Iranica Journal of Energy & Environment
Volume:5 Issue: 4, Autumn 2014

This paper presents a general approach when performing urban mining activities. The urban mining concept is a necessity when the Mega cities increase in numbers to create attractive, sustainable cities for modern people. There are veins of precious minerals that are richer than any goldmine, running through our cities. The equality principle is applied on urban mining in order to simultaneously optimize the economy, the technology used and the environmental conditions in general. Shadow costs are employed to give economic incentives to improve the current urban mining activities. A versatile key factor is introduced that provides management with a tool to immediately obtain a general status report of their urban mining project. A Swedish office block is the object of a case study. Thereby, special focus is on the least important fractions with a positive value from an economic point of view that are intended to be optimized. The introduced approachshows utility and the model for Efficient Use of Resources for Optimal Production Economy (EUROPE) gives reasonable results when applying the equality principle on urban mining business. The major benefit with this study is the introduction of a novel method to improve urban mining projects of all kinds featuring conversion of all technical and environmental aspects of a project into all-embracing monetary measures. It is recommended to apply the equality principle and its mathematical expression, the EUROPE model, on recycling activities in general and particularly on urban mining projects.

The degree of soil contamination in an urban region can be changed by heavy metals. This might result in endangering safety of an urban region. This paper presents an approach to build a prediction model for the assessment of degree of contamination index, based upon heavy metals changes. The heavy metal concentration of Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn, As, Cr and Ni as input was used to build a prediction model for the assessment of degree of contamination. Two prediction models were implemented such as support vector regression (SVR) and k-nearest neighbor regression method (KNNR). A comparison was made between these two models and the results showed the superiority of the SVR model. Furthermore, a case study in Arak, Iran was conducted to illustrate the capability of the support vector machines (SVM) model.

Accurate knowledge about solar radiation in a region is of indispensible significance for sizing, designing and monitoring solar energy systems. In case of inaccessibility to measure solar data, proper solar radiation models may be used. This study aims to present the closeness or the relationship between the predicted and measured values of global horizontal irradiance and direct normal solar irradiance in a solar monitoring station located in National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli. The measured data is promoted under Indo-German Energy programme by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Centre for wind energy technology and federal of German government named GIZ. The data were monitored for the duration of five months from August 2013 to December 2013. The validation is brought out by the significance of the regression coefficient, which approaches to unity declaring the fitness of the model resulting in proposing regression models for the considered region. A statistical approach is also carried out for the validation by the evaluation of mean bias error (MBE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) from the predicted and the model values. Thus the proposed models lead to theoretical assessment of global horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance for a particular location.

Dam embankments are complex geotechnical structures. In design of the earth dams, the finite element method (FEM) is very often used. The FEM is used in analysis of expected displacements, strains, and stresses of the structure caused by changeable loading or boundary conditions. Deformation of an embankment dam starts occurring during the construction of the dam. These deformations are caused by the increase of effective stresses during the construction of the consecutive layers of earth material and also by the effects of creep of material. In this study, Alavian earth dam was selected for stress-strain analysis using Geo Studio software. The settlements from the single layer embankment simulations were compared with the settlements calculated for 3, 7, 10 and 15 soil layers considered in construction processes. Results showed that maximum displacement in single layer dam has happened in the crest of the dam. Increase in embankment layers, resulted in the maximum displacement creation in the middle of the downstream shell. The simulation layers for the construction have little effect on the stresses in the dam; however, that may cause a significant effect on the deformations of the dam.

Effect of NaCl on electricity generation, COD removal, reduction in carbohydrate and starch content in dual chambered, salt bridge Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) employing raw sago-processing wastewater with an organic load of 14,400 mg COD/l as substrate was evaluated. Four dual chambered MFCs were constructed and the study aimed to find out the impact of addition of NaCl which is carried out for effective MFC performance. Isolation and identification of microbes from initial influent and final effluent was performed using serial dilution, spread plate and selective agar techniques. Interestingly, it was found that the MFC in which NaCl was added to its cathode chamber was best in performance compared to other three MFCs, with a maximum voltage of 603mV and current of 6.03mA. It also documented that the maximum COD removal efficiency of 83% with a total reduction of carbohydrate and starch content from the wastewater was obtained. Utilizing sago wastewater for the production of bioelectricity from MFC technique is considered as a feasible and sustainable process.

Building dam is very rapidly developing in Iran; then caring the technical points will help us to maintain their firmness and strength and also use it in suitable manor. One of the problems of soil dams in the world is the seepage and leaking phenomena. The problem of leaking of water and the ways of controlling the leakage in soil dams is one of the most important technical problems in designing, building, well maintaining and use of soil dams. In this analysis, hydraulic circulation in spongy environments and numeral methods of solving equation of water circulation in saturated soils was analyzed and then leakage analysis was performed using mathematical models. Finally, analyzing of applied model was conducted using Flac d, Seep/w2d software. The soil dam of Gotvand Olya was considered as special study and the amounts of leakages in heights of 135, 150, 185, 209, 230, 234 and 244, were analyzed. Data at the height of 135,150,185 were compared. In conclusions using exact tools it was found that the obtained results of Flac2d software was more precise than Seep/w2d software.

Industries such as petroleum refineries continuously generate large volumes of wastewater that contain high concentrations of phenol; therefore wastewater treatment as an integral part of their activities is required. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of rice husk activated carbon in an adsorption column for the treatment of phenolic refinery wastewater. Effects of bed depth (of the obtained rice husk activated carbon) and flow rate (of the waste water) on the sorption of phenol from the waste water were investigated. Column models such as Bed Depth Service Time, Thomas and Yoon Nelson models were employed to analyze the experimental data. The column adsorption experiment attained adsorption capacity of 28mg/g at breakthrough point of 0.5, flow rate of 4.5ml/min and bed depth of 7.5cm. The performance of the column adsorption was affected by bed depth and flow rate and models such as Thomas and Yoon Nelson could be employed in estimation of design parameters and scale-up operations during pilot or full scale application.

In this paper, the feasibility of using a low-cost agricultural waste, Ziziphus nummularia kernel, for the removal of erythrosine toxin color from wastewater that causes inflicts irreparable damage on environmental cycle and human health was investigated. Erythrosine is known as severely pollutant to the aquatic environment. Ziziphus nummularia kernel had no significant application; it was suggested that the Ziziphus nummularia kernel to be used as a natural adsorbent of erythrosine dyes. From the experimental data, the low cost natural adsorption material responded very efficient for the removal of dye. It this work, the effect of pH, contact time, dye concentration, temperature and the amount of adsorbent for the rate of bleaching of the dye were investigated. Application of adsorption models, Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms were evaluated. The adsorption process was in good agreement with Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Result of bleaching erythrosine dyes with concentration of 20 mg L 1 on Ziziphus nummularia kernel sorbent with concentration of 0.1 g L 1 showed 93.7% of dye efficiently removed. The adsorbent capacity 101 mmol of dye g 1 of adsorbent was achieved.

A photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) device is a combined solar thermal device and photovoltaic device in a single unit. The capability of PV/T devices to produce thermal energy and electricity simultaneously bestows them promising market value in near future. The higher specific heat and lower fluctuation during variation irradiance of liquid compared to air make liquid-based devices more advantageous. This study reviews the available literature on flat plate, water-based PV/T collectors, conducts an economic analysis and discusses future development. Detailed analysis of the performance of the device is also included, in terms of thermal, electrical and overall efficiency. Previous experimental work and simulations are also reported, including several selected case studies. Some of the drawbacks need to be solved to make water-based PV/T systems cost effective and ready for the market.

This paper proposes and investigates an improved ejector-absorption refrigeration system for providing the cooling load of an office building. Performance hourly modeling of the system is performed based on modeling the hourly required cooling load and hourly solar insolation rate on July 21 with maximum solar insolation. The results indicate that during the given day thermodynamic coefficient of performance (COPth) and exergetic coefficient of performance (COPexe) increase 150 and 300%, respectively. While, the product cost per exergy unit of the whole system (cPtot) decreases 90%. The results of thermodynamic and thermoeconomic analysis determine effective design parameters on COPth, COPexe and cPtot. Also, single and multiple objectives optimizations are applied to maximize COPs and minimize cPtot. According to the results, the single objective optimization for maximizing COPs increases COPs by about 1.1% and decreases cPtot by about 7.4%. Moreover, single objective optimization for minimizing cPtot results in 2.2 and 11.5% decrease in COPs and cPtot, respectively. Finally, multiple objectives optimization for maximizing COPs and minimizing cPtot simultaneously causes about 1.9% decline in COPs while cPtot decreases 10.9%.

Performance of synthetic organic polymer (polyacrylamide) and natural organic polymers (pectin) as flocculant in coagulation-flocculation treatment will be assessed. Analysis of functional group of organic polymer was done by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy - Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR). Response Surface Methodology - Central Composite Design (RSM-CCD) was used to evaluate the interaction effects of pH, coagulant dose and flocculant dose. The experiment was conducted in lab scale of 500mL of sample textile wastewater with six paddle of conventional jar test. Trimmed Spearman Karber method has been used to estimate median lethal concentration (LC) values and 50 their confidence intervals. The result shows polyacrylamide added in the treatment was the best at optimum pH 5, coagulant dose at 275 mg/ L and flocculant dose at 35 mg/ L with 88 and 80% removal. In contrast, additions of natural organic flocculant only manage to remove 54.2 and 67 % at the optimum pH 5, coagulant and flocculant dosage at 427.4 and 21.9 mg/ L respectively. However, polyacrylamide treatment claimed to be more toxic based on lethal concentration (LC50) at 17 % compare to natural organic flocculant at 34%.

Paper mulberry bio-char produced was characterized and evaluated for heavy metals removal from simulated industrial wastewater in compare to silica powder. The batch adsorption study was conducted under different conditions like, the effects of solution pH, contact time and temperature. The paper mulberry bio-char (PMB) was more effective and exhibited a higher adsorption potential for cadmium, copper, chromium, lead and zinc than commercially available silica powder. Experiments conducted with an initial metal concentration of 50 mg/l at pH 2, 4, 8, 12. Maximum removal of cadmium, copper, chromium, lead and zinc by PMB was higher than silica powder. Contact time of 2, 3, 4 h showed maximum removal of cadmium, copper, chromium, lead and zinc removal for PMB and was found higher than that of silica powder. The thermodynamic parameters such as G°, H° and S° were calculated for predicting the nature of sorption. The results showed that plant-residue bio-char can act as effective alternative sorbent instead of silica powder for the removal of heavy metal ions from industrial wastewater.

Influence of abandoned tin mine on concentrations, accumulation, mobility and distribution of (Fe, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in surface sediments of Sg. Lembing catchments were investigated in this work. Sediment samples were collected within an abandoned mine of Sg. Lembing Kuantan and also at vicinity area. The sequential extraction method was used to extract anthropogenic metals in sediments and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to determine the metal concentrations. Results indicate all metal in easily or freely leachable and exchangeable (ELFE), Acid reduction (AR) and organic oxidation (OO) fractions were higher than ambient concentrations which indicate heavily metals load from ex-mining into surrounding aquatic environments. The sequential extraction results showed Cu and Zn were the highest in EFLE fraction, which means these metals are more capable of leaching and cause adverse effects to aquatic organisms than Fe and Ni. On the other hand, Fe, Cu, Zn and Ni were detected high in OO fraction. Analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) shows that metal concentrations in each fraction were significant varies between stations. Sediment contamination assessment result shows that sediments samples that receive direct acid mine drainage (AMD) water have the highest metals concentrations due to leaching and erosion process.

Propolis is a resin like substance collected from various botanical sources. It is commonly used as a bee product for the enhancement of human health. It is rich in antioxidants due to which their therapeutic value is enhanced. It is well known for the treatment of inflammation, minor burns, wounds, ulcers and certain cancers and also has an excellent anti-microbial activity against different pathogens. These properties majorly are dependent on the floral sources of different geographical areas. Present work investigate on antioxidative and antagonistic activity of ethanol extracted propolis collected from Apis and Trigona species. The antioxidative potential of propolis samples were determined using the Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP), Total Phenolic content (TPC) and antiradical scavenging activity. The results revealed that the 5 and 10% Apis mellifera propolis samples had maximum antioxidative and antagonistic property compared to that of Trigona propolis. From this it is evident that samples collected from Karnataka have the medicinal property; can be used as an alternative medicine for treating the selected pathogens and promoting the use of natural bee products.