Bioelectrochemical technology for recovery of silver from contaminated aqueous solution: a review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A large amount of silver-rich wastewater is generated from different industrial processes. This wastewater is not considered a waste, but a valuable...     

Application of soft computing to predict water quality in wetland

Prediction of water quality is a critical issue because of its significant impact on human and ecosystem health. This research aims to predict water quality index (WQI) for the free surface wetland using three soft computing techniques namely, adaptive neuro-fuzzy system (ANFIS), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and group method of data handling (GMDH). Seventeen wetland points for a period of 14 months were considered for monitoring water quality parameters including conductivity, suspended solid (SS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), ammoniacal nitrogen (AN), chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), temperature, pH, phosphate nitrite, and nitrate. The sensitivity analysis performed by ANFIS indicates that the significant parameters to predict WQI are pH, COD, AN, and SS. The results indicated that ANFIS with Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE = 0.9634) and mean absolute error (MAE = 0.0219) has better performance to predict the WQI comparing with ANNs (NSE = 0.9617 and MAE = 0.0222) and GMDH (NSE = 0.9594 and MAE = 0.0245) models. However, ANNs provided a comparable prediction and the GMDH can be considered as a technique with an acceptable prediction for practical purposes. The findings of this study could be used as an effective reference for policy makers in the field of water resource management. Decreasing variables, reduction of running time, and high speed of these approaches are the most important reasons to employ them in any aquatic environment worldwide.

     

Nitrate leaching to shallow groundwater systems from agricultural fields with different management practices

Monitoring the concentration of NO(3)-N from agricultural fields to the subsurface and shallow ground water resources have received considerable interest worldwide, since agriculture has been identified as a major source of nitrate-nitrogen (NO(3)-N) pollution of groundwater systems in intensively farmed watersheds. A study was conducted to quantify the impact of two tillage practices viz. chisel plow (CP) and no till (NT) with liquid swine manure application on nitrate leaching to the shallow ground water system under corn-soybean production system. This study is part of the long-term field experiments conducted at Iowa State University using completely randomized block design. The NO(3)-N concentrations in the shallow ground water were monitored at three depths viz., a network of subsurface drains at a depth of 1.2 m and piezometers at depths of 1.8 m and 2.4 m. Results of this study showed that the average NO(3)-N concentration during the study period was 16.1 mg l(-1), 14.4 mg l(-1) and 11.8 mg l(-1) at 1.2 m, 1.8 m and 2.4 m depths, respectively implying significant amount of NO(3)-N leaching past the subsurface drain depth of 1.2 m into the shallow groundwater but the NO(3)-N concentration decreases with the depth. The NO(3)-N concentrations in shallow groundwater were significantly higher under the chisel plow system in comparison with the no till method of tillage. Fall application of liquid swine manure caused more leaching in comparison with the spring application. Higher NO(3)-N concentration was observed under corn in comparison with the soybean plots. An in-depth analysis of the data showed a definite relationship between the NO(3)-N concentration in subsurface drain water at a depth of 1.2 m and shallow groundwater at depths of 1.8 m and 2.4 m depths.     

Interfacial-engineered CoTiO3-based composite for photocatalytic applications: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Photocatalysis is a green chemical process that could partly solve energy and pollution issues. Catalysts such as cobalt titanate, CoTiO3, have intrigued...     

Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) in workplace and house dust from Vietnam: concentrations,profiles, emission sources,and exposure risk

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The occurrence of nine phthalic acid esters (PAEs) were determined in indoor dust samples collected from vehicle repair shops, waste processing...     

Spatial variability of sydney air quality by cumulative semivariogram

This paper establishes that an isotropic spatial correlation function in the form of a modified Bessel function of the second kind, first order, can be used to model the spatial variability of a pollution concentration field over a sufficiently long period of time in which the variability due to meteorological factors has been smoothed out. The corresponding cumulative semivariogram is derived and fitted by nonlinear least-squares to monthly averaged ozone data at 18 monitoring stations of the Sydney region. The good fit of the model indicates that the Sydney airshed has homogeneous and isotropic subregions whose radius of influence is about 17 km. The Bessel function form of the spatial correlation has a physical meaning as it is derived from the diffusion equation; hence, it is expected that the model can be used, in general, to represent the spatial variability of a smoothed homogeneous and isotropic concentration field.     

The larval parasitoid <Emphasis Type="Italic">Microplitis croceipes</Emphasis> oviposits in conspecific adults

Microplitis croceipes (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a larval parasitoid of Helicoverpa/Heliothis spp. In the course of mass rearing of M. croceipes, we found that females oviposited in the conspecific adults in rearing cages. When 20 pairs of inexperienced females and males or of experienced females and males were reared in a cage, the males lived for 14–15 days and the females for 18–20 days on average. At their death, 37–42% of the males and 50–57% of the females contained conspecific eggs or first instar larvae in their abdominal cavity. When two of inexperienced females met on a host-infested leaf of soybean, they attempted to sting each other. Of the attacked females, 30% contained a conspecific egg laid in their abdomen. In abdominal cavity of the adults parasitized by a conspecific female, the majority of the parasitoid eggs laid disappeared within 1 day after oviposition. Only 10–30% of the parasitoid eggs laid in conspecific adults hatched 3–4 days after oviposition, but those larvae never molted to second instar. When the adults were stung by one or two conspecific females, their subsequent longevity was significantly shorter than that for the control adults. Oviposition in conspecific adults may be prevalent in other parasitic wasps that quickly oviposit without intensive host examination, and have cuticle and size of abdomen to be stung by conspeicifcs.     

The System Dynamics of Nuclear Energy in Singapore

In this article, a system dynamics model is developed to study the complex issues involving nuclear energy in Singapore by assessing four essential aspects, namely (1) Economic, (2) Environment, (3) Social, and (4) Political in various scenarios. The first factor juxtaposes the monetary benefit from deploying nuclear energy with the current situation. The second deals with carbon dioxide emission, nuclear waste, and thermal pollution from nuclear power plant. The third part discusses the safety and social acceptance toward nuclear project, and the last section analyzes the political stability in provision of nuclear energy advent. The proposed system dynamic model incorporates all four components that allow us to run sensitivity analysis based on various scenarios and enables us to gain insight in how each domain evolves with time. Based on the model, we present advantages and disadvantages of possessing nuclear power plants in Singapore and suggest remedies to rectify the drawbacks.     

草酸促进双酚A在黏土矿物悬浮液中光降解研究

选择两种常见的天然黏土矿物高岭石和蒙脱石,研究了有机污染物双酚A(BPA)在其表面的吸附及草酸对黏土矿物悬浮液中BPA光降解的影响.结果表明,BPA在两种黏土矿物表面的吸附量较小,吸附符合Langmuir等温式.在250W金属卤化物灯(λ≥360nm)照射下,草酸可显著促进BPA在高岭石和蒙脱石悬浮液中的光降解,降解动力学符合Langmuir-Hinshelwood方程. 降解速率受pH值的影响较大,pH=4.0时速度最快,光降解速率同时受草酸浓度的影响.最后,通过分析矿物中铁的化学环境及反应过程中铁浓度变化,分析了草酸促进BPA在黏土矿物悬浮液中光降解的可能机制.