Exposure to indoor air pollution (IAP) from the combustion of biomass fuels is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. In the work discussed in this paper we evaluated the endocrine activity of soot particles from biomass fuels by using yeast bioassay. These pollutants could have beta-galactosidase activity with a relative potency (RP) about 10(-7)-10(-9) that of ...

The Biosorption property of S. cerevisiae for chromium uptake was investigated in an immobilized cell bioreactor. Saw dust was utilized as the solid bed in the reactor. Adsorption of S. cerevisiae on saw dust obeys a first order reaction kinetic up to 6 hours. The immobilized biomass particles are porous and exist in the new generation of biological adsorbent. Chromium biosorption was studied i...

BACKGROUND Today, most of pretreatments used to convert biomass into biofuels are based on expensive chemical processes that not only do not keep the major components intact after separation, but also consume water and generate many effluents. However, dry fractionation technologies are an important step for future biomass biorefineries since they do not require chemicals and do not generate wa...

A detailed biomass pyrolysis kinetic scheme was assessed in the multiscale simulations of a single-particle pyrolyzer with slow and pilot-scale entrained flow fast pyrolysis. The developed by CRECK group consists 32 reactions 58 species. simulation model developed, where kinetics employed to simulate reactions, one-dimensional particle utilized intraparticle transport phenomena, particle-in-cel...

The chemical content of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) as a function of particle size was characterized in Little Rock, Arkansas in winter and spring 2013. The objectives of this study were to (i) compare the functional characteristics of coarse, fine and ultrafine WSOC and (ii) reconcile the sources of WSOC for periods when carbonaceous aerosol was the most abundant particulate component....

Rice husk and sawdust were selected as the raw materials for a study of biomass char yield in the range of 600 to 900 °C. It was found that temperature was the primary factor affecting the biomass char yield. The yield of the rice husk and sawdust chars decreased significantly with increasing temperature. As the residence time increased, the biomass char yield decreased. The smaller the size of...

This study examines the morphological properties of freshly emitted and atmospherically aged aerosols from biomass burning. The impacts of particle morphology assumptions on hygroscopic predictions are examined. Chamber experiments were conducted at the University of California, Riverside, Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) atmospheric processes lab using two biomass fue...

There were no signi®cant differences in the percent mortality and weight of earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) after 40 days in soil planted with Bt (NK4640Bt) or non-Bt corn or after 45 days in soil amended with biomass of Bt or non-Bt corn. The toxin was present in the guts and casts of earthworms in soil planted with Bt corn or amended with biomass of Bt corn, but it was cleared within 2±3 da...