Search results for: coastal pollution

Authors: Hossein Lotfizadeh, André McDonald, Amit Kumar

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Renewable energy resources, which can supplement space and water heating for residential buildings, can have a noticeable impact on natural gas consumption and air pollution. This study considers a technical analysis of a combined solar water heating system with evacuated tube solar collectors for different solar coverage, ranging from 20% to 100% of the total roof area of a typical residential building located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The alternative heating systems were conventional (non-condensing) and condensing tankless water heaters and condensing boilers that were coupled to solar water heating systems. The performance of the alternative heating systems was compared to a traditional heating system, consisting of a conventional boiler, applied to houses of various gross floor areas. A comparison among the annual natural gas consumption, carbon dioxide (CO₂) mitigation, and emissions for the various house sizes indicated that the combined solar heating system can reduce the natural gas consumption and CO₂ emissions, and increase CO₂ mitigation for all the systems that were studied. The results suggest that solar water heating systems are potentially beneficial for residential heating system applications in terms of energy savings and CO₂ mitigation.

Keywords: CO2 emissions, CO2 mitigation, natural gas consumption, solar water heating system

Procedia PDF Downloads 324

Authors: Ali Reza Sattarzadeh, Ronny J. Kutadinata, Pubudu N. Pathirana, Van Thanh Huynh

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Traffic congestion has become a severe worldwide problem, affecting everyday life, fuel consumption, time, and air pollution. The primary causes of these issues are inadequate transportation infrastructure, poor traffic signal management, and rising population. Traffic flow forecasting is one of the essential and effective methods in urban congestion and traffic management, which has attracted the attention of researchers. With the development of technology, undeniable progress has been achieved in existing methods. However, there is a possibility of improvement in the extraction of temporal and spatial features to determine the importance of traffic flow sequences and extraction features. In the proposed model, we implement the convolutional neural network (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) deep learning models for mining nonlinear correlations and their effectiveness in increasing the accuracy of traffic flow prediction in the real dataset. According to the experiments, the results indicate that implementing Conv-LSTM networks increases the productivity and accuracy of deep learning models for traffic flow prediction.

Keywords: deep learning algorithms, intelligent transportation systems, spatiotemporal features, traffic flow prediction

Procedia PDF Downloads 173

Authors: Adewale Tolulope Irewale, Elias Emeka Elemike, Christian O. Dimkpa, Emeka Emmanuel Oguzie

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As the global population steadily approaches the 10billion mark, the world is currently faced with two major challenges among others – accessing sustainable and clean energy, and food security. Accessing cleaner and sustainable energy sources to drive global economy and technological advancement, and feeding the teeming human population require sustainable, innovative, and smart solutions. To solve the food production problem, producers have relied on fertilizers as a way of improving crop productivity. Commercial inorganic fertilizers, which is employed to boost agricultural food production, however, pose significant ecological sustainability and economic problems including soil and water pollution, reduced input efficiency, development of highly resistant weeds, micronutrient deficiency, soil degradation, and increased soil toxicity. These ecological and sustainability concerns have raised uncertainties about the continued effectiveness of conventional fertilizers. With the application of nanotechnology, plant biomass upcycling offers several advantages in greener energy production and sustainable agriculture through reduction of environmental pollution, increasing soil microbial activity, recycling carbon thereby reducing GHG emission, and so forth. This innovative technology has the potential for a circular economy and creating a sustainable agricultural practice. Nanomaterials have the potential to greatly enhance the quality and nutrient composition of organic biomass which in turn, allows for the conversion of biomass into nanofertilizers that are potentially more efficient. Water hyacinth plant harvested from an inland water at Warri, Delta State Nigeria were air-dried and milled into powder form. The dry biomass were used to prepare biochar at a pre-determined temperature in an oxygen deficient atmosphere. Physicochemical analysis of the resulting biochar was carried out to determine its porosity and general morphology using the Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM). The functional groups (-COOH, -OH, -NH2, -CN, -C=O) were assessed using the Fourier Transform InfraRed Spectroscopy (FTIR) while the heavy metals (Cr, Cu, Fe, Pb, Mg, Mn) were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). Impregnation of the biochar with nanonutrients were achieved under varied conditions of pH, temperature, nanonutrient concentrations and resident time to achieve optimum adsorption. Adsorption and desorption studies were carried out on the resulting nanofertilizer to determine kinetics for the potential nutrients’ bio-availability to plants when used as green fertilizers. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which is an aggressively invasive aquatic plant known for its rapid growth and profusion is being examined in this research to harness its biomass as a sustainable feedstock to formulate functionalized nano-biochar fertilizers, offering various benefits including water hyacinth biomass upcycling, improved nutrient delivery to crops and aquatic ecosystem remediation. Altogether, this work aims to create output values in the three dimensions of environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Keywords: biochar-based nanofertilizers, eichhornia crassipes, greener agriculture, sustainable ecosystem, water hyacinth

Procedia PDF Downloads 65

Authors: Jaqueline Nichi, Leila Da Costa Ferreira, Fabiana Barbi Seleguim, Gabriela Marques Di Giulio, Mariana Barbieri

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The transport sector is responsible for approximately 55% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in addition to pollution and other negative externalities, such as road accidents and congestion, that impact the routine of those who live in large cities. The objective of this article is to discuss the application and use of distinct mobility technologies such as climate adaptation and mitigation measures in the context of smart cities in the Global South. The documentary analysis is associated with 22 semi structured interviews with managers who work with mobility technologies in the public and private sectors and in civil society organizations to explore solutions in multilevel governance for smart and low-carbon mobility based on the case study from the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The hypothesis that innovation and technology to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts are not yet sufficient to make mobility more sustainable has been confirmed. The results indicate four relevant aspects for advancing a climate agenda in smart cities: integrated planning, coproduction of knowledge, experiments in governance, and new means of financing to guarantee the sustainable sociotechnical transition of the sector.

Keywords: urban mobility, climate change, smart cities, multilevel governance

Procedia PDF Downloads 57

Authors: Reem El Chakik

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The levels of heavy metals in agricultural lands in Lebanon have been witnessing a noticeable increase in the past few years, due to increased anthropogenic pollution sources. Heavy metals pose a serious threat to the environment for being non-biodegradable and persistent, accumulating thus to dangerous levels in the soil. Besides the traditional laboratory and chemical analysis methods, Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) has proven its efficiency in the rapid detection of HMs contamination. In Lebanon, a continuous environmental monitoring, including the monitoring of levels of HMs in agricultural soils, is lacking. This is due in part to the high cost of analysis. Hence, this proposed research aims at defining the current national status of HMs contamination in agricultural soil, and to evaluate the effectiveness of using HSI in the detection of HM in contaminated agricultural fields. To achieve the two main objectives of this study, soil samples were collected from different areas throughout the country and were analyzed for HMs using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS). The results were compared to those obtained from the HSI technique that was applied using Hyspex SWIR-384 camera. The results showed that the Lebanese agricultural soils contain high contamination levels of Zn, and that the more clayey the soil is, the lower reflectance it has.

Keywords: agricultural soils in Lebanon, atomic absorption spectrophotometer, hyperspectral imaging., heavy metals contamination

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: Dalal Tarfaoui, Salah Zkim

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Today, environmental sustainability is everyone’s concern as it contributes in many aspects to a country's development. Morocco is also aware of the increasing threats to its natural resources. Accordingly, many projects and research have been discussed pointing mainly to water security, pollution, desertification, and land degradation, but few studies bothered to dig into the human demeanor to disclose its ecological behavior. Human behavior is accountable for environment deterioration in the first place, but we keep fighting the symptoms instead of limiting the root causes. In the conceptual framework highlighted in the present article, semi-structured interviews have been conducted using a grounded theory approach. Initially this study will serve as a pilot study and a cornerstone to approve a bigger project now in progress. Beyond the existing general ecological measures (GEM), this study has chosen the grounded theory approach to bring out firsthand insights, and probe to which extent an ecological dimension exists in Morocco as a developing country. The discourse of the ecological behavior within the Moroccan context is seen in more realist, social, and community philosophy. The study has revealed an appreciative ecological behavior that is unfortunately repressed by variables beyond people’s control, which would prevent the people’s environmental good intentions to be translated into real ecological actions.

Keywords: ecological behavior, ecological dimension, variables beyond people’s control, Morocco

Procedia PDF Downloads 495

Authors: Mohamad Javad Shakouri, Hamid Tavakkolipour, Mahdis Jamshidi Tehranian

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The inclination toward using food coatings is increasing daily, due to containing natural elements and not producing environmental pollution. Food coatings are uniform and thin layers of natural substances that cover the food product and act as a barrier against moisture, oxygen, and substances dissolved in food. Using food coatings on fruits and vegetables can delay water dissipation, losing aroma, decolorization, and improve the appearance of the product, and in general, preserve and protect the quality of fresh produce. When fruits and vegetables grow, they are equipped with a natural shield, called cuticle– a layer of wax. Washing the products, after harvest, the cuticle – this protective coating – is removed. In order to replace the cuticle, we can use an edible protective coating. This coating delays dehydration and deterioration and hence increases the life of the product while keeping its moisture. In this study, it was concluded that using food coatings, such as corn zein, carrageenan, and starch can have a substantial effect on the quantitative and qualitative preservation of food products, such as fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms.

Keywords: food coating, corn zein, button and oyster mushrooms, ascorbic and citric acids

Procedia PDF Downloads 299

Authors: Aicha Assal, El Mostapha Lotfi

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According to data from the Directorate General of Meteorology (DGM), the average amount of precipitation recorded nationwide between September 1, 2021, and January 31, 2022, is 38.8 millimeters. This is well below the climatological normal of 106.8 millimeters for the same period between 1981 and 2010. This situation is becoming increasingly worrying, particularly for farmers who are finding it difficult to irrigate their land and feed their livestock. Drought is greatly influenced by the effects of climate change, mainly caused by pollution and greenhouse gases (GHGs). The aim of this work is to contribute to the purification of wastewater (considered as polluting) in order to reuse it for irrigation in agricultural areas or for livestock watering. This will be achieved once physico-chemical treatment tests on these waters have been carried out and validated. The main parameters analyzed in this study, after carrying out discoloration tests on domestic wastewater, include COD (chemical oxygen demand), BOD5 (biochemical oxygen demand), pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, suspended solids (SS), phosphate, nitrate, nitrite and ammonium ions, faecal and total coliforms, as well as monitoring heavy metal concentrations. This work is also aimed at reclaiming the sludge produced by the decantation process, which will enable the waste to be transformed and reused as compost in agriculture and gardening.

Keywords: wastewater, irrigation, COD, COB, SS

Procedia PDF Downloads 70

Authors: S. Taghvamanesh

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Modern landfills are highly engineered containment systems that are designed to reduce the environmental and human health impacts of solid waste (trash). In modern landfills, waste is contained by a liner system. The primary goal of the liner system is to isolate the landfill contents from the environment, thereby protecting the soil and groundwater from pollution caused by the leachate of a landfill. Landfill leachate is the most serious threat to groundwater. Therefore, it is necessary to design a system that prevents the penetration of this dangerous substance into the environment. These layers are made up of two basic elements: clay and geosynthetics. Hydraulic conductivity and flexibility are two desirable properties of these materials. There are three different types of liner systems that will be discussed in this paper. According to available data, the current article analyzed materials and methods for constructing liner layers made of distinct leachates, including various harmful components and heavy metals from all around the world. Also, this study attempted to gather data on leachates for each of the sites discussed. In conclusion, every landfill requires a specific type of liner, which depends on the type of leachate that it produces daily. It should also be emphasized that, based on available data, this article focused on the number of landfills that each country or continent possesses.

Keywords: landfill, liner layer, impervious layer, barrier layer

Procedia PDF Downloads 81

Authors: Ali Razmi, Saeed Golian

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Climate change is known to have the potential to impact adversely hydrologic patterns for variables such as rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature and sea level rise. Long-term average of these climate variables could possibly change over time due to climate change impacts. In this study, trend analysis was performed on rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature and water level data of a coastal area in Manhattan, New York City, Central Park and Battery Park stations to investigate if there is a significant change in the data mean. Partial Man-Kendall test was used for trend analysis. Frequency analysis was then performed on data using common probability distribution functions such as Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), normal, log-normal and log-Pearson. Goodness of fit tests such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov are used to determine the most appropriate distributions. In flood frequency analysis, rainfall and water level data are often separately investigated. However, in determining flood zones, simultaneous consideration of rainfall and water level in frequency analysis could have considerable effect on floodplain delineation (flood extent and depth). The present study aims to perform flood frequency analysis considering joint probability distribution for rainfall and storm surge. First, correlation between the considered variables was investigated. Joint probability distribution of extreme water level and temperature was also investigated to examine how global warming could affect sea level flooding impacts. Copula functions were fitted to data and joint probability of water level with rainfall and temperature for different recurrence intervals of 2, 5, 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 600 and 1000 was determined and compared with the severity of individual events. Results for trend analysis showed increase in long-term average of data that could be attributed to climate change impacts. GEV distribution was found as the most appropriate function to be fitted to the extreme climate variables. The results for joint probability distribution analysis confirmed the necessity for incorporation of both rainfall and water level data in flood frequency analysis.

Keywords: climate change, climate variables, copula, joint probability

Procedia PDF Downloads 362

Authors: Leila Alidokht

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PFAS (poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances) are a large collection of environmentally persistent organic chemicals of industrial origin that have a negative influence on human health and ecosystems. Many distinct PFAS are being utilized in a wide range of applications (on the order of thousands), and there is no comprehensive source of information on the many different compounds and their roles in diverse applications. Facilities are increasingly looking into ways to reduce waste from cleanup projects. PFAS are widespread in the environment, have been found in a wide range of human biomonitoring investigations, and are a rising source of regulatory concern for federal, state, and local governments. Nanotechnology has the potential to contribute considerably to the creation of a cleaner, greener technologies with considerable environmental and health benefits. Nanotechnology approaches are being studied for their potential to provide pollution management and mitigation options, as well as to increase the effectiveness of standard environmental cleanup procedures. Diversified nanoparticles have shown useful in removing certain pollutants from their original environment, such as sewage spills and landmines. Furthermore, they have a low hazardous effect during production rates and can thus be thoroughly explored in the future to make them more compatible with lower production costs.

Keywords: PFOS, PFOA, PFAS, soil remediation

Procedia PDF Downloads 113

Authors: Tran Thanh Le, Pham Trong Duc

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The fresh groundwater lens of the Pleistocene aquifer in Nam Dinh was formed since 12,900 years ago. Currently, the Pleistocene aquifer has been continuously exploited on average of 154,163m3/day, distributed mainly in the districts of Nghia Hung, Hai Hau, a part of Truc Ninh, Y Yen, Nam Truc and Giao Thuy. The groundwater level is still on a declining trend, saltwater intrusion in this freshwater lens can occur if the growth rate in exploitation is maintained. This study focused on groundwater sustainable use by means of 4 groups of criteria including: Groundwater quality and pollution; Aquifers’ productivity and capacity; Environment impacts due to exploitation (groundwater level decline, land subsidence due to water exploitation); Social and economic impacts. Using a combination of methods including field surveys, geophysics, hydrogeochemistry, isotope and numerical models to determine safe groundwater exploitation thresholds for the whole study area has been determined to be 544,314m3/day and the actual exploitation amount is currently about 30% compared to the safe exploitation threshold. However, it should also be noted that the current groundwater exploitation threshold and level of its exploitation compared to the safe exploitation threshold of each locality are not the same. From this result, the groundwater exploitation threshold map of the study area was established to serve the management, licensing and orientation of groundwater exploitation.

Keywords: criteria, groundwater, fresh groundwater lens, pleistocene, Nam Dinh

Procedia PDF Downloads 159

Authors: Alan Lai, Wilson Yik

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With rapid urbanization, there has been a dramatic increase in global urban population in Asia and over half of population in Asia will live in urban regions in the near future. Facing with increasing exposure to climate-related stresses and shocks, most of the Asian cities will very likely to experience more frequent heat waves and flooding with rising sea levels, particularly the coastal cities will grapple for intense typhoons and storm surges. These climate changes have severe impacts in urban areas at the costs of infrastructure and population, for example, human health, wellbeing and high risks of dengue fever, malaria and diarrheal disease. With the increasing prominence of adaptation to climate changes, there have been changes in corresponding policies. Smaller cities have greater potentials for integrating the concept of resilience into their infrastructure as well as keeping pace with their rapid growths in population. It is therefore important to explore the potentials of Asian cities adapting to climate change and the opportunities of building climate resilience in urban planning and building design. Furthermore, previous studies have mainly attempted at exploiting the potential of resilience on a macro-level within urban planning rather than that on micro-level within the context of individual building. The resilience of individual building as a research field has not yet been much explored. Nonetheless, recent studies define that the resilience of an individual building is the one which is able to respond to physical damage and recover from such damage in a quickly and cost-effectively manner, while maintain its primary functions. There is also a need to develop an assessment tool to evaluate the resilience on building scale which is still largely uninvestigated as it should be regarded as a basic function of a building. Due to the lack of literature reporting metric for assessing building resilience with sustainability, the research will be designed as a case study to provide insight into the issue. The aim of this research project is to encourage and assist in developing neighborhood climate resilience design strategies for Hong Kong so as to bridge the gap between difference scales and that between theory and practice.

Keywords: resilience cities, building resilience, resilient buildings and infrastructure, climate resilience, hot and humid southeast area, high-density cities

Procedia PDF Downloads 165

Authors: M. R. Gholizadeh, N. Bhuiyan, M. Salari

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In the near future, companies will be increasingly forced to shift their activities along a new road in order to decrease the harmful effects of their design, production and after-life on our environment. Products must meet environmental standards to not only prevent penalties but to consider the sustainability for future generations. However, the most important factor that companies will face is selecting a reasonable strategy to maximize their profit. Thus, companies need to have precise forecast from their profit after design stage through Trade-off analysis. This paper is an attempt to introduce a mathematical model that considers effective factors that impact the total profit when products are designed for resource and energy efficiency or recyclability. The modification is according to different strategies based on a Cost-Volume-Profit model. Here, the cost structure consists of Recycling cost, Development cost, Ramp-up cost, Production cost, and Pollution cost. Also, the model shows the effect of implementation of design for recyclable on revenue structure through revenue of used parts and revenue of recycled materials. A numerical example is used to evaluate the proposed model. Results show that fulfillment of Green Product Development not only can reduce the environmental impact of products but also it will increase profit of company in long term.

Keywords: green product, design for environment, C-V-P model, trade-off analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 317

Authors: Pinel Sebastien, Bourrin François, De Madron Du Rieu Xavier, Ludwig Wolfgang, Arnau Pedro

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Heavy precipitation constitutes a major meteorological threat in the western Mediterranean. Research has investigated the relationship between the states of the Mediterranean Sea and the atmosphere with the precipitation for short temporal windows. However, at a larger temporal scale, the precursor signals of heavy rainfall in the sea and atmosphere have drawn little attention. Moreover, despite ongoing improvements in numerical weather prediction, the medium-term forecasting of rainfall events remains a difficult task. Here, we aim to investigate the influence of early-spring environmental parameters on the following autumnal heavy precipitations. Hence, we develop a machine learning model to predict extreme autumnal rainfall with a 6-month lead time over the Spanish Catalan coastal area, based on i) the sea pattern (main current-LPC and Sea Surface Temperature-SST) at the mesoscale scale, ii) 4 European weather teleconnection patterns (NAO, WeMo, SCAND, MO) at synoptic scale, and iii) the hydrological regime of the main local river (Rhône River). The accuracy of the developed model classifier is evaluated via statistical analysis based on classification accuracy, logarithmic and confusion matrix by comparing with rainfall estimates from rain gauges and satellite observations (CHIRPS-2.0). Sensitivity tests are carried out by changing the model configuration, such as sea SST, sea LPC, river regime, and synoptic atmosphere configuration. The sensitivity analysis suggests a negligible influence from the hydrological regime, unlike SST, LPC, and specific teleconnection weather patterns. At last, this study illustrates how public datasets can be integrated into a machine learning model for heavy rainfall prediction and can interest local policies for management purposes.

Keywords: extreme hazards, sensitivity analysis, heavy rainfall, machine learning, sea-atmosphere modeling, precipitation forecasting

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Shashi Arya, Nand L. Singh, Samiksha Singh, Pradeep K. Mishra, Siddh N. Upadhyay

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The enormous generation of E- waste and its recycling have greater environmental concern especially in developing countries like India. A major part of this waste comprises printed circuit boards (PCBs). Edge trims of PCBs have high copper content ranging between 25-60%. The extraction of various metals out of these PCBs is more or less a proven technology, wherein various hazardous chemicals are being used in the resource recovery, resulting into secondary pollution. The current trend of extracting of valuable metals is the utilization of microbial strains to eliminate the problem of a secondary pollutant. Keeping the above context in mind, this work aims at the enhanced recovery of copper from edge trims, through bioleaching using bacterial strain Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. The raw material such as motherboards, hard drives, floppy drives and DVD drives were obtained from the warehouse of the University. More than 90% copper could be extracted through bioleaching using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. Inoculate concentration has merely insignificant effect over copper recovery above 20% inoculate concentration. Higher concentration of inoculation has the only initial advantage up to 2-4 days. The complete recovery has been obtained between 14- 24 days.

Keywords: acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, bioleaching, e-waste, printed circuit boards

Procedia PDF Downloads 333

Authors: Omid Khabiri, Maryam Ghavami

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Buildings designed and built as high performance, sustainable or green are the vanguard in a movement to make buildings more energy efficient and less environmentally harmful. Although Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems offer many opportunities for recovery and re-use of thermal energy; however, the amount of energy used annually by these systems typically ranges from 40 to 60 percent of the overall energy consumption in a building, depending on the building design, function, condition, climate, and the use of renewable energy strategies. HVAC systems may also damage the environment by unnecessary use of non-renewable energy sources, which contribute to environmental pollution, and by creating noise and discharge of contaminated water and air containing chemicals, lubricating oils, refrigerants, heat transfer fluids, and particulate (gases matter). In fact, HVAC systems will significantly impact how “green” a building is, where an efficient HVAC system design can result in considerable energy, emissions and cost savings as well as providing increased user thermal comfort. This paper presents the basic concepts of green building design and discusses the role of efficient HVAC system and practical strategies for ensuring high performance sustainable buildings in design and operation.

Keywords: green building, hvac system, design strategies, high-performance equipment, efficient technologies

Procedia PDF Downloads 577

Authors: Sangram Shamrao Patil, Hara Mohan Jena

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Phthalates are among the most common organic pollutant since they have become widespread in the environment and found in sediments, natural waters, soils, plants, landfill leachates, biota including human tissue and aquatic organisms. Diethyl phthalate (DEP) is a low molecular weight phthalate which has wide applications as plasticizer and become a major cause of environmental pollution. Environmental protection agency (EPA) listed DEP as priority pollutant because of its toxicity and they recommended human health ambient water quality criterion for diethyl phthalate (DEP) as 4 mg/l. Therefore, wastes containing phthalates require proper treatment before being discharged into the environment. Biodegradation is attractive and efficient treatment method as it is cost effective and produces non-toxic end products. In the present study, a DEP degrading aerobic bacterium was isolated from soil contaminated with plastic industry wastewater. Morphological and biochemical characteristics of isolate were performed. 16S rRNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of isolate was carried out and it was identified as Empedobacter brevis. Isolate has been found to tolerate up to 1650 mg/l of DEP. This study will be significant for exploring an application of microbes for remediation of phthalates and development of a suitable bioreactor.

Keywords: diethyl phthalate, plasticizer, pollutant, biodegradation

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Hamid Sharif, Nazish Saleem Abbas, Muhammad Haris Jamil

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Visible light communication is an emerging technology for almost a decade now; there is a growing need for VLC systems to overcome the challenges faced by radio frequency RF communication systems. With the advancement in the development of solid-state sources, in the future would replace incandescent and fluorescent light sources. These solid-state devices are not only to be used for illumination but can also be employed for communication and navigational purposes. The replacement of conventional illumination sources with highly efficient light-emitting diodes (LED's) (generally white light) will reduce energy consumption as well as environmental pollution. White LEDs dissipate very less power as compared to conventional light sources. The use of LED's is not only beneficial in terms of power consumption, but it also has an intrinsic capability for indoor wireless communication as compared to indoor RF communication. It is considerably low in cost to operate than the RF systems such as Wi-Fi routers, allows convenient means of reusing the bandwidth, and there is a huge potential for high data rate transmissions with enhanced data security. This paper provides an overview of some of the current challenges with VLC and proposes a possible solution to deal with these challenges; it also examines some joint protocols to optimize the joint illumination and communication functionality.

Keywords: visible light communication, line of sight, root mean square delay spread, light emitting diodes

Procedia PDF Downloads 72

Authors: Han Longxiang

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In the process of treating industrial oil wastewater with complex components, the traditional treatment methods (flotation, coagulation, microwave heating, etc.) often produce high operating costs, secondary pollution, and other problems. In order to solve these problems, the materials with high flux and stability applied to surfactant-stabilized emulsions separation have gained huge attention in the treatment of oily wastewater. Nevertheless, four stable oil-in-water emulsions can be formed due to different surfactants (surfactant-free, anionic surfactant, cationic surfactant, and non-ionic surfactant), and the previous advanced materials can only separate one or several of them, cannot effectively separate in one step. Herein, a facile synthesis method of graphene-based multilevel filter materials (GMFM) can efficiently separate the oil-in-water emulsions stabilized with different surfactants only through its gravity. The prepared materials with high stability of 20 cycles show a high flux of ~ 5000 L m-2 h-1 with a high separation efficiency of > 99.9 %. GMFM can effectively separate the emulsion stabilized by mixed surfactants and oily wastewater from factories. The results indicate that the GMFM has a wide range of applications in oil-in-water emulsions separation in industry and environmental science.

Keywords: emulsion, filtration, graphene, one-step

Procedia PDF Downloads 82

Authors: I. Nazari, B. Shaabani, P. Abaasifar

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In small quantities certain heavy metals are nutritionally essential for a healthy life. The heavy metals linked most often to human poisoning are lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium. Other heavy metals including copper, zinc and chromium are actually required by the body in small quantity but can also be toxic in large doses. Nowadays, we have contamination to this heavy metals in some untreated industrial waste waters and even in several populated cities drinking waters around the world. The contamination of ground and underground water sources to heavy metals can be concentrated and travel up to food chain by drinking water and agricultural products. In recent years, the need for safe and economical methods for removal of heavy metals from contaminated water has necessitated research interest towards the finding low-cost alternatives. Bio-adsorbents have emerged as low-cost and efficient materials for the removal of heavy metals from waste and ground waters. The bio-adsorbents have an affinity for heavy metals ions to form metal complexes or chelates due to having functional groups including carboxyl, hydroxyl, imidazole, and etc. The objective of this study is to review researches in less expensive adsorbents and their utilization possibilities for various low-cost bio-adsorbents such as coffee beans, rice husk, and saw dust for the removal of heavy metals from contaminated waters.

Keywords: heavy metals, water pollution, bio-adsorbents, low cost adsorbents

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Roya Biabani, Mentore Vaccari, Piero Ferrari

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Accumulated microplastic (MPLs) in soil pose the risk of adsorbing and transporting polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the food chain or bodies. PCBs belong to a class of man-made hydrophobic organic chemicals (HOCs) that are classified as probable human carcinogens and a hazard to biota. Therefore, to take effective action and not aggravate the already recognized problems, the knowledge of PCB remediation in the presence of MPLs needs to be complete. Due to the high efficiency and little secondary pollution production, thermal desorption (TD) has been widely used for processing a variety of pollutants, especially for removing volatile and semi-volatile organic matter from contaminated solids and sediment. This study investigates the fate of PCB compounds during the thermal remediation method. For this, the PCB-contaminated soil was collected from the earth-canal downstream Caffaro S.p.A. chemical factory, which produced PCBs and PCB mixtures between 1930 and 1984. For MPL analysis, MPLs were separated by density separation and oxidation of organic matter. An operational range for the key parameters of thermal desorption processes was experimentally evaluated. Moreover, the temperature treatment characteristics of the PCBs-contaminated soil under anaerobic and aerobic conditions were studied using the Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA).

Keywords: contaminated soils, microplastics, polychlorinated biphenyls, thermal desorption

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: Seyedtaghi Mirmohammadi, Jamshid Yazdani, Syavash Etemadi Nejad

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One of the main indoor air parameters in classrooms is dust pollution and it depends on the particle size and exposure duration. However, there is a lake of data about the exposure level to PM2.5 concentrations in rural area classrooms. The objective of the current study was exposure assessment for PM2.5 for students in the classrooms. One year monitoring was carried out for fifteen schools by time-series sampling to evaluate the indoor air PM2.5 in the rural district of Sari city, Iran. A hygrometer and thermometer were used to measure some psychrometric parameters (temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed) and Real-Time Dust Monitor, (MicroDust Pro, Casella, UK) was used to monitor particulate matters (PM2.5) concentration. The results show the mean indoor PM2.5 concentration in the studied classrooms was 135µg/m3. The regression model indicated that a positive correlation between indoor PM2.5 concentration and relative humidity, also with distance from city center and classroom size. Meanwhile, the regression model revealed that the indoor PM2.5 concentration, the relative humidity, and dry bulb temperature was significant at 0.05, 0.035, and 0.05 levels, respectively. A statistical predictive model was obtained from multiple regressions modeling for indoor PM2.5 concentration and indoor psychrometric parameters conditions.

Keywords: classrooms, concentration, humidity, particulate matters, regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 337

Authors: Mário Silva, Filipa Gomes, Filipa Oliveira, Simone Morais, Cristina Delerue-Matos

Abstract:

Brown seaweeds are abundant in Portuguese coastline and represent an almost unexploited marine economic resource. One of the most common species, easily available for harvesting in the northwest coast, is Saccorhiza polyschides grows in the lowest shore and costal rocky reefs. It is almost exclusively used by local farmers as natural fertilizer, but contains a substantial amount of valuable compounds, particularly alginates, natural biopolymers of high interest for many industrial applications. Alginates are natural polysaccharides present in cell walls of brown seaweed, highly biocompatible, with particular properties that make them of high interest for the food, biotechnology, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. Conventional extraction processes are based on thermal treatment. They are lengthy and consume high amounts of energy and solvents. In recent years, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) has shown enormous potential to overcome major drawbacks that outcome from conventional plant material extraction (thermal and/or solvent based) techniques, being also successfully applied to the extraction of agar, fucoidans and alginates. In the present study, acid pretreatment of brown seaweed Saccorhiza polyschides for subsequent microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) of alginate was optimized. Seaweeds were collected in Northwest Portuguese coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean between May and August, 2014. Experimental design was used to assess the effect of temperature and acid pretreatment time in alginate extraction. Response surface methodology allowed the determination of the optimum MAE conditions: 40 mL of HCl 0.1 M per g of dried seaweed with constant stirring at 20ºC during 14h. Optimal acid pretreatment conditions have enhanced significantly MAE of alginates from Saccorhiza polyschides, thus contributing for the development of a viable, more environmental friendly alternative to conventional processes.

Keywords: acid pretreatment, alginate, brown seaweed, microwave-assisted extraction, response surface methodology

Procedia PDF Downloads 383

Authors: Anusha P. Wijesundara, Dulap I. Rathnayake, Nihal D. Perera

Abstract:

Bathymetric information is fundamental importance to coastal and marine planning and management, nautical navigation, and scientific studies of marine environments. Satellite-derived bathymetry data provide detailed information in areas where conventional sounding data is lacking and conventional surveys are inaccessible. The two empirical approaches of log-linear bathymetric inversion model and non-linear bathymetric inversion model are applied for deriving bathymetry from high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery. This study compares these two approaches by means of geographical error analysis for the site Kankesanturai using WorldView-2 satellite imagery. Based on the Levenberg-Marquardt method calibrated the parameters of non-linear inversion model and the multiple-linear regression model was applied to calibrate the log-linear inversion model. In order to calibrate both models, Single Beam Echo Sounding (SBES) data in this study area were used as reference points. Residuals were calculated as the difference between the derived depth values and the validation echo sounder bathymetry data and the geographical distribution of model residuals was mapped. The spatial autocorrelation was calculated by comparing the performance of the bathymetric models and the results showing the geographic errors for both models. A spatial error model was constructed from the initial bathymetry estimates and the estimates of autocorrelation. This spatial error model is used to generate more reliable estimates of bathymetry by quantifying autocorrelation of model error and incorporating this into an improved regression model. Log-linear model (R²=0.846) performs better than the non- linear model (R²=0.692). Finally, the spatial error models improved bathymetric estimates derived from linear and non-linear models up to R²=0.854 and R²=0.704 respectively. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was calculated for all reference points in various depth ranges. The magnitude of the prediction error increases with depth for both the log-linear and the non-linear inversion models. Overall RMSE for log-linear and the non-linear inversion models were ±1.532 m and ±2.089 m, respectively.

Keywords: log-linear model, multi spectral, residuals, spatial error model

Procedia PDF Downloads 298

Authors: Alireza Yavar, Sukiman Sarmani, Khoo Kok Siong

Abstract:

The residents of villages in Kandal province of Cambodia, because of dietary habits, lifestyle and ecological conditions, are exposed to toxic elements like arsenic (As) and mercury (Hg). For comparison purpose, scalp hair samples of 12-17 school children from three villages of Anglong Romiot (AR), Svay Romiot (SR) and Kampong Kong (KK) in Kandal province of Cambodia were considered using k0- instrumental neutron activation method (k0-INAA). The samples irradiated 6 hours with 750 kW power in Malaysian nuclear agency (MNA) research reactor and subsequently found gamma peaks of radionuclides in samples using HPGe detector. The average values of arsenic and mercury were 0.0 and 3.52 (mg/kg) in AR; 1.88 and 4.26 (mg/kg) in SR; 2.81 and 3.37 (mg/kg) in KK, respectively. The results indicate KK, SR, and AR villages were in high, medium and control level of arsenic pollution, respectively. However, Hg concentration were highest in SR, then KK and AR villages, respectively. The accuracy of the method was assessed by analyzing ERM-DB001-human hair as certified reference materials (CRMs), which experimental result of ERM-DB001 was consistent with certified values. In addition, correlation between As and Hg levels was found by Pearson’s correlation test.

Keywords: Kandal province of Cambodia, k0- instrumental neutron activation method., scalp human hair, arsenic and mercury

Procedia PDF Downloads 99

Authors: Mohamed Alzarug Aburugba, Rashid Mohamed Eltanashi

Abstract:

Rainwater is considered an essential water resource, as it contributes to filling the deficit in water resources, especially in countries that suffer from a scarcity of natural water sources. One of the important issues facing the Water and Gas Services Department at the Libyan Iron and Steel Company is the large loss of quantities of industrial water, both direct and indirect cooling water (DCW, ICW), produced within the company due to leaks in the cooling systems of the factories of the Libyan Iron and Steel Company. These amounts of polluted industrial water leakage are mixed with rainwater collected by stormwater stations (6 stations) in LISCO, which is pumped to the sea through pumps with a very high flow rate, and thus, this will carry a lot of waste, heavy metals, and oils to the sea, which negatively affects marine environmental resources. This paper assesses the environmental impact of the quantities of rainwater and mixed industrial water in stormwater stations in the Libyan Iron and Steel Company and methods of mitigation, treating pollutants and reusing them as industrial water in the production processes of the steel industry.

Keywords: rainwater, mitigation, impact, sewage, heavy metals, assessment, pollution, environment, natural resources, industrial water.

Procedia PDF Downloads 64

Authors: Muhammad Yayat Afianto, Darmawan, Agung Putra Utama, Hari Kushardanto

Abstract:

Fish Forever, Rare’s innovative coastal fisheries program, combined community-based conservation management approach with spatial management to restore and protect Indonesia’s small-scale fisheries by establishing Fishing Managed Access Area. A ‘TURF-Reserve’ is a fishery management approach that positions fishers at the center of fisheries management, empowering them to take care of and make decisions about the future of their fishery. After two years of the program, social marketing campaigns succeeded in changing their behavior by adopting the new conservation behavior. The Pride-TURF-R campaigns developed an overarching hypothesis of impact that captured the knowledge, attitude and behavior changes needed to reduce threats and achieve conservation results. Rare help Batu Belah fishers to develop their group, developed with their roles, sustainable fisheries plan, and the budget plan. On 12th February 2017, the Head of Loka Kawasan Konservasi Perairan Nasional (LKKPN) which is a Technical Implementation Unit for National Marine Conservation Areas directly responsible to the Directorate General for Marine Spatial Management in the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries had signed a Partnership Agreement with the Head of Batu Belah Village to manage a TURF+Reserve area as wide as 909 hectares. The fishers group have been collecting the catch and submitting the report monthly, initiated the installation of the buoy markers for the No Take Zone, and formed the Pokmaswas (community-based surveillance group). Prior to this behavior adoption, they don’t have any fisheries data, no group of fishers, and they have still fishing inside the No Take Zone. This is really a new behavior adoption for them. This paper will show the process and success story of the social marketing campaign to conserve marine habitat in Anambas through Pride-TURF-R program.

Keywords: behavior adoption, community participation, no take zone, pride-TURF-R

Procedia PDF Downloads 272

Authors: Rahul Warmoota, Aditya Bhardwaj, Steffy Angural, Monika Rana, Sunena Jassal, Neena Puri, Naveen Gupta

Abstract:

Seafood processing generates large volumes of waste products such as skin, heads, tails, shells, scales, backbones, etc. Pollution due to conventional methods of seafood waste disposal causes negative implications on the environment, aquatic life, and human health. Moreover, these waste products can be used for the production of high-value products which are still untapped due to inappropriate management. Paenibacillus sp. AD is known to act on chitinolytic and proteinaceous waste and was explored for its potential to degrade various types of seafood waste in solid-state fermentation. Effective degradation of seafood waste generated from a variety of sources such as fish scales, crab shells, prawn shells, and a mixture of such wastes was observed. 30 to 40 percent degradation in terms of decrease in the mass was achieved. Along with the degradation, chitinolytic and proteolytic enzymes were produced, which can have various biotechnological applications. Apart from this, value-added products such as chitin oligosaccharides and peptides of various degrees of polymerization were also produced, which can be used for various therapeutic purposes. Results indicated that Paenibacillus sp. AD can be used for the development of a process for the infield degradation of seafood waste.

Keywords: chitin, chitin-oligosaccharides, chitinase, protease, biodegradation, crab shells, prawn shells, fish scales

Procedia PDF Downloads 98

Authors: Timma Reddy, Srikonda Ramesh

Abstract:

India has been traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters such as Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides. It has become a recurrent phenomenon as observed in last five decades. The survey indicates that about 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclones and 68% of the area is susceptible to drought. Climate change is likely to be perceived through experience of extreme weather events. There is growing societal concern about climate change, given the potential impacts of associated natural hazards such as cyclones, flooding, earthquakes, landslides etc, hence it is essential and crucial to strengthening our settlements to respond to such calamities. So, the research paper focus is to analyze the effective planning strategy/mechanism to integrate disaster mitigation measures in coastal regions in general and Capital Region of Andhra Pradesh in particular. The basic hypothesis is to govern the appropriate special planning considerations would facilitate to have organized way of protective life and properties from natural disasters. And further to integrate the infrastructure planning with conscious direction would provide an effective mitigations measures. It has been planned and analyzed to Vijayawada city with conscious land use planning with reference to space syntax trajectory in accordance to required social infrastructure such as health facilities, institution areas and recreational and other open spaces. It has been identified that the geographically ideal location with reference to the population densities based on GIS tools the properness strategies can be effectively integrated to protect the life and to save the properties by means of reducing the damage/impact of natural disasters in general earth quake/cyclones or floods in particularly.

Keywords: modular, trajectories, social infrastructure, evidence based syntax, drills and equipments, GIS, geographical micro zoning, high resolution satellite image

Procedia PDF Downloads 221