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 based on the solution of an advection-reaction-dispersion mass balance equation, using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a software which is based on finite element method, was developed to study the space and time concentration of copper within groundwater. Experimental and numerical results proved that the PRB represents a potential role in the restriction of the copper plume migration. Also, these results showed that the greater thickness of PRB results in a better treatment of copper and that the barrier starts to saturate with contaminant as a function of the travel time. However, a good agreement between the predicted (theoretical) and experimental results with RMSE not exceeded the 0.08 proved these methods are effective and efficient tools in description of copper transport phenomena adopted here.
Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii ) is considered a critical healthcare problem for patients in intensive care units due to its high ability to be multidrug-resistant to most commercially available antibiotics. The aim of this study is to develop a colorimetric assay to quantitatively detect the target DNA of A. baumannii based on unmodified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) from different clinical samples (burns, surgical wounds, sputum, blood and urine). A total of thirty-six A. baumannii clinical isolates were collected from five Iraqi hospitals in Erbil and Mosul provinces within the period from September 2020 to January 2021. Bacterial isolation and biochemical identification of isolates
... Show MoreCorncob is an agricultural biomass waste that was widely investigated as an adsorbent of contaminants after transforming it into activated carbon. In this research carbonization and chemical activation processes were achieved to synthesize corncob-activated carbon (CAC). Many pretreatment steps including crushing, grinding, and drying to obtain corncob powder were performed before the carbonization step. The carbonization of corncob powder has occurred in the absence of air at a temperature of 500 °C. The chemical activation was accomplished by using HCl as an acidic activation agent. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) facilitate
... Show MoreThe catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) of phenol has been studied in a trickle bed reactor
using active carbon prepared from date stones as catalyst by ferric and zinc chloride activation (FAC and ZAC). The activated carbons were characterized by measuring their surface area and adsorption capacity besides conventional properties, and then checked for CWAO using a trickle bed reactor operating at different conditions (i.e. pH, gas flow rate, LHSV, temperature and oxygen partial pressure). The results showed that the active carbon (FAC and ZAC), without any active metal supported, gives the highest phenol conversion. The reaction network proposed account
... Show MoreIn this research, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is prepared through the Hummers method with a slight change in some of the work steps, thus, a new method has been created for preparing carbon nanotubes which is similar to the original Hummers method that is used to prepare graphene oxide. Then, the suspension carbon nanotubes is transferred to a simple electrode position platform consisting of two electrodes and the cell body for the coating and reduction of the carbon nanotubes on ITO glass which represents the cathode electrode while platinum represents the anode electrode. The deposited layer of carbon nanotubes is examined through the scanning electron microscope technique (SEM), and the images throughout the research show the
... Show MoreProduction of fatty acid esters (biodiesel) from oleic acid and 2-ethylhexanol using sulfated zirconia as solid catalyst for the production of biodiesel was investigated in this work.
The parameters studied were temperature of reaction (100 to 130°C), molar ratio of alcohol to free fatty acid (1:1 to 3:1), concentration of catalyst (0.5 to 3%wt), mixing speed (500 to 900 rpm) and types of sulfated zirconia (i.e modified, commercial, prepared catalyst according to literature and reused catalyst). The results show the best conversion to biodiesel was 97.74% at conditions of 130°C, 3:1, 2wt% and 650 rpm using modified catalyst respectively. Also, modified c
... Show MoreThe adsorption process of reactive blue 49 (RB49) dye and reactive red 195 (RR195) dye from an aqueous solutions was explored using a novel adsorbent produced from the sunflower husks encapsulated with copper oxide nanoparticle (CSFH). Primarily, the features of a CSFH, such as surface morphology, functional groups, and structure, were characterized. It was determined that coating the sunflower husks with copper oxide nanoparticles greatly improved the surface and structural properties related to the adsorption capacity. The adsorption process was successful, with a removal efficiency of 97% for RB49 and 98% for RR195 under optimal operating conditions, contact time of 180 min, pH of 7, agitation speed of 150 rpm, initial dye concentration
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