An innovative design of septic tank for wastewater treatment and its performance evaluation: An applicable model for developing countries

A study was carried out to evaluate the treatment efficiency of modified model of septic tank(ST)for the treatment of domestic wastewater.The objective was to explore the possibility of increasing the removal efficiency,at household level,thereby reducing cost and treatment burden on city level treatment plants.For this purpose,a bench scale model of ST was prepared and operated continuously for 78 days at different detention times i.e.,48,24 and 12 h and at two reactor temperatures viz.15°C and 25°C.Domestic wastewater was fed to the bench scale ST without pre-settling.Research was conducted under two different arrangements.Firstly,by installing baffles in the bench scale ST(called Run-1 setup),and secondly by installing perforated plates between the baffles(called Run-2 setup).Results demonstrated that Run-2 setup is better than Run-1 setup.Temperature significantly affects the efficiency.Detention time of 24 h was found feasible.Run-2 setup demonstrated a percentage BOD removal of 45%with effluent BOD of 113 mg·L~(-1)at 15°C and 85%removal with effluent BOD of 31 mg·L~(-1)at 25°C.It is concluded that if a modified design of ST using Run-2 setup is provided at household level,the effluent coming out of the house will meet the National Environmental Quality Standards(NEQS)when reactor temperature is close to 25°C.Development authorities are suggested to change their by-laws and make modified ST mandatory for all households.This may significantly reduce the cost and footprint of city level wastewater treatment plants being planned.     

Thermodynamical and catalytic aspects of zinc separation from aqueous solution

The present research work examines extraction mechanism of zinc by D2EHPA (Di-2-ethyl hexyl phosphoric acid) and comprehensively studies the main effective parameters on the process. Results of thermodynamic experiments showed that zinc extraction by D2EHPA was endothermic and spontaneous, and thermodynamic parameters including entropy and enthalpy were+27.37 J·mol^-1·K^-1 and 25.21 kJ·mol^-1, respectively. Gibbs free energy was varied between -7.21 kJ·mol^-1 and -8.41 kJ·mol^-1 with the variation of temperature from 20℃ to 70℃. Solution ionic strength was increased by addition of potassium and lithium sulfate solution while addition of calcium sulfate decreased ionic strength whereby zinc extraction efficiency was also decreased. TBP showed positive synergism at concentration of 5% (v/v) and negative synergism effect at concentrations of 2% and 10%. Simultaneous addition of both TBP and salt caused extraction efficiency to drop significantly and lower both TBP and ionic strength efficiency. Results showed that a continuous addition of TBP tends to effectively improve the zinc extraction efficiency. Experiments in the presence of catalyst Ni-Raney demonstrated that zinc extraction kinetic increases remarkably and due to easy recycling of the catalyst, we can propose a novel idea in solvent extraction field.     

Synthesis and characterization of mesoporous-TiO2 with enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of chloro-phenol

Mesoporous-titania (TiO₂) photocatalysts have been synthesized using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a template in dilute acetic acid aqueous solution by hydrothermal process. The effect of PEG molecular weights and thermal treatment on the resultant structure and photocatalytic activity are investigated. Structural and phase compositional properties of the resultant photocatalysts are characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and nitrogen sorption analysis. When the molecular weights of PEG vary from 600 to 20,000, the particle sizes of mesoporous structure decrease from 15.1 to 13.3 nm and mean pore sizes increase from 6.9 to 10.6 nm. The chemical reactions of the formation of mesoporous-TiO₂ during its synthesis have been proposed and discussed. The activities of mesoporous-TiO₂ photocatalysts are evaluated and compared with Degussa P-25 using chloro-phenol as a testing compound. The reaction mechanism of photodegradation is also described on the basis of high performance liquid chromatography.     

A laboratory study of hot WAG injection into fractured and conventional sand packs

Gas injection is the second largest enhanced oil recovery process,next only to the thermal method used in heavy oil fields.To increase the extent of the reservoir contacted by the injected gas,the gas is generally injected intermittently with water.This mode of injection is called water-alternating-gas(WAG).This study deals with a new immiscible water alternating gas(IWAG) EOR technique,"hot IWAG" which includes combination of thermal,solvent and sweep techniques.In the proposed method CO2 will be superheated above the reservoir temperature and instead of normal temperature water,hot water will be used.Hot CO2 and hot water will be alternatively injected into the sand packs.A laboratory test was conducted on the fractured and conventional sand packs.Slugs of water and CO2 with a low and constant rate were injected into the sand packs alternatively;slug size was 0.05 PV.Recovery from each sand pack was monitored and after that hot water and hot CO2 were injected alternatively under the same conditions and increased oil recovery from each sand pack and breakthrough were measured.Experimental results showed that the injection of hot WAG could significantly recover residual oil after WAG injection in conventional and fractured sand packs.     

Emulsified jet fuel flame characterization with image processing

This work describes a RGB digital image processing approach of emulsified jet fuel flame, which allows the characterization of the combustion phenomenon in the case of new fuels through color chemiluminiscence measurements. By applying RGB techniques, the image processing of the flame reveals useful parameters in an effective and cost-efficient technique for the determination of relevant chemical species, such as CH* and C₂*, equivalence ratio, and temperature estimation.Second generation emulsified aviation fuels containing water-jet fuel have been a challenge for simultaneous thrust augmentation and pollution diminution, with subsequent cost reduction and fossil fuel dependence. Testing new fuels would normally require expensive equipment and reliable investigation techniques, while image processing proved to be a reliable method for the estimation of combustion chemical species and temperature in the case of classic fuels.For the combustion behavior of emulsified jet fuel, a co-annular spray burner was used, allowing the complex investigation with UV-VIS spectrometer and flame photography. RGB image processing techniques showed good agreement with more complicated diagnosis tools, such as spectrometers.     

Estimation of Clark’s Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph Parameters and Development of Direct Surface Runoff Hydrograph

We present a method to estimate Time of Concentration (T _c) and Storage Coefficient (R) to develop Clark’s Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph (CIUH). T _c is estimated from Time Area Diagram of the catchment and R is determined using optimization approach based on Downhill Simplex technique (code written in FORTRAN). Four different objective functions are used in optimization to determine R. The sum of least squares objective function is used in a novel way by relating it to slope of a linear regression best fit line drawn between observed and simulated peak discharge values to find R. Physical parameters (delineation, land slope, stream lengths and associated drainage areas) of the catchment are derived from SPOT satellite imageries of the basin using ERDAS: Arc GIS is used for geographic data processing. Ten randomly selected rainfall–runoff events are used for calibration and five for validation. Using CIUH, a Direct surface runoff hydrograph (DSRH) is developed. Kaha catchment (5,598 km²), part of Indus river system, located in semi-arid region of Pakistan and dominated by hill torrent flows is used to demonstrate the applicability of proposed approach. Model results during validation are very good with model efficiency of more than 95% and root mean square error of less than 6%. Impact of variation in model parameters T _c and R on DSRH is investigated. It is identified that DSRH is more sensitive to R compared to T _c. Relatively equal values of R and T _c reveal that shape of DSRH for a large catchment depends on both runoff diffusion and translation flow effects. The runoff diffusion effect is found to be dominant.     

CO2 separation from the mixture of CO2/H2 using gas hydrates: Experimental and modeling

Hydrate formation is a new technique to separate hydrogen from carbon dioxide. In this way, modeling and prediction of gas hydrate kinetics is very important. Several experiments have been conducted to study the hydrate formation from pure carbon dioxide and mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in a stirred reactor in different temperatures, pressures and compositions. The mass transfer approach model was used to predict the mass transfer coefficient for each experiment, and the dependency of temperature and pressure has been studied. It was observed that the mass transfer coefficient of CO₂ in the mixture is close to the pure system. The result of this work shows that the pure data on the kinetics for CO₂ hydrate formation is applicable for the case of CO₂ separation from the mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.     

An enhanced distributed power control algorithm for mobile femtocells under limited dynamic range and its convergence

This paper presents a distributed power control algorithm for wireless backhaul links of mobile femtocells by using the pilot’s information. Taking into account the limited dynamic range of transmitted powers, the SINR balancing of mobile (vehicular) femto base stations in their home macro base station and the load balancing among the macrocells are achieved by the proposed approach at the cost of exchanging some limited information among both macro and vehicular femto base stations. The algorithm is very beneficial especially in a high load heterogeneous network. Monte Carlo simulation results denote that the mobile femtocells can be uniformly assigned to the macrocells and the SINR balancing is achievable via the proposed scheme.