scholarly journals Nutrient removal capacity of wood residues for the Agro-environmental safety of ground and surface waters

Author(s):  
Paulo A. Dumont ◽  
David. R. Chadwick ◽  
Steve Robinson

Abstract   The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of wood residues in the removal of nutrients (ammonium-N; NH4-N) from nutrient-rich (NH4-N) waters. The water holding capacity of the wood materials was also determined. Carried out at Rothamsted Research, North Wyke, UK, this controlled laboratory experiment tested two wood residues; in length, one being 1-2cm and the other from 150 µm (microns) to 9.5mm. Although a wide range of studies have shown the effectiveness and performance of various absorbent materials as animal beddings, such as straw (cereal straw), woodchip (sawdust, bark or wood shavings), bracken and rushes, only few have focused on the NH4-N sorption/desorption capacity. The depuration capacity of wood residues from nutrient-rich effluents such as those from cattle bedded on woodchip or straw will be controlled by processes such as sorption (adsorption-absorption) and desorption of nutrients. Studies have reported the nitrogen removal capacity of woodchip materials and biochar from woodchip as well as removal of NH4+-N from domestic and municipal wastewater, farm dirty water, landfill and industry effluents. These studies have observed that the mechanism of removal of nitrogen is by either increasing NO3--N removal form leachate by enhancing N2O losses via denitrification (biochar as carbon source for denitrifiers) or by decreasing NH4+-N in leachate through adsorption to negatively charged sites. Results showed that although the cation exchange capacity (CEC) and surface area (SA) are both fundamental properties of adsorbent materials, no correlation was found with CEC and adsorption or desorption. Nor did changes in pH appear to be sufficiently important to cause changes in CEC. For this reason, osmotic pressure appeared to be a more predominant parameter controlling processes of adsorption and desorption of NH4+-N in both wood residues. Thus, wood residues high in NH4+-N should be avoided, as they could have an opposite effect in the adsorption of nutrients from nutrient-rich effluents. The results also showed that some wood residues (G30) had great capacity to adsorb NH4+-N to levels up to nearly 90% whilst demonstrating low desorption capacity of NH4+-N (less than 1%). These are ideal relevant features for an adsorbent material for the removal of nutrients (or heavy metals) from contaminated waters such us farm o industrial effluents, or for the depuration of eutrophic watercourses. This could help reduce the concentration of farm effluents making them more manageable, subsequently contributing towards the compliance of new environmental regulations. Keywords: nutrients, nitrogen, ground and surface water

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 321-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Gallenkemper ◽  
T. Wintgens ◽  
T. Melin

Endocrine disrupting compounds can affect the hormone system in organisms. A wide range of endocrine disrupters were found in sewage and effluents of municipal wastewater treatment plants. Toxicological evaluations indicate that conventional wastewater treatment plants are not able to remove these substances sufficiently before disposing effluent into the environment. Membrane technology, which is proving to be an effective barrier to these substances, is the subject of this research. Nanofiltration provides high quality permeates in water and wastewater treatment. Eleven different nanofiltration membranes were tested in the laboratory set-up. The observed retention for nonylphenol (NP) and bisphenol A (BPA) ranged between 70% and 100%. The contact angle is an indicator for the hydrophobicity of a membrane, whose influence on the permeability and retention of NP was evident. The retention of BPA was found to be inversely proportional to the membrane permeability.


1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 25-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshimasa Watanabe ◽  
Satoshi Okabe ◽  
Tomochika Arata ◽  
Yuji Haruta

A comprehensive wastewater treatment system that accomplishes oxidation of organic matter, nitrification, and denitrification was developed, and its characteristics and performance were investigated. A municipal wastewater was treated by an up-flow aerated biofilter (UAB), in which biofilms were developed on stainless meshes installed horizontally. This UAB exhibited a great potential ability of oxidation of organic matter, SS stabilization, and nitrification due to a unique aeration mechanism giving high DO concentrations with relatively low aeration rates. Another unique feature of the UAB was that attached biofilms on stainless meshes physically filtered out and/or adsorbed suspended solids in the wastewater in addition to the biological oxidation of organic matter. A stable nitrification could be achieved at HRT=10 hours corresponding to a hydraulic loading of 86 L m−2 d−1 and at a ratio of aeration rate to wastewater flow rate (A/W) of 2, which is considerably low as compared to aeration rates of typical activated sludge systems. This UAB system also could handle relatively high hydraulic loading rates. The UAB used in this study still have enough space to install more stainless meshes so as to reduce hydraulic loading rates resulting in the reduction of HRT and aeration rate, which leads to improvement of the system performance as well as reduction of the running cost.


1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed F. Hamoda ◽  
Ibrahim A. Al-Ghusain

Performance data from a pilot-plant employing the four-stage aerated submerged fixed film (ASFF) process treating domestic wastewater were analyzed to examine the organic removal rates. The process has shown high BOD removal efficiencies (> 90%) over a wide range of hydraulic loading rates (0.04 to 0.68 m3/m2·d). It could also cope with high hydraulic and organic loadings with minimal loss in efficiency due to the large amount of immobilized biomass attained. The organic (BOD and COD) removal rate was influenced by the hydraulic loadings applied, but organic removal rates of up to 104 kg BOD/ m2·d were obtained at a hydraulic loading rate of 0.68 m3/m2·d. A Semi-empirical model for the bio-oxidation of organics in the ASFF process has been formulated and rate constants were calculated based on statistical analysis of pilot-plant data. The relationships obtained are very useful for analyzing the design and performance of the ASFF process and a variety of attached growth processes.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 785
Author(s):  
Chow Shing Shin ◽  
Yu Chia Chang

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 μm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 μm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 ◽  
pp. 247-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Jarvis ◽  
J.E.L. Day ◽  
B. Reed

Animal science research is important in relation to our understanding of animals, their function and performance, and their relationships with their social and physical environments. Animal science research covers a wide range of disciplines and so can lead to the use of a variety of experimental techniques on animals for many different purposes. This has the potential to lead to a multitude of diverse ethical issues. Members of the British Society of Animal Science and authors of papers submitted to the Society for publication come from countries around the world and therefore are subject to differences in legislative requirements and recommendations regarding animal experimentation. These legal requirements, along with the ethical implications of the research must be fully considered before any experimental work is undertaken.


Author(s):  
H. Zimmermann ◽  
R. Gumucio ◽  
K. Katheder ◽  
A. Jula

Performance and aerodynamic aspects of ultra-high bypass ratio ducted engines have been investigated with an emphasis on nozzle aerodynamics. The interference with aircraft aerodynamics could not be covered. Numerical methods were used for aerodynamic investigations of geometrically different aft end configurations for bypass ratios between 12 and 18, this is the optimum range for long missions which will be important for future civil engine applications. Results are presented for a wide range of operating conditions and effects on engine performance are discussed. The limitations for higher bypass ratios than 12 to 18 do not come from nozzle aerodynamics but from installation effects. It is shown that using CFD and performance calculations an improved aerodynamic design can be achieved. Based on existing correlations, for thrust and mass-flow, or using aerodynamic tailoring by CFD and including performance investigations, it is possible to increase the thrust coefficient up to 1%.


SIMULATION ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 93 (5) ◽  
pp. 409-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome A Arokkiam ◽  
Pedro Alvarez ◽  
Xiuchao Wu ◽  
Kenneth N Brown ◽  
Cormac J Sreenan ◽  
...  

10-gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (XG-PON), one of the latest standards of optical access networks, is regarded as one of the key technologies for future Internet access networks. This paper presents the design and evaluation of our XG-PON module for the ns-3 network simulator. This module is designed and implemented with the aim to provide a standards-compliant, configurable, and extensible module that can simulate XG-PON with reasonable speed and support a wide range of research topics. These include analyzing and improving the performance of XG-PON, studying the interactions between XG-PON and the upper-layer protocols, and investigating its integration with various wireless networks. In this paper, we discuss its design principles, describe the implementation details, and present an extensive evaluation on both functionality and performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 600-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Fedorko ◽  
Martin Vasil ◽  
Michaela Bartosova

AbstractIntra-plant transport systems within their operation directly impact on the performance of production systems. For their effective operation, it is, therefore, necessary to realize evaluation of operational performance and effectivity. For the realization of this type of evaluation, in addition to a wide range of sensors that can be difficult for installation and operation, we can also use indirect methods that are equally able to provide reliable operational characteristics. Indirect analytical methods are presented above all by the approach which is based on the use of simulation methods. The method of computer simulation provides a wide range of options for the evaluation of efficiency and performance. The paper describes the use of a simulation model created in the program Tecnomatix Plant Simulation for analyzing the supply of production workplaces within the MilkRun system.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjiv Ramachandran ◽  
George Lesieutre

Particle impact dampers (PIDs) have been shown to be effective in vibration damping. However, our understanding of such dampers is still limited, based on the theoretical models existing today. Predicting the performance of the PID is an important problem, which needs to be investigated more thoroughly. This research seeks to understand the dynamics of a PID as well as those parameters which govern its behavior. The system investigated is a particle impact damper with a ceiling, under the influence of gravity. The base is harmonically excited in the vertical direction. A two-dimensional discrete map is obtained, wherein the variables at one impact uniquely dictate the variables at the next impact. This map is solved using a numerical continuation procedure. Periodic impact motions and “irregular” motions are observed. The effects of various parameters such as the gap clearance, coefficient of restitution, and the base acceleration are analyzed. The dependence of the effective damping loss factor on these parameters is also studied. The loss factor results indicate peak damping for certain combinations of parameters. These combinations of parameters correspond to a region in parameter space where two-impacts-per-cycle motions are observed over a wide range of nondimensional base accelerations. The value of the nondimensional acceleration at which the onset of two-impacts-per-cycle solutions occurs depends on the nondimensional gap clearance and the coefficient of restitution. The range of nondimensional gap clearances over which two-impacts-per-cycle solutions are observed increases as the coefficient of restitution increases. In the regime of two-impacts-per-cycle solutions, the value of nondimensional base acceleration corresponding to onset of these solutions initially decreases and then increases with increasing nondimensional gap clearance. As the two-impacts-per-cycle solutions are associated with high loss factors that are relatively insensitive to changing conditions, they are of great interest to the designer.


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