The existing study aimed to assess four soil moisture sensors’ capacitive (WH51 and SKU: S EN0193) and resistive (Yl69 and IC Station) abilities, which are affordable and medium-priced for their accuracy in six common soil types in the central region of Iraq. The readings’ calibration for the soil moisture sensor devices continued through two gravimetric methods. The first depended on the protocols’ database, while the second was the traditional calibration method. The second method recorded the lowest analysis error compared with the first. The moderate-cost sensor WH51 showed the lowest standard error (SE), MAD , and RMSE and the highest R² in both methods. The performance accuracy of WH51 was close to readings shown by the manufacturing company (1%), as the MAD amounted to 1.62%. Through both methods, the average MAD for sensors ranged from 4.76% to 7.36%, with this result considered acceptable, especially for low-cost sensors with insufficient available information for accuracy. In general, the average mean absolute percentage (MAPE) for all sensors was 25.54%, which means that the validity of the measurement for the l ow-cost sensors reached 7 5%. It encourages their use by plant breeders in irrigation, as the error rate was less than the specified depletion of 50% for available water in irrigation, where all study textures showed that the sensor reading reached the limits of 72 (±2), adopting 3% MAD for all sensors. The study affirms that, except for the IC station sensor recommended for irrigation use only in sandy-sandy loam soils, low-cost sensors have suitable accuracy for irrigation management.
Soil wetted pattern from a subsurface drip plays great importance in the design of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system for delivering the required water directly to the roots of the plant. An equation to estimate the dimensions of the wetted area in soil are taking into account water uptake by roots is simulated numerically using HYDRUS (2D/3D) software. In this paper, three soil textures namely loamy sand, sandy loam, and loam soil were used with three different types of crops tomato, pepper, and cucumber, respectively, and different values of drip discharge, drip depth, and initial soil moisture content were proposed. The soil wetting patterns were obtained at every thirty minutes for a total time of irrigation equ
... Show MoreLevan is an exopolysaccharide produced by various microorganisms and has a variety of applications. In this research, the aim was to demonstrate the biological activity of levan which produced from B. phenoliresistens KX139300. These were done via study the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer and antileishmanial activities in vitro. The antioxidant levan was shown 80.9% activity at 1250 µg/mL concentration. The efficient anti-inflammatory activity of 88% protein inhibition was noticed with levan concentration at 35 µg/mL. The cytotoxic activity of levan at 2500 µg/mL concentration showed a maximum cytotoxic effect on L20B cell line and promastigotes of Leishmani tropica. Levan has dose-dependent anticancer and antileishmanial acti
... Show MoreThe two-dimensional transient heat conduction through a thermal insulation of temperature dependent thermal properties is investigated numerically using the FVM. It is assumed that this insulating material is initially at a uniform temperature. Then, it is suddenly subjected at its inner surface with a step change in temperature and subjected at its outer surface with a natural convection boundary condition associated with a periodic change in ambient temperature and heat flux of solar radiation. Two thermal insulation materials were selected. The fully implicit time scheme is selected to represent the time discretization. The arithmetic mean thermal conductivity is chosen to be the value of the approximated thermal conductivity at the i
... Show MoreAl-Rustamiyah plant is the oldest and biggest sewage treatment plant in Iraq; it locates in the south of Baghdad city. The plant suffers from serious problems associated with overflow and low capacity. The present work aims to upgrade the heart of biological treatment process through suggesting the use of membrane bioreactor; (MBR). In this work, fouling of membrane during sewage treatment has been analyzed experimentally and theoretically by fouling mechanisms. Aeration has been applied in order to control fouling through producing effective diameters of air bubbles close to the membrane walls. Effect of air flow rate on flux decline was investigated. Hermia's models were used to investigate the fouling mechanisms. The results showed th
... Show MoreIn the present work, tetracycline (TC) was removed from a simulated wastewater through a new photo-anodic oxidation process with a rotating graphite cylinder anode. The effects of current density, pH, rotation speed, and NaCl addition were evaluated. The results confirmed that increasing the current density results in improving the removal of TC. However, increasing the current density beyond 5 mA/cm2 had little effect on TC removal. Results revealed that TC removal using photoanodic oxidation can be achieved at high performance with an initial pH of 5. Increasing or decreasing pH beyond this value has a negative effect on TC removal. Increasing rotation speed gave better performance for TC removal due to the increase in mass t
... Show MoreChemical bath deposition was used to synthesize ZnO nanorods (NRs) on glass and fluorine_doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates. X-ray diffraction was performed to examine the crystallinity of ZnO nanorod. Results showed that ZnO NRs had a wurtzite crystal structure. Field emission scanning electron microscopy images showed that glass sample had rod-like structure distribution with (50 nm) diameter and average length of approximately (700 nm), whereas the FTO-coated glass sample had 25 nm diameter and average length of approximately 950 nm. The direct optical transition band gaps of the glass and FTO_coated glass samples were( 4 and 4.43 eV), respectively. The structural and optical properties of the synthesized ZnO p
... Show MoreToday, dimethyl ether (DME) is changing to ordinarily worn as a superb aerosol propellant and refrigerant for its eco-friendly characteristics. Lately, with the development of novel chemical energy in the coal industries, it has become a fascinating field of research as an alternative green fuel for diesel machines due to the high cetane number. The DME synthesis processes include catalytic dehydrating methanol in an adiabatic fixed-bed reactor. In this study, to investigate the chemical conditions of the methanol dehydration reaction, CFD simulations of the adiabatic reactor have been assessed. The advantage of the work is a sensitivity analysis was run to find the effect of pressure, kinetics, and velocity on the reactor performan
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