Caractérisation physico-chimique des sables usés de la fonderie de Tiaret (Algérie), en vue de leur valorisation

Liés avec des argiles ou des résines, les sables de fonderie sont utilisés pour confectionner des moules et des noyaux dans lesquels sont coulés les métaux en fusion. Après l’opération de démoulage des pièces métalliques, une grande partie des sables est réutilisée sur place par régénération, tandis que les sables usés de fonderie résiduaires (nommés également « sables rejetés », « vieux sables » ou « sables brûlés ») doivent être éliminés. Ces déchets peuvent en effet présenter un risque pour l’homme et l’environnement. Ce travail se propose de caractériser les sables usés de la fonderie de Tiaret (Algérie), en vue de leur valorisation. Les sables étudiés et qui ne peuvent être réaffectés à l’activité de fonderie sont constitués de sabled’origine naturelle mélangé à des liants comme : l’argile, le silicate de soude, et la résine furanique.Mots-clés : sables usés de fonderie, déchets, environnement, développement durable, valorisation

Adsorption des matières organiques des eaux usées urbaines sur la bentonite modifiée par Fe(III), Al(III) et Cu(II)

Une argile naturelle, la bentonite de Maghnia (ouest d’Algérie), a été purifiée et caractérisée par calcination, pH‑métrie, IR, XRD et SEM. Les résultats obtenus ont montré que l’argile a une conductance de 66,4 µS, une capacité d’échange cationique (CEC) de 0,91 méq/g et contient 12 % de matières organiques. Les caractérisations par IR, XRD et SEM ont montré que la bentonite de Maghnia (B) est composée de quartz comme impureté majeure, d’illite (7 %) et principalement de montmorillonite.Cette argile a été saturée au sodium (Na+) et associée au fer (III), à l’aluminium (III) et au cuivre (II). Ces derniers sont insérés, par couple (Al-Cu, Fe-Cu et Fe-Al, 50 ‑ 50 % en atomes), dans l’espace inter-feuillets de la montmorillonite sodée. Le rapport massique métaux/B est égal à 0,0625.Les échantillons obtenus sont appliqués pour fixer les matières organiques (MO) des eaux usées, très chargées, de la ville de Sidi Bel-Abbès (ouest d’Algérie). Ces matières organiques représentent 60 % des matières en suspension (MES).L’adsorption des MO a été suivie par photométrie à 470 nm et à température ambiante (20 °C). Cette adsorption a été ajustée au modèle de Freundlich dans le cas de la bentonite et au modèle d’Elovich dans le cas de la bentonite modifiée. Sur l’argile seule l’adsorption des MO est en monocouche, alors qu’elle est en multicouche sur tous les trois autres systèmes. Les taux de fixation des matières organiques sont égaux à 67,1; 76,0; 82,6 et 87,7 % respectivement sur B, Al‑Cu/B, Fe‑Cu/B et Fe‑Al/B. Ces systèmes ont des capacités maximales d’adsorption (qm), respectives, de 570; 860; 890 et 1 010 mg MO/g. Les systèmes au fer sont les plus performants, en particulier Fe‑Al/B.Clay functions as a recyclable surfactant support for the adsorption and subsequent combustion of organic pollutants. The fact that this technology is coupled with general water treatment processes is in itself advantageous. The adsorption of organic matter (OM) from the urban wastewater of Sidi Bel-Abbes City (western Algeria) onto modified clays was investigated in this study. Bentonite from Maghnia (western Algeria) was used in a purified form. The natural clays were washed several times with distilled and deionised water and were completely dispersed in water. After 17 hours at rest, the dispersion was centrifuged for one hour at 2400 rpm. The size of the clay particles obtained was  0.96 and KE = 2•10‑3, 15•10‑3 and 11•10‑3 L•g‑1 respectively for Al-Cu/B, Fe-Cu/B and Fe-Al/B). The adsorption was in monolayers on bentonite and in multilayer form on the other systems. The degree of OM removal was 67.1, 76.0, 82.6 and 87.7% respectively for bentonite (B), Al-Cu/B, Fe-Cu/B and Fe-Al/B. The maximal adsorption capacities (qm) for these systems were: 570, 860, 890 and 1010 mg OM•g‑1, respectively for the four sorbents. The qm values indicate the degree of surface covering of the solid phase (θ); this coverage was 0.80, 0.72 and 0.86 respectively for Al-Cu/B, Fe- Cu/B and Fe-Al/B.The systems containing iron were powerful, particularly Fe-Al/B; this system was able to completely remove the organic matter found in the wastewater. The result was confirmed by the abatement of the COD. This parameter decreased from 537 to 55 mg/L in a trial where one litre of wastewater was treated with 0.67 g of bentonite and 42 mg of Fe-Al/B (50/50 atomic ratio)

Finitness of the basic intersection cohomology of a Killing foliation

We prove that the basic intersection cohomology ${I H}^{^{*}}_{_{\bar{p}}}{(M/\mathcal{F})},$ where $\mathcal{F}$ is the singular foliation determined by an isometric action of a Lie group $G$ on the compact manifold $M$, is finite dimensional

Preliminary Study on Benzoic Acid Adsorption From Crude Active Coals and Bentonite

We studied the adsorption of pollutant benzoic acid by the modified bentonite of Maghnia (west of Algeria), and coal (Coal from the mines, southwest of Algeria, Bechar area) under three forms, crude and activated. Kinetic data show that the balance of bentonite (as amended) adsorbs organic acids better than activated and raw coal. Indeed, the intercalation of bentonite with benzoic acid causes an improvement in the texture of porous material, which allows its use in the adsorption of organic compounds. The adsorption isotherms (Langmuir and Freundlich) indicate that the adsorption of benzoic acid by the coal and bentonite yielded results favorably. The results obtained showed the practical value of using the activated coal and bentonite (as amended) in the field of remediation of water contaminated with organic pollutant

Energy properness and Sasakian-Einstein metrics

In this paper, we show that the existence of Sasakian-Einstein metrics is closely related to the properness of corresponding energy functionals. Under the condition that admitting no nontrivial Hamiltonian holomorphic vector field, we prove that the existence of Sasakian-Einstein metric implies a Moser-Trudinger type inequality. At the end of this paper, we also obtain a Miyaoka-Yau type inequality in Sasakian geometry.Comment: 27 page

On Sasaki-Einstein manifolds in dimension five

We prove the existence of Sasaki-Einstein metrics on certain simply connected 5-manifolds where until now existence was unknown. All of these manifolds have non-trivial torsion classes. On several of these we show that there are a countable infinity of deformation classes of Sasaki-Einstein structures.Comment: 18 pages, Exposition was expanded and a reference adde

Randomizing world trade. II. A weighted network analysis

Based on the misleading expectation that weighted network properties always offer a more complete description than purely topological ones, current economic models of the International Trade Network (ITN) generally aim at explaining local weighted properties, not local binary ones. Here we complement our analysis of the binary projections of the ITN by considering its weighted representations. We show that, unlike the binary case, all possible weighted representations of the ITN (directed/undirected, aggregated/disaggregated) cannot be traced back to local country-specific properties, which are therefore of limited informativeness. Our two papers show that traditional macroeconomic approaches systematically fail to capture the key properties of the ITN. In the binary case, they do not focus on the degree sequence and hence cannot characterize or replicate higher-order properties. In the weighted case, they generally focus on the strength sequence, but the knowledge of the latter is not enough in order to understand or reproduce indirect effects.Comment: See also the companion paper (Part I): arXiv:1103.1243 [physics.soc-ph], published as Phys. Rev. E 84, 046117 (2011

Novel role for the innate immune receptor toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in the regulation of the wnt signaling pathway and photoreceptor apoptosis

Recent evidence has implicated innate immunity in regulating neuronal survival in the brain during stroke and other neurodegenerations. Photoreceptors are specialized light-detecting neurons in the retina that are essential for vision. In this study, we investigated the role of the innate immunity receptor TLR4 in photoreceptors. TLR4 activation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) significantly reduced the survival of cultured mouse photoreceptors exposed to oxidative stress. With respect to mechanism, TLR4 suppressed Wnt signaling, decreased phosphorylation and activation of the Wnt receptor LRP6, and blocked the protective effect of the Wnt3a ligand. Paradoxically, TLR4 activation prior to oxidative injury protected photoreceptors, in a phenomenon known as preconditioning. Expression of TNFα and its receptors TNFR1 and TNFR2 decreased during preconditioning, and preconditioning was mimicked by TNFα antagonists, but was independent of Wnt signaling. Therefore, TLR4 is a novel regulator of photoreceptor survival that acts through the Wnt and TNFα pathways. © 2012 Yi et al

Energy Linearity and Resolution of the ATLAS Electromagnetic Barrel Calorimeter in an Electron Test-Beam

A module of the ATLAS electromagnetic barrel liquid argon calorimeter was exposed to the CERN electron test-beam at the H8 beam line upgraded for precision momentum measurement. The available energies of the electron beam ranged from 10 to 245 GeV. The electron beam impinged at one point corresponding to a pseudo-rapidity of eta=0.687 and an azimuthal angle of phi=0.28 in the ATLAS coordinate system. A detailed study of several effects biasing the electron energy measurement allowed an energy reconstruction procedure to be developed that ensures a good linearity and a good resolution. Use is made of detailed Monte Carlo simulations based on Geant which describe the longitudinal and transverse shower profiles as well as the energy distributions. For electron energies between 15 GeV and 180 GeV the deviation of the measured incident electron energy over the beam energy is within 0.1%. The systematic uncertainty of the measurement is about 0.1% at low energies and negligible at high energies. The energy resolution is found to be about 10% sqrt(E) for the sampling term and about 0.2% for the local constant term