Evaluation of Activated Carbon as a Reactive Cap Sorbent for Sequestration of PCBs in Presence of Humic Acid

This study investigated the interferences caused by high humic acid concentrations on the adsorption of coplanar and noncoplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on coconut shell activated carbon. In particular, the research focuses on the application of activated carbon as a reactive cap for contaminated sediment sites, a possible intervention to reduce contaminant flux through pore water, and to organisms in aquatic environments. Kinetic and equilibrium studies were conducted using activated carbon as a sorbent for individual PCB congeners including BZ 1, 52, 77, 153, and 169, respectively, in the presence and absence of humic acid. Results showed that preloading of activated carbon with humic acid significantly reduced the adsorption affinity for all selected PCB congeners. Experiments conducted without preloading of activated carbon demonstrated that desorption upon subsequent spiking with humic acid (simulating long-term exposure to pore water that contains high humic acid concentrations) was not found to be statistically significant, and varied with coplanarity of PCBs. Results provide important information for the design of reactive caps in sediments where high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon are found, and highlight the importance of considering site conditions when designing effective reactive caps

Effect of Humic Acid on Adsorption of Polychlorinated Biphenyls onto Organoclay

Mitigation of risks stemming from contaminated sediments in freshwater and estuarine environments remains an important challenge to the field of environmental science and engineering. Capping sediments with reactive materials is one approach that has recently been the subject of research and development. This research evaluated the use of organoclay as a sorbent in a reactive cap for in situ remediation of contaminated sediments, and provides an original contribution by presenting the sorption characteristics of individual polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) congeners in the presence of high concentrations of humic acids typical of sediment porewater environments. Sorption of coplanar and noncoplanar PCBs on three commercially available organoclays was studied in this work. Studies were conducted to evaluate the kinetics of adsorption of PCBs on organoclay and to determine the effect of humic acid on the kinetics of adsorption. Isotherm studies were conducted to determine the adsorption affinity of PCBs for organoclays in the presence and absence of humic acid. Studies showed a 45 to 96% reduction in the sorption affinity for organoclays after preloading with high concentrations of humic acid, depending both on the congener and the composition of organoclay. Desorption of PCBs upon addition of humic acid after PCBs were equilibrated with organoclay was statistically significant, although the magnitude of the effect was much smaller than that observed from preloading of humic acid

The Case for a Publishing Analytics Data Alliance

Digital technology is making it possible for publishers and libraries to gather data on the dissemination and use of scholarly publications in unprecedented detail and on an unprecedented scale. While data arising from the digital distribution of content provides new opportunities for understanding the scholarly communication ecosystem, it also creates socio-technical challenges for understanding how scholarly content is shared and used across networked knowledge landscapes. Libraries and institutions will require the context that aggregate data can provide to effectively use the data they collect, but they will be unable to create this context alone. This risks leaving the collection of data in the hands of a small number of well-resourced organizations—likely commercial—that do not answer to the community. The proposed Publishing Analytics Data Alliance will serve as a cooperative in which representatives from all of the relevant academic publishing stakeholder groups (academic publishers, research libraries, research centers, and aggregators) collaborate to address the socio-technical challenges around publishing analytics: developing a data model, workflows, and prototype for aggregation and display of usage data relating to digital monographs, and creating an accompanying code of ethics and terms of use for data gathering, analysis, and dissemination by members

Report on the pilot phase of the UNT Libraries Scholarly Publishing Services

Report for the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries on the pilot phase of the UNT Libraries scholarly publishing services

Understanding Open Access Ebook Usage: Toward a Common Framework

Slides accompanying the panel presentation “Understanding Open Access Ebook usage: Toward a Common Framework” presented at the 2018 Charleston Conference: Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition

Publishing by Academic Libraries

Presentation text for the 2015 Open Access Symposium discussing publishing by academic libraries

Rethinking How We Pay for Scholarly Monographs

Paper for an invited presentation at a 2015 meeting of the Southwest Area Theological Library Association (SWATLA). This paper discusses rethinking how we pay for scholarly monographs

Creating a Library Publishing Program for Scholarly Books: Your Options Are Limited

This commentary article discusses the key questions to be addressed before establishing a library publishing program for scholarly books

Approaches to Tracking the Impacts of Library- and Press-published Monographs: Project Meerkat

Slides presented during the panel “Approaches to Tracking the Impacts of Library- and Press-published Monographs” at the Library Publishing Forum 2018. This presentation describes the impetus behind Project Meerkat, a publishing analytics data alliance

A Campus-based Author-pays OA Publishing Service

Presented at the 2017 NFAIS Open Access Conference. In June 2015 the University of North Texas Libraries launched a for-fee service for publishing works of scholarship from authors affiliated with the university. While authors can choose from a menu of editing and design options, all publications are made free to read online through the institutional repository. Editing and design are carried out by freelancers and vendors, with charges passed on to authors; project management is provided by libraries staff for free. This service is meant to complement the UNT Press, which operates under a traditional university press model. This presentation reflects on the parameters of the service—such as charging authors, delivering publications through the repository, requiring free public access but not Creative Commons licenses, and not organizing peer review or charging for project management—and on what authors have chosen from the menu of options since the service was launched