Briquetting of charcoal from sugar-cane bagasse fly ash (scbfa) as an alternative fuel

Brazil is the largest worldwide producer of alcohol and sugar from sugar-cane and has an extensive alternative program for car fuel which is unique. The objective of this work is to offer one management option of a solid residue produced by this industrial segment. The pressed sugar-cane bagasse is burned to produce steam and electricity by cogeneration. The combustion yields both bottom and fly ashes which contain high amounts of silicon oxide as a major component. Fly ash which contains a high volume (>30% by weight) of charcoal was used in this work. The ash was sieved to separate the thick charcoal from inorganic materials which are concentrated in the thinner fraction. The briquettes were hand pressed using charcoal mixed with a binder (starch) obtained from cassava flour (a tropical root). The results (density, mechanical resistance) obtained with 8% by weight of starch binder are presented here. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to characterize the ashes and the briquettes. The results show that sugar-cane bagasse fly ash (SCBFA) can be used to produce briquettes with an average density of 1.12 g cm^?3 and an average calorific value of 25,551 kJ/kg.     

Pilot monitoring study of ibuprofen in surface waters of north of Portugal

Ibuprofen is amongst the most worldwide consumed pharmaceuticals. The present work presents the first data in the occurrence of ibuprofen in Portuguese surface waters, focusing in the north area of the country, which is one of the most densely populated areas of Portugal. Analysis of ibuprofen is based on pre-concentration of the analyte with solid phase extraction and subsequent determination with liquid chromatography coupled to fluorescence detection. A total of 42 water samples, including surface waters, landfill leachates, Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), and hospital effluents, were analyzed in order to evaluate the occurrence of ibuprofen in the north of Portugal. In general, the highest concentrations were found in the river mouths and in the estuarine zone. The maximum concentrations found were 48,720 ng?L^?1 in the landfill leachate, 3,868 ng?L^?1 in hospital effluent, 616 ng?L^?1 in WWTP effluent, and 723 ng?L^?1 in surface waters (Lima river). Environmental risk assessment was evaluated and at the measured concentrations only landfill leachates reveal potential ecotoxicological risk for aquatic organisms. Owing to a high consumption rate of ibuprofen among Portuguese population, as prescribed and non-prescribed medicine, the importance of hospitals, WWTPs, and landfills as sources of entrance of pharmaceuticals in the environment was pointed out. Landfill leachates showed the highest contribution for ibuprofen mass loading into surface waters. On the basis of our findings, more studies are needed as an attempt to assess more vulnerable areas.     

Removal of arsenate from water by adsorbents: a comparative case study

Laboratory and field filtration experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of As(V) removal for five types of adsorbent media. The media included activated alumina (AA), modified activated alumina (MAA), granular ferric hydroxide (GFH), granular ferric oxide (GFO), and granular titanium dioxide (TiO₂). In laboratory batch and column experiments, the synthetic challenge water was used to evaluate the effectiveness for five adsorbents. The results of the batch experiments showed that the As(V) adsorption decreased as follows at pH 6.5: TiO₂ > GFO > GFH > MAA > AA. At pH 8.5, however, As(V) removal decreased in the following order: GFO = TiO₂ > GFH > MAA > AA. In column experiments, at pH 6.5, the adsorbed As(V) for adsorbents followed the order: TiO₂ > GFO > GFH, whereas at pH 8.5 the order became: GFO = TiO₂ > GFH when the challenge water containing 50 μg/L of As(V) was used. Field filtration experiments were carried out in parallel at a wellhead in New Jersey. Before the effluent arsenic concentration increased to 10 μg/L, approximately 58,000 and 41,500 bed volumes of groundwater containing an average of 47 μg/L of As(V) were treated by the filter system packed with GFO and TiO₂, respectively. The As(V) adsorption decreased in the following sequence: GFO > TiO₂ > GFH > MAA > AA. Filtration results demonstrated that GFO and TiO₂ adsorbents could be used as media in small community filtration systems for As(V) removal.     

A Watershed-based Cumulative Risk Impact Analysis: Environmental Vulnerability and Impact Criteria

Swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have received much attention in recent years. As a result, a watershed-based screening tool, the Cumulative Risk Index Analysis (CRIA), was developed to assess the cumulative impacts of multiple CAFO facilities in a watershedsubunit. The CRIA formula calculates an index number based on: 1) the area of one or more facilities compared to the area of the watershed subunit, 2) the average of the environmental vulnerability criteria, and 3) the average of the industry-specific impact criteria. Each vulnerability or impact criterion is ranked on a 1 to 5 scale, with a low rank indicating low environmental vulnerability or impact and a high rank indicating high environmental vulnerability or impact. The individual criterion ranks, as well as the total CRIA score, can be used to focus the environmental analysis and facilitate discussions with industry, public, and other stakeholders in the Agency decision-making process.     

Heavy metals effects on proteolytic system in sunflower leaves

Plant proteolytic system includes proteases, mainly localized inside the organelles, and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway in both, the cytoplasm and the nucleus. It was recently demonstrated that under severe Cd stress sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) proteasome activity is reduced and this results in accumulation of oxidized proteins. In order to test if under other heavy metal stresses sunflower proteolytic system undergoes similar changes, an hydroponic experiment was carried out. Ten days old sunflower plants were transferred to hydroponic culture solutions devoid (control) or containing 100 microM of AlCl(3), CoCl(2), CuCl(2), CrCl(3), HgCl(2), NiCl(2), PbCl(2) or ZnCl(2) and analyzed for protein oxidative damage and proteolytic activities. After 4 days of metal treatment, only Co(2+), Cu(2+), Hg(2+), and Ni(2+) were found to increase carbonyl groups content. Except for Al(3+) and Zn(2+), all metals tested significantly reduced all proteasome activities (chymotrypsin-like, trypsin-like and PGPH) and acid and neutral proteases activities. The effect on basic proteases was more variable. Abundance of 20S protein after metal treatments was similar to that obtained for control samples. Co(2+), Cu(2+), Hg(2+), Ni(2+), Cr(3+), and Pb(2+) induced accumulation of ubiquitin conjugated proteins. It is concluded that heavy metal effects on proteolytic system cannot be generalized; however, impairment of proteasome functionality and decreased proteases activities seem to be a common feature involved in metal toxicity to plants.     

Isokinetic Sampler for Continuous Airborne Aerosol Measurements

For aerosol measurements, especially those concerned with the aerosol particle size distribution, it is important to sample in isokinetic conditions. Most available instrumentation for aerosol measurements is intended for use on the ground under light wind conditions; intake air speeds rarely exceed a few meters per second. If the same instrumentation is used onboard an aircraft, the air must be decelerated 60 or more m/sec before It is sampled by individual instruments.

On The Pennsylvania State University Meteorology research aircraft, the air for all aerosol instruments is decelerated in a single isokinetic sampler located above the roof of the cabin outside the aircraft boundary layer. The air enters the sampler through a carefully designed circular intake. Its velocity is reduced as the cross section increases along a 7° conical diffuser. The expansion cone terminates in a cylindrical chamber in which the air velocity is 1/16 the aircraft speed. Behind the sampling chamber the air is accelerated in a second conical section to an end exhaust port. Exhaust porf "pumping" is used to compensate internal losses and, thus, helps preserve the isokinetic nature of the sampler.

Tubes leading to individual instruments are located in the sampling chamber and may be individually adapted to match the air sampling velocity with the local air speed inside the sampling chamber. The level of turbulence (u_rms/û) in the sampling section is =^0.05.

The sampler has been thoroughly wind tunnel and flight tested and successfully used in August and November, 1974, for field programs in the St. Louis and Tucson metropolitan areas, respectively.     

Assessment of a process to degrade metal working fluids using Pseudomonas stutzeri CECT 930 and indigenous microbial consortia

The development of a novel biological process to treat metal working fluids (MWFs)-containing effluents at bioreactor scale was pursued in this work. The bacteria Pseudomonas stutzeri CECT 930 was investigated for the first time as an alternative agent for MWF degradation. An adequate medium design and mixing and aeration system, as well as an appropriate microorganism proved to be crucial for reaching high levels of degradation by P. stutzeri and by an indigenous consortium (about 70% and 50% of reduction in total petroleum hydrocarbon content in less than 2 wk, respectively). Additionally, as there is no information in literature trying to kinetically characterize an MWF-polluted effluent degradation process, all the experimental data were fitted to logistic and Luedeking and Piret models, that allowed to elucidate the growth-associated character of the biodegradation process.     

Removal of arsenate from water by adsorbents: a comparative case study

Laboratory and field filtration experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of As(V) removal for five types of adsorbent media. The media included activated alumina (AA), modified activated alumina (MAA), granular ferric hydroxide (GFH), granular ferric oxide (GFO), and granular titanium dioxide (TiO?). In laboratory batch and column experiments, the synthetic challenge water was used to evaluate the effectiveness for five adsorbents. The results of the batch experiments showed that the As(V) adsorption decreased as follows at pH 6.5: TiO? > GFO > GFH > MAA > AA. At pH 8.5, however, As(V) removal decreased in the following order: GFO = TiO? > GFH > MAA > AA. In column experiments, at pH 6.5, the adsorbed As(V) for adsorbents followed the order: TiO? > GFO > GFH, whereas at pH 8.5 the order became: GFO = TiO? > GFH when the challenge water containing 50 μg/L of As(V) was used. Field filtration experiments were carried out in parallel at a wellhead in New Jersey. Before the effluent arsenic concentration increased to 10 μg/L, approximately 58,000 and 41,500 bed volumes of groundwater containing an average of 47 μg/L of As(V) were treated by the filter system packed with GFO and TiO?, respectively. The As(V) adsorption decreased in the following sequence: GFO > TiO? > GFH > MAA > AA. Filtration results demonstrated that GFO and TiO? adsorbents could be used as media in small community filtration systems for As(V) removal.     

The width of riparian habitats for understory birds in an Amazonian forest

Riparian habitats are important for the maintenance of regional biodiversity. Many studies have compared bird distributions between riparian and non-riparian habitats but have not established how wide riparian habitats used by birds are, as measured by distance from the nearest stream. We investigated the distribution of understory birds along gradients of distance from streams, soil clay content, and slope in a central Amazonian forest, by mist-netting birds three times in 45 plots. We used nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to reduce the dimensionality of species quantitative (abundance) and qualitative (presence-absence) composition to one multivariate axis. Estimates of the width of riparian habitats as indicated by understory birds depended on the community attribute considered, measuring 90 m for species quantitative composition and 140 m for species qualitative composition. Species distributions were correlated with clay content but were independent of slope, while distance from streams was positively correlated with clay content but independent of slope. Clay content affects plant species composition, which in turn, may influence bird species composition. However, distribution patterns of birds in relation to distance from streams are consistent among studies carried out in many different temperate and tropical regions, indicating an effect of distance from streams itself. Protection of riparian habitats is one of the most widely used conservation strategies, and Brazilian environmental legislation mandates the protection of a 30 m wide strip of riparian vegetation on either side of small streams. We show that the protected strip should be much wider and recommend strategies to place other forms of land protection contiguous with riparian areas so that Brazilian environmental legislation better fulfills its role of protecting biodiversity associated with riparian habitats.     

A methodology for creating greenways through multidisciplinary sustainable landscape planning

This research proposes a methodology for defining greenways via sustainable planning. This approach includes the analysis and discussion of culture and natural processes that occur in the landscape. The proposed methodology is structured in three phases: eco-cultural analysis; synthesis and diagnosis; and proposal.An interdisciplinary approach provides an assessment of the relationships between landscape structure and landscape dynamics, which are essential to any landscape management or land use. The landscape eco-cultural analysis provides a biophysical, dynamic (geomorphologic rate), vegetation (habitats from directive 92/43/EEC) and cultural characterisation. The knowledge obtained by this analysis then supports the definition of priority actions to stabilise the landscape and the management measures for the habitats. After the analysis and diagnosis phases, a proposal for the development of sustainable greenways can be achieved.This methodology was applied to a study area of the Azambuja Municipality in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (Portugal). The application of the proposed methodology to the study area shows that landscape stability is crucial for greenway users in order to appreciate the landscape and its natural and cultural elements in a sustainable and healthy way, both by cycling or by foot. A balanced landscape will increase the value of greenways and in return, they can develop socio-economic activities with benefits for rural communities.