FERTILISATION STRATEGIES ACROSS EUROPE: CURRENT SITUATION, POTENTIAL AND LIMITS FOR A HARMONISED APPROACH

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Hydrogen production from some agricultural residues by catalytic subcritical and supercritical water gasification

The subcritical and supercritical water gasification of residue of some agricultural biomass samples (cotton and tobacco stalks) was investigated in a batch reactor at temperature range of 300-600 °C and experiments were performed by addition of 10 wt.% of different natural mineral catalysts (Trona, Dolomite and Borax). The yield and composition of gaseous, aqueous products and residue were identified by different analytical techniques. Gaseous products consisted mainly of permanent gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and C 2-C 4 compounds. Aqueous products consisted mainly of carboxylic acids (hydroxyacetic acid, formic acid and acetic acid), furfurals, phenols (phenol and cresols), aldehydes (formaldehyde and acetaldehyde). The effectiveness of three different natural mineral catalysts in SCWG can be classified as being Trona [Na 3(CO 3)(HCO 3)·2H 2O] > Borax [Na 2B 4O 7·10H 2O] > Dolomite [CaMg(CO 3) 2]. The results showed that the addition of Trona as catalysts at reaction temperature of 600 °C, hydrogen yields of tobacco and cotton stalks were increased by 42.9% and 39.9%, respectively.© 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V.2008BIL017 106T748 National Council for Scientific ResearchWe gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) (Project No: 106T748) and Ege University-EBILTEM (Project No: 2008BIL017). Thanks go to Mr. G. Serin for the feed preparation procedure and the mechanical work during the experiments. -

National soil data in EU countries, where do we stand?

At European scale, soil characteristics are needed to evaluate soil quality, soil health and soil-based ecosystem services in the context of the European Green Deal. While some soil databases exist at the European scale, a much larger wealth of data is present in individual European countries, allowing a more detailed soil assessment. There is thus an urgent and crucial need to combine these data at the European scale. In the frame of a large European Joint Programme on agricultural soils launched by the European Commission, a survey was conducted in the spring of 2020, in the 24 European participating countries to assess the existing soil data sources, focusing on agricultural soils. The survey will become a contribution to the European Soil Observatory, launched in December 2020, which aims to collect metadata of soil databases related to all kind of land uses, including forest and urban soils. Based upon a comprehensive questionnaire, 170 soil databases were identified at local, regional and national scales. Soil parameters were divided into five groups: 1. main soil parameters according to the Global Soil Map specifications; 2. other soil chemical parameters; 3. other physical parameters; 4. other pedological parameters; and 5. soil biological features. A classification based on the environmental zones of Europe was used to distinguish the climatic zones. This survey shows that while most of the main pedological and chemical parameters are included in more than 70 % of the country soil databases, water content, contamination with organic pollutants and biological parameters are the least frequently reported parameters. Such differences will have consequences when developing an EU policy on soil health as proposed under the EU soil strategy for 2023 and using the data to derive soil health indicators. Many differences in the methods used in collecting, preparing, and analysing the soils were found, thus requiring harmonisation procedures and more cooperation among countries and with the EU to use the data at the European scale Additionally, choosing harmonized and useful interpretation and threshold values for EU soil indicators may be challenging due to the different methods used and the wide variety of soil land-use and climate combinations influencing possible thresholds. The temporal scale of the soil databases reported is also extremely wide, starting from the ‘20s of the 20th century

Effects of isoflurane, sevoflurane, and desflurane on platelet function: A prospective, randomized, single-blind, in vivo study

Background: The primary physiologic function of platelets is to facilitate hemostasis by aggregation. Volatile anesthetics have been reported to decrease platelet aggregation in vivo and in vitro