Iranica Journal of Energy and Environment (IJEE)

104-116

Authors: Jan Stenis,, Viatcheslav Moutavtchi, William Hogland

A cost structure is proposed for evaluating and improving the ecological-economic efficiency of baling sub-scheme units within solid waste management schemes that end with, for example, incineration for heat and power production. The methodology proposed employs the previously introduced WAste Managements’ Efficient Decision model (WAMED) and the COmpany STatistical BUSiness Tool forEnvironmental Recovery indicator (COSTBUSTER). The previously introduced equality principle and the Efficient Use of Resources for Optimal Production Economy (EUROPE) model are applied so to in monetary terms express the emissions in case of bale related fire (sol), pollutions from leachate (liq) and odour (g) at a scheme. Previously, the EUROPE model has been applied to residuals from producing industry, the construction sector and whole landfills. A case study presents the practical application of the proposedmethodology. It is concluded that the presented novel methodology for evaluation and improvement of the ecological-economic efficiency of solid waste baling management schemes simultaneously decreases thenegative impact on the environment and the health of the population, provides the foundation of an investment appraisal support tool for the implementation of solid waste management projects and enables comparative analysis of estimated, actual and prevented monetary damages from the implementation of baling plant units.

122-127

Authors: C.M. Idigbor, S.U. Onwudike,, C.S. Elemike,, C. Ehumadu,, E.U. Onweremadu,, B.U. Dike

We investigated some geotechnical properties of soils of Port Harcourt in 2009 under three land use types, namely mechanically cleared land, on-going building constructions and fallow land. A combination of target and random soil survey techniques guided field studies. Five soil samples were collected in each land use, giving a total of 15 soil samples which were air-dried and sieved. These soil samples were subjected to routine laboratory analysis and resulting data were analyzed statistically using means and correlation analysis. Soils were sandy, of slight to neutral acidity (pH = 5.9-7.6). Disturbed soils were older (silt-clay ratio= 0.13- water 0.50) when compared with fallow having a mean value of 2.1. Plasticity index values were low (< 35%) and differed due to the land use: 11.63% (building site), 12.29% (mechanically cleared land) and 14.57% (fallow). There was low colloidal activity: 0.36 (building site), 0.40 (fallow) and 0.41 (mechanically cleared land). Highest recorded maximum dry density was found in building site (2.03 Mg mG3), while 24.87% optimum moisture content was obtained in fallow soils. Plasticity index showed good relationships with moisture, clay and colloidal activity in the study sites.

133-144

Authors: Rachida Bouhlila, Moncef Gueddari, Mouna Ketata-Rokbani,

Groundwater is the most important natural resource required for drinking to many people around the world, especially in rural areas. The resource cannot be optimally used and sustained unless the quality of groundwater is assessed. Positioned in Enfidha City-in northeastern Tunisia, the watershed of El Khairat stretches geographically from 40.07° to 40.36° North latitude; and from 8.56° to 9.02° East Longitude. In this region, El Khairat aquifer is the most important groundwater aquiferous system which is considered a major source for drinking and irrigation. In Tunisia, since the quantity and the quality of water available for different uses is variable from one place to another, groundwater quality in El Khairat deep aquifer was evaluated for its suitability for drinking purposes. To this end, an attempt has been made for the first time in order to determine spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters and to identify places with the best quality for drinkingwithin the study area based on: (1) an integrated analysis of physical-chemical parameters, (2) use of Geographical Information System and (3) Water Quality Index calculation. The physico-chemical results were compared to the standard guideline values as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking and public health in order to have an overview of the present groundwater quality. According to the overall assessment of the basin, almost all the parameters analyzed are above the desirable limits of WHO. Using GIS contouring methods with Arcview 3.2a, spatial distribution maps of pH, TDS, EC, TH, Cl, HCO , SO4, 3NO3, Ca, Mg, Na and K, have been created. An interpolation technique, ordinary Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), was used to obtain the spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters. The spatial analysis of groundwater quality patterns of the study area shows that the TDS value increases from north-west to southeastfollowing the general trend of the Khairat aquifer flow direction. The spatial distribution map of TH shows that a majority of the groundwater samples falls in the very hard category. WQI was used to assess the suitability of groundwater from the study area for human consumption. From the WQI assessment, over 82% of the water samples fall within the ‘‘Poor’’ and ‘‘Very poor’’ categories, suggesting that groundwater from the south-eastern of the El Khairat deep aquifer is unsuitable for drinking purposes.

153 - 160

Authors: I.R. Ilaboya,, E. Atikpo,, L. Umukoro,, F.E. Omofuma, M.O. Ezugwu

The overall focus of the research work was to study the various factors that affect plume dilution anddispersion. Some of the factors that were studied include; the effects of mixing height, the effects of plume riseand the effects of terrain in addition to momentum and buoyancy on the overall dispersion of plume releasedfrom a stack of known effective height. Data on temperature versus altitude was collected using an infra - redthermometer at different height of a telecommunication mast under construction. The highest temperature forthe month was noted and the validity of the recorded data was done using correlation analysis. Mathematicalanalysis was then employed to determine the mixing depth which represents the effective height of any stackthat must be placed in such location in other to allow for complete dispersion/dilution of any form of pollutantreleased from any source. Result obtained shows that the effective height of stack that can be erected in suchlocation that will allow for effective dispersion of any pollutants was shown to be 1700m. Any stack below thisheight will lead to ground level pollution. Also discussed in this research paper is the application of GaussianPlume model in the evaluation/analysis of the horizontal dispersion of pollutants released from a height (h).

166 - 180

Authors: Amin Zehtabian, Hamid Hassanpour

In this paper, a novel approach for speech signal enhancement is presented. This approach employs singular value decomposition (SVD) to overlook noise subspace and uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimally set the essential parameters. The method is elicited by analyzing the effects of environmental noises on the singular vectors as well as the singular values of clean speech signals. This article reviews the existing approaches for subspace estimation and proposes novel techniques for effectively enhancing the singular values and vectors of a noisy speech. This results in a considerable attenuation of the noise and retaining quality of the original speech. The efficiency of our proposed method is affected by a number of parameters which are optimally set by utilizing the GA. Extensive sets of experiments have been carried out on speech signals impaired by additive white Gaussian noise and/or different types of realistic coloured noises. The results of applying the six superior speech enhancement methods are compared using the objective (SNR) and subjective (PESQ) measures.

188-190

Authors: S.N. Azizi and S.N. Azizi

The objective of the present study was determined on the concentration of seven important elements and chemical composition of the organic compound from Medlar’s fruit (Iran) using ICP-AES and GC-MS techniques. The mineral content of samples was determined by standard addition method and RSDs lower than 3.75. The detection limits of the method for the 7 elements were 0.04-4 µglG . In Medlar fruit, the concentration 1 of Calcium with compare to K, Mg, Na, Fe, Zn and Cr was more. Fourteen organic compounds of the Medlar's fruit were characterized. The results have shown that the main fatty acid is linolelaidic acid with percentages of 24.01. The percentages of oleic acid and palmitic acid in this fruit were 11.45 and 6.97, respectively.