Iranica Journal of Energy & Environment
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Winter 2011

The study was conducted to estimate the biomass and net primary productivity of different age grouped (5, 10 and 15-year-old) Butea monosperma forest ecosystems in western India, Rajasthan (located between 23°49' to 25°28' N latitudes and 73°0' to 75°49' E longitudes) from June 2007 to May 2008. The vegetation biomass, forest floor biomass, tree litter fall and net primary productivity (NPP) of trees and shrubs were estimated and it is found that the tree biomass and net primary productivity increased with increasing age of the forest stand, whereas the herb biomass and net primary productivity decreased significantly (P < 0.01) with increase in the forest age. The biomass of trees increased with age from 183.7 ± 3.21 to 298.3 ± 3.57 t haG1 while shrub biomass ranged from 4.9 ± 1.61 to 6.3 ± 1.38 t haG1 and the herb biomass fluctuated from 1.7 ± 1.64 to 2.1 ± 1.81. The tree layer NPP varied from 17.2 to 29.3 t haG1 yearG1 where the NPP of the shrub layer was 0.88 to 1.6 t haG1 yearG1. The productivity of the herb layer was fluctuating from 2.3 to 3.1 t haG1 yearG1. The all values of biomass and NPP of trees, shrubs and herbs were low in 5-year-old, moderate in 10-year-old and high in 15-year-old forest stands. The total forest biomass increased from 190.7 t haG1 in the 5-year-old to 306.3 t haG1 15-year-old forest and net primary productivity from 21.1 t haG1 yearG1 in the 5-year-old to 33.2 t haG1 yearG1 in the 15-year-old forest.

The paper describes the effect of temperature, ammonia concentration and feed flow rate on nitrifying treatment of wastewater usage Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for two phase bubbly flow in a split cylindrical airlift reactor with a 0.085 m initiator diameter and 0.505 m height. Superficial gas velocity was used as the operational parameter, air was used as the dispersed phase, and wastewater containing ammonia was used as continuous phase. Temperature enhancement in a constant O and NH concentrations, resulted the 2 4 + increase of reactions rate also NO had an increase of about 3 times as much. By the feed flow rate increase, 2 - O consumption increase and the rate of NO production increase more than NO but decrease the reactions 2 2 3 - - efficiency decrease in a constant time. NH concentration enhancement leads to the increase of O 4 2 + consumption and better reactions efficiency at higher NH concentration, NO concentration increases more. 4 2 + - Modeling results are compared with the experimental data. The CFD modeling results show suitable agreement with the experimental data.

A twelve week feeding trial was carried out in order to assess the effect of feeding poultry hatchery waste on haematological parameters of Clarias gariepinus juveniles as a bioindicator of their health status. A control experiment was set up with fish fed with 37% crude protein. Fish fed with the poultry hatchery waste showed a slight decrease in haematological values of Parked Cell Volume (PCV 0.29±0.01), Haemoglobin (HB,98.66 ±5.13), Red blood cell (RBC,1.83±0.05), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV 161.33±9.291), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (MCH,58.83±2.96), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration MCHC, (33.57±0.65), White Blood Cell (WBC,23.66±2.5) compared to the values of fish fed the control diet, PCV (0.37±0.01), HB (12.33±5.03), RBC (1.9±0.1), MCV (19.66±16.44), MCH (66.14±5.37), MCHC (33.74±1.016) and WBC (22.33±2.51). It is concluded that using poultry hatchery waste as supplementary feed on Clarias gariepinus showed a slight decrease in the haematological parameters but it has no negative impact on the health status of the specie. Therefore direct use of poultry hatchery waste as sole supplementary feed should be encouraged.

Nine bacterial colonies were screened for the Cr(VI) removal efficiency and out of these three bacterial strains Pseudomonas putida, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus sp. were isolated from soil and used to remove Cr(VI) from aqueous solution. The effect of time and concentrations on the removal rate of hexavalent chromium were studied using batch experiment. Maximum Cr (VI) removal was noted 75.0% by Bacillus sp. at 10mg/l, 69.70% by Pseudomonas aeruginosa at 40mg/l and 90.88% by Pseudomonas putida at 10mg/l of synthetic solution, during 96 hours. Among these three bacteria, the maximum Cr(VI) removal was reported by Pseudomonas putida on lower concentration. On the basis of highest removal rate, Pseudomonas putida was selected and used for further chromium removal from samples. It was found to be removed the highest Cr(VI) by 82.92%, from effluent and 74.41% from soil during 96 hours. The present study depicts that bacteria removes chromium efficiently and this could be used for industrial waste management and other environmental contaminants.

This article presents a comprehensive review of the literature that deal with ventilation and cooling technologies applied to agricultural greenhouses. The representative application of each technology as well as its advantages and limitations are discussed. Advance systems employing heat storage in phase change materials, earth-to-air heat exchangers and aquifer-coupled cavity flow heat exchangers have also been discussed. For an agricultural greenhouse equipped with cooling and artificial ventilation system, availability of uninterrupted electric supply is important. To achieve grid independence, dedicated power generation and storage systems need to be integrated with the greenhouse. The relevant literature on such power generation system for greenhouse application has been reviewed and is discussed here. This review concludes by identifying some important areas where further research needs to be undertaken.

In the present study concentrations of 6 trace elements (Mn, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn and Cd) were determined in muscle of Caspian roaches collected from coastal waters of southern part of the Caspian Sea, by flame and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry after microwave digestion. The accuracy of the method was corrected by standard material. The contents of investigated trace metals in fish samples were found to be in the range 16.80-22.40 for zinc, 0.381-2.890 for manganese, 0.28-1.10 for chromium, 0.001-0.765 for copper, <0.001-0.038 for cadmium and <0.001-0.039 for 1ead μg/g dry wt., respectively. In this study, the relationship between the concentration of the elements and biological characteristics has been examined. The significant length and weight dependent relationships were observed for some elements. The results were compared with the literature values. According to the results of this study, the consumption of Caspian roaches were collected from coastal waters of the southern part of Caspian Sea can be safe for human health in spite of possible contamination with heavy metals.

The effect of zinc oxide (ZnO) on tree growth has been extensively investigated in this paper. The fillers are widely added in the insulation partly for reinforcement and also for suppression of tree initiation and their growth. The addition of zinc oxide (ZnO) as a filler into polymer insulation material also shows a non linear effect in dc conductivity when volume fraction of filler is above a certain level. In this work, zinc oxide (ZnO) employed in clear polyester resin as a barrier. High voltage 28kV rms is applied in the form of burst. The growth and nature of tree monitor on polariscope on regular interval. The life time of the specimen was filled with ZnO and ZnO as a barrier, is increased many fold. The results zinc oxide (ZnO) specimens are compared with Aluminium Oxide (Al O) barrier. In the case of Aluminium oxide (Al O) when tree was blocked by the 2 3 2 3 barrier, the branches of the tree become wider because of discharge activity and no such activity was found in the case of zinc oxide (ZnO). Ten specimens of zinc oxide (ZnO) barrier were tested and none of them breakdown.

Sweet sorghum is a rising crop for energy and being considered due to its merits of substituting fossil fuel with the ethanol that is extracted from it. It overcomes many of the shortcomings of other biofuel/energy (food) crops. To produce ethanol only the stalks of sweet sorghum are being used while the grain is saved for food or livestock feed. Also the grain is not in high demand in the global food market and thus has little impact on food prices and food security. Sweet sorghum is grown on already-farmed dry lands that are low in carbon storage capacity, so there are no concerns of clearing of rainforests. Sweet sorghum is easier and cheaper to grow than other biofuel crops and does not require much irrigation, so it is an important consideration in dry areas.

The authors investigated distribution of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in soil profile pits affected by municipal solid wastes in Avu dumpsite in Owerri, Southeastern Nigeria in 2010. Transect soil survey technique was used in aligning profile pits for field studies and sampling. Standard procedures were used in digging, describing and sampling from profile pits. Sieved soil samples were subjected to laboratory analyses and data were analyzed statistically using coefficient of variation measured in percentages. Results showed higher values of % CV in silt and clay contents. Variability of clay increased from dumpsite (CV=43.77 %) to moderately dumped site (CV=62.73%) decreased in slightly dumped side (20.98%). Highest mean values of organic matter (26.8 g/kg) and pH water (5.7) were reported in heavily dumped site. Organic Matter showed very significant positive relationship with Cd (r = 0.92; p = 0.01) and Pb (r=0.97; P = 0.97). There is need to include more soil attributes; results of which should be subjected to multi-variate techniques for more reliability and confidence especially in field applications.

Biodegradation of phenol with mixed consortia of bacterial was studied in an anaerobic batch reactor. The culture was acclimatized for a period of two months to grow in mineral salt medium contained phenol as the sole carbon source. Minimum and maximum concentrations of 50 and 1000 mg/l of phenol in the medium were used for the purpose of culture adaptation. The goals of these experiments were to determine the kinetics of biodegradation by determination of biomass growth rates and phenol concentrations with respect to incubation time. Substrate inhibition kinetics and specific growth rate were defined while data were fitted in Haldane model. The specific growth rate, half-saturation and inhibition coefficients for Haldane model were 0.067 hG1, 25.32 and 200 mg/l, respectively. The biokinetic parameters were used to predict the biodegradation profile, which was quite consistent with the obtained experimental data. The results were useful for the estimation of relations between growth rate and substrate utilization, which may be used to evaluate mass balance for a wastewater treatment plant contained phenol compound.

This paper reviews the status of biomass as a source of household energy and indoor air pollution in Nepal. The current statistics show that about 89% of total energy is consumed in residential sector is largely for cooking and heating purpose. The major sources of residential energy are fuel wood (86.5%), animal dung (6.5%) and agricultural residue (3.7%), which clearly indicates a huge demand for biomass as household energy in the country. Several studies have shown that particulate matter (PM) concentration on 10 cooking place was about 8000 μg/m3 against the national standard of 120 μg/m3 in 24 hours average time. Similarly, the total suspended particle (TSP) was about 8,800 μg/m3 against national standard of 230 μg/m3, 21 ppm of carbon monoxide (CO) against national standard of 9 ppm in 8 hour average was found where biomass was used as fuel. Moreover, these studies have also shown that mortality and morbidity rates among children and women are extremely high due to acute respiratory infection (ARI) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This clearly indicates that the major cause behind it is indoor air pollution.

Textile cardiovascular prostheses are woven or knitted structures made generally from biocompatible polyester fibres. After production, they have to undergo special treatments before packaging such as compaction. This treatment is necessary to reduce porosity especially for knitted structures, but it can modify poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) polymer’s properties. We have studied the effect of chemical and thermal compaction process parameters on physical properties of PET with DSC and XRD techniques. The obtained results show changes of glass transition temperature according to compaction parameters. A multiple melting peaks thermograms were observed for untreated and most compacted samples indicating differences between crystallites sizes. The compaction treatment involves an increase of PET crystallites size because of molecular bonds rearrangement among the polymeric chains. With DRX, we have showed crystallites size increases for compacted samples when compared with untreated samples. This increase is particularly important in perpendicular direction to (010) crystallographic plane.

Protein nannoparticles fabrication as well as characterization have been extensively studied in our previous works as suitable carrier for drug delivery and food science, since they are biodegradable, non-toxic and non antigenic. The objective of the present study was to optimize the fabrication of "-lactalbumin nanoparticle by applying the Taguchi robust method which is a statistical approach to overcome the limitation of the factorial and fractional factorial experiments. The process variables were pH, temprature and agitation speed. The optimal levels of the different factors for the nanoparticle production based on coacervation method were pH 2.5, temperature 50°C and 750 rpm for agitation speed. The nanoparticle size at the determined condition was less than 220 nm. The mechanistic of the optimum conditions for preparing "-lactalbumin nanoparticles and their characterization as a drug delivery vehicles are strongly discussed.

More than half of Catbalogan barangays (villages) are situated along the Maqueda Bay, the primary source of food for Samariños (people of Samar). Sixty percent of these coastal barangays have no direct access to waste disposal facilities such as garbage trucks and landfill. Almost 50% of domestic waste from these barangays is thrown directly to the sea, while 22% partly dispose their waste into Maqueda bay or a total of 7201 kg of waste daily. An improvised 3-dimensional micro-model shows how wastes are transported from one barangay to the other. The waste transport goes beyond barangay boundaries for many of waste travel to the coast of other municipalities and probably to other provinces. Approximately about 33 of fresh wastes float and are transported to other places, most of the remaining waste rot onsite making the site dark, dirty and has foul smell. Waste disposal practices of coastal towns/cities affects each other, therefore proper waste disposal practices must be widely practiced.