Monitoring the Trihalomethanes Present in Water After Treatment with Chlorine Under Laboratory Condition

In this work assays involving chlorinated water samples, which were previous spiked with humic substances or algae blue green and following the production of the THMs for 30 days is described. To implement the assays, five portions of 1,000 ml of water were stored in glass bottles. The water samples were treated with solutions containing 2, 3, 4 and 5 mg l⁻¹ chlorine. The samples aliquots (60 ml) were transferred into the glass vials, 10 ml were removed to have a headspace and 100 μl of the 10 mg l⁻¹ pentafluortoluene bromide solution was added to each vial. The extraction step was performed by adding 10 g of Na₂SO₄ followed by 5 ml of n-pentane. The vials were stopped with a TFE-faced septum and sealed with aluminum caps. The generated THMs were determined by gas chromatography with electron capture detector using reference solutions with concentration ranging from 8 to 120 μg l⁻¹ THMs. Three assays were monitored during 30 days and chloroform was the predominant compound found in the water samples, while other species of THMs were not detected. The results showed that when the chlorine concentration was increased in water samples containing algae the concentration of THM varied randomly. Nevertheless, in water samples containing humic substances the increase of the THM concentration presented a relationship with the chlorine concentration. It was also observed that chloroform concentration increased with the elapsed time up to one and six days to water samples spiked with humic substances and algae blue green, respectively and decreased along 30 days. By other hand, assays performed using water samples containing decanted algae material showed that THM was not generated by the chlorine addition.     

伊宁市二氧化硫行业、区域分担率分析及对策探讨

总量控制是国家节能减排的主要手段,二氧化硫排放量控制是大气污染物削减的主要控制指标。在污染源普查数据统计分析的基础上,对伊宁市废气中二氧化硫排放按污染源和区域进行分担率研究,掌握并了解产生排放二氧化硫按污染源、区域、行业分布情况,确定伊宁市二氧化硫减排的重点行业和区域,为政府调整产业结构及企业合理布局提供决策依据。     

DNA damage in Populus tremuloides clones exposed to elevated O3

The effects of elevated concentrations of atmospheric tropospheric ozone (O₃) on DNA damage in five trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) clones growing in a free-air enrichment experiment in the presence and absence of elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) were examined. Growing season mean hourly O₃ concentrations were 36.3 and 47.3 ppb for ambient and elevated O₃ plots, respectively. The 4th highest daily maximum 8-h ambient and elevated O₃ concentrations were 79 and 89 ppb, respectively. Elevated CO₂ averaged 524 ppm (+150 ppm) over the growing season. Exposure to O₃ and CO₂ in combination with O₃ increased DNA damage levels above background as measured by the comet assay. Ozone-tolerant clones 271 and 8L showed the highest levels of DNA damage under elevated O₃ compared with ambient air; whereas less tolerant clone 216 and sensitive clones 42E and 259 had comparably lower levels of DNA damage with no significant differences between elevated O₃ and ambient air. Clone 8L was demonstrated to have the highest level of excision DNA repair. In addition, clone 271 had the highest level of oxidative damage as measured by lipid peroxidation. The results suggest that variation in cellular responses to DNA damage between aspen clones may contribute to O₃ tolerance or sensitivity.     

湿法再生吸附剂制备及用于大气CO2的直接捕集

基于湿法再生吸附技术,利用强碱性季铵盐树脂材料制备了异相吸附剂薄膜,应用于大气中极低CO2的直接分离,以对抗全球变暖。通过滴定法分析吸附剂材料的电荷密度和吸附容量,利用SEM分析不同工况下制备出来的膜材料的表观结构,并对膜材料进行CO2吸附性能的测试。结果发现,热处理能够明显提高膜材料的吸附性能,还研究吸附剂制备对吸附速率,吸附量和机械强度等性能的影响,发现粒径小于43μm的树脂粉末,按60％质量分数制成的500μm厚膜材料具有较优的综合性能。     

非金属掺杂TiO2的可见光活性及机理研究进展

光催化剂TiO2因其大禁带宽度（E=3．2eV）,致使不能有效地利用太阳能,因此研究开发可见光响应的TiO2就成为当前光催化剂研究的关键课题。非金属掺杂可使TiO2响应可见光,文章综述了各种非金属（N、S、P、C、B和卤素）掺杂TiO2光催化剂在可见光范围的响应、光催化性能以及它们可能的响应机理,提出了可见光响应型光催化剂现存的问题和发展方向。     

Evaluating the prospects for sustainable energy development in a sample of Chinese villages

This paper describes the methods used to evaluate the potential for achieving sustainable energy development in six Chinese villages included in the Sustainable Users' Concepts for China Engaging Scientific Scenarios (SUCCESS) Project by examining energy efficiency potential and local renewable energy prospects. The approaches needed to obtain and analyse information on possible energy efficiency measures and renewable energy resources are summarised. Results are presented in terms of cumulative net savings in primary energy consumption, as an indicator of energy resource depletion, and associated carbon dioxide emissions, as an indicator of global climate change. Options for sustainable energy development are ranked in order of likely implementation and practical actions which could be considered in each village are identified.     

TiO2光催化法处理难降解废水的研究进展

以TiO2为催化剂,催化氧化法处理污水是近年来兴起的一种现代水处理技术,本文介绍了提高TiO2光催化剂催化效率,及对催化剂进行改性的方法,主要的手段主要有以下几个方面：减小催化剂尺寸、沉积贵金属、掺杂金属离子、光催化剂负载化、半导体复合等。介绍了国内外近年来有关多相光催化反应中光催化反应器设计与研究的进展情况。     

The use of petroleum coke as fuel in a 10 kWth chemical-looping combustor

Tests were made in a 10 kW_th chemical-looping combustor with a petroleum coke as the solid fuel and the oxygen carrier ilmenite, an iron titanium oxide. The fuel reactor is fluidized by steam and the oxygen carrier reacts with the volatiles released as well as the gasification intermediates CO and H₂. A constant fuel flow corresponding to a thermal power of 5.8 kW was introduced into the fuel reactor and a total of 11 h of operation was reached. The effects of particle circulation and carbon stripper operation on solid fuel conversion, conversion of gas from the fuel reactor and CO₂ capture were investigated. The actual CO₂ capture ranged between 60% and 75% while the solid fuel conversion was in the range of 66–78%. The low values of solid fuel conversion reflect loss of char due to low efficiency of the fuel reactor cyclone. The incomplete conversion of the gas from the fuel reactor is expressed as oxygen demand. The oxygen demand corresponds to the fraction of oxygen lacking to achieve full gas conversion and was typically 25%, due to presence of CH₄, CO and H₂ from the fuel reactor. Typical ratios of CH₄, CO and H₂ over the total gaseous carbon from the fuel reactor are respectively 5, 10 and 25%. Low loss of non-combustible fines from the system indicates very low attrition of the oxygen carrier.     

Systematic inherent safety and its implementation in chlorine liquefaction process

As a proactive safeguard, inherent safety has been regarded as the top hierarchy for loss prevention and risk management due to its salient features in eliminating or significantly reducing risks at source rather than mitigating them by add-on protections. Simultaneously, various assessment tools have been developed for ranking and selecting inherently safer designs or modifications. However, there still lacks a metric that can systematically incorporate various hazardous factors, which may hinder most industries from utilizing it to a full extent. To address this limitation, this work developed a Systematic Inherent Safety Metric (SISM) for measuring the inherently safer modifications. Firstly, the conceptual framework of SIS was proposed based on 5M1E (man, machine, material, method, measurement, and environment). Subsequently, analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation were adapted to conduct risk identification and assessment. Finally, taking chlorine liquefaction process as a case study, the applicability and efficacy of SIS were validated based on PDCA (plan-do-check-action) cycle. The results show that the SISM value has improved from the relatively dangerous (RD) to the relatively safe (RS) after implementing SIS, thus demonstrating that the revised design is inherently safer than the base design.     

The limits of democracy in tackling climate change

Previous research has shown that democracies exhibit stronger commitments to mitigate climate change and, generally, emit less carbon dioxide than non-democratic regimes. However, there remains much unexplained variation in how democratic regimes perform in this regard. Here it is argued that the benefits of democracy for climate change mitigation are limited in the presence of widespread corruption that reduces the capacity of democratic governments to reach climate targets and reduce CO₂ emissions. Using a sample of 144 countries over 1970–2011, the previously established relationship between the amount of countries’ CO₂ emissions and their level of democracy is revisited. It is empirically tested whether this relationship is instead moderated by the levels of corruption. The results indicate that more democracy is only associated with lower CO₂ emissions in low-corruption contexts. If corruption is high, democracies do not seem to do better than authoritarian regimes.