The effect of conservation tillage in managing climate change in arid and semiarid areas—a case study in Northwest China

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - Coastal cities are exposed to high risks due to climate change, as they are potentially affected by both rising sea levels and increasingly...     

10kV交联聚乙烯电缆振荡波检测案例分析

针对交联聚乙烯电缆的预防性测试方法无法满足炼化企业高可靠性的供电要求,存在设备笨重、测试复杂以及无法精确定位等缺点,介绍10 kV交联聚乙烯电力电缆振荡波局放测试的原理及标准流程,并以实际检测出的故障案例验证技术的有效性.通过定期开展炼化企业电力电缆的振荡波局放检测,并针对性地采取措施可显著提高炼化企业供电的可靠性.最后提出了炼化企业开展振荡波局放检测应注意的问题.     

Low-reactive circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) fly ashes as source material for geopolymer synthesis

In this contribution, low-reactive circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) fly ashes (CFAs) have firstly been utilized as a source material for geopolymer synthesis. An alkali fusion process was employed to promote the dissolution of Si and Al species from the CFAs, and thus to enhance the reactivity of the ashes. A high-reactive metakaolin (MK) was also used to consume the excess alkali needed for the fusion. Reactivities of the CFAs and MK were examined by a series of dissolution tests in sodium hydroxide solutions. Geopolymer samples were prepared by alkali activation of the source materials using a sodium silicate solution as the activator. The synthesized products were characterized by mechanical testing, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffractography (XRD), as well as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results of this study indicate that, via enhancing the reactivity by alkali fusion and balancing the Na/Al ratio by additional aluminosilicate source, low-reactive CFAs could also be recycled as an alternative source material for geopolymer production.     

Application of response surface methodology to the treatment landfill leachate in a three-dimensional electrochemical reactor

The influence of different variables on the removal of ammonia nitrogen and COD from landfill leachate was investigated in a three-dimensional electrochemical reactor. Box–Behnken statistical experiment design and the response surface methodology were used to investigate operating condition effects, such as current density, activated carbon to water ratio and the reaction time, on ammonia nitrogen removal efficiency and COD removal efficiency. The positive and negative effects of variables and the interaction between variables on ammonia nitrogen removal and COD removal were determined. The response surface methodology models were derived based on the results and the response surface plots were developed accordingly.     

Assessing China’s Ecological Restoration Programs: What’s Been Done and What Remains to Be Done?

This article surveys the recent literature that has assessed China’s ecological restoration programs, including the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP). Our presumption is that the performance of these programs should be determined by their effectiveness of implementation and significance of impact. Implementation effectiveness can be measured with such indicators as land area converted or conserved, and survival and stocking rates of restored vegetation, while impact significance can be gauged by the induced changes in ecosystem functionality and stability (erosion control, biodiversity protection, etc.) and socioeconomic conditions. Coupling this matrix with an exhaustive search of the publications, we find that: (1) the implementation effectiveness has not been examined as extensively as the impact significance; (2) efforts to assess the impact significance have concentrated on the SLCP, particularly its socioeconomic effects: growth of income, alternative industry, and employment, and likelihood of re-conversion; and (3) most of the socioeconomic studies are based on rural household surveys and discrete choice and difference in differences models. While much has been learned from previous studies, a lot more needs to be done in improving our understanding of the program execution and impacts. Future work should pay more attention to the NFPP and other programs, and the environmental impacts and the implementation effectiveness of all of them. To these ends, analysts must gather more field data regarding the evolving ecosystem conditions and socioeconomic information of higher aggregation, and conduct their research across scales and disciplines, with better application of geospatial technology and more effective modeling.     

Reutilisation-extended material flows and circular economy in China

Circular economy (CE), with its basic principle of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, has been determined as the key strategy for the national development plan by the Chinese government. Given the economy-wide material flow analysis (EW-MFA) that leaves the inner flow of resource reutilisation unidentified, the reutilisation-extended EW-MFA is first introduced to evaluate and analyse the material input, solid waste generation, and reutilisation simultaneously. The total amount of comprehensive reutilisation (CR) is divided into three sub-flows, namely, reutilisation, recycle, and reuse. Thus, this model is used to investigate the resource CR in China from 2000 to 2010. China’s total amount of CR and its sub-flows, as well as the CR rate, remain to have a general upward trend. By the year 2010, about 60% of the overall solid waste generation had already been reutilised, and more than 20% of the total resource requirement was reutilised resource. Moreover, the growth patterns of the CR sub flows show different characteristics.Interpretations of resource reutilisation-related laws and regulations of CE and the corresponding policy suggestions are proposed based on the results.     

Biodegradation Behaviors of Poly(p-dioxanone) in Different Environment Media

This work was aimed at researching the aerobic biodegradation of poly(p-dioxanone) (PPDO), a novel kind of degradable polymer material, by simulating real-life conditions in a laboratory-scale test, specified by the standard methods based on two biodegradation environments, composting and aqueous media. To measure and describe the biodegradability of PPDO, not only had carbon dioxide produced by respiratory metabolism of microorganism been measured, which determines the ultimate aerobic biodegradability of chemical compounds, but also the detailed results of biodegradation were further characterized by monitoring physical, chemical and thermal properties changes of test materials at different incubation times in the two media, confirmed by using the appropriate analytical techniques. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the surface morphology, and the thermal performance of PPDO was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry. The changes of molecular weight were detected by intrinsic viscosity ([η]) and gel permeation chromatography, and the variations of the molecular structure were monitored by the nuclear magnetic resonance and FT-IR. The results show that PPDO has outstanding character of biodegradation and may be more adapted for biodegrading in liquid medium than in composting.