Effects of Coal and Sewage Sludge Ashes on Macronutrient Content in Maize (Zea mays L.) Grown on Soil Contaminated with Eco-Diesel Oil

Petroleum hydrocarbons, as aggressive components of diesel oils, after migration to the land environment can alter the activity and efficiency of ecosystems. They can also be dangerous to animal and human health. Eco-friendly methods for the reclamation of affected soils is necessary to manage degraded lands. One such method is the use of ashes. The aim of this research was to determine how soil pollution with diesel oil (brand name, Eco-Diesel) affects the chemical composition of maize (Zea mays L.) and whether the application of ash from a combined heat and power plant, as well as from sewage sludge incineration, could reduce the potentially adverse impact of diesel oil on plants. The research results demonstrated that soil contamination with Eco-Diesel oil modified the content of selected macronutrients in the analyzed crop plant. Eco-Diesel oil had a negative effect on maize yield. The highest diesel oil dose in a series without neutralizing substances had a positive effect on the accumulation of most elements, except nitrogen and sodium. Soil enrichment with ash differentiated the content of macronutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, in the aerial biomass of maize. The ashes increased the yield of maize and content of some macronutrients, mainly nitrogen but also calcium, the latter in a series where soil was treated with ash from sewage sludge thermal recycling. Both types of ash also resulted in a decrease in the plant content of phosphorus, while ash from hard coal caused a slight reduction in the content of potassium in maize. Ash of different origins can be an effective solution in the reclamation of degraded soils, which may then be used for growing energy crops.

Review of Top-Down Method to Determine Atmospheric Emissions in Port. Case of Study: Port of Veracruz, Mexico

Indicators of environmental policies in force in Mexico, fossil fuels will continue to be used in industrial sectors, especially marine fuels, such as marine diesel oil, in port systems for some time. Considering this, we have evaluated several methods corresponding to a top-down system for determining fuel consumption and sulfur dioxide atmospheric emissions for the port of Veracruz in 2020 by type of ship on a daily resolution, considering a sulfur content of 0.5% mass by mass in marine fuel. After analyzing seven methods for determining sulfur dioxide atmospheric emission levels, Goldsworthy’s method was found to be the best option to characterize this port. The port system has two maritime zones, one of which is in expansion, which represented 55.66% of fuel consumption and 23.05% of atmospheric emissions according to the typology of vessels. We found that higher fuel consumption corresponded to container vessels, and tanker vessels represented higher atmospheric emission levels in the berthing position. The main differences that we found in the analysis of the seven methods of the top-down system corresponded to the load factor parameter, main and auxiliary engine power, and estimation of fuel consumption by type of vessel.

Simultaneous Experimental Analysis of Oil Content And Molecular Composition of Shale Fractions

The important research content and basis of exploration and development is to evaluate the reservoir property, oil bearing property, fluidity and compressibility of shale reservoir.The key of exploration and development is to evaluate the oil-bearing and fluidity of shale reservoir.In this paper, the "shale oil content and fine components synchronous experimental analysis device" is used. Five temperature ranges of 30 ℃-90 ℃, 90 ℃-150 ℃, 100 ℃- 200 ℃, 150 ℃-250 ℃ and 250 ℃-300 ℃ were adopted. The heating rate of each temperature segment was 25 ℃ / min, and the final temperature was kept constant for 5 min. The oil content of shale (pyrolysis S1) was cut into five fractions.Simultaneous determination of oil content and molecular composition of shale fractions,and the external standard method was used to evaluate the oil content and fluidity.The results show that the five fractions of shale are mainly composed of nC1-nC9 gas, nC10-nC15 gasoline, nC12-nC20 kerosene, nC15-nC22 diesel oil and nC18-nC26 heavy oil of the first member of Qingshangkou formation in Songliao basin.There are differences in the fractionation and oil content characteristics of samples with different maturity in different wells.The parent material, properties and quality of crude oil are reflected in shale. The higher the maturity of shale oil is, the more light components are, the larger the light / heavy ratio parameter value of (gasoline + kerosene + diesel) and heavy oil is, the better the fluidity is, and the easier to exploit effectively.

Innovative Culturomic Approaches and Predictive Functional Metagenomic Analysis: The Isolation of Hydrocarbonoclastic Bacteria with Plant Growth Promoting Capacity

Innovative culturomic approaches were adopted to isolate hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria capable of degrading diesel oil, bitumen and a selection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), e.g., pyrene, anthracene, and dibenzothiophene, from a soil historically contaminated by total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) (10,347 ± 98 mg TPH/kg). The culturomic approach focussed on the isolation of saprophytic microorganisms and specialist bacteria utilising the contaminants as sole carbon sources. Bacterial isolates belonging to Pseudomonas, Arthrobacter, Achromobacter, Bacillus, Lysinibacillus, Microbacterium sps. were isolated for their capacity to utilise diesel oil, bitumen, pyrene, anthracene, dibenzothiphene, and their mixture as sole carbon sources. Pseudomonas, Arthrobacter, Achromobacter and Microbacterium sps. showed plant growth promoting activity, producing indole-3-acetic acid and expressing 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase activity. In parallel to the culturomic approach, in the microbial community of interest, bacterial community metabarcoding and predictive functional metagenomic analysis were adopted to confirm the potentiality of the isolates in terms of their functional representativeness. The combination of isolation and molecular approaches for the characterisation of a TPH contaminated soil microbial community is proposed as an instrument for the construction of an artificial hydrocarbonoclastic microbiota for environmental restoration.

Thermoelectric generation with reduced pollutants made possible by bio-inspired computing

The debate to establish a balance between the generation of electricity and the preservation of the environment is, extraordinarily, important. This article proposes, as a short-term solution, the replacement of diesel oil by natural gas in thermoelectric generation. Natural gas emits 75% less pollutants to the environment than diesel and has a similar energetic efficiency. As a strategy for this replacement to occur safely, the computational modeling was developed in a Bioinspired Computing methodology, called Genetic Algorithm (GA). The GA incorporated all the variables of the electricity and natural gas networks, presented in the mathematical modeling. The result was a significant reduction in the level of pollutants emitted, with high stability in the electrical power system.

Isolation and Characterization of Biosurfactant-producing Alcaligenes sp. YLA11 and its Diesel Degradation Potentials

This study aimed to isolate and identify biosurfactant producing and diesel alkanes degrading bacteria. For this reason, bacteria isolated from the diesel contaminated site were screened for their potential to produce biosurfactants and degrade diesel alkanes. Primary selection of diesel degraders was carried out by using conventional enrichment culture technique where 12 bacterial strains were isolated based on their ability to grow on minimal media supplemented with diesel as sole carbon source, which was followed by qualitative screening methods for potential biosurfactant production. Isolate B11 was the only candidate that shows positive signs for drop collapse, foaming, haemolytic test, oil displacement of more than 22 ± 0.05 mm, and emulsification (E24) of 14 ± 0.30%. The effect of various culture parameters (incubation time, diesel concentration, nitrogen source, pH and temperature) on biodegradation of diesel was evaluated. The optimum incubation time was confirmed to be 120 days for isolates B11, the optimum PH was confirmed as 8.0 for the isolate, Similarly, the optimum temperature was confirmed as 35oC. In addition, diesel oil was used as the sole carbon source for the isolates. The favourable diesel concentration was 12.5 % (v/v) for the isolate. The isolate has shown degradative ability towards Tridecane (C13), dodecane, 2, 6, 10-trimethyl- (C15), Tetradecane (C14), 2,6,10-Trimethyltridecane (C16), Pentadecane (C15). It degraded between 0.27% - 9.65% individual diesel oil alkanes. The strain has exhibited the potential of degrading diesel oil n-alkanes and was identified as Alcaligenes species strain B11 (MZ027604) using the 16S rRNA sequencing.