Visibility degradation during foggy period due to anthropogenic urban aerosol at Delhi, India

Fog which is defined as an obscurity near the surface layer of the atmosphere and is caused by a suspension of water droplets associated with visibility and its frequencies dominate in urban areas other than rural areas. It may occur due to increased air pollutant concentrations emanating from variety of sources in the urban areas. The increased pollution levels may lead to the atmospheric reactions resulting into the formation of secondary pollutants that may also lead to the needed cloud condensation nuclei. Northern part of India experience severe fog conditions (warm fog) during the winter period (November-January) every year. In this study, we have simultaneously measured the particulate mass concentration (0.23 mum to 20 mum in 16 size channels), meteorological parameters and atmospheric visibility in mega city Delhi during winter months of the years 2007-2008 in order to have an improved understanding of their role in fog formation. The effects of aerosols on fog formation are discussed through an analysis of trends in fog frequency and comparison with meteorological parameters especially visibility which is an indicator of aerosol loading in the lower atmosphere. The existing dataset is used to find linear regression amongst various parameters with due consideration of significance value. This satisfies the precondition for using these relations even in limited data set. The association between the meteorological parameter (visibility, depression temperature) and air pollutants are examined. The Windows software SPSS (version 17.0) is used to fit a linear regression model. The model explained the variation in visibility due to depression temperature and aerosols loading

Acid-Functionalised Magnetic Ionic Liquid [AcMIm]FeCl4 as Catalyst for Oxidative Hydroxylation of Arylboronic Acids and Regioselective Friedel-Crafts Acylation

An acid-functionalised, magnetic, room-temperature ionic liquid, 1-acyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate ([AcMIm]-FeCl4), was synthesised and its optical, magnetic, and thermal properties were investigated. The magnetic moment (0.05402 emu in 2 T magnetic fields) showed strong paramagnetic behaviour, and thermogravimetric analysis indicated very good thermal stability with a decomposition temperature higher than 230 degrees C. Additionally, [AcMIm] FeCl4 efficiently catalysed the oxidative ipso-hydroxylation of arylboronic acids and regioselective Friedel-Crafts acylation without external organic solvent or additives, such as acids, base, and ligands. This functionalised ionic liquid, [AcMIm]FeCl4, was recycled and reused at least six times without significant loss of its catalytic properties and stability

Pyroplastic behaviour of two plastic kaolins in a triaxial porcelain body

Bikaner plastic clay and washed Than clay are used as plastic clay component in commercial triaxial porcelain bodies. Five porcelain bodies based on identical unity molecular formulae but containing two plastic kaolins in different proportions were prepared. The effects of interchanging the above two plastic kaolins on pyroplastic, rheological, thermo-mechanical properties, vitrification behaviour and microstructure have been investigated. The washed Than clay was found to be 1.5 times more effective in improving unfired (green) strength. Its favourable effects include better rheology, a lower vitrification temperature and reduced quartz dissolution. But it also renders the bodies prone to high pyroplastic deformation. Bikaner clay maintains high pyroplastic stability and crystalline phases throughout the firing range. The two plastic kaolins can be interchanged in vitreous porcelain compositions without causing significant variations in fired strength, but compositional variations are needed to adjust the changes in plastic and dry properties, rheology, pyroplasticity, firing range and microstructure

Radiative forcing estimation of aerosols at an urban site near the Thar Desert using ground-based remote sensing measurements

The focus of present study is to quantify the radiation budget of aerosols over Jaipur (Northwestern, India) from 2011 to 2015. The Aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) has been determined for shortwave spectrum (0.3–3.0 µm) individually for the top of the atmosphere (TOA), bottom of the atmosphere (BOA) and within the atmosphere (ATM) over study region. Santa Barbara DISORT Atmospheric Radiative Transfer model (SBDART) is used to simulate the aerosols radiative effect. The inter-annual monthly average of ARF at TOA during 2011–2015 is found between –11.40 to –5.60 W m–2, while the ARF at BOA is found to be between –32.2 to –22.49 W m–2. Likewise, the ARF within the atmosphere (ATM) comes between 14.04 to 22.47 W m–2 over Jaipur. The SBDART model is run discretely for Dust period (DSP) and non-Dust Period (NDP) during the year 2012 to inspect the change in ARF during extreme events over the Jaipur site. During DSP, the net TOA and BOA forcing are found in the range –20.71 to –16.81 W m–2 and –45.15 to –39.6 W m–2, respectively, and net ATM forcing varies in the range 22.7 to 24.4 W m–2. For the NDP, the corresponding value varies in the range –10.1 to –6.6 W m–2 and –23.6 to –22.3 W m–2. The net ATM forcing during NDP is between 12.2 to 17.05 W m–2. The value of BOA increases more than ~67% during DSP than NDP. The more increase (–ve) in surface forcing represents the cooling of the surface during DSP. The results depict that dust over Jaipur in the vicinity of the Thar Desert is scattering in nature with high value (> 0.95) of SSA. The scattering is mostly high during summer and low in winter

Coupling of catalyses by carbonyl clusters and dehydrogenases: Reduction of pyruvate to L-lactate by dihydrogen

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Size-Resolved Aerosols Concentration during Extreme Events over a Site in North Western India

International audienc

Potential source identification for aerosol oncentrations over a site in Northwestern India

International audienceThe collocated measurements of aerosols size distribution (ASD) and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) are analyzed simultaneously using Grimm aerosol spectrometer and MICROTOP II Sunphotometer over Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan in India. The contrast temperature characteristics during winter and summer seasons of year 2011 are investigated in the present study. The total aerosol number concentration (TANC, 0.3–20 μm) during winter season was observed higher than in summer time and it was dominated by fine aerosol number concentration (FANC < 2 μm). Particles smaller than 0.8 μm (at aerodynamic size) constitute ~ 99% of all particles in winter and ~ 90% of particles in summer season. However, particles greater than 2 μm contribute ~ 3% and ~ 0.2% in summer and winter seasons respectively. The aerosols optical thickness shows nearly similar AOT values during summer and winter but corresponding low Angstrom Exponent (AE) values during summer than winter, respectively. In this work, Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) analysis is applied to identify locations of sources that influenced concentrations of aerosols over study area in two different seasons. PSCF analysis shows that the dust particles from Thar Desert contribute significantly to the coarse aerosol number concentration (CANC). Higher values of the PSCF in north from Jaipur showed the industrial areas in northern India to be the likely sources of fine particles. The variation in size distribution of aerosols during two seasons is clearly reflected in the log normal size distribution curves. The log normal size distribution curves reveals that the particle size less than 0.8 μm is the key contributor in winter for higher ANC