ACQ-treated veneer based composite VBC hardwood hollow utility poles from mid-rotation plantation thinned trees: Life cycle GHG emissions

Hardwood plantations are slow to mature with low financial returns in the early stage. Veneer Based Composite (VBC) products from mid-rotation plantation thinned trees are currently being developed at Griffith University in partnership with the Salisbury Research Centre, Queensland Government, which may offer an opportunity to improve the industry’s profitability and win new markets. Due to shortage in utility solid hardwood poles, VBC poles are proposed as a potential alternative. In this study, greenhouse gas emissions of alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) preservative-treated VBC pole was assessed using ‘cradle to grave’ life cycle assessment methodology. ACQ preservative was used to extend the service life of wood poles due to wood products are commonly to be degraded in wet environments subject to microbial or insect attack. The manufacturing process considered in this study is based on the current technologies in Salisbury Research Centre. Two (2) end-of-life scenarios were considered: landfilling and incineration with energy recovery. The function unit was a 1-metrelength pole with 115mm internal-diameter and 15mm wall-thickness. Global warming potential (GWP100) was calculated using the IPCC 2007 method. Results indicated disposal stage contributed the most impact. Incineration with energy recovery had the lowest GWP impact (0.337kg-CO2-Eq) followed by landfilling. Transportation distance was identified as a significant parameter affecting the result. Sensitivity analysis indicated that increasing the transportation distance by 100 km would increase the GWP100 by 21% in the incineration option

Strategies to improve energy and carbon efficiency of luxury hotels in Iran

Luxury hotels generate substantial carbon footprint and scholarly research is urgently required to better understand how it could be effectively mitigated. This study adopts a method of life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) to assess the energy and carbon performance of six luxury, five star, hotels located in Iran. The results of the energy and carbon assessment of luxury hotels in Iran are compared against the energy and carbon values reported in past hotel research. This current study finds that luxury hotels in Iran are up to 3–4 times more energy- and 7 times more carbon-intense than similar hotels examined in past research. Low cost of fossil fuels, international trade sanctions and the lack of governmental and corporate energy conservation targets discourage Iranian hoteliers from carbon footprint mitigation. To counteract poor energy and carbon efficiency of luxury hotels in Iran, it is important to relax economic sanctions, develop alternative energy sources, refine corporate energy conservation targets, regularly benchmark hotel energy performance and enable exchange of good practices amongst Iranian hoteliers

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Date seed derived biochar for Ni(II) removal from aqueous solutions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the adsorption characteristic of biochars derived from date seed for Ni2+ ions removal from aqueous solutions. Two biochars were prepared by slow pyrolysis of date seed for 3 h at 450 °C (DSB450) and 550 °C (DSB550). The adsorption of Ni2+ was carried out by batch experiments at room temperature. The effects of pyrolysis temperature, contact time, initial metal concentration, and solution pH were investigated. The results showed that biochar prepared at higher temperature (DSB550) had higher adsorption capacity of Ni2+ from aqueous solution than biochar prepared at lower temperature (DBS450). Adsorption efficiency of Ni2+ ions was pH dependent and the maximum adsorption was found to occur at pH around 6.0. To describe the equilibrium isotherms, the experimental results were analyzed by the Langmuir, and Freundlich isotherms. The adsorption isotherm for Ni2+ by DSB550 was best fit to Langmuir isotherm with (R2 = 0.94). The maximum adsorption capacity of Ni2+ of DSB550 biochar was 0.609 mmol g−1. Pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order, and intraparticle diffusion models were used to model the kinetic parameters and mechanism of adsorption process. The results showed that the adsorption kinetics of these biochars are well described by a pseudo-second order kinetic model with correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.99). The results of the study indicated that biochar derived from date seed biomass is a suitable material for adsorption of Ni2+ ion from aqueous solution

Towards a better environment - the municipal organic waste management in Brisbane: Environmental life cycle and cost perspective

Different options for treating organic fraction of municipal solid waste were assessed. Four composting scenarios were designed based on different scales (i.e. home vs centralised) and technologies (i.e. windrow vs in-vessel composting) in Brisbane. The environmental and economic performance were analysed and compared to the existing practice: landfilling, using life cycle assessment and life cycle costing analysis with the consideration of the costs of externalities and potential avoided costs. The treatment of 1 Mg of home organic waste was selected as one Functional Unit. The system boundaries start from waste collection to the use of the final product (i.e. compost). The compost was assumed to be applied on private gardens and tropical horticultural crops in home and centralised composting scenarios, respectively. Shared home composting bin in a small community (HC-II) presented the best overall performance from both environmental and economic perspectives, meanwhile, landfilling was found to be the worst option. The home composting scenarios require less energy which results in four times lower fossil depletion and human toxicity potential compared to centralised composting scenarios. However, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions released through organic waste degradation, due to potential partial anaerobic conditions, were identified as the major environmental impact factor, followed by the compost bin manufacturing. In both centralised composting scenarios, the energy consumption was found as the main environmental impact factor, which accounted for more than 45% of the total GHG emissions, followed by the waste collection and transportation process. Regarding the economic performance, the HC-II scenario has the lowest life cycle cost ($22.93/FU). Monte Carlo Analysis was carried out to test the effect of overall uncertainties. Our result showed that the compost application rate had the highest sensitivity in home composting scenarios because the unused compost would need to be collected and sent to the landfill. Consequently, extra transportation emissions and life cycle cost will incur, thus, the benefits from compost application will also be reduced. However, the overall uncertainties did not affect the ranking of the centralised (windrow) composting scenario, which remained the best environmental performer. Meanwhile, HC-II option had the better economic performance that marginally over-weighed the environmental performance of the centralised windrow composting; hence result in the best overall performer. However, in order to encourage residents to participate, enabling policies and incentives may be required to influence the behaviour of the independent households to share a composting bin

Removal of lead(II) from aqueous solution using date seed-derived biochar: batch and column studies

Abstract This study explored the adsorption of lead ion from aqueous solution onto biochars produced from date seed biomass. Initial evaluation of nine date seed-derived biochars showed that biochar prepared at 550 °C and heating time of 3 h (DSB550-3) was the best adsorbent for Pb2+ ion removal. Therefore, it was selected for further investigation in batch and column experiments. The effects of contact time, initial Pb2+ concentration, and solution pH were studied. Solution pH showed strong effect on the adsorption ability of DSB550-3 biochar to the lead ion, and the maximum adsorption capacity was found to occur around pH 6.0. The batch maximum adsorption capacity of DSB550-3 biochar was 0.360 mmol g−1. The equilibrium data were adequately fitted to Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms (R 2 = 0.97). The adsorption kinetics were best described by pseudo-second-order model (R 2 = 0.94). The breakthrough curve obtained from the column experiment was best described by the modified dose–response model (R 2 = 0.95). The desorption efficiencies of Pb2+ were 2.1%, 23%, 12%, and 55% for DI water, 0.1 M HCl, 0.1 M CaCl2, and a combination of 0.1 M HCl + 0.1 M CaCl2 eluents, respectively. FTIR analysis and batch experiments results suggested that Pb2+ adsorption mechanism was dominated by complexation with active surface groups, precipitation, and cation exchange. Experimental and model results suggested that date seed-derived biochar has high adsorption capacity for Pb2+ compared to other plant-based biochars reported in other literature

Removal of nitrate, ammonia and phosphate from aqueous solutions in packed bed filter using biochar augmented sand media

Nutrients from wastewater are a major source of pollution because they can cause significant impact on the ecosystem. Accordingly, it is important that the nutrient concentrations are kept to admissible levels to the receiving environment. Often regulatory limits are set on the maximum allowable concentrations in the effluent. Therefore, wastewater must be treated to meet safe levels of discharge. In this study, laboratory investigation of the efficiency of packed bed filters to remove nitrate, ammonium and phosphate from aqueous solutions were conducted. Sand and sand augmented with hydrochloric acid treated biochar (SBC) were used as packing media. Synthetic wastewater solution was prepared with PO43−, NO3−, NH4+ concentrations 20, 10, 50 mg/L, respectively. Each experiment ran for a period of five days; samples from the effluent were collected on alternate days. All experiments were duplicated. Over the experiment period, the average removal efficiency of PO43−, NO3−, NH4+ were 99.2%, 72.9%, 96.7% in the sand packed columns and 99.2%, 82.3%, 97.4% in the SBC packed columns, respectively. Although, the presence of biochar in the packing media had little effect on phosphate and ammonium removal, it significantly improved nitrate removal