Trace elements in world steam coal and their behaviour in Dutch coal-fired power stations: A review

Trace elements associated with the combustion of coal have received more attention recently, as can be seen from the increasing demands laid down in legislation and permits.Knowledge of the trace element content of coal is essential. Coal used in the Netherlands is imported from all over the world. As a consequence, Dutch power stations are designed to burn a wide range of bituminous coals. The largest share nowadays originates from South Africa, Colombia, and Indonesia, with these three countries accounting for more than 85% of the coal fired in the Netherlands in recent years. The coals, as imported in the Netherlands, have been monitored for their (trace) element content. At present the database contains results of own analyses of about 170 coals, originating from 14 different countries. An important uncertainty was the question of how homogeneous the imported lots are. It appears that the lots as imported from overseas are fairly homogeneous.The behaviour and fate of trace elements in coal-fired power stations has been studied in more than 40 mass balance studies since 1977. More than 50 test series have been completed during co-combustion of biomass and waste materials (up to 40% on mass base) since 1993. It has therefore been possible to establish a relationship between (trace) elements in the fuel and the ash, as well as with emissions into the atmosphere.     

The Effelsberg Bonn H I Survey (EBHIS)

The Effelsberg‐Bonn H I survey (EBHIS) comprises an all‐sky survey north of Dec = –5° of the Milky Way and the local volume out to a red‐shift of z ≃ 0.07. Using state of the art Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) spectrometers it is feasible to cover the 100 MHz bandwidth with 16.384 spectral channels. High speed storage of H I spectra allows us to minimize the degradation by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) signals. Regular EBHIS survey observations started during the winter season 2008/2009 after extensive system evaluation and verification tests. Until today, we surveyed about 8000 square degrees, focusing during the first all‐sky coverage of the Sloan‐Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) area and the northern extension of the Magellanic stream. The first whole sky coverage will be finished in 2011. Already this first coverage will reach the same sensitivity level as the Parkes Milky Way (GASS) and extragalactic surveys (HIPASS). EBHIS data will be calibrated, stray‐radiation corrected and freely accessible for the scientific community via a webinterface. In this paper we demonstrate the scientific data quality and explore the expected harvest of this new all‐sky survey (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Origin and mobility of hexavalent chromium in North-Eastern Attica,Greece

An integrated framework that is comprised of field surveys of groundwater, surface water and soils, laboratory process experiments and hydrologic and geochemical modeling is used to identify the origin (anthropogenic versus geogenic sources), fate and transport of hexavalent Cr in Tertiary and Quaternary deposits of Oropos plain in Greece. Groundwater and soils were analyzed in May 2008 and exhibited considerable Cr concentrations. Mineralogical analysis and micro-XRF analysis of the heavy soil fractions (metallic components) showed Cr bearing phases like chromites, Cr-silicate phases with positive correlation between Si, Al, Fe and Cr soil concentrations. Column experiments showed the Cr(VI) desorption ability of soils, e.g. concentration of 20 μg L⁻¹ was detected after the application of 50 mm of rain. The groundwater model simulated the variability of Cr concentrations emanating from both anthropogenic and geogenic sources, successfully using rate constants obtained from the laboratory experiments, e.g. 4.24 nM h⁻¹ for serpentine soil and 0.77 nM h⁻¹ for soil in alluvial deposits. The mineralogical and geochemical results support a geogenic origin for Cr in soils and groundwater of Oropos plain while modeling results suggest that contaminants transported by Asopos River have affected only the upper layers of the subsurface in the vicinity of the river. The framework can be used to establish background concentrations or clean up levels of Cr-contaminated soils and groundwater.     

Wave climatology and extreme value analysis for the Baltic Sea area off the Warnemünde harbour entrance

Ocean Dynamics - A numerical wave model was used to determine the wave climate in the southern Baltic Sea. The basic data derived from wave hindcasts were evaluated statistically. Climate graphs...     

RFI detection by automated feature extraction and statistical analysis

In this paper we present an interference detection toolbox consisting of a high dynamic range Digital Fast‐Fourier‐Transform spectrometer (DFFT, based on FPGA‐technology) and data analysis software for automated radio frequency interference (RFI) detection. The DFFT spectrometer allows high speed data storage of spectra on time scales of less than a second. The high dynamic range of the device assures constant calibration even during extremely powerful RFI events. The software uses an algorithm which performs a two‐dimensional baseline fit in the time‐frequency domain, searching automatically for RFI signals superposed on the spectral data. We demonstrate, that the software operates successfully on computer‐generated RFI data as well as on real DFFT data recorded at the Effelsberg 100‐m telescope. At 21‐cm wavelength RFI signals can be identified down to the 4σ _rms level. A statistical analysis of all RFI events detected in our observational data revealed that: (1) mean signal strength is comparable to the astronomical line emission of the Milky Way, (2) interferences are polarised, (3) electronic devices in the neighbourhood of the telescope contribute significantly to the RFI radiation. We also show that the radiometer equation is no longer fulfilled in presence of RFI signals. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)