Influence of reactor configuration on reliability of activated sludge process

The effect of uncertainty in system parameters and the accuracy of the mathematical model used on the design and reliability of the activated sludge process is investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. Simulations indicate that the coefficient of variation for a reactor volume varies from 0.56 for a single mixed tank reactor to 0.44 for a plug flow reactor. The coefficient of variation for effluent for reactors designed on nominal values was found to be 0.56 for a mixed-tank reactor, 1.28 for two reactors in series, 1.56 for three reactors in series and 1.6 for a plug flow reactor. Significant contributing parameters to the reliability of the process are established. Reactor volumes for desired reliability levels are also calculated.     

Marine nature conservation and conflicts with fisheries

Globally, conflicts between marine nature conservation and fishery interests are common and increasing, and there is often a glaring lack of dialogue between stakeholders representing these two interests. There is a need for a stronger and enforced coordination between fishing and conservation authorities when establishing marine protected areas for conservation purposes. We propose that an appropriate instrument for such coordination is a broad ecosystem-based marine spatial planning procedure, representing neither nature conservation nor fishery. Strategic environmental assessment for plans and programmes and environmental impact assessment for projects are commonly used tools for assessing the environmental impacts of different human activities, but are seldom used for evaluating the environmental effects of capture fisheries. The diversity of fisheries and the drastic effects of some fisheries on the environment are strong arguments for introducing these procedures as valuable supplements to existing fisheries assessment and management tools and able to provide relevant environmental information for an overall marine spatial planning process. Marine protected areas for nature conservation and for protection of fisheries have different objectives. Therefore, the legal procedure when establishing marine protected areas should depend on whether they are established for nature conservation purposes or as a fisheries resource management tool. Fishing in a marine protected area for conservation purpose should be regulated according to conservation law. Also, we argue that marine protected areas for conservation purposes, in the highest protection category, should primarily be established as fully protected marine national parks and marine reserves.     

The current state of knowledge of ecosystems and ecosystem services in Russia: A status report

This paper focusses on a conceptual overview of ways to address a comprehensive analysis of ecosystem services (ES) in a country as large and heterogeneous as Russia. As a first step, a methodology for assessing the services for the federal subjects of Russia was chosen, i.e., its constituent provinces and similar entities, in physical terms. Russia harbors a great diversity of natural conditions and ecosystems which are suppliers of ES, and likewise a variety of the socio-economic conditions that shape the demand for these services and their consumption. The methodological approach described permits several important tasks to be addressed: the evaluation of the degree of satisfaction of people’s needs for ES, the identification of ecological donor and acceptor regions, and zoning of the country’s territory for ES assessment. The next step is to prepare a prototype of a National Report on ES in Russia, for which we are presenting the planned structure.     

Effect of Dust Concentration Upon the Gas-Flow Capacity of a Cyclonic Collector

The flow rate through an industrial gas-cleaning cyclone at a fixed pressure drop is greater when the incoming gas is dusty than when it is clean. This observation by Briggs for a single cyclone tube was extended to multiple tubes, and ike results compared to observations by Soo and Trezek that the fraction factor for turbulent flow in a pipe is less for dusty gas than for clean. Empirical considerations indicated tJtat both of these observations should be connected with a rather large reduction in gas viscosity due to the dust. This predicted viscosity decrease was later observed. A physical theory accounting for viscosity reduction by a dust cloud is proposed. This effect also offers a means for increasing the heat, transfer coefficient in gas heat exchangers.     

Statistical visualization for data exploration: a case study on Sydney Olympic Park

Due to the powerful graphic interface in modern computers, visualization techniques have become more and more popular for data exploration. As a preliminary investigation, visualization is a greatly useful tool to lead to further statistical analysis and modelling. It is likely that historical environmental data from a range of different studies may contain useful information that should be assessed for determining management actions. However, these historical data are collected from many different studies, which have different space and/or time scales making the visualization process complicated. In this paper we present several ways of visualizing historical data based on a study at Sydney Olympic Park. The tools include spatial coverage and variation for different spatial resolutions, temporal coverage and time series plots for different time scales, multi-panel scatterplots for a small number of variables and "one-to-all" scatterplots for a large number of variables.     

An Air Quality Data Analysis System for Interrelating Effects,Standards, and Needed Source Reductions: Part 3. Vegetation Injury

Acute leaf injury data are analyzed for 19 plant species exposed to ozone or sulfur dioxide. The data can be depicted by a new leaf injury mathematical model with two characteristics: (1) a constant percentage of leaf surface is injured by an air pollutant concentration that is inversely proportional to exposure duration raised to an exponent; (2) for a given exposure duration, the percent leaf injury as a function of pollutant concentration tends to fit a lognormal frequency distribution. Leaf injury as a function of laboratory exposure duration is modeled and compared with ambient air pollutant concentration measurements for various averaging times to determine which exposure durations are probably most important for setting ambient air quality standards to prevent or reduce visible leaf injury. The 8 hour average appears to be most important for most of the plants investigated for most sites, 1 hr concentrations are important for most plants at a few sites, and 3 hr S0₂ concentrations are important for some plants, especially those exposed to isolated point sources of the pollutant. The 1, 3, and 8 hr threshold injury concentrations are listed for each of the 19 plant species studied. To prevent or reduce acute leaf injury, fixed, nonoverlapping ambient air quality measurements and standards are recommended for averaging times of 1, 3, and 8hr.     

Performance of a constructed wetland-pond system for treatment and reuse of wastewater from campus buildings.

A constructed wetland-pond system consisting of two free-water-surface-flow (FWS) wetland cells, a scenic pond, and a slag filter in series was used for reclamation of septic tank effluent from a campus building. The results show that FWS wetlands effectively removed major pollutants under a hydraulic loading rate between 2.1 and 4.2 cm/d, with average efficiencies ranging from 74 to 78% for total suspended solids, 73 to 88% for 5-day biochemical oxygen demand, 42 to 49% for total nitrogen, 34 to 70% for total phosphorous, 64 to 79% for total coliforms, and 90 to 99.9% for Escherichia coli. After passing through the scenic pond and slag filter, the reclaimed water was used for landscape irrigation. There were a variety of ornamental plants and aquatic animals established in the second FWS cell and scenic pond with good water quality, thus enhancing landscape and ecology amenity in campuses.     

Application of a permethrin immunosorbent assay method to residential soil and dust samples

A low-cost, high throughput bioanalytical screening method was developed for monitoring cis/trans-permethrin in dust and soil samples. The method consisted of a simple sample preparation procedure [sonication with dichloromethane followed by a solvent exchange into methanol:water (1:1)] with bioanalytical detection using a magnetic particle enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Quantitative recoveries (83–126 %) of cis/trans-permethrin were obtained for spiked soil and dust samples. The percent difference of duplicate ELISA analyses was within ± 20 % for standards and ± 35 % for samples. Similar sample preparation procedures were used for the conventional gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis except that additional cleanup steps were required. Recoveries of cis/trans-permethrin ranged from 81 to 108 % for spiked soil and dust samples by GC/MS. The ELISA-derived permethrin concentrations were highly correlated with the GC/MS-derived sum of cis/trans-permethrin concentrations with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.986. The ELISA method provided a rapid qualitative screen for cis/trans-permethrin in soil and dust while providing a higher sample throughput with a lower cost as compared to the GC/MS method. The ELISA can be applied as a complementary, low-cost screening tool to prioritize and rank samples prior to instrumental analysis for exposure studies.     

Organic tracers identification as a convenient strategy in industrial landfills monitoring

Today, a significant environmental problem is due to the presence of industrial landfills, some of them old, which can release toxic compounds into the environment (Chemosphere 42 (2001) 415; Chemosphere 31 (1995) 3455). The identification of directly linked to the leachate tracers of contamination in the wells around the landfills, as early markers of a potential risk for the environment and/or man, is a good strategy for an early evaluation of contamination. Our protocol developed for wells water characterization is based on solid phase extraction combined with GC-MS and HPLC-MS/MS.In this way a list of organic contaminants of a specific industrial landfill is obtained, giving a solid basis also for the risk assessment. Here we present some specific examples and the use of these pollutants for environmental monitoring.     

Identifying problems for choosing suitable areas for installation of a new landfill through GIS technology: A case study

Selecting a suitable place to install a new landfill is a hard work. Bauru is a Brazilian municipality where the local landfill currently in use has a life span that is almost over, and the selection of a new area for a future landfill is crucial and urgent. Here we use a geographic information system (GIS) approach to indicate possible suitable areas for installing the landfill. The considered criteria were: river network and the respective buffer zone, relief, urban areas and their respective buffer zone, existence of Areas for Environmental Protection (AEPs), occurrence of wells and their respective buffer zones, existence of airports and their buffer zones, wind direction, and the road network and its respective buffer zone. Due the facts that (1) Bauru has an urban area relatively large in relation to whole municipal area, (2) Bauru has two airports, and (3) this area encompasses parts of three AEPs, the model showed that there are few areas suitable and moderately suitable in Bauru, and the greater part of the municipality is unsuitable to install a new landfill. Due to this important finding reported here, the local policymakers should consider the suitable or even moderately suitable areas for analysis in situ or look for other creative solutions for destination of the solid waste. We highly encourage the use of GIS in studies that seek suitable areas for future landfills, having found that SIG was a tool that allowed fast and precise work and generated an outcome sufficiently clear of interpretation.

Implications:?Solid waste (SW) management is one of the main environmental concerns nowadays. Landfilling SW is still the main practice to disposal of such material. However, for many regions, suitable places for landfilling are getting scarce. This study proved this situation for a populous place in a southeastern Brazilian region. This study also showed how the decision makers should manage the problem in order to minimize the amount of SW generated and delivered for the landfill. Massive investment in education is a critical issue to reach the proposed aim.     

Relationship between mass-flux reduction and source-zone mass removal: analysis of field data

The magnitude of contaminant mass-flux reduction associated with a specific amount of contaminant mass removed is a key consideration for evaluating the effectiveness of a source-zone remediation effort. Thus, there is great interest in characterizing, estimating, and predicting relationships between mass-flux reduction and mass removal. Published data collected for several field studies were examined to evaluate relationships between mass-flux reduction and source-zone mass removal. The studies analyzed herein represent a variety of source-zone architectures, immiscible-liquid compositions, and implemented remediation technologies. There are two general approaches to characterizing the mass-flux-reduction/mass-removal relationship, end-point analysis and time-continuous analysis. End-point analysis, based on comparing masses and mass fluxes measured before and after a source-zone remediation effort, was conducted for 21 remediation projects. Mass removals were greater than 60% for all but three of the studies. Mass-flux reductions ranging from slightly less than to slightly greater than one-to-one were observed for the majority of the sites. However, these single-snapshot characterizations are limited in that the antecedent behavior is indeterminate. Time-continuous analysis, based on continuous monitoring of mass removal and mass flux, was performed for two sites, both for which data were obtained under water-flushing conditions. The reductions in mass flux were significantly different for the two sites (90% vs. approximately 8%) for similar mass removals ( approximately 40%). These results illustrate the dependence of the mass-flux-reduction/mass-removal relationship on source-zone architecture and associated mass-transfer processes. Minimal mass-flux reduction was observed for a system wherein mass removal was relatively efficient (ideal mass-transfer and displacement). Conversely, a significant degree of mass-flux reduction was observed for a site wherein mass removal was inefficient (non-ideal mass-transfer and displacement). The mass-flux-reduction/mass-removal relationship for the latter site exhibited a multi-step behavior, which cannot be predicted using some of the available simple estimation functions.     

Numerical Modeling of the Transport Diffusion and Deposition of Pollutants For Regions and Extended Scales

There is an emerging need to develop understanding and predictive capability for the transport, diffusion, and deposition of pollutants on regional and extended spatial scales. Some recent developments in the numerical simulation of pollutant transport and diffusion are reviewed and summarized herein, including case studies of model validation whenever’available. The efforts reported include: (a) the development and verification of a Lagrangian large-cloud diffusion code for intermediate to extended scales; (b) a hybrid Lagrangian-Eulerian transport-diffusion code for simulating pollutant distributions in transient stratified shear flow; (c) a meteorological submodel for determining a mass-consistent wind field on a regional scale suitable as input to a regional air pollution model; and (d) the development and initial verification of a multi-box regional air pollution model for the San Francisco Bay Area utilizing a mass-consistent wind field submodel.     

The dissolution of benzene, toluene, m-xylene and naphthalene from a residually trapped non-aqueous phase liquid under mass transfer limited conditions

The results of dissolution experiments for benzene, toluene, m-xylene and naphthalene (BTXN) from a relatively insoluble oil phase (tridecane), residually trapped in a non-sorbing porous medium, are described. This mixture was chosen to simulate dissolution of soluble aromatic compounds from a petroleum hydrocarbon mixture, e.g., crude oil, for which a large fraction of the mixture is relatively insoluble. The experiments were carried out at a small source length to interstitial velocity ratio, L/v, so that dissolution would be mass transfer limited (MTL). When fitted to data for toluene, a multiregion mass transfer model was found to predict the experimental data satisfactorily for the other components without adjustment of the mass transfer rate parameters. These results indicate that the dissolution process can be generalized for various hydrophobic organic compounds present in a multicomponent non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) when mass transfer limitations are present. This also suggests that dissolution data obtained for one compound can be useful for predicting the dissolution histories for other compounds from petroleum hydrocarbon mixtures.     

Development of a hazardous air pollutants monitoring program using the Data Quality Objectives process

To effectively reduce the environmental compliance costs associated with meeting hazardous air pollutant emission requirements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Data Quality Objective (DQO) process has been proposed as a suitable framework for establishing a defensible monitoring program. Through the use of a hazardous materials pilot study, the variability in the composite vapor pressure for regulated handwipe cleaning solvents was established. These results served as inputs to the DQO process, which identified that for facility decision-makers to claim with a 99% confidence level that the facility is in compliance with the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), a minimum of 12 handwipe cleaning solvent compliance samples (taken at random every 6 months) must have a composite vapor pressure equal to or below the regulatory limit of 45 mmHg at 20 degrees C. Implementation of the DQO-based compliance-sampling plan eliminates the need for an affected facility to sample all regulated handwipe cleaning solvents while still maintaining a reasonably high level of confidence in the compliance status of its regulated sources. The approach described for designing a defensible compliance sampling plan can be extended to other aspects of the aerospace NESHAP rule, including compliance sampling for surface coating, chemical depainting, and hazardous waste disposal.     

Oxygen Stratification in Industrial Boiler Stacks

The DSS/2 software system was used to numerically simulate oxygen stratification effects in a typical industrial boiler stack. The model developed for the simulation involves turbulent mass transfer in a tube with a constant, high mass flux from the walls of the tube. The concentration profile is considered to be developing, but the velocity profile is assumed to be fully developed. The model is for a gaseous system at constant temperature and pressure; the transport properties are shown to be constant. The universal velocity profile for turbulent flow and von Karman’s expressions for the turbulent eddy diffusivity are incorporated in the model. An expression for a wall concentration profile corresponding to conditions of high mass flux at the wall is developed. The model is then expressed as a system of partial differential equations which are solved using the numerical method of lines together with the DSS/2 numerical integration system. The resulting concentration profiles are presented for various flux rates which might be encountered in a typical stack. These profiles indicate that a potential for oxygen stratification in stacks does exist; they also suggest that careful placement of the oxygen cell probe can help minimize such errors.     

One-dimensional simulation of solute transfer in saturated-unsaturated porous media using the discontinuous finite elements method

A one-dimensional transport model for simulating water flow and solute transport in homogeneous-heterogeneous, saturated-unsaturated porous media is presented. The model is composed of a combination of accurate numerical algorithms for solving the nonlinear Richard's and advection-dispersion equations (ADE). The mixed form of Richard's equation is solved using a standard finite element method (FEM) with primary variable switching. The transport equation is solved using operator splitting, with the discontinuous finite element method (DFE) for discretization of the advective term. A slope limiting procedure for DFE avoids numerical instabilities but creates very limited numerical dispersion for high Peclet numbers. An implicit finite differences scheme (FD) is used for the dispersive term. The unsaturated flow and transport model (Wamos-T) is applied to a variety of rigorous problems including transient flow, heterogeneous medium and abrupt variations of velocity in magnitude and direction due to time-varying boundary conditions. It produces accurate and mass-conservative solutions for a very large range of grid Peclet numbers. The Wamos-T model is a good and robust alternative for the simulation of mass transport in unsaturated domain.     

A review on the application of microbial toxicity tests for deriving sediment quality guidelines

The results of microbial toxicity tests are needed for the risk assessment of polluted sediments. In comparison with animals the anaerobic microorganisms are more tolerant to natural sediment conditions whereas they are more sensitive for a number of specific pollutants. Microbial toxicity tests from a literature search were classified in seven categories. Category A, B and C use polluted sediments and are applied for sediment monitoring. In category D, a pure chemical is added and the organisms and the test conditions were derived from sediment. Therefore this category can be used for setting sediment quality guidelines which protect sediment functions for the toxic effects of chemicals. In category E, organisms from a polluted site are separated from the sediment and are tested with pure chemicals. Organisms from a more polluted site can be more tolerant to a local pollutant. This is called pollution-induced community tolerance and can be used as evidence for the occurrence of toxic effects in a specific sediment. In category F pure chemicals are tested with a pure culture of microorganisms under sediment conditions. The results of category F tests can be combined with single species tests with animals and plants to obtain sediment quality guidelines sufficient for species protection. This can be compared with the sediment quality guidelines which protect sediment functions. When one of these quality guidelines is exceeded for a compound at a specific location a category E test can be used to determine whether the compound shows toxic effects in that sediment.     

合流制排水系统溢流污染就地调蓄处理控制技术研究

在对高效混合絮凝斜板沉淀工艺进行现场中试的基础上,将化学强化处理工艺与调蓄池相结合,针对上海市某合流制排水系统,进行调蓄/沉淀池的概念设计,提出主要设计参数,利用计算流体力学(CFD)模型对调蓄/沉淀池进行优化设计.试验和模拟结果表明,调蓄/沉淀池与单纯的调蓄池相比具有更好的溢流污染控制效果和效益/造价比.     

Preparation of a porous clay heterostructure and study of its adsorption capacity of phenol and chlorinated phenols from aqueous solutions.

A porous clay heterostructure (PCH) from a Mexican clay was prepared and characterized, and its aqueous phenol and dichlorophenols (DCPs) adsorption capacities were studied using a batch equilibrium technique. The PCH displayed a surface area of 305.5 m2/g, 37.2 A average porous diameter, and a basal space of 23.2 A. The adsorption capacity shown by the PCH for both phenol and DCPs from water (14.5 mg/g for phenol; 48.7 mg/g for 3,4-DCP; and 45.5 mg/g for 2,5-DCP) suggests that the PCH has both hydrophobic and hydrophilic characteristics, as a result of the presence of silanol and siloxane groups formed during the pillaring and calcination of the PCH. The values of maximal adsorption capacity for dichlorophenols were higher than those reported for aluminum pillared clays and some inorgano-organo clays and comparable with some ionic exchange resins.     

Factors Affecting the Resistivity of a Particulate Layer in Electrostatic Precipitators

This paper develops an expression for the resistivity of a dust layer which takes into account its particulate nature, dependence of the surface resistivity component on water vapor pressure and temperature, the volume resistivity and the intrinsic properties of the particulate material. A new expression is given for the surface resistivity which, when combined with the equation for volume resistivity, enables the effective resistance of a dust layer to be characterized by five meaningful parameters. These parameters may be determined for a given fly ash sample from a standard set of resistivity curves. Calculated resistivity curves for an industrially produced fly ash are compared with measured curves.