A phytoremediation experiment was carried out with kerosene as a model for total petroleum hydrocarbons. A constructed wetland of barley was exposed to kerosene pollutants at varying concentrations (1, 2, and 3% v/v) in a subsurface flow (SSF) system. After a period of 42 days of exposure, it was found that the average ability to eliminate kerosene ranged from 56.5% to 61.2%, with the highest removal obtained at a kerosene concentration of 1% v/v. The analysis of kerosene at varying initial concentrations allowed the kinetics of kerosene to be fitted with the Grau model, which was closer than that with the zero order, first order, or second order kinetic models. The experimental study showed that the barley plant designed in a subsurface flow phytoremediation system would have great potential for the reclamation of kerosene-contaminated water.
The possibility of using activated carbon developed from date palm seeds wastes as a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to remove copper from polluted shallow groundwater was investigated. The activated carbon has been developed from date palm seeds by dehydrating methods using concentrated sulfuric acid. Batch tests were performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of new activated carbon in copper-containing aqueous solutions, while the sandy soil (aquifer) was assumed to be inert. Under the studied conditions, the Langmuir isotherm model gives a better fit for the sorption data of copper by activated carbon than other models. At a pilot scale, One-dimensional column experiments were performed, and an integrated model ba
... Show MoreThe present work is to investigate the feasibility of removal vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) from Iraqi heavy gas oil using activated bentonite. Different operating parameters such as the degree of bentonite activation, activated bentonite loading, and operating time was investigated on the effect of heavy metal removal efficiency. Experimental results of adsorption test show that Langmuir isotherm predicts well the experimental data and the maximum bentonite uptake of vanadium was 30 mg/g. The bentonite activated with 50 wt% H2SO4 shows a (75%) removal for both Ni and V. Results indicated that within approximately 5 hrs, the vanadium removal efficiencies were 33, 45, and 60% at vanadium loadings of 1
... Show MoreThis study investigates the results of electrocoagulation (EC) using aluminum (Al) electrodes as anode and stainless steel (grade 316) as a cathode for removing silica, calcium, and magnesium ions from simulated cooling tower blowdown waters. The simulated water contains (50 mg/l silica, 508 mg/l calcium, and 292 mg/l magnesium). The influence of different experimental parameters, such as current density (0.5, 1, and 2 mA/cm2), initial pH(5,7, and 10), the temperature of the simulated solution(250C and 35 0C), and electrolysis time was studied. The highest removal efficiency of 80.183%, 99.21%, and 98.06% for calcium, silica, and magnesium ions, respectively, were obtained at a current de
... Show MoreThe object of the presented study was to monitor the changes that had happened in the main features (water, vegetation, and soil) of Al-Hammar Marsh region. To fulfill this goal, different satellite images had been used in different times, MSS 1973, TM 1990, ETM+ 2000, 2002, and MODIS 2009, 2010. A new technique of the unsupervised classification called (Color Extracting Technique) was used to classify the satellite images. MATLAP programming used the technique and separated Al-Hammar Marsh from other water features (rivers, irrigated lands, etc.) when calculated the changes in the water content of the study region. ArcGIS 9.3 (arcMAP, arcToolbox) were used to achieve this work and calculate area of each class.
Ultimate oil recovery and displacement efficiency at the pore-scale are controlled by the rock wettability thus there is a growing interest in the wetting behaviour of reservoir rocks as production from fractured oil-wet or mixed-wet limestone formations have remained a key challenge. Conventional waterflooding methods are inefficient in such formation due to poor spontaneous imbibition of water into the oil-wet rock capillaries. However, altering the wettability to water-wet could yield recovery of significant amounts of additional oil thus this study investigates the influence of nanoparticles on wettability alteration. The efficiency of various formulated zirconium-oxide (ZrO2) based nanofluids at different nanoparticle concentrations (0
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