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The study aimed to determine Aluminum sludge composition and structure for its valorisation as an alternative natural material for heavy metals removal from wastewater for further reuse as treated water in different applications. The study was conducted to investigate the introduction of Al-bearing sludge composition. The physical and chemical properties were examined using X-ray diffraction tests (XRD), scanning electron microscope tests (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared tests (FTIR), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller tests (BET). Furthermore, the heavy metal concentrations of synthetic wastewater were measured using the spectrophotometry method. The experimental procedure is based on testing different pH limits and amounts of aluminum sludge to find the optimum conditions for copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) removal. The results demonstrated a high removal efficiency where its value reached up to 97.4% and 96.6% for Zn and Cu, respectively, in an acidic medium (pH = 6) using a relatively high amount of sludge (1400 mg). Nevertheless, a low efficiency was obtained in the strongly acidic medium (pH = 4) and a smaller sludge amount of about 480 mg.

A field study was conducted on two texturally different soils to determine the influences of biosolids application on selected soil chemical properties and carbon dioxide fluxes. Two sites, located in Manildra (clay loam) and Grenfell (sandy loam), in Australia, were treated at a single level of 70 Mg ha-1 biosolids. Soil samples were analyzed for SOC fractions, including total organic carbon (TOC), labile, and non-labile carbon contents. The natural abundances of soil δ13C and δ15N were measured as isotopic tracers to fingerprint carbon derived from biosolids. An automated soil respirometer was used to measure in-situ diurnal CO2 fluxes, soil moisture, and temperature. Application of biosolids increased the surface (0-15 cm) soil TOC by > 45% at both sites, which was attributed to the direct contribution from residual carbon in the biosolids and also from the increased biomass production. At both sites application of biosolids increased the non-labile carbon fraction that is stable against microbial decomposition, which indicated the soil carbon sequestration potential of biosolids. Soils amended with biosolids showed depleted δ13C, and enriched δ15N indicating the accumulation of biosolids residual carbon in soils. The in-situ respirometer data demonstrated enhanced CO2 fluxes at the sites treated with biosolids, indicating limited carbon sequestration potential. However, addition of biosolids on both the clay loam and sandy loam soils found to be effective in building SOC than reducing it. Soil temperature and CO2 fluxes, indicating that temperature was more important for microbial degradation of carbon in biosolids than soil moisture.

The basins of the Indus and Ganges rivers cover 2.20 million km2 and are inhabited by more than a billion people. The region is under extreme pressures of population and poverty, unregulated utilization of the resources and low levels of productivity. The needs are: (1) development policies that are regionally differentiated to ensure resource sustainability and high productivity; (2) immediate development and implementation of policies for sound groundwater management and energy use; (3) improvement of the fragile food security and to broaden its base; and (4) policy changes to address land fragmentation and improved infrastructure. Meeting these needs will help to improve productivity, reduce rural poverty and improve overall human development.

A special version of the NOAA HYSPLIT_4 model has been developed and used to estimate the atmospheric fate and transport of mercury in a North American modeling domain. Spatial and chemical interpolation procedures were used to expand the modeling results and provide estimates of the contribution of each source in a 1996 anthropogenic US/Canadian emissions inventory to atmospheric mercury deposition to the Great Lakes. While there are uncertainties in the emissions inventories and ambient data suitable for model evaluation are scarce, model results were found to be reasonably consistent with wet deposition measurements in the Great Lakes region and with independent measurement-based estimates of deposition to Lake Michigan. Sources up to 2000 km from the Great Lakes contributed significant amounts of mercury through atmospheric transport and deposition. While there were significant contributions from incineration and metallurgical sources, coal combustion was generally found to be the largest contributor to atmospheric mercury deposition to the Great Lakes.

Abstract Radioactive liquid waste is often stored in a large capacity (150 m 3 ) horizontal cylindrical tanks. It is necessary to keep the contents of the tank agitated to prevent the settling of fine solids in the tank. In extreme cases, solids settled at the tank base may invoke the system malfunction. This paper deals with the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modeling of the agitation mechanism considering the turbulent dispersion effects. The simulations are conducted on a standard tank geometry to arrive the optimum jet velocity required to suspend the settled solid particles thoroughly. The distribution of volume phase fraction, velocity magnitude, turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) and eddy dissipation of each phase for different inlet jet velocities (v = 10–25 m / s ) have been presented. The spatial variation of these quantities are measured at three different planes in the vessel mainly in the vicinity of the nozzle exit. The results indicate that the jet velocity is a significant parameter that influences the particle suspension. Parametric studies have also been carried out for four different particle sizes, viz. d p = 5, 10, 50 and 100 μ m . The present study revealed that, for the range of parameters covered, the smallest ( d p = 5 μ m ) and the largest ( d p = 100 μ m ) particle sizes has least effect in terms of solids suspension.

This work has been published in Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 215 (2020) 110603 (DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2020.110603). Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) based solar cell technology has experienced rapid development with demonstrated cell efficiency reaching ̴ 9.2% for devices with substrate configuration, hence necessitating more intense research investigation for further progress. Though the effect of crystallographic orientation in this non-cubic material on device performance is now well understood, the influence of composition and intrinsic defects remains debatable. In this work we describe the fabrication and device characteristics of Sb2Se3 solar cells designed in the substrate configuration of (SLG/Mo/Sb2Se3/CdS/i-ZnO+ITO). Notably, Sb2Se3 absorber layers with predominant (hk0) orientation were deposited in a single step by e-beam evaporation of pre synthesized bulk source material. As grown precursor Sb2Se3 thin films were subjected to reactive thermal annealing (RTA) treatment in the presence of Se source at different temperatures for enhancing their crystalline quality and balancing their stoichiometry. Analysis of the completed solar cells indicated improved efficiencies post RTA process, with the best performing devices exhibiting a power conversion efficiency (η) of ~ 4.34% for an absorber annealed at a temperature of 350 °C. The improved efficiency is ascribed to the observed changes in chemical composition of the absorber layer and the possible formation of related beneficial antisite defects. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 712949 (TECNIOspring PLUS)" and the Government of Catalonia's Agency for Business Competitiveness(ACCIÓ). This research was also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under the WINCOST (ENE2016-80788-C5-1-R) project, and by the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF, FEDER Programa Competitivitat de Catalunya 2007-2013). Authors from IREC and the University of Barcelona belong to the SEMS (Solar Energy and Materials Systems) Consolidated Research Group of the 'Generalitat de Catalunya' (Ref. 2017 SGR 862). Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is very well acknowledged for funding the research activities at SRM IST through the project "Development of Lithium Ion Batteries and Computational Studies for Solar Absorber Layers, (Grant No. 31/03/2014-15/PVSE-R&D).

AbstractA metal-organic framework, UiO-66, has been evaluated as adsorbent in a post-combustion vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) process. Equilibrium isotherms of the most relevant gases (CO2 and N2) as well as breakthrough curves measured using synthetic flue gas containing 15 mol% CO2 without and with 9 mol% water vapor are reported. Based on the breakthrough data, a six step one-column VSA cycle is designed and the effects of adsorption and CO2 rinse times used on the CO2 recovery and CO2 purity are examined. With the chosen process configuration and cycle design CO2 purities around 60% and CO2 recoveries up to 70% are achieved. 50 cycle adsorption-desorption experiments show that the cyclic CO2 capacity is reduced by approximately 25% in the presence of water vapor. No reduction in cyclic capacity is observed with increased cycle number; there is rather a slight increase in cyclic capacity with cycle number indicating that a cyclic steady state still not has been reached after 50 cycles.

Pseudomonas sp. AKS2 isolated from soil degrades polyethylene succinate (PES) efficiently in the laboratory. However, this organism may not be able to degrade PES with similar efficiency in a natural habitat. Since in situ remediation is preferred for the effective removal of recalcitrant materials like plastic, in the current study, bioaugmentation potential of this organism was investigated. To investigate the potential of the AKS2 strain to bioaugment the PES-contaminated soil, a microcosm-based study was carried out wherein naturally attenuated, biostimulated, and AKS2-inoculated (bioaugmented) soil samples were examined for their ability to degrade PES. The results showed better degradation of PES by bioaugmented soil than other microcosms. Consistent with it, a higher number of PES-degrading organisms were found in the bioaugmented microcosm. The bioaugmented microcosm also exhibited a higher level of average well color development in BiOLOG ECO plate assay than the other two. The corresponding Shannon-Weaver index and Gini coefficient revealed a higher soil microbial diversity of bioaugmented microcosm than the others. This was further supported by community-level physiological profile of three different microcosms wherein we have observed better utilization of different carbon sources by bioaugmented microcosms. Collectively, these results demonstrate that bioaugmentation of PES-contaminated soil with AKS2 not only enhances polymer degradation but also increases microbial diversity. Bioaugmentation of soil with AKS2 enhances PES degradation without causing damage to soil ecology. Thus, Pseudomonas sp. AKS2 has the potential to be implemented as a useful tool for in situ bioremediation of PES.