Preparation of façade panels based on alkali-activated waste mineral wool,their characterization,and durability aspects

Mineral wool is a widely used insulation material and one of the largest components of construction and demolition waste, yet it mainly ends up in landfills. In this work, we explored the potential recycling of waste stone wool in the pilot production of alkali-activated façade panels. The current work shows mechanical properties, SEM-EDS, and mercury intrusion porosimetry analyses for three different mix designs used for the preparation of façade panels. They are all composed of waste stone wool and differ in the amount of co-binders (local slag, lime, metakaolin, and/or fly ash) selected by the preliminary studies. In this study, co-binders were added to increase early strength and improve the mechanical properties and freeze–thaw resistance. The mechanical properties of each were measured up to 256 days, different durability tests were executed, and, by evaluating the mechanical properties, microstructure, and workability of the mortar, the most suitable mix was selected to be used for the pilot production. In addition, the leaching test of the selected mixture showed no exceeded toxic trace elements and therefore got classified as non-hazardous waste after its use.     

Mercury species, mass flows and processes in a cement plant

The aim of the study was to evaluate the behaviour of mercury in the cement clinker production process. Simultaneous measurements of mercury in all important materials and gas streams were performed in three sampling periods on about 300 solid samples and about 80 samples taken from gas streams. Mercury species in flue gases at characteristic parts of the process were measured as total Hg(t), particulate Hg(p), elemental Hg⁰(g) and reactive Hg²⁺(g) mercury. Based on the results of measurements, mercury mass flows and mass balances of the whole and in certain parts of the process were evaluated. It was shown that the process comprises many mercury cycles which are strongly dependent on the operating conditions and technological specifics. Cycling of mercury causes a significant enrichment of mercury inside the process. In the annual mercury input of about 27 kg, raw materials accounted near by 60% and fuels about 40% (i.e. petrol coke 31%, waste tyres 10% and waste oil 0.4%). The annual emission of mercury represented 40-70% of the inputs, while cement clinker only contained about 10%. The difference between inputs and outputs (11-45%) obtained in the annual mass balance could be assigned to mercury recycling and significant enrichment inside the process, as well as variability between spot measurements. The parts of the process with the highest mercury mass flows and the lowest material/gas flows were identified. Such points represent an opportunity to remove a significant amount of mercury from the process at low material flows and to improve mercury control. Mercury was mainly emitted in gaseous form with 92% (direct mode) or 89% (combined mode) as Hg(g) on average, of which about 2/3 was as Hg²⁺(g), and about 1/3 as Hg⁰(g). Only a small part (the rest) was emitted as particulate Hg(p). Shares of individual mercury species in the last sampling period were 65.7% Hg²⁺(g), 34.0% Hg⁰(g) and 0.3% Hg(p) on average. Ratios between individual mercury forms were found to be related to operating modes. The quantities of Hg(t), Hg(g) and Hg²⁺(g) emitted were higher when operating with the raw mills off (direct mode). It was seen that the efficiency of Hg removal was strongly related to the dust removal efficiency. Bag filters very efficiently removed all mercury species.     

Target-atom inner-shell vacancy distributions created in collisions with heavy ion projectiles

A model of the evolution of Cu atom inner-shell electron configurations was developed in order to establish the relationship between the original populations created in K-vacancy producing collisions with fast heavy-ion projectiles and those that exist at the time of Cu K and Kβ X-ray emission. The model takes into account multi-step vacancy rearrangement processes that may occur prior to K X-ray emission. An iterative procedure is employed in which a set of trial parameters that define the original inner-shell population distributions are varied to obtain satisfactory agreement of the calculated K satellite relative intensities and energies, as well as the overall intensity ratio of Kβ satellites to K satellites, with the experimental data. In addition to deducing the properties of the original L- and M-shell population distribution, this procedure also provides the average value of the fluorescence yield for conversion between X-ray and K-vacancy production cross sections.     

Architecture of the Mobile Environment for Intelligent Genetic Search and Proxy Caching

As the number of documents and servers on Internet grows with the enormous speed, it becomes necessary to design efficient algorithms and tools for search and retrieval of documents. Also, the number of accesses to servers on Internet constantly grows. Congestion of servers and links can be alleviated using proxy caches. Latency on Web can be reduced using prefetching and caching. Efficient search of documents can be done with improved genetic algorithm that exploits the principles of temporal and spatial locality. Mobile agents can be used to optimize network traffic for distributed applications. This paper describes several existing solutions to the problem and discusses the implementation of Java distributed object application for experimenting with genetic search and proxy caching algorithms for Internet.     

Operation of the ATLAS muon drift-tube chambers at high background rates and in magnetic fields

In the ATLAS muon spectrometer, large drift-tube chambers are used for precision tracking. The chambers will be operated at a high neutron and /spl gamma/ background resulting in count rates of up to 500 Hz cm/sup -2/ corresponding to 300 kHz per tube. The spatial resolution of the drift tubes is degraded from 82 /spl mu/m without background to 108 /spl mu/m at 500 Hz cm/sup -2/ background count rate. Due to afterpulsing in the Ar/CO/sub 2/ gas mixture used in the drift tubes, ionizing radiation causes more than one hit in a tube within the maximum drift time of about 800 ns which is expected for magnetic field strengths around 1.2 T. In order to limit the count rate, the drift tubes are read out with an artificial dead time of 790 ns which causes an efficiency loss of 23% at a rate of 300 kHz per tube. The space-to-drift-time relationship of the tubes varies with background rate, temperature, and magnetic field strength. The mean magnetic field strength in a muon chamber is 0.4 T on the average, but may vary by up to 0.4 T within a chamber. The space-to-drift-time relationship must therefore be determined in short time intervals with an accuracy better than 20 /spl mu/m using muon tracks and applying corrections for measured magnetic field variations.     

Modeling dye degradation kinetic using dark- and photo-Fenton type processes

Dark- and photo-Fenton type processes, Fe²⁺/H₂O₂, Fe³⁺/H₂O₂, Fe⁰/H₂O₂, UV/Fe²⁺/H₂O₂, UV/Fe³⁺/H₂O₂ and UV/Fe⁰/H₂O₂, were applied for the treatment of model colored wastewater containing two reactive dyes, C.I. Reactive Blue 49 and C.I. Reactive Blue 137, and degradation kinetics were compared. Dye degradation was monitored by the means of UV/VIS, adsorbable organic halides (AOX) and total organic carbon (TOC) analysis, thus determining decolorization and dechlorination of triazine structure, as well as mineralization of model colored wastewater. Both dark- and photo-Fenton type processes were proven to be very efficient for color removal; ≥98% was achieved in all cases. Significant improvements in the mineralization of studied dyes were achieved by the assistance of UV light, as it was expected. It was demonstrated that the degradation kinetic of applied dyes depended on the presence of UV light, as well as type of iron catalyst and dye structure. On bases of the obtained experimental results, the mathematical models were developed describing dye degradation kinetics in all studied systems. Since UV light was used in order to enhance the efficiency of dark-Fenton type processes, mathematical model describing dye degradation by UV photolysis providing the values of quantum yields for each of the dye was developed and incorporated in model for photo-Fenton type processes. A sensitivity analysis for the evaluation of importance of each reaction used in mathematical models was also performed.     

Biomonitoring of mercury in polluted coastal area using transplanted mussels

The Kastela Bay is heavily polluted with inorganic mercury originated from direct discharges from the chlor-alkali plant, which operated in the period from 1950 to 1990. Even though the plant was closed 15 years ago, elevated levels of total mercury are still evident in surface sediments of the bay. In order to assess the availability of remobilized mercury to marine organisms, cultured mussels (M. galloprovincialis) were transplanted from pristine area to Kastela Bay, in the period from September 2000 to March 2001. Mussel samples were collected for the analysis of THg and MeHg in whole soft tissue, gills and digestive gland. Surface sediments and suspended matter were collected for the analysis of THg. Digestive gland was the target organ for the accumulation of THg, while concentrations of MeHg were similar in all analyzed tissues. The percentage of MeHg in mussel tissues (4-27%) was characteristic for the areas contaminated with inorganic mercury. A significant negative correlation was observed between the THg concentration in the tissues and the percentage of MeHg. Concentrations of THg in mussel tissues, which were decreasing from the source of contamination in an anticlockwise direction towards the exit of the bay, were significantly positively correlated to THg content in sediment and suspended particles. Spatial distribution of mercury species (THg and MeHg) in different environmental compartments was in accordance with the prevailing circulation in the bay. Data obtained through 6 months of biomonitoring experiment indicated that digestive gland was more sensitive indicator of THg concentrations in the environment than the whole organism or gills. As for MeHg, all tissues were equally suitable as biomonitors of MeHg concentrations in the environment.     

Contribution to flashover modelling: Development of a validated numerical model for ignition of non-contiguous wood samples

A computational model of flashover is presented that closely follows the experimental setup at CNRS-ENSMA-Poitiers. A propane burner with thermal power of 55 kW is used as a primary source of fire and square beech wood samples (30 mm×30 mm×5 mm) as fire spread targets. The computational model describes the wood pyrolysis with a progress variable. Using the conservation of heat fluxes at the solid–gas interface, the thermal diffusion in the wood samples is coupled with the convective and the radiative heat transfer in the ambient gas phase. The incoming heat flux at the upper surface of the wood samples reaches values between 20 and 30 kW/m². With the ignition and subsequent combustion of the pyrolysis volatiles, the heat flux increases by approx. 12 kW/m². The results show that the ignition of the wood samples is triggered at an approx. surface temperature of 650 K. Due to large local variations in incident heat flux, significant differences in the ignition times of the wood samples are observed. The comparison of the calculated and the experimentally measured temperature shows a good agreement for the first wood sample and the model predicts the ignition time very well. But for the second and the third wood samples the model overpredicts the temperature, which leads to a premature ignition of these wood samples.     

Uranium doping and thermal neutron irradiation flux pinning effects in MgB/sub 2/

The U/n method is a well-established means of improving flux pinning and critical current performance in cuprate superconductors. The method involves the doping of the superconductor with /sup 235/U followed by irradiation with thermal neutrons to promote fission. The resultant columnar damage tracks produced by the energetic fission products pin flux vortices and improve critical current performance in magnetic fields. No such improvement could be observed when the U/n method was applied to the MgB/sub 2/ superconductor. No fission tracks could be observed in TEM, even for samples that were irradiated at the highest fluence. Gamma-ray spectroscopy indicated that fission had occurred in the expected way. The likely resistance of MgB/sub 2/ to the formation of fission tracks is highly relevant to attempts to improve flux pinning and superconducting performance in this material through the introduction of columnar defects.