The Effect of Organic Acids on the Formation and Behavior of Synthesized Iron Hydroxides: Implications for Acid Mine Drainage Treatment

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is an environmental concern that is well known and studied in West Virginia and other mining regions. This pollution threat can be prevented and mitigated with current mining permitting regulations; however some mine waters require treatment, which generally consists of the neutralization of affected waters, resulting in the precipitation of characteristic \u27floc\u27 material. AMD floc consists of hydroxides of heavy metals; predominantly iron. This study simulated AMD treatment practices to evaluate the effects of common environmental controls; namely the presence of organic matter (OM) on the formation and settling behavior of Fe hydroxides with the ultimate goal of the optimization of active AMD treatment. Hydroxides were synthesized through the forced hydrolysis of mixed FeCl3 and organic acid solutions. Organic acids varying in number of carboxylic functional groups to include acetate (a monodentate ligand), malate (a bidentate ligand), and citrate (a polydentate ligand) were used as analogs for OM in surface water. It was hypothesized that the addition of organic acids to the Fe system would promote complexation, and as a result produce fewer iron hydroxides. Hydroxide mass, volume, percent of amorphous hydroxide, compression rate, and soluble iron concentrations throughout the titration were measured. The presence of organic acids led to decreased hydroxide mass, increased hydroxide volume, and less pronounced compression after settling. The solubility experiments showed that OM in solution allowed precipitation at lower than expected pH values, and allowed for redissolution of Fe at high pH, suggesting that OM hinders hydroxide crystallization

Water Issues That Affect Affordability And Safety In A Community: The Camden Ohio Experience

This study describes the trials and tribulations of an Ohio township involved in maintaining utility rates at an affordable level while dealing with salt intrusion in drinking water wells that supply the Village. Emphasis is on the political, regulatory, and financial issues faced by management. This research deals exclusively with utility rate and water supply issues within the Village of Camden in Ohio when salt is discovered in the fresh water system. The analysis also discusses affordability as village officials decide whether to improve the existing well field, develop a new well field, or purchase water from an alternative supply

Renegotiation Of Waste Disposal Services In Key West, Florida

Effective planning of a solid waste recycling program is a substantial challenge for the current waste management system in Key West, Florida.  Solid waste management strategies have to be reorganized in light of the social and economic recycling, recovery, and reuse philosophical approaches which are dramatically changing consumer behaviors across the globe.  The growing concern for environmental issues and the goal of local sustainable development have moved the management of solid waste to the forefront of the public agenda.  This paper focuses on efforts to agree upon a city-wide initiative to increase waste diversion within the prevailing political, environmental, and economic climate in which waste disposal activities had dominated the market.  It discusses how the traditional two-party solid waste hauling contract was altered by the addition of outside third-party interests forcing a multi-party negotiation processes

Diffraction from Ordered States of Higher Multipoles

Possible ways of identification are discussed of an electronic order of higher multipoles such as octupoles and hexadecapoles. A particularly powerful method is resonant X-ray scattering (RXS) using quadrupolar resonance processes called E2.The characteristic azimuthal angle dependence of Ce$_{0.7}$La$_{0.3}$B$_6$ is interpreted as evidence of antiferro-octupole order. For PrRu$_4$P$_{12}$, eightfold pattern against azimuthal angle is predicted if its metal-insulator transition is a consequence of a hexadecapole order. In non-resonant superlattice Bragg scattering, hexadecapole contribution may also be identified because of absence of quadrupole component.Comment: Invited paper to be published in Proc. Hiroshima Workshop on Novel Functional Materials with Multinary Freedoms (Physica B, 2006

Web Application to Investigate Butler County Overdose Death Data

Background: Drug overdose deaths, specifically opioid-related deaths, are a public health crisis in the United States with high incidence observed in many Midwestern states, including Ohio. Butler County, Ohio, has the third highest opioid-related death rate in the state. Information on overdose deaths, collected by the county coroner, can serve as a data source for analysis of this public health concern. Given this access, stakeholders can investigate trends in their community for their idiosyncratic interest.Methods: A web application was developed, using the R Shiny package, to visualize and explore the characteris-tics of all overdose deaths in Butler County between 2013 and 2018. Demographics of the decedents, drugs found in the decedents’ postmortem toxicology analyses, annual trends in overdose deaths, and the location of these cases can be examined.Results: The web application provides a graphical user interface that allows a user to request specific analyses and summaries. “Who is dying from opioid overdoses?,” “What drugs, including opioids, are found in people dying from drug overdoses?,” and “Has the number of opioid involved deaths increased in a specific community over time?” are examples of questions that can be explored using this application.Conclusion: This application empowers both the public and local policymakers to investigate the impact of overdose deaths on their communities. Understanding characteristics of the epidemic is an important first step to addressing this problem. The expansion of this application to include other counties in Ohio could be truly beneficial to communities that need it

Biaxial Tensile Strain Enhances Electron Mobility of Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Strain engineering can modulate the material properties of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors for electronic and optoelectronic applications. Recent theory and experiments have found that uniaxial tensile strain can improve the electron mobility of monolayer MoS$_2$, a 2D semiconductor, but the effects of biaxial strain on charge transport are not well-understood in 2D semiconductors. Here, we use biaxial tensile strain on flexible substrates to probe the electron mobility in monolayer WS$_2$ and MoS$_2$ transistors. This approach experimentally achieves ~2x higher on-state current and mobility with ~0.3% applied biaxial strain in WS$_2$, the highest mobility improvement at the lowest strain reported to date. We also examine the mechanisms behind this improvement through density functional theory simulations, concluding that the enhancement is primarily due to reduced intervalley electron-phonon scattering. These results underscore the role of strain engineering 2D semiconductors for flexible electronics, sensors, integrated circuits, and other optoelectronic applications.Comment: Corrected titl

Resonant X-Ray Scattering on the M-Edge Spectra from Triple-k Structure Phase in U_{0.75}Np_{0.25}O_{2} and UO_{2}

We derive an expression for the scattering amplitude of resonant x-ray scattering under the assumption that the Hamiltonian describing the intermediate state preserves spherical symmetry. On the basis of this expression, we demonstrate that the energy profile of the RXS spectra expected near U and Np M_4 edges from the triple-k antiferromagnetic ordering phase in UO_{2} and U_{0.75}Np_{0.25}O_{2} agree well with those from the experiments. We demonstrate that the spectra in the \sigma-\sigma' and \sigma-\pi' channels exhibit quadrupole and dipole natures, respectively.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. Supp