Fugitive emission studies of workplace air of an opencast mining locality to know the overall impacts on ambient air quality - A case study

Dust generated by the wheels of dumper, trucks, etc of granular materials exposed to the air known as fugitive emission because it is not discharged to the atmosphere in a confined flow stream. Study has been conducted at Block – II OCP for the evaluation of emission due to area source in order to assess its impact over general ambient air quality. Application of Oak Ridge Air Quality Index (ORAQI) highlight about the status of workplace air as well as overall impacts on the quality of its surrounding atmosphere of the region

A simplified approach for removal of suspended coal fines from black water discharge of mining and its allied industries

Suspended fine particulate matters generated from different mining activities such as washing and crushing of coal affect large volume of natural waster. The present paper highlights a simple method to improve the settlement rate of dispersed coal fine particles by incorporating them into a coarser particulate matrix. The process mentioned herein consists of three steps viz. activation of coal fine in aqueous medium, tether of activated particles to the anchor particles and pass them into straight flow stream. The activation of coal fines suspended in the effluent water may be an amine group of polymer which can link to a particle surface of metal oxide to complete the interaction for sedimentation of coal fines. The coagulated cal fine is further separated by gravitation an filtration process

A Study of Air Pollution load assessment around opencast coal project in India

Opencast mining technology results in the release of a huge amount of air borne dust. The air borne dust peculiarly below 100 micron in size, are environmentally nuisance and cause health hazards. Total suspended particulate matter (TSPM) and respiratory particulate mater (PM10) are the major pollutants in the air environment of opencast coal mines. Therefore, dust generation, its dispersion, and pollution load assessment have been found to be major concer4ns in air quality modeling of opencast coal mines. The present paper focuses on the quantification of sourcewise emission inventory for different point, area and line sources considering the background dust concentration at one of opencast coal project (OCP), nakmely Hindustan Lalpet of Western Coalfields Limited (WCL). The 24 hr average concentrations of TSPM and PM10 were monitored at three monitoring stations during winter season. On an average the PM10 concentration in the ambient air constituted 17.00 to 60.3% of TSPM concentration. TSPM concentration ranged from 313.11 to 565.57 µg/m3 and 79.48 to 270.61 µg/m3

Biostabilization of Mandaman dump slope, India

An integrated study of the biological stabilization of a coal-mine overburden dump slope has been carried out at Mandaman, 35 km from Dhanbad in eastern India native grasses-bamboo (Dendrocalmus strictus) and kashi (Saccharum spontaneoum)-are important species that can stabilize the dump slopes. The grasses have good soil binding capacity and help to control soil erosion and improve dump stability. Field observation of their growth performance has indicated that the mean grass height and root depth are 232(±74) cm and 46 (±5) cm, respectively, after there years and the below-ground root biomass is 474 (±69) g m-2. The mechanical and hydrogeological actions of the grass roots have improved the shear strength properties of the dump material. Numerical modeling has shown that the roots of these grasses increase the factor of safety of the dump slope from 1.2 to 1.4 and thus play a substantial role in the maintenance of long-term stability

Profiling of Genes Related to Cross Protection and Competition for NbTOM1 by HLSV and TMV

10.1371/journal.pone.0073725PLoS ONE89-POLN

Evaluation of Leishmania donovani Protein Disulfide Isomerase as a Potential Immunogenic Protein/Vaccine Candidate against Visceral Leishmaniasis

In Leishmania species, Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) - a redox chaperone, is reported to be involved in its virulence and survival. This protein has also been identified, through proteomics, as a Th1 stimulatory protein in the soluble lysate of a clinical isolate of Leishmania donovani (LdPDI). In the present study, the molecular characterization of LdPDI was carried out and the immunogenicity of recombinant LdPDI (rLdPDI) was assessed by lymphocyte proliferation assay (LTT), nitric oxide (NO) production, estimation of Th1 cytokines (IFN-γ and IL-12) as well as IL-10 in PBMCs of cured/endemic/infected Leishmania patients and cured L. donovani infected hamsters. A significantly higher proliferative response against rLdPDI as well as elevated levels of IFN-γ and IL-12 were observed. The level of IL-10 was found to be highly down regulated in response to rLdPDI. A significant increase in the level of NO production in stimulated hamster macrophages as well as IgG2 antibody and a low level of IgG1 in cured patient's serum was observed. Higher level of IgG2 antibody indicated its Th1 stimulatory potential. The efficacy of pcDNA-LdPDI construct was further evaluated for its prophylactic potential. Vaccination with this construct conferred remarkably good prophylactic efficacy (∼90%) and generated a robust cellular immune response with significant increases in the levels of iNOS transcript as well as TNF-α, IFN-γ and IL-12 cytokines. This was further supported by the high level of IgG2 antibody in vaccinated animals. The in vitro as well as in vivo results thus indicate that LdPDI may be exploited as a potential vaccine candidate against visceral Leishmaniasis (VL)

Microbial Detoxification of Bifenthrin by a Novel Yeast and Its Potential for Contaminated Soils Treatment

Bifenthrin is one the most widespread pollutants and has caused potential effect on aquatic life and human health, yet little is known about microbial degradation in contaminated regions. A novel yeast strain ZS-02, isolated from activated sludge and identified as Candida pelliculosa based on morphology, API test and 18S rDNA gene analysis, was found highly effective in degrading bifenthrin over a wide range of temperatures (20–40°C) and pH (5–9). On the basis of response surface methodology (RSM), the optimal degradation conditions were determined to be 32.3°C and pH 7.2. Under these conditions, the yeast completely metabolized bifenthrin (50 mg·L−1) within 8 days. This strain utilized bifenthrin as the sole carbon source for growth as well as co-metabolized it in the presence of glucose, and tolerated concentrations as high as 600 mg·L−1 with a qmax, Ks and Ki of 1.7015 day−1, 86.2259 mg·L−1 and 187.2340 mg·L−1, respectively. The yeast first degraded bifenthrin by hydrolysis of the carboxylester linkage to produce cyclopropanecarboxylic acid and 2-methyl-3-biphenylyl methanol. Subsequently, 2-methyl-3-biphenylyl methanol was further transformed by biphenyl cleavage to form 4-trifluoromethoxy phenol, 2-chloro-6-fluoro benzylalcohol, and 3,5-dimethoxy phenol, resulting in its detoxification. Eventually, no persistent accumulative product was detected by gas chromatopraphy-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. This is the first report of a novel pathway of degradation of bifenthrin by hydrolysis of ester linkage and cleavage of biphenyl in a microorganism. Furthermore, strain ZS-02 degraded a variety of pyrethroids including bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, deltamethrin, fenvalerate, cypermethrin, and fenpropathrin. In different contaminated soils introduced with strain ZS-02, 65–75% of the 50 mg·kg−1 bifenthrin was eliminated within 10 days, suggesting the yeast could be a promising candidate for remediation of environments affected by bifenthrin. Finally, this is the first described yeast capable of degrading bifenthrin