Development and evaluation of potential functional food biscuits made from White Lupin

Potential functional food bakery products were developed and characterized based on White Lupin (Lupinus albus cv. Nelly) flour. Analytical properties of the seeds resemble to previously described Lupinus species, with significantly high protein content (45%). The high protein and dietetic fiber content of the seeds makes Lupin flour suitable to develop potential functional food products with high nutritional values. Results of the development of sweet biscuits and salty crackers enriched with Lupin flour are presented. Sensory evaluation of the bakery products was carried out by 15 panelists using the nine points hedonic scale. Heat stability of White Lupin proteins were investigated by gel-electrophoretic analysis, White Lupin proteins are quite stable at 140°C, after 35 min heating the biscuits still contain 69% of the original amount of proteins. Baking conditions were optimized also based on gel-electrophoretic experiments, the optimal baking time was 30 min at 140°C. Gluten-free Lupin-based biscuits and crackers were produced by completely omitting wheat flour from the recipes.

Modelling and Analysis of a Solid Waste Composter for Urban Houses

Disposal of waste is an important issue faced by sanitation agencies, especially in India, where the volume of waste generated has been increasing rapidly over the last few years. According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, as of January 2020, 147,613 metric tonnes (MT) of solid waste is generated per day in the country. Part of the waste that is expunged on a daily basis from homes, is food and other kitchen waste, which are biodegradable or compostable. In rural areas, such waste is disposed of in landfills, such that they get decomposed to form compost that is used as manure for crops. But this is not feasible in large cities where empty land, as well as the time required for waste to get converted into compost, is in short supply. Composting is a proven method to reduce the volume of waste, to almost 15-20% of its original amount. Therefore, this work is focused on designing an electric composter that could decompose waste artificially, and is compact, efficient, odourless, and easy to operate. This product can thus manage biodegradable waste at the source of its generation, and effectively supplant the wastebasket in a kitchen by occupying no greater space than the latter. The yield of compost would also provide nutritive natural fertilizer to homes wherein kitchen gardens or terrace farms have been set up, as well as promote the creation of the same wherever space is available. In this paper, the important parameters involved in the design of composter, including geometry parameters and the ones of operational significance such as speed and number of blades of agitator and bin temperature, have been discussed thoroughly, along with providing an understanding of the processes and considerations necessitated.

Electrochemical remediation of wastewater contaminated by phenol

One of the most significant contributors to water contamination is the petroleum sector. Large volumes of refinery effluent contaminated with numerous sorts of contaminants are discharged into water sources, causing substantial environmental harm. As a result, researchers looked at the use of a variety of treatment techniques to mitigate the impacts of refinery effluent. Utilising hybrid electrodes (iron as cathodes, and aluminium as anodes) electrodes, this investigation intends to use the electrocoagulation method to minimised phenol contaminants from refinery effluent. In addition, the influence of experimental parameters such as electrical current density, electrode spacing, and duration of treatment on the elimination of phenols was investigated in this study. To eliminate the phenols from the effluent, batch flow investigations were employed. According to the findings, the electrocoagulation technique decreased the number of phenols in petroleum effluent. The hybrid electrocoagulation unit was able to decrease the phenol content by around 45%. With a current density of 4 mA/cm2 and electrode separation of 2cm, the highest removal efficiency was reached after 110 minutes of treatment. Other experiment factors, such as the original amount of the phenols, must be examined.

Release of Nitrogen from Granulate Mineral and Organic Fertilizers and Its Effect on Selected Chemical Parameters of Soil

The objective of this work was the evaluation of the release patterns of nitrogen from various types of fertilizers and their impact on selected chemical parameters of calcareous soil. Three mineral fertilizers and two organic fertilizers were tested in the laboratory for 35 days. This study showed the rapid release of nitrogen from mineral types. More than 70% of the nitrogen was released from the ammonium granules and 98% from the urea granules. The rate of nitrogen release from pellets of organic origin was much slower than from mineral pellets, the released N was 15–28% of the original amount. Soil pH was altered by incubation. The content of soil N changed significantly due to the incubation of N mineral fertilizers; no changes were observed for organic fertilizers. The EC value of the soil solution was significantly modified under the influence of mineral granules, it reached a maximum of 1147 µS cm−1 on the 10th day, and for organic fertilizers of 944 µS cm−1 on the 35th day. The results of this study characterize each N release pattern, providing data to support a more efficient nutrient management strategy in calcareous soils and the effect of incubated fertilizers on soil chemical parameters.

Status of using rope in purse seine fisheries in Viet Nam

This study is to investigate the status of using rope in purse seine fisheries in Viet Nam based on surveyed data from 13 provinces/cities across country. Statistic data were taken randomly from 30 purse seine samples per each region of North, Middle, and South by pre-designed questionnaire with direct survey method of fishing gears combined with interview with the owners/captains. The results indicated that the initial constructing and annual replacing ropes of purse seine is mainly concentrated in the group of diameters from 10 - 20 mm. Up to 98% of Polypropylene (PP) material is used in Vietnamese purse seine. Float line and lead line are used the most ropes in purse seine. In purse seine fisheries, the annual additional rope is one quarter of the original amount of rope fitted. Purse seine in the Middle and the South is larger than that in the North of Viet Nam. The ratio of lengths between the float line and the lead line among the regions is different. The ratio of the main purse line with the lead line ranges from 1.1 to 1.75. Average life expectancy of main purse line is lowest in rope types of the purse seiners. The characteristics of the fishing grounds are different in these three regions, so the rope of purse seine is also different.

Simulating Soybean–Rice Rotation and Irrigation Strategies in Arkansas, USA Using APEX

With population growth and resource depletion, maximizing the efficiency of soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) and rice (Oryza sativa L.) cropping systems is urgently needed. The goal of this study was to shed light on precise irrigation amounts and optimal agronomic practices via simulating rice–rice and soybean–rice crop rotations in the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model. The APEX model was calibrated using observations from five fields under soybean–rice rotation in Arkansas from 2017 to 2019 and remote sensing leaf area index (LAI) values to assess modeled vegetation growth. Different irrigation practices were assessed, including conventional flooding (CVF), known as cascade, multiple inlet rice irrigation with polypipe (MIRI), and furrow irrigation (FIR). The amount of water used differed between fields, following each field’s measured or estimated input. Moreover, fields were managed with either continuous flooding (CF) or alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation. Two 20-year scenarios were simulated to test yield changes: (1) between rice–rice and soybean–rice rotation and (2) under reduced irrigation amounts. After calibration with crop yield and LAI, the modeled LAI correlated to the observations with R2 values greater than 0.66, and the percent bias (PBIAS) values were within 32%. The PBIAS and percent difference for modeled versus observed yield were within 2.5% for rice and 15% for soybean. Contrary to expectation, the rice–rice and soybean–rice rotation yields were not statistically significant. The results of the reduced irrigation scenario differed by field, but reducing irrigation beyond 20% from the original amount input by the farmers significantly reduced yields in all fields, except for one field that was over-irrigated.

Study of Decomposition of Chemical Warfare Agents using Solid Decontamination Substances

The decontamination of chemical warfare agents is important for the elimination or reduction of the effects of these substances on persons. Solid decontamination (degradation) sorbents that decompose dangerous substances belong among modern decontamination substances. The aim of the study was to design a procedure for monitoring the degradation of chemical warfare agents using such sorbents. The degradation of soman, VX [O-ethyl-S-(diisopropylaminoethyl)methylphosphonothioate] and sulphur mustard (chemical warfare agents) was monitored using FTIR spectrometry with the attenuated total reflection (ATR) technique. During the development and validation of this process, bonds were found in the substance molecule that decomposed and the positions of the absorbance bands corresponded to the vibration of these bonds. The evaluation of the degradation efficiency procedure for sorbents on chemical warfare agents was designed based on this study. We present the result of the measurements graphically as the time dependence of the distributed chemical warfare agent ratio, and the reaction times required to decompose 50% and 90% of the original amount of the substance.

Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Dispersed Oil Sorption by Kapok Fiber

This work was aimed at evaluating the sorption of dispersed oil by kapok fiber. The physicochemical characteristics of kapok fiber were investigated using BET, SEM, FTIR, XRD, contact angle and elemental analysis. The oil droplet size distribution at different temperatures was analysed using a Coulter counter, and its relationship with sorption was investigated. The effects of dosage, hydraulic retention time and temperature, on the sorption performance were studied. The result indicates that the sorption of dispersed oil by kapok fiber is spontaneous, endothermic and agreed with the pseudo-first-order reaction kinetics. The amount of oil that could be removed is about 28.5 %, while that of water is less than 1 % of the original amount (0.5 dm3). Kapok is a promising natural hydrophobic fiber for dispersed oil removal from oily wastewater.

A new discrete multiplicative random cascade model for downscaling intermittent rainfall fields

Spatial downscaling of rainfall fields is a challenging mathematical problem for which many different types of methods have been proposed. One popular solution consists in redistributing rainfall amounts over smaller and smaller scales by means of a discrete multiplicative random cascade (DMRC). This works well for slowly varying, homogeneous rainfall fields but often fails in the presence of intermittency (i.e., large amounts of zero rainfall values). The most common workaround in this case is to use two separate cascade models, one for the occurrence and another for the intensity. In this paper, a new and simpler approach based on the notion of equal-volume areas (EVAs) is proposed. Unlike classical cascades where rainfall amounts are redistributed over grid cells of equal size, the EVA cascade splits grid cells into areas of different sizes, each of them containing exactly half of the original amount of water. The relative areas of the sub-grid cells are determined by drawing random values from a logit-normal cascade generator model with scale and intensity dependent standard deviation. The process ends when the amount of water in each sub-grid cell is smaller than a fixed bucket capacity, at which point the output of the cascade can be re-sampled over a regular Cartesian mesh. The present paper describes the implementation of the EVA cascade model and gives some first results for 100 selected events in the Netherlands. Performance is assessed by comparing the outputs of the EVA model to bilinear interpolation and to a classical DMRC model based on fixed grid cell sizes. Results show that on average, the EVA cascade outperforms the classical method, producing fields with more realistic distributions, small-scale extremes and spatial structures. Improvements are mostly credited to the higher robustness of the EVA model to the presence of intermittency and to the lower variance of its generator. However, improvements are not systematic and both approaches have their advantages and weaknesses. For example, while the classical cascade tends to overestimate small-scale extremes and variability, the EVA model tends to produce fields that are slightly too smooth and blocky compared with observations.

Use of Secondary Crystallization and Fly Ash in Waterproofing Materials to Increase Concrete Resistance to Aggressive Gases and Liquids

This paper describes the use of cement-based waterproofing screed and waterproofing coating, in which 10% of the original amount of cement was replaced by fly ash and 2% of the crystallization admixture was added by weight of cement, as a mean of protection of concrete against aggressive environments. The modified materials were applied to the underlying concrete and subjected to testing of physical and mechanical properties after exposure to effects of aggressive environments for up to 18 months. The results of the analysis have shown that after the application of waterproofing materials, there is a sufficient development of the crystals in the underlying concrete to enhance its durability. Thus, it is possible to use fly ash functionally and efficiently in polymer cement systems as a substitute for the cement together with the crystallization admixture.