Coal-burning power plants have been the largest unregulated source of mercury emissions in the United States, sending 48 tons of mercury into the air annually. In 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated its Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), requiring coal-fired power plants to reduce their mercury emissions by approximately 20% beginning in 2010. Numerous states are already requ...

We report an experimental study of the intermittent dynamics of a gas flowing through a column of a non-Newtonian fluid. In a given range of the imposed constant flow rate, the system spontaneously alternates between two regimes: bubbles emitted at the bottom either rise independently one from the other or merge to create a winding flue which then connects the bottom air entrance to the free su...

One of the most important yet ancient technique in the tobacco industry, is the grading of flue-cured tobacco. Factors to be considered include overall color, blemish, damage, texture, leaf length and ripeness. It is therefore imperative that leaves from different plant positions (different groups) i.e. primings, lugs, cutters, leaf, and tips must be kept separate because they have important di...

Coal-fired power plants provided between 45% and 50% of the United States net energy generation in the years between 1999 and 2010 and will continue to be a primary source of electricity into the future. Among the major environmental concerns of coal utilization is the release of mercury (Hg), which was recently regulated by the US EPA in the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) ruling in De...

Complete treatment of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from flue gases in a two-stage process consisting of a biotrickling filter followed by biological post-treatment unit was investigated. The biotrickling filter could remove 100% of influent SO2 from simulated flue gas at an empty bed residence time of 6 s for a concentration range of 300-1000 ppm(v). All the absorbed SO2 was recovered in the biotrickli...

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) causes great losses in tomato production. In addition to tomato, TYLCV infects many crops or weeds as alternative hosts. These alternative hosts may serve as reservoirs for TYLCV survival and spread. Here, we tested the capability of cultivated, flue-cured tobacco to act as a reservoir host plant for TYLCV. TYLCV DNA was detected in nine flue-cured tobacco ...

At international level LCA is being increasingly used to objectively evaluate the performances of different Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management solutions. One of the more important waste management options concerns MSW incineration. LCA is usually applied to existing incineration plants. In this study LCA methodology was applied to a new Italian incineration line, to facilitate the predictio...

All the leading cities in the world are slowly becoming inhospitable for human life with global warming playing havoc with the living conditions. Biomineralization of carbon dioxide using carbonic anhydrase (CA) is one of the most economical methods for mitigating global warming. The burning of fossil fuels results in the emission of large quantities of flue gas. The temperature of flue gas is ...

A mobile sampling and measurement system for the analysis of gaseous and liquid samples in the field was developed. An inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES), which is built into a van, was used as detector. The analytical system was calibrated with liquid and/or gaseous standards. It was shown that identical mass flows of either gaseous or liquid standards resulted ...

An investigation focused on the transformation and distribution behaviors of trace elements and natural radionuclides around a coal gangue brick plant was conducted. Simultaneous sampling of coal gangue, brick, fly ash and flue gas were implemented. Soil, soybean and earthworm samples around the brick plant were also collected for comprehensive ecological assessment. During the firing process, ...