Kaolin was used as an adsorbent to remove toxic graphene oxide (GO) from an aqueous solution. The adsorption properties and mechanism of GO by Kaolin were systematically studied by various characterization techniques and methods. The effects of pH, amount of absorbent, and initial concentration of GO on the adsorption of GO by Kaolin were studied in detail. The results show that the interaction between GO and Kaolin is realized by the O-C=O bond, and the adsorption of GO by Kaolin is a chemical adsorption process. Under the optimized conditions (pH=3, T=303 K, equilibrium time = 6 h, C0 = 60 mg·L-1), the removal rate of GO reached 97.1% (Kaolin=70 mg), and the adsorption capacity reached 45.3 mg·g-1 (Kaolin=50 mg). According to the experimental results, Kaolin may be a promising material, which can effectively eliminate GO from an aqueous solution. The results of this study provide key information about the migration and potential fate of GO in the natural environment.

Order Orthoptera is one of the largest and most important invertebrate groups for environmental monitoring and assessment. Orthoptera faunal composition was carried out at Bharathi Park, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India to evaluate the present status of various species. PAST software was used to perform various statistical analyses to estimate the Orthoptera composition. Overall, 334 individuals belonging to 22 species, 19 genera, 17 tribes under 10 subfamilies, and four families of Orthoptera were recorded. Species richness (59.09%) and species abundance (70.06%) were recorded highest in the Acrididae family followed by Pyrgomorphidae, Tettigoniidae, and Gryllidae. Oedipodinae was the most species-rich (27.27%) and the most abundant subfamily, accounting for 30.24% of the total collected individuals. During the study period, 10 dominant, five intermediate dominance, four incidental, and three rare species were observed. Among these, Spathosternum prasiniferum was found to be the most dominant species (D=18.26) and the least dominant (D = 0.6) species was Euconocephalus pallidus. Based on the principal component analysis, the distribution of species along with the first two PCs (PC1= 33.87% and PC2=28.68%) accounted for the highest variance of the total variances. Cluster analysis showed that Acrotylus humbertianus and Teleogryllus mitratus, Conocephalus maculates and Gryllus bimaculatus Orthopterans were similar to each other. The value of the Shannon diversity index (2.27), Simpson index (0.87), Margalef index (2.2), and α-diversity (5.75) were higher in Acrididae when compared with other families. Value of Evenness (0.93) was highest in Gryllidae. Statistical analysis infers that the richness and abundance percentage of Orthopterans significantly varied between species to species and family to family.

Accurate and fast locating of diseased plants is critical for the sustainability of forest management. Recent developments in computer vision made by deep learning provide a new way for diseased plant detection from images captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). In this paper, we developed an anchor-free detector, an enhanced CenterNet named as Enhanced CenterNet (ECenterNet) model, which significantly improved the overall accuracy over the original CenterNet model without any increase in the running speed or number of parameters. Compared with the original model, in the newly proposed model improvements had been made in the training stage to increase the accuracy of the detector, while procedures in the test stage remained unchanged. Under the hold-out dataset, the proposed model is trained on 5,281 tiles and tested on 3,842 images, the results showed that the overall detection accuracy of ECenterNet reached 54.7% by COCO Challenge metrics (mean average precision (mAP) @[0.5, 0.95]), while mAP accuracy of the original CenterNet was 49.8%. This research indicates that the proposed deep learning detection model provides a better solution for detecting diseased plants from UAV images with high accuracy and real-time speed.

Biodiesel generated from a variety of non-edible feedstocks has gained widespread acceptance as a limited diesel fuel alternative in compression ignition engines. For the reliable implementation of biodiesel in commercial sectors, its effect on engine combustion, emission, and performance needs to be examined experimentally. In this study, 10% (N10) and 20 % (N20) Neem oil methyl ester (NME) blends were tested in a direct injection 4-stroke single-cylinder diesel engine incorporated with 5% and 10% exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). At maximum load conditions, Brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was found highest for N20 by 7.2%, and also Brake specific energy consumption (BSEC) was reduced by 11.4% for N20 as compared to diesel. Meanwhile, the incorporation of EGR deteriorates the performance parameters for the N20 blend. The results of emission analysis showed that oxides of nitrogen (NOx) increased with the addition of biodiesel whereas the addition of EGR diminished the NOx value for both biodiesel blends at all loading conditions. Unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC), Carbon monoxide (CO), and smoke emissions decreased by 40.6%, 31.2%, and 29.6% for the N20 blend respectively at full load when compared to diesel. Interestingly, when EGR was provided, CO, UHC, and smoke density values are increased for both N10 and N20 blends at all loading conditions, however lower than diesel operation.

To explore the mechanical properties of cement-modified iron tailings (CIT) and its adsorption on graphene oxide (GO), the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) tests of CIT with 10% cement were carried out for 7 and 28 days. CIT adsorption of GO was carried out under the conditions of different pH, CIT dosage, and GO initial concentration. The micro characterization of CIT adsorption of GO was carried out by SEM, TEM, AFM, EDS, FT-IR, XRD, and XPS. The results show that: (1) the CIT strength of 28 d curing age is 1202 kPa is twice of 7 d. (2) At the same pH, the GO adsorption effect of CIT at 7 days curing age was better than that at 28 days. When pH is 6, CIT content is 50 mg, and GO initial concentration is 100 mg.L-1, CIT has the best adsorption effect on the GO, and the removal rate reached 93.5%. (3) Through microscopic characterization, it can be concluded that the bound water in the CIT structure and the asymmetric stretching vibration of the O-H bond in hydrated calcium silicate (C-S-H) are the main factors affecting the adsorption of GO. The above research results show that CIT not only has good strength properties but also has good adsorption properties for GO. CIT is a potential environmental treatment material.

In the present study, the treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater was carried out in a sequential batch reactor. A lab-scale column type reactor was fabricated with Perspex material having dimensions of 10 cm diameter, 100 cm height, and an effective volume of 7 liters provided with ports at different levels. The reactor performance was evaluated in terms of COD, BOD, TSS, TKN, and phosphorus removal. The reactor was operated for 432 days; the effectiveness of the reactor is the temperature of wastewater in the reactor. The removal efficiencies of COD and BOD were84% and 80% in the reactor. The maximum TSS removal was around 87% and TKN’s maximum removal efficiency was 61% in aerobic treatment. Phosphorus maximum removal efficiency was around 68%, in the meantime pH and alkalinity were also monitored, and no change in the pH was reported throughout the experiment. On the other hand, an aerobic SBR is also operated using wastewater after the DAF unit. In the same manner, the reactor was operated with initially diluted wastewater (05 times) and kept HRT 8 h. The reactor performance was studied in terms of COD, BOD, TSS, TKN, and phosphorus. The maximum removal efficiencies of COD and BOD were 80% and 81% respectively. The maximum removal efficiencies of TSS, TKN, and Phosphorus were 73%, 81%, and 69% respectively. It is concluded that the removal efficiency of COD was better in the anaerobic process as compared with the aerobic process in addition the generation of methane gas during the degradation of organic matter can be used for operating the aerobic unit by making some necessary arrangements. Besides this, it is also concluded that the removal efficiency of TKN was better in the aerobic process as compared with the anaerobic process. There was a buildup of VSS from 4500 mg.L-1 to 6500 mg.L-1 in the study.

Salinity is a significant ecological element that influences the kind of creatures that reside in a water body. Salinity also determines the types of plants that will grow in a water body or on land that is fed by a water body. Three models were generated using an artificial neural network to estimate the salinity concentrations in the Bhairab River. Different combinations of variables were used to train the model using sample values of temperature, pH, turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC), color, total dissolved solids (TDS), total solids (TS), and suspended solids (SS). The performance of the models was determined using the statistical mechanism root mean square error (RMSE), coefficient of correlation (R), and determination coefficient (DC). ANN-2 model had the best performance which had the input variables electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), and total solids (TS). These three input variables were highly correlated with salinity. The correlation between the observed and the predicted values was also very high, the coefficient of correlation is 0.98 in validation. The RMSE value was very low for the model training and the value reduced even more after validation to 0.58.

The National Railway Master Plan, it is stated that the target of developing the railway network in South Sulawesi Province is to connect areas that have the potential for transporting passengers and goods to support the development of integration between districts. The construction of the railway line has the potential to reduce air quality and health risks to the community around the location. This study aims to assess air quality and its risks during the construction of the railway line from Makassar to Parepare as a reference for environmental management and monitoring plan documents. Air sampling was made using multiple impinger and dust with a hi-volt dust sampler and then analyzed in the laboratory and compared with the Air Pollution Standard Index. Analysis of potential pollutants on health was carried out using the Environmental Health Risk Assessment method. The results showed that the air quality at the time of the study was still below the threshold value, and the environmental health risk assessment was still below the value with RQ > 0.1 except for SO2 in adults. The conclusion of the study shows that the air quality at the time of the construction of the railway line is still relatively good, and environmental management and monitoring have been carried out quite well based on the direction of the environmental management and monitoring plan including implementing a green open space management program.

The fundamental purpose of this study was to evaluate the technical feasibility of incorporating fly ash (FA) and dyeing sludge (DS) in the production of brick. An attempt was taken to replace 10% to 100% clay by DS and FA in brick-making by volume. A brick firing kiln was used to burn the uniform-shaped bricks after replacing clay with DS and FA. Size and shape, hardness, soundness, water absorption, efflorescence, dry density, loss of ignition, firing shrinkage, specific gravity, compressive strength, and leaching tests were carried out to study the properties of these bricks. The compressive strength of the brink ranged from 6.25 MPa to 0.33 MPa and indicates a decreasing pattern in strength with the increase in the volume of DS and FA. Only 18.8% water absorption capacity was found in control bricks without DS and FA, while a maximum absorption of 40.19% was found for a particular combination of DS and FA. Similarly, dry density decreased with the increase in the volume of DS and FA. Besides, efflorescence in bricks was found within the allowable limits for certain combinations of DS and FA, which exceeded the allowable limits for other combinations. The presence of heavy metals (Ni, Zn, Cr, Cu, and Pb) in the extraction solution was insignificant. Based on the results of this study, we recommend that up to 10% clay can be substituted with DS and FA without substantially affecting the quality of bricks.

The MEWOU river, which crosses the town of Bafoussam, is one of the main sources of drinking water and irrigation for the populations who live there. It is subject to intense agricultural and industrial activity all along its banks. Soap and refined oil factories generate pollution in the form of liquid effluents which are discharged without any form of treatment. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of soap factory effluent discharges on the quality of the surrounding water. In total, seven samples were analyzed during March, April, and May of the year 2021. The results we obtained were analyzed according to the regulatory requirements recommended by the Directives for the quality of drinking water and the Algerian standard relating to the limit values of the physico-chemical parameters. The results we obtained showed signs of significant pollution in particular: chemical oxygen demand (COD: 125.32-959 mg.L-1), 5 days-biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5: 23-99 mg.L-1 ), turbidity (2-520 NTU), TDS (130-13430 mg.L-1), Nitrite (4.96-21327.44 mg.L-1) and many other parameters greatly exceed those required by the international standard, we also noted strong pollution with heavy metals: chromium (35.76-1381.08 mg.L-1), lead (0.21 - 2.49 mg.L-1), iron (0.28- 17.82 mg.L-1), and cadmium (0.03-0.19 mg.L-1) which are above the values prescribed by the WHO. These highly polluted effluents released into the natural environment are harmful to the environment, biodiversity, and human health. This state of affairs requires urgent intervention to preserve the ecological balance. Otherwise, it can constitute a risk for public health in the short term by deteriorating the quality of the underground reservoir known as the main source of water supply for neighboring populations.