Physical–chemical processes of sustainable materials’ production from hazardous toner waste,galvanic glass waste and spent foundry sand

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Several sustainable white ceramic composites were prepared from 3 to 7 wt.% of hazardous toner waste, 30–40% of spent foundry sand,...     

A safety culture maturity model for petrochemical companies in Brazil

A framework to measure safety culture maturity in the Brazilian oil and gas companies was formulated based on the model of Hudson (2001). Following a review of the safety culture literature, a questionnaire was designed to measure five aspects of organisational safety indicative of five levels of cultural maturity. The questionnaire was completed by the safety managers of 23 petrochemical companies based in Camacari, Bahia, Brazil and they were interviewed one month later. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested by asking the same questions in an interview and comparing the results (alternate forms reliability). The correlation coefficients between the questionnaire and interview scores on each dimension ranged from r = 0.7 to 0.9, demonstrating good reliability of the measures used. The research findings demonstrated that the 23 companies studied showed characteristics of different levels of safety culture maturity. Most scores were at the level of proactive. The model of Hudson (2001) and the revised framework and questionnaire were found to be practical to use, making it possible to identify levels of safety culture maturity in the context of the Brazilian petrochemical industry.     

H₂S abatement in a biotrickling filter using iron(III) foam media

Airstreams polluted with H(2)S at inlet loads ranging from 2.4 to 40.9 g H(2)Sm(-3)h(-1) were treated in a biotrickling reactor packed with hematite bearing, open pore foam units, at Empty Bed Residence Times (EBRT) ranging from 20 to 60s over a period of 80 d, with almost complete removal of the pollutant from the startup of the system. The media had been seeded with sludge from a local water works facility, and removal efficiencies in excess of 80% were consistently observed along the operation of the reactor, with an average of 98%. Based on section performance, being a section one third of the bed length, observed elimination capacities (EC) reached up to 88.7 g H(2)Sm(-3)h(-)(1) and 72.0 g H(2)Sm(-3)h(-1) at section EBRT of 10 and 7s, respectively. The observed EC values compared much better than data reported on other packed bed reactors using biological iron oxidization to treat H(2)S airstreams indirectly, and so did it when comparing the EC per unit of specific area in a similar study using polyurethane (PU) foams. Further, and unlike PU packed biofilters, no compaction occurred due to the iron foam rigidity, which translated in much better observed gas phase pressure drop as opposed to other conventional biofilters. Denaturing gel gradient electrophoresis was performed on the biomass collected in the packing after the biofilter service, and it was found that though a multi bacterial colony was seeded in the system via the sludge, the only surviving genus was the iron oxidizing Alicyclobacillus spp.