Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993.

Thesis (M.Sc.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Restricted until June 2001. Bibliography: leaves 135-143.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Michael Bergin, Committee Member ; E. Michael Perdue, Committee Chair ; Ching-Hua Huang, Committee Member ; Ellery Ingall, Committee Member ; Martial Taillefert, Committee Member. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 173-180).

No description available.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Magister Technologiae: Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology 2014 / An awareness campaign on the harmful effects of Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), especially Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) has been conducted to inform the general public about the impact of these organic compounds on hu-mans and biota. These compounds have been shown to be potential carcinogens, as indi-cated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development . A major concern about these chemicals is that they have been widely used in consumer products and have been detected in food and drinking water. They have been determined to be resistant to biological degradation, owing to their unique chemical and physical properties (fluorine atoms that have substituted hydrogen atoms in their chemical structure). Owing to their characteristics of being highly soluble in water, they cannot be removed from water using ordinary purification processes. Studies have been conducted to evaluate the removal of PFOA and PFOS from water using different methods. Among these methods, it has been proved that adsorption is a suitable method with the best adsorbent identified as activated carbon (AC). AC can be found in many forms, including as a fibre. The use of AC for the removal of PCFs can be augmented with sonica-tion and electro-chemical methods for rapid absorption of these compounds. The aim of this study was to remove these contaminants using a microporous AC fibre (ACF) made from an indigenous plant, Agave sisalana, which is widely available across sub-Saharan Africa, by using electro-physico-chemical methods. ACF has the following advantages when compared with granulated and/or powdered AC: it has a slightly larger reactive surface area; small quantities can be used; it is easily handled; it retains its shape under stress, thus does not require additional filtration to remove particulate residue; and can be regenerated easily. The manufacturing process of the ACF was done in several steps: 1) harvesting of the A. sisalana leaves, stripping them to obtain wet fibre by scrapping using traditional meth-ods, 2) chemical activation using NaOH, KOH, ZnCl2 and H3PO4, employing a spraying method instead of soaking, which was followed by drying, and 3) carbonisation in a furnace at the required temperature. The use of activation reagents involved the determination of an appropriate concentration, with optimum concentrations determined as 0.54M, 0.625M, 1.59M and 0.73M for NaOH, KOH, ZnCl2 and H3PO4, respectively. Apart from the fibre acti-vation, temperature and activation time were also important parameters that were optimised. A response surface methodology was used to design a set of experiments that provided the optimum temperature and activation time. From the input variables, the Expert design soft- ware generated experimental runs (n = 13) for each fibre activation reagent used with a tem-perature range of 450°C to 933°C being assessed for carbonisation time of between 17 to 208 minutes. ACF activated with KOH (0.54 M) and characterised by micropores with the highest surface area achieved being 1285.8 m2/g in comparison with Granular activated car-bon (Ounas et al., 2009) with an average surface area range of 1000 to 1100 m2/g. This sur-face area was measured using Dubinin-Astakhov isotherm with CO2 at 273 K. The physical characteristics of the ACF were analysed using a Scanning Electron Microscope to ascertain the integrity of the fibres. PFOA and PFOS were analysed using a solid phase extraction (SPE) method fol-lowed by analysis using a liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometer (SPE-LC/MS/MS). The water sample volume used for extraction was 60 mL. The instrument used was an HPLC - Ultimate 3000 Dionex HPLC system and MS model - Amazon SL Ion Trap, with the following MS/MS operational conditions and ion mode: MS Interface → ESI; dry temp → 350C; nebulising pressure → 60 psi; dry gas flow → 10 L/min; ionisation mode → negative; capillary voltage → +4500V; end plate offset → −500V, while the separation col-umn was a Waters Sunfire C18, 5 μm, 4.6 × 150 mm column (supplier: Waters, Dublin, Ire-land), with an operational temperature of 30C. Initially, adsorption studies (n = 48) using sonication (20 kHz) in batch systems indi-cated efficient removal of PFOA and PFOS within 120 min, with numerous samples (n = 14) achieving complete removal for both PFOA and PFOS. The minimum removal rates ob-served were 65.55% for PFOA and 95.92% for PFOS. From the ACF samples in which high-est removal rates were achieved, a number (n = 3) of the ACF samples were selected for surface characterisation. Based on the sonication in the previous experiments, an electro-physico-chemical adsorption regime was designed, to facilitate the rapid adsorption of PFOS and PFOA from contaminated drinking water in an electrolytic cell. In these experiments, si-multaneous sonication and electrolysis were used. A comparison was made between ACF produced in this study and the commercial activated carbon. The result revealed that adsorp-tion of PFOA and PFOS on ACF was a monolayer adsorption type phenomenon and had the best fit using a Freundlich isotherm compared with the Langmuir isotherm. Adsorption of PFOA and PFOS on the commercial AC presented a multilayer adsorption type of isotherm fit with the Langmuir isotherm having the best fit compared with the Freundlich isotherm.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-07-06Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:47:09Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_mr_dr_bauru.pdf: 2660814 bytes, checksum: 0f92889b38250061b645da3d1c0f67b4 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Os semicondutores BiVO4 e NiO vem sendo bastante estudados nos últimos anos para aplicação em fotoeletrocálise, mais especificamente na degradação de poluentes orgânicos em meio aquoso, implicando em sustentabilidade ambiental. Neste trabalho, estes materiais foram obtidos na forma de filmes finos pelas técnicas: Síntese de Combustão em Solução e Co-precipatação, combinadas ao processo de deposição via molhamento (dip-coating). A composição, microestrutura e morfologia dos filmes foram avaliadas por TG-DTA, DTX e MEV. Os resultados de TG-DTA e DRX permitiram verificar a temperatura de formação das classes desejadas, 287ºC para o BiVO4 e 305ºC NiO. Imagens MEV mostram que os filmes são compostos por partículas de formato aproximadamente eférico, com boa dispersão sobre o suporte. Espectros UV-VIS mostraram que filmes de BiVO4 absorvem na região do visível com bandgap da ordem de 2,5 eV, e filmes de NiO absorvem no ultravioleta no ultravioleta com bandgap da ordem de 3,0 eV. A caracterização elétrica, trouxe resultados surpreendentes, particularmente no filme de NiO, onde iluminação com luz de energia acima do gap aumentou a resistividade do material, o que está ligado a variâncias de Ni2+. A caracterização eletroquímica, realizada por voltametria cíclica e cronoamperometria, mostrou que ambos os filmes respondem à excitação à excitação com luz de determinado comprimento de onda, além de apresentar estabilidade na corrente fotogerada. Ambos os filmes se mostraram eletroativos frente à reação de degradação do azul de metileno, sendo que na presença de luz ocorre a maior degradação. Um eletrodo com heterojunção p-n foi confeccionado utilizando estes dois materiais. O eletrodo FTO/p-NiO/n-BiVO4 apresentou excelente desempenho frente à degradação do azul de metileno, em... / The semiconductor BiVO4 and NiO have been extensively studied in recent years for the photoelectrocatalysis application, more specifically in the organics polluants degradation in aqueous solution, which leads to sustainability environment. In this work, these materials were obtained in the form of thin films by Solution Combustion Systhesis and co-precipitation techniques, combinee with the dip-coating deposition process. The composition, microstructure and morphology of these films was evaluated by TG-DTA, XRD and SEM. TG-DTA and XRD results were important to verify the temperature of the desired phase formation, which tuned out as 287ºC and 305ºC for the BiVO4 and NiO, respectively. SEM images show that the films consist of spherical particles with good dispersion on the support . UV-VIS Spectroscopy, have shown that BiVO4 thin film absorbs in the viable region with bandage energy of about 2.5 eV, whereas the NiO thin film absorbs in the ultraviolet region with bandagap energy about 3.0 eV. The electrical characterization has shown striking results, particularly on the NiO film, where irradiation with above bandgap light leads to a resistivity increase, which was related to the presence of Ni2+ vacancies. The electrochemical characterization, carried out by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry, has shown that both the films respond to excitation with light of specific wavelength and provides stability in the photocurrent. Both the films are electroactive in the methylene blue dedradation reaction and that the greatest degradation takes place in the presence of light. A p-n heterojunction electrode was made using these two materials. The FTO/p-NiO/n-BiVO4, electrode showed excellent performance in the methylene blue degradation in different electrolytes under visible and UV light ilumination. The percentages of... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

M.Sc. / Natural Organic Matter (NOM) is a complex of organic material present in a natural surface water. Odour, taste and acidity are some of the problems associated with NOM in water systems. Futhermore, it causes the yellow or brown colour of water, whic is aesthetically unpleasant to consumers. NOM is also the energy source of bacterial re-growth and aids in the transportation of metal ions in the distribution system.Moreover, NOM in water can react with disinfectants, e.g. chlorine, to form disinfection by products (DBPs) such as trihalomethanes (THMs) and habacetic acids (HAAs). DBPs have recently been found to have adverse effects in humans. This study was undertaken in order to assess the effectiveness of some of the water treatment techniques employed by selected water supplying companies in dealing with NOM. To achive this, the water treatment processes used by these companies to reduce NOM and metal ions were coagulation, sand filtration, the use of granular activated carbon, ozonation and chlorination. In addition, β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) polyurethanes synthesized in our laboratories were used to remove the DBPs present in the water samples.

Faecal contamination in water is detected using appropriate microbial models such as total coliforms, faecal coliforms and E. coli. Βeta-D-Galactosidase (β-GAL) and Beta-D-glucuronidase (β-GUD) are two marker enzymes that are used to test for the presence of total coliforms and E. coli in water samples, respectively. Various assay methods have been developed using chromogenic and fluorogenic substrates. In this study, the chromogenic substrates chlorophenol red β-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG) for β-GAL and p-nitrophenyl-β-D-galactopyranoside (PNPG) for β-GUD were used. Potential problems associated with this approach include interference from other organisms present in the environment (e.g. plants, algae and other bacteria), as well as the presence of certain chemicals, such as phenolic compounds in water. Phenolic compounds are present in the aquatic environment due to their extensive industrial applications. The USA Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) lists 11 Priority Pollutant Phenols (PPP) due to their high level of toxicity. This study investigated the interfering effects of the eleven PPP found in water on the enzyme activities of both the β-GAL and β-GUD enzyme assays. The presence of these PPP in the β-GAL and β-GUD enzyme assays showed that over and underestimation of activity may occur due to inhibition or activation of these enzymes. Three types of inhibition to enzyme activities were identified from double reciprocal Lineweaver-Burk plots. The inhibition constants (Ki) were determined for all inhibitory phenolic compounds from appropriate secondary plots. Furthermore, this study presented a validated reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method, developed for the simultaneous detection, separation and determination of all eleven phenolic compounds found in the environment. This method demonstrated good linearity, reproducibility, accuracy and sensitivity. Environmental water samples were collected from rivers, streams, industrial sites and wastewater treatment plant effluent. These samples were extracted and concentrated using a solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure prior to analysis employing the newly developed HPLC method in this study. Seasonal variations on the presence of the PPP in the environment were observed at certain collection sites. The concentrations found were between 0.033 μg/ml for 2,4-dinitrophenol in a running stream to 0.890 mg/ml for pentachlorophenol from an tannery industrial site. These concentrations of phenolic compounds found in these environments were able to interfere with the β-GAL and β-GUD enzyme assays.