan-like fluorescence, whose filtration and pH characteristics are relatively poorly understood, and humic-like fluorescence, which is better characterised. Although there was some variability in both fluorophores, the tryptophan-like fluorescence showed the most significant decrease in fluorescence intensity between raw and 1.2 microm filter samples, and a much smaller decrease between 1.2 and 0.2 microm, demonstrating a significant source associated with particulate material as well as a significant <0.2 microm fraction. In contrast, humic-like fluorescence shows little change with filtration, suggesting that the majority of this fluorescence is associated with truly dissolved material. The pH perturbation experiments demonstrate that tryptophan-like fluorescence is less impacted by pH than with filter fraction. For humic-like fluorescence, pH effects are weak and are not as consistent as those reported in the literature for extracted humic substances. pH perturbation of the freshwaters shows a wide range of sample specific pH responses, significantly more variable than that observed in experiments using extracted humic substances and tryptophan standards, demonstrating the natural variability of freshwater dissolved organic matter.