Approximately 11% and 25% of annual Canadian oil spill accidents are gasoline and diesel spills, respectively. Gasoline and diesel spills are a challenge to conventional environmental forensic techniques because refinery processes remove most of the higher molecular weight biomarkers. This study presents a tiered environmental forensics strategy that includes such information as site operationa...

Petroleum hydrocarbon-degrading fungi were isolated from Detarium senegalense seeds. An assessment of the relative ability of each fungus to degrade petroleum crude oil, diesel, unspent and spent engine oils, kerosene and Detarium senegalense oil extract, on minimal salt broth, was done measuring change in optical density read on a spectrophotometer. Five fungi were isolated from diseased namel...

The ability to prepare solid surfaces with well-controlled superhydrophobic and superoleophilic properties is of paramount importance to water-oil separation technology. Herein, we successfully prepared superhydrophobic-superoleophilic membranes by single-step deposition of polystyrene (PS) nanofibers onto a stainless steel mesh via electrospinning. The contact angles of diesel and water on the...

The rapid depletion in world petroleum reserves and uncertainty in petroleum supply due to political and economical reasons, as well as, the sharp escalations in the petroleum prices have stimulated the search for alternatives to petroleum fuels. The situation is very grave in developing countries like India which imports 70% of the required fuel, spending 30% of her total foreign exchange earn...

The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between engine performance and emissions of cottonseed oil biodiesel used in a 14.2 kW diesel engine. When using cottonseed oil biodiesel blends, CO, total hydrocarbon (THC), NOx, and SO2 emissions decreased as compared to petroleum diesel. Carbon dioxide emissions had no definitive trend in relation to cottonseed oil biodiesel bl...

Physicochemical properties of the commercially procured rubber seed oil (RSO) were studied to evaluate its potential as viable feedstock for biodiesel production. The procured rubber seed oil were characterized for acid value, saponification value, free fatty acid, flash point, kinematic viscosity, and refractive indices using standard methods. Results indicate that the procured rubber seed oil...

A solid-state bioprocess with wheat bran and rice husk as substrate was used to isolate filamentous fungi with lipase activity from dairy effluent and soil contaminated with diesel oil. The lipase activity was measured in units, with one unit (U) being defined as the amount of enzyme required to liberate 1 micromol of fatty acids per minute per gram of bran substrate (1 U = 1 micromol min(-1) g...

This study was set out to characterize particulate emissions from transportation diesel engine in terms of heavy metals. The exhaust particulates from Mahindra DI engine were collected and analyzed at four different engine operating conditions namely idling, 40%, 70% and full load. It was found that as the load increases from idling to full load, the heavy metal content in particulates graduall...

Different vegetable oil based biodiesel (FAMES) were prepared by alkaline transesterification using refined oils as well as waste frying oil (WFO). Methanol and sodium hydroxide are used as catalyst under similar reaction conditions. To ensure the quality of biodiesel produced, a series of different ASTM Standard tests were carried out. In this context, various testwere done including viscosity...

Were evaluated natural attenuation, biostimulation and bioaugmentation on the degradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in soils contaminated with diesel oil. Bioaugmentation showed the greatest degradation in the light (C12 C23) fractions (72.7%) and heavy (C23 C40) fractions of TPH (75.2%) and natural attenuation was more effective than biostimulation. The greatest dehydrogenase activ...