A Comparison of the Effect of Silk Fibroin Nanoparticles and Microfibers on the Reprocessing and Biodegradability of PLA/PCL Blends

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - In this research, the effect of reprocessing on the properties of poly(lactic acid)/poly(ε-caprolactone) (PLA/PCL) blends reinforced with silk...     

Study of MoO3-γAl2O3 catalysts behavior in selective catalytic reduction of SO2 toxic gas to sulfur with CH4

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the present study, a detailed investigation was carried out on MoO3 alumina-supported catalysts behavior in selective catalytic reduction of SO2 to...     

An attempt to develop ecotourism in an unknown area: the case of Nehbandan County,South Khorasan Province,Iran

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This study is an attempt to develop ecotourism in Nehbandan County, in the South Khorasan Province, Iran, by representing unknown areas that have...     

Improving suspended sediment measurements by automatic samplers

Suspended solids either as total suspended solids (TSS) or suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is an integral particulate water quality parameter that is important in assessing particle-bound contaminants. At present, nearly all stormwater runoff quality monitoring is performed with automatic samplers in which the sampling intake is typically installed at the bottom of a storm sewer or channel. This method of sampling often results in a less accurate measurement of suspended sediment and associated pollutants due to the vertical variation in particle concentration caused by particle settling. In this study, the inaccuracies associated with sampling by conventional intakes for automatic samplers have been verified by testing with known suspended sediment concentrations and known particle sizes ranging from approximately 20 μm to 355 μm under various flow rates. Experimental results show that, for samples collected at a typical automatic sampler intake position, the ratio of sampled to feed suspended sediment concentration is up to 6600% without an intake strainer and up to 300% with a strainer. When the sampling intake is modified with multiple sampling tubes and fitted with a wing to provide lift (winged arm sampler intake), the accuracy of sampling improves substantially. With this modification, the differences between sampled and feed suspended sediment concentration were more consistent and the sampled to feed concentration ratio was accurate to within 10% for particle sizes up to 250 μm.     

Comparison of API650-2008 provisions with FEM analyses for seismic assessment of existing steel oil storage tanks

API650-2008 is one of the prominent codes consisting of seismic specifications to design steel storage tanks for earthquakes resistance. In spite of the code's broad application, there are some failure modes such as slide bottom, elephant-foot buckling, sloshing and uplift needing more evaluation. In this paper, 161 existing tanks in an oil refinery complex have been classified into 24 groups and investigated using both API650-2008 rules and numerical FEM models. Failure modes and dynamic characteristics of studied models have been calculated by numerical FEM analysis and compared with code requirements. The results demonstrate that, in some cases, there are some imperfections in the code requirements that require further investigation.     

Water management from tradition to second modernity: an analysis of the water crisis in Iran

This article reflects on the fundamentals of first and second modernity and its usefulness and practicability for problem formulation and solving in the context of water management practices in Iran. It is argued that the current water crisis in Iran resulted from modernization based on first modernity paradigms, and second modernity concepts are used to present a framework for new water management approaches. Based on the concept of sub-political arrangements, we suggest that water management issues can be treated best in process-based ways under a reflexive modernity point of view.     

The conceptual framework to determine interrelations and interactions for holistic Water,Energy, and Food Nexus

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Several models with a variety of concepts and approaches have been proposed to address different aspects of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus system....     

Residues of dicofol on cucumber grown under plastic covers in jordan

Abstract

Residues of dicofol were determined on cucumber leaves and fruits under plastic house (PH) and plastic tunnels (PT). Five sprays, 8 d apart, were applied at 0.15% concentration. initial deposits on leaves were 48 and 58 ppm under PH and PT, respectively. In the last sampling date of leaves, the amounts of 191 and 135 ppm were detected under both cultures, respectively. There was a continuous increase in the initial residue after each spray. The highest amount of dicofol (401) was determined 1 d after the fifth spray under PH. The exposure to high residues may pose a risk to fieldworkers.

On cucumber fruits, residues of 0.95 and 1.60 ppm were determined 1 d after the fourth spray under PH and PT, respectively. These residues decreased after 4 d to 0.40 and 1.49 ppm, respectively. Almost no detectable residues could be determined 8 d after sprays number 4 and 5 under both cultures. All dicofol residues on the fruits were below the tolerance level of 2 ppm.     

Integration and evaluation of a power plant with a CaO-based CO2 capture system

This paper explores the integration and evaluation of a power plant with a CaO-based CO₂ capture system. There is a great amount of recoverable heat in the CaO-based CO₂ capture process. Five cases for the possible integration of a 600 MW power plant with CaO-based CO₂ capture process are considered in this paper. When the system is configured so that recovered heat is used to replace part of the boiler heat load (Case 2), modelling not only shows that this is the system recovering the most heat of 1008.8 MW but also results in the system with the lowest net power output of 446 MW and the second lowest of efficiency of 34.1%. It is indicated that system performance depends both on the amount of heat recovery and the type of heat utilization. When the system is configured so that a 400 MW power plant is built using the recovered heat (Case 4), modelling shows that this is the system with the most net power output of 846 MW, the highest efficiency of 36.8%, the lowest cost of electricity of 54.3 €/MWh and the lowest cost of CO₂ avoided of 28.9 €/tCO₂. This new built steam cycle will not affect the operation of the reference plant which vents its CO₂ to the atmosphere, highly reducing the connection between the CO₂ capture process and the reference plant which vents its CO₂ to the atmosphere. The average cost of electricity and the cost of CO₂ avoided of the five cases are about 58.9 €/kWh and 35.9 €/tCO₂, respectively.     

Fluoride distribution and the effect of some ions along Alexandria coastal Mediterranean seawater of Egypt

The coastal seawater of Mediterranean of Alexandria receives large amount of discharged waters containing industrial wastes, sewage, and agricultural and domestic drainage. Fluoride and some parameters were( chemical and physical) determined. The data gave indication that the content and the amount of the discharged water largely affect the chemical composition of the coastal water. Stepwise regression analysis was highly significant and the model was very fruitful, where the observed and calculated values were mostly concordant. This may indicated that there was a relation between fluoride content in cosslal seawater and its content in the discharged water.