Impact Assessment Of Organic Contamination On Intake Quality Of Coastal Desalination Plants Using Fate Transport Modeling

Intake water of coastal desalination plants may be subjected to different types of organic pollutants originated from different sources including nearby effluents, loading/unloading of offshore stations, and/or accidental oil spills in the nearby marine water. In United Arab Emirates (UAE), many of such desalination plants are located along one coast hosting desalination plants, refineries and other coastal facilities while many oil tankers are loaded/unloaded from nearby offshore stations. A number of organic pollutants are generated from these sources and can potentially threaten the quality of intake seawater of the nearby desalination plants. This paper assesses the impacts of two selected organic pollutants; Phenol and PCB-180 (HeptachloroBiphenyl) originated in the coastal water of an industrial coastal basin located in UAE via modeling of their transport from different respective sources to the intake of a nearby thermal desalination plant. A number of parameters involved in the transport processes were determined from lab experiments while most other parameters were estimated from a numerical sensitivity study. The model results depict contour maps of dissolved concentrations of the two pollutants for three different wind conditions in summer and winter. While most of the simulated considered scenarios reflect insignificant impacts on the intake quality of the desalination plant, hazardous levels of migrated phenol are found to impact the intake quality and potentially the produced desalinated water under certain loading conditions and when north western winds are dominant. The obtained results and observations constitute useful information for the desalination plants\u27 operators and allow them to adapt appropriate contingency measures seeking the best quality of target produced distillate

A framework for utilizing unexplored game elements in designing learning systems

Gamification is defined as the use of game elements and designs in non-gaming areas and applications such as education, marketing, and healthcare. That is to facilitate and develop the engagement of users with a product or service. Researchers have found that gamified learning has the ability to improve student success, interaction, and enjoyment of courses. Recently, researchers suggested that one way to achieve that is through the personalization of students’ experiences. However, research has been focusing on a narrow group of game elements which does not ensure equal consideration when designing for different personality types. In this paper, our aim is threefold that is: to identify the unexplored game elements in the learning domain to ensure equal experiences for different personality traits; to study the utilization of the identified unexplored elements and how they can be used in relation with different personality types and learning styles to make learning tasks more desirable and enjoyable; to inform and enrich the design of gamified e-learning systems. To achieve that aim, we analyzed the literature to identify the unexplored game elements, conducted a focus group study to examine the utilization of unexplored game elements along with other contextual aspects. Then to formalize the results reached from our study and provide more systematic means for software engineers to extract useful information that can inform their designs, an ontology was implemented for that purpose. Finally, an existing gamified e-learning framework was adapted to illustrate how the formed artifacts and models interrelate to realize the research aim.</span

Design of irrigation system of canals using stochastic optimization approach.

Design capacities of irrigation system canals determine the size and the cost of the system. Decisions to define the canal capacities depend on many uncertain parameters such as those describing the system operation and crop return. The most economical design can be obtained from an optimization model that accounts for these uncertainties while considering both the system design and operation. A two-stage stochastic problem with recourse is formulated in which the canal capacities are the first stage decisions and the water allocations are made in the second stage. This dissertation examines the two-state regularized stochastic decomposition algorithm and modifies it to better handle general engineering applications. It was used to solve for the optimal canal capacities under uncertain parameters present in the right hand side (RHS) of the second-stage constraints. The L-shaped method was then used to solve for these capacities under uncertain objective coefficients as well as RHS parameters. Obtained capacities from the stochastic approach were compared with results obtained from a traditional design procedure and from a deterministic optimization model in different conditions. The comparison demonstrates the merit of the proposed approach and points out the necessity to consider the parameters uncertainties when designing under certain conditions

Water treatment

Economic development, population growth, and environmental pollution evolving in many parts of the world are placing great demands on existing resources of fresh water and reflecting a 'water crisis'. Resource management, efficient utilization of the water resources, and above all water purification are all alternatives to resolve the water crisis. Purification approaches include traditional approaches that have lasted for several centuries without major modifications as well as new innovative approaches. This book covers a number of water quality issues relevant to either improving the existing treatment methods or to new advanced approaches. The book has 15 chapters distributed over four sections titled: [1] Management and Modeling of Treatment Systems, [2] Advanced Treatment Processes, [3] Treatment of Organic-contaminated Water, and [4] Advanced Monitoring Techniques

Water Treatment

Economic development, population growth, and environmental pollution evolving in many parts of the world are placing great demands on existing resources of fresh water and reflecting a ""water crisis"". Resource management, efficient utilization of the water resources, and above all water purification are all alternatives to resolve the water crisis. Purification approaches include traditional approaches that have lasted for several centuries without major modifications as well as new innovative approaches. This book covers a number of water quality issues relevant to either improving the existing treatment methods or to new advanced approaches. The book has 15 chapters distributed over four sections titled: [1] Management and Modeling of Treatment Systems, [2] Advanced Treatment Processes, [3] Treatment of Organic-contaminated Water, and [4] Advanced Monitoring Techniques

Use of Nanoparticles for the Disinfection of Desalinated Water

When chemical disinfection is performed before or after desalination, a number of harmful compounds are formed. Thus, efforts have been directed toward developing alternative methods for water disinfection. In this study, seven nanoparticles (NPs) were evaluated for disinfecting water produced from reverse osmosis and multi-stage flash desalination plants. The tested NPs were silver, copper, silver-copper, zinc oxide, magnesium oxide, silicon dioxide, and carbon nanotubes. The antimicrobial activity of the NPs was investigated by batch studies in desalinated water samples spiked with E. coli, Enterobacter, Salmonella, and Enterococci. The Chick-Watson model was fitted to the inactivation data to evaluate the kinetic constant for each combination of NPs, water type, and indicator bacteria. The results indicated that silver and silver-copper NPs have the highest disinfection efficiency among the tested NPs. Among the bacteria, Enterobacter (strain TPC129) appears to be the most inactivated, while Enterococci (strain NCTC775) seems to be the least influenced by the NPs. Variations in the chemical characteristics of the tested water samples appeared to cause noticeable differences in the antibacterial efficacies of copper and magnesium oxide NPs, but not in those of the other NPs