Iranica Journal of Energy and Environment (IJEE)

337-344

Authors: Jan Stenis and William Hogland

This paper presents a general approach when performing urban mining activities. The urban mining concept is a necessity when the Mega cities increase in numbers to create attractive, sustainable cities for modern people. There are veins of precious minerals that are richer than any goldmine, running through our cities. The equality principle is applied on urban mining in order to simultaneously optimize the economy, the technology used and the environmental conditions in general. Shadow costs are employed to give economic incentives to improve the current urban mining activities. A versatile key factor is introduced that provides management with a tool to immediately obtain a general status report of their urban mining project. A Swedish office block is the object of a case study. Thereby, special focus is on the least important fractions with a positive value from an economic point of view that are intended to be optimized. The introduced approach shows utility and the model for Efficient Use of Resources for Optimal Production Economy (EUROPE) gives reasonable results when applying the equality principle on urban mining business. The major benefit with this study is the introduction of a novel method to improve urban mining projects of all kinds featuring conversion of all technical and environmental aspects of a project into all-embracing monetary measures. It is recommended to apply the equality principle and its mathematical expression, the EUROPE model, on recycling activities in general and particularly on urban mining projects.

354-368

Authors: Sivasankari Sundaram and Jakka Sarat Chandra Babu

Accurate knowledge about solar radiation in a region is of indispensible significance for sizing, designing and monitoring solar energy systems. In case of inaccessibility to measure solar data, proper solar radiation models may be used. This study aims to present the closeness or the relationship between the predicted and measured values of global horizontal irradiance and direct normal solar irradiance in a solar monitoring station located in National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli. The measured data is promoted under Indo-German Energy programme by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Centre for wind energy technology and federal of German government named GIZ. The data were monitored for the duration of five months from August 2013 to December 2013. The validation is brought out by the significance of the regression coefficient, which approaches to unity declaring the fitness of the model resulting in proposing regression models for the considered region. A statistical approach is also carried out for the validation by the evaluation of mean bias error (MBE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) from the predicted and the model values. Thus the proposed models lead to theoretical assessment of global horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance for a particular location.

376-386

Authors: M. Muthukumar, S. Shanmuga Priya and T. Sangeetha

Effect of NaCl on electricity generation, COD removal, reduction in carbohydrate and starch content in dual chambered, salt bridge Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) employing raw sago-processing wastewater with an organic load of 14,400 mg COD/l as substrate was evaluated. Four dual chambered MFCs were constructed and the study aimed to find out the impact of addition of NaCl which is carried out for effective MFC performance. Isolation and identification of microbes from initial influent and final effluent was performed using serial dilution, spread plate and selective agar techniques. Interestingly, it was found that the MFC in which NaCl was added to its cathode chamber was best in performance compared to other three MFCs, with a maximum voltage of 603mV and current of 6.03mA. It also documented that the maximum COD removal efficiency of 83% with a total reduction of carbohydrate and starch content from the wastewater was obtained. Utilizing sago wastewater for the production of bioelectricity from MFC technique is considered as a feasible and sustainable process.

393-399

Authors: Y.S. Mohammad, E.M. Shaibu-Imodagbe, S.B. Igboro, A. Giwa and C.A.Okuofu

Industries such as petroleum refineries continuously generate large volumes of wastewater that contain high concentrations of phenol; therefore wastewater treatment as an integral part of their activities is required. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of rice husk activated carbon in an adsorption column for the treatment of phenolic refinery wastewater. Effects of bed depth (of the obtained rice husk activated carbon) and flow rate (of the waste water) on the sorption of phenol from the waste water were investigated. Column models such as Bed Depth Service Time, Thomas and Yoon Nelson models were employed to analyze the experimental data. The column adsorption experiment attained adsorption capacity of 28mg/g at breakthrough point of 0.5, flow rate of 4.5ml/min and bed depth of 7.5cm. The performance of the column adsorption was affected by bed depth and flow rate and models such as Thomas and Yoon Nelson could be employed in estimation of design parameters and scale-up operations during pilot or full scale application.

407-418

Authors: M.A.M. Rosli, 1S. Mat, M.K. Anuar, Kamaruzzaman Sopian, M.Y. Sulaiman and S. Elli

A photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) device is a combined solar thermal device and photovoltaic device in a single unit. The capability of PV/T devices to produce thermal energy and electricity simultaneously bestows them promising market value in near future. The higher specific heat and lower fluctuation during variation irradiance of liquid compared to air make liquid-based devices more advantageous. This study reviews the available literature on flat plate, water-based PV/T collectors, conducts an economic analysis and discusses future development. Detailed analysis of the performance of the device is also included, in terms of thermal, electrical and overall efficiency. Previous experimental work and simulations are also reported, including several selected case studies. Some of the drawbacks need to be solved to make water-based PV/T systems cost effective and ready for the market.

436-445

Authors: I. Siti Aisyah, M.N. Siti Norfariha, M.A. Megat Azlan and I. Norli

Performance of synthetic organic polymer (polyacrylamide) and natural organic polymers (pectin) as flocculant in coagulation-flocculation treatment will be assessed. Analysis of functional group of organic polymer was done by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy - Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR). Response Surface Methodology - Central Composite Design (RSM-CCD) was used to evaluate the interaction effects of pH, coagulant dose and flocculant dose. The experiment was conducted in lab scale of 500mL of sample textile wastewater with six paddle of conventional jar test. Trimmed Spearman-Karber method has been used to estimate median lethal concentration (LC ) values and 50 their confidence intervals. The result shows polyacrylamide added in the treatment was the best at optimum pH 5, coagulant dose at 275 mg/ L and flocculant dose at 35 mg/ L with 88 and 80% removal. In contrast, additions of natural organic flocculant only manage to remove 54.2 and 67 % at the optimum pH 5, coagulant and flocculant dosage at 427.4 and 21.9 mg/L respectively. However, polyacrylamide treatment claimed to be more toxic based on lethal concentration (LC50) at 17 % compare to natural organic flocculant at 34%.

453-460

Authors: A.K. Ahmad and Sarah, A. Al-Mahaqeri

Influence of abandoned tin mine on concentrations, accumulation, mobility and distribution of (Fe, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in surface sediments of Sg. Lembing catchments were investigated in this work. Sediment samples were collected within an abandoned mine of Sg. Lembing Kuantan and also at vicinity area. The sequential extraction method was used to extract anthropogenic metals in sediments and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to determine the metal concentrations. Results indicate all metal in easily or freely leachable and exchangeable (ELFE), Acid reduction (AR) and organic oxidation (OO) fractions were higher than ambient concentrations which indicate heavily metals load from ex-mining into surrounding aquatic environments. The sequential extraction results showed Cu and Zn were the highest in EFLE fraction, which means these metals are more capable of leaching and cause adverse effects to aquatic organisms than Fe and Ni. On the other hand, Fe, Cu, Zn and Ni were detected high in OO fraction. Analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) shows that metal concentrations in each fraction were significant varies between stations. Sediment contamination assessment result shows that sediments samples that receive direct acid mine drainage (AMD) water have the highest metals concentrations due to leaching and erosion process.