Treatability of resin effluents by electrochemical oxidation using batch recirculation reactor

Electro oxidation processes are developed throughout the world for ambient temperature destruction of organic wastes. Several of these processes are based on mediated electrochemical oxidation. This article presents the experimental results of electro chemical study based on mediated electrochemical oxidation process conducted for synthetic organic ion exchange resin materials. Investigation was carried out using the traditional noble metal oxide coated anode, ruthenium oxide-titanium and the mediator used for the experiment was ferrous sulphate, with sodium chloride as supporting electrolyte. The concentration of sodium chloride was maintained at 5, 8, 12 gm/L. The experiment was carried out in batch recirculation reactor with varied current densities for various flow rates. The study highlighted that in batch reactor set up the best effect of total organic content reduction was found to occur at 3.75 A/dm² with flow rate of 20 L/h. The simulated studies were carried out for different volumes of effluent and current densities. A graphical analysis was made between the experimental and simulated values and it was found that both the values are very close.     

Quantification and classification of ship scraping waste at Alang-Sosiya, India

Alang–Sosiya located on the Western Coast of Gulf of Cambay, is the largest ship recycling yard in the world. Every year on average 365 ships having a mean weight (2.10 × 10⁶ ± 7.82 × 10⁵ LDT) are scrapped. This industry generates a huge quantity of solid waste in the form of broken wood, rubber, insulation materials, paper, metals, glass and ceramics, plastics, leather, textiles, food waste, chemicals, paints, thermocol, sponge, ash, oil mixed sponges, miscellaneous combustible and non-combustible. The quantity and composition of solid waste was collected for a period of three months and the average values are presented in this work. Sosiya had the most waste 15.63 kg/m² compared to Alang 10.19 kg/m². The combustible solid waste quantity was around 83.0% of the total solid waste available at the yard, which represents an average weight of 9.807 kg/m²; whereas, non-combustible waste is 1.933 kg/m². There is not much difference between the average of total solid waste calculated from the sampling data (96.71 MT/day) and the data provided by the port authorities (96.8 MT/day).     

Jerdon’s courser habitat analysis using Remote sensing

Jerdon’s courser (Cursorius bitorquatus) considered as lost bird is found in Sri Lankamalleswaram Sanctuary, Cuddapah District, Andhra Pradesh. It is listed in Red data book as endangered bird. Analysis of satellite imagery of 1989, 1996, 1998 and ground information have revealed an improvement of Jerdon courser’s habitat after declaration of area as sanctuary in 1988. Large open grounds show a decrease, white small open grounds surrounded by scrub plants offering protection and food cover increase. Analysis of satellite imagery shows core niche covering 4 x 3 km area and larger area of sanctuary (7.3 x 13.1 km) having various land cover classes. Comparison of satellite imagery from 1989 to 1998 shows degradation of larger area of sanctuary where birds are not seen.     

Electrochemical Degradation of Remazol Black B Dye Effluent

This study focused on the electrochemical degradation of hydrolyzed Remazol Black B (CI Reactive Black 5), a common diazo reactive dye, in aqueous solution. In the presence of various auxiliary dye chemicals, a typical Remazol Black simulated exhausted dyebath liquor was treated electrochemically in various basic electrochemical reactor configurations such as batch, batch recirculation and single pass systems. The effect of current density, supporting electrolyte concentration, electrolysis duration, specific electrode surface and fluid flow rate on pollutant removal and energy consumption performance of the systems was critically evaluated. Batch studies show the following operating parameters, current density: 2.5 A/dm², electrolysis duration: 6 h, and supporting electrolyte concentration: 3 g/L, were optimal for good overall performance of the system. Color removal was complete by 3 h of treatment for all combinations of parameters studied. The pollutant removal performance of the batch recirculation system was found to have improved considerably by increasing the flow rate. Performance of the batch recirculation system was comparatively better than the other rector configurations studied, with respect to capacity utilization and energy consumption.     

VHF radar observations of gravity waves at a low latitude

Wind observations made at Gadanki (13.5°N) by using Indian MST Radar for few days in September, October, December 1995 and January, 1996 have been analyzed to study gravity wave activity in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. Horizontal wind variances have been computed for gravity waves of period (2–6) h from the power spectral density (PSD) spectrum. Exponential curves of the form e^Z/H have been fitted by least squares technique to these variance values to obtain height variations of the irregular winds upto the height of about 15 km, where Z is the height in kilometers. The value of H, the scale height, as determined from curve fitting is found to be less than the theoretical value of scale height of neutral atmosphere in this region, implying that the waves are gaining energy during their passage in the troposphere. In other words, it indicates that the sources of gravity waves are present in the troposphere. The energy densities of gravity wave fluctuations have been computed. Polynomial fits to the observed values show that wave energy density increases in the troposphere, its source region, and then decreases in the lower stratosphere.     

Precipitation climatology over India: validation with observations and reanalysis datasets and spatial trends

Changing rainfall patterns have significant effect on water resources, agriculture output in many countries, especially the country like India where the economy depends on rain-fed agriculture. Rainfall over India has large spatial as well as temporal variability. To understand the variability in rainfall, spatial–temporal analyses of rainfall have been studied by using 107 (1901–2007) years of daily gridded India Meteorological Department (IMD) rainfall datasets. Further, the validation of IMD precipitation data is carried out with different observational and different reanalysis datasets during the period from 1989 to 2007. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project data shows similar features as that of IMD with high degree of comparison, whereas Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation data show similar features but with large differences, especially over northwest, west coast and western Himalayas. Spatially, large deviation is observed in the interior peninsula during the monsoon season with National Aeronautics Space Administration-Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (NASA-MERRA), pre-monsoon with Japanese 25 years Re Analysis (JRA-25), and post-monsoon with climate forecast system reanalysis (CFSR) reanalysis datasets. Among the reanalysis datasets, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) shows good comparison followed by CFSR, NASA-MERRA, and JRA-25. Further, for the first time, with high resolution and long-term IMD data, the spatial distribution of trends is estimated using robust regression analysis technique on the annual and seasonal rainfall data with respect to different regions of India. Significant positive and negative trends are noticed in the whole time series of data during the monsoon season. The northeast and west coast of the Indian region shows significant positive trends and negative trends over western Himalayas and north central Indian region.     

Reliability Based Earthquake Resistant Design for Internal Stability of Reinforced Soil Structures

This paper presents a method to evaluate reliability for internal stability of reinforced soil structures using reliability based design optimization. Using limit equilibrium method and assuming the failure surface to be logarithmic spiral, analysis is conducted to maintain internal stability against both tensile and pullout failure of the reinforcements. Properties of backfill soil and strength of the geosynthetic reinforcement are considered as random variables. For the seismic conditions, reliability indices of all the geosynthetic layers in relation to tension and pullout failure modes are determined for different magnitudes of seismic accelerations both in the horizontal and vertical directions, surcharge load and design strength of the reinforcement. The efforts have been made to obtain the number of layers, pullout length and total length of the reinforcement at each level for the desired target reliability index values against tension and pullout modes of failure. The influence of horizontal and vertical earthquake acceleration, surcharge load, design strength of the reinforcement, coefficient of variation of soil friction angle and design strength of the reinforcement on number of layers, pullout length and total length of the reinforcement needed for the stability at each level is discussed.     

Computation of sliding displacements of bridge abutments by pseudo-dynamic method

The paper focuses on seismic sliding displacement calculations of gravity wall bridge abutments when subjected to passive condition during earthquakes. Pseudo-dynamic approach has been used for the calculation of the passive seismic earth pressure. A novel element of the present investigation is the computation of seismic passive earth pressure coefficients by considering the composite curved rupture surface behind the abutment wall in the framework of limit equilibrium method. Sliding failure along the wall base is considered in the new pseudo-dynamic method. The critical seismic acceleration coefficient for sliding and sliding component of the displacement, resulting from horizontal and vertical sinusoidal ground accelerations, are computed by using Newmark's sliding block method. The effect of sliding on the response of earth structures is evaluated and comparisons are made between sliding displacements calculated using planar and composite failure mechanisms. Results of the comparative study showed that the assumption of planar failure mechanism for rough soil–wall interfaces significantly overestimates the critical seismic accelerations for sliding and underestimates the sliding displacements.     

Estimation of potential energy curves, dissociation energies, franck-condon factors and r-centroids of comet interesting molecules

The experimental potential energy curves for the different electronic states of molecules like CN, CO and CS observed in comets are constructed by using the Rydberg-Klein-Rees method as modified by Vanderslice et al. The ground state dissociation energies are determined by curve fitting technique using the five parameter Hulburt-Hirschfelder (H-H)function. The estimated dissociation energies are 7.63 ± 0.187, 10.95 ±0.224 and 7.27 ± 0.152 eV for CN, CO and CS respectively. These values are in good agreement with the literature values. Estimated dissociation energies of CN, CO and CS are used in the relation given by Gaydon and ionization potentials are evaluated for CO and CS molecules. The estimated ionization potentials are 13.92and 12.15 eV for CO and CS molecules respectively. The r-centroids and Franck-Condon factors (FC Factors) for the band system of a ³Π_r – X¹Σ⁺ (a – X) and A¹Π – X ¹Σ⁺ (A -X) of CN, A ²Π_i – X²Σ⁺ (A – X) and B²Σ⁺-X²Σ⁺ (B – X) of CO and a ³Π_r – X¹Σ⁺ (a – X) of CS molecules have been calculated employing an approximate analytical methods of Jarmain and Fraser and Nicholls and Jarmain. The absence of the bands in these systems are explained. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Integrated Storage and Querying of Spatially Varying Data Quality Information in a Relational Spatial Database

This article investigates a new, integrated technique for storing and retrieving spatially varying data quality information in a relational spatial database. Rather than storing global data quality statements, the system enables data quality information to be referenced to a spatial framework, individual spatial objects, or even parts of spatial objects. The integrated model, called as RDBMS for Spatial Variation in Quality (RSVQ), allows flexible storage of spatially varying data quality information, and seamless querying irrespective of the underlying storage model. RSVQ is founded on a formal model of relational databases, defining a new derived, polymorphic query operator      to join quality data with spatial data. The      operator is implemented in an extension to SQL as a new WITHQUALITY keyword. A performance evaluation of RSVQ was conducted, using an Oracle Spatial database and a case study of cadastral data for parts of Victoria, Australia. The results of this evaluation demonstrated that the system is practical and efficient for a wide range of queries, as well as indicating the performance trade-offs associated with the different data quality storage models. Using the integrated RSVQ approach provides the potential for a single, consistent, database engine for a wide range of existing and proposed spatial data quality management systems.