The detection of the pharmaceutical compounds used in human and veterinary medicine is in several environmental matrices (surface waters, effluents, groundwater, soils, and sediments), and such presence promotes the r...The detection of the pharmaceutical compounds used in human and veterinary medicine is in several environmental matrices (surface waters, effluents, groundwater, soils, and sediments), and such presence promotes the resistance bacteria development, making them ineffective in some diseases treatment. The research project promotes the TiO<sub>2</sub> synthesis using yeast culture as biotemplate, the step followed by the microstructure characterization with surface area enhancement;such properties are responsible for the improvement of solar photodecomposition processes of the veterinary antibiotic oxytetracycline. In such simple and standard process conditions the system reaches about 84% of removal percentage with a better agreement with the pseudo-first-order with the Pearson coefficient in the range from 0.82 to 0.94 and <em>K</em><sub>1</sub> = 0.035 M<sup><span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="white-space:nowrap;">−</span></span>1</sup><span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="white-space:nowrap;">∙</span></span>s<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="font-size:10px;"><sup>−<span style="white-space:normal;">1</span></sup></span></span>. The degradation rate constant increased with the increasing initial Yeast-TiO<sub>2</sub> dosage until the maximum mass of 0.1 g or with the decreasing of initial oxytetracycline concentration. The solar light used as a sustainable irradiation source is abundant and low cost in tropical countries, perfect to be applied in water treatment to decompose the pharmaceuticals pollutants, as the veterinarian antibiotics. The study demonstrates that solar photodecomposition is an efficient treatment technology for the removal of antibiotics from polluted water and provides insightful information on the potential practical application of this technology to treat contaminated water, possibly also in rural, distant areas.展开更多
Water has always been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans and is essential to the survival of all known organisms. Over large parts of the world, humans have inadequate access to drinking water and use wa...Water has always been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans and is essential to the survival of all known organisms. Over large parts of the world, humans have inadequate access to drinking water and use water contaminated with disease vectors, pathogens or unacceptable levels of toxins or suspended solids. Drinking such water or using it in food preparation leads to widespread, acute and chronic illnesses and is a major cause of death and misery in many countries. The UN estimates that over 2.0 billion people have limited access to safe water and nearly 800 million people lack even the most basic supply of clean water. The main issue is the affordability of water purifying systems. Many people rely on boiling water or bottled water, which can be expensive. Therefore, technologies that are cost effective, sustainable, ease of operation/maintenance and the treatment processes with locally available materials are required. In this article, some unique low-cost sustainable technologies available/or in-use, i.e. natural filtration, riverbank filtration, biosand filtration, membrane filtration, solar water disinfection technique, biologically degradable materials such as moringa powder, scallop powder treatment, and biosand pitcher treatments have been discussed.展开更多
Trees create microclimate under their crowns in comparison to the outside ambient atmospheric temperature. Sun is the pivotal source of radiant energy reaching the earth atmosphere of which heat is more important than...Trees create microclimate under their crowns in comparison to the outside ambient atmospheric temperature. Sun is the pivotal source of radiant energy reaching the earth atmosphere of which heat is more important than light. The radiant energy reaches the ground without any barricade whereas the tree crown impedes it in reaching the earth’s surface. During the day, when insolation impinges on tree crown, a portion of it is reflected back to the space, other portion is absorbed by the canopy increasing the temperature of leaves and the remaining part reaches the ground penetrating through the crown. Thus, a significant coolness is experienced under the shade of trees in comparison to open sunshine, with qualitative variations. The cooling produced by trees under their shades varies with species to species due to variation in several anatomical, structural and physiological attributes of the species. Climate is changing more rapidly prominently due to human activities especially indiscriminate felling of trees and it is feared that it will create problems on availability of energy, water and food security. Economic value takes over ecological benefits in selection of species in plantation programmes and this might have been due to the lack of scientific data about varying effectiveness of ecological services bestowed by different species. In the present study, an endeavor has been made to understand as to how a tree is integrated to the effects on atmosphere and responses to changing conditions with respect to differential cooling produced by five selected forestry tree species belonging to different categories. Analysis of data has come out with gradation of the sample species in respect to their cooling effect in the atmosphere in terms of yearly, quarterly, monthly and diurnal basis.展开更多
文摘The detection of the pharmaceutical compounds used in human and veterinary medicine is in several environmental matrices (surface waters, effluents, groundwater, soils, and sediments), and such presence promotes the resistance bacteria development, making them ineffective in some diseases treatment. The research project promotes the TiO<sub>2</sub> synthesis using yeast culture as biotemplate, the step followed by the microstructure characterization with surface area enhancement;such properties are responsible for the improvement of solar photodecomposition processes of the veterinary antibiotic oxytetracycline. In such simple and standard process conditions the system reaches about 84% of removal percentage with a better agreement with the pseudo-first-order with the Pearson coefficient in the range from 0.82 to 0.94 and <em>K</em><sub>1</sub> = 0.035 M<sup><span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="white-space:nowrap;">−</span></span>1</sup><span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="white-space:nowrap;">∙</span></span>s<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><span style="font-size:10px;"><sup>−<span style="white-space:normal;">1</span></sup></span></span>. The degradation rate constant increased with the increasing initial Yeast-TiO<sub>2</sub> dosage until the maximum mass of 0.1 g or with the decreasing of initial oxytetracycline concentration. The solar light used as a sustainable irradiation source is abundant and low cost in tropical countries, perfect to be applied in water treatment to decompose the pharmaceuticals pollutants, as the veterinarian antibiotics. The study demonstrates that solar photodecomposition is an efficient treatment technology for the removal of antibiotics from polluted water and provides insightful information on the potential practical application of this technology to treat contaminated water, possibly also in rural, distant areas.
文摘Water has always been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans and is essential to the survival of all known organisms. Over large parts of the world, humans have inadequate access to drinking water and use water contaminated with disease vectors, pathogens or unacceptable levels of toxins or suspended solids. Drinking such water or using it in food preparation leads to widespread, acute and chronic illnesses and is a major cause of death and misery in many countries. The UN estimates that over 2.0 billion people have limited access to safe water and nearly 800 million people lack even the most basic supply of clean water. The main issue is the affordability of water purifying systems. Many people rely on boiling water or bottled water, which can be expensive. Therefore, technologies that are cost effective, sustainable, ease of operation/maintenance and the treatment processes with locally available materials are required. In this article, some unique low-cost sustainable technologies available/or in-use, i.e. natural filtration, riverbank filtration, biosand filtration, membrane filtration, solar water disinfection technique, biologically degradable materials such as moringa powder, scallop powder treatment, and biosand pitcher treatments have been discussed.
文摘Trees create microclimate under their crowns in comparison to the outside ambient atmospheric temperature. Sun is the pivotal source of radiant energy reaching the earth atmosphere of which heat is more important than light. The radiant energy reaches the ground without any barricade whereas the tree crown impedes it in reaching the earth’s surface. During the day, when insolation impinges on tree crown, a portion of it is reflected back to the space, other portion is absorbed by the canopy increasing the temperature of leaves and the remaining part reaches the ground penetrating through the crown. Thus, a significant coolness is experienced under the shade of trees in comparison to open sunshine, with qualitative variations. The cooling produced by trees under their shades varies with species to species due to variation in several anatomical, structural and physiological attributes of the species. Climate is changing more rapidly prominently due to human activities especially indiscriminate felling of trees and it is feared that it will create problems on availability of energy, water and food security. Economic value takes over ecological benefits in selection of species in plantation programmes and this might have been due to the lack of scientific data about varying effectiveness of ecological services bestowed by different species. In the present study, an endeavor has been made to understand as to how a tree is integrated to the effects on atmosphere and responses to changing conditions with respect to differential cooling produced by five selected forestry tree species belonging to different categories. Analysis of data has come out with gradation of the sample species in respect to their cooling effect in the atmosphere in terms of yearly, quarterly, monthly and diurnal basis.