Perennial biofuel and cover crops systems are important for enhancing soil health and can provide numerous soil, agricultural, and environmental benefits. The study objective was to investigate the effects of cover crops and biofuel crops on soil hydraulic properties relative to traditional management for claypan soils. The study site included selected management practices: cover crop (CC) and no cover crop (NC) with corn/soybean rotation, switchgrass (SW), and miscanthus (MI). The CC mixture consisted of cereal rye, hairy vetch, and Austrian winter pea. The research site was located at Bradford Research Center in Missouri, USA, and was implemented on a Mexico silt loam. Intact soil cores (76‐mm diam. by 76‐mm long) were taken from the 0–10, 10–20, 20–30, and 30–40 cm depths with three plot replicates and two sub‐samples per plot replicate per depth. Soil hydraulic properties evaluated for each sample included: saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat), water retention, bulk density, and pore size distributions. Results showed with the test of Duncan's least significant differences that treatments of MI (1.18 Mg m−3) and SW (1.21 Mg m−3) had lower values of bulk density averaging across soil depth than CC (1.27 Mg m−3) and NC (1.31 Mg m). Management systems significantly increased Ksat with the biofuel treatments at 0–10 cm compared to NC system. The MI management showed a significant increase in macroporosity and fine mesoporosity as compared to other management systems. Slight changes have occurred in the measured soil physical properties for CC system compared to NC plots. Overall, increasing soil organic matter from more plant roots from long‐term biofuel cropping systems can improve soil water storage and crop productivity.
In the last decades, using mineral admixture in concrete became very necessary to improve concrete properties and reduce CO2 emissions associated with the cement production process. Subsequently, more sustainable concrete can be obtained. Ternary blended cement containing two different types of mineral admixture can achieve ambitious steps in this trend. In this research, the synergic effects of mineral admixtures in ternary blended cement and its effects on concrete fresh properties, strength, durability, and efficiency factors of mineral admixture in ternary blended cement, were reviewed. The main conclusion reached after reviewing many literature pieces is that the concrete with ternary blended cement
... Show MoreThe effect of Wood Flour addition to the gamma alumina powder used in the preparation of gamma alumina (ɤ-Al2O3) catalyst carrier extrudates on the pore volume and BET surface area physical properties was investigated. Two parameters which are size of wood flour particles and its quantity were studied. The sizes of wood flour particles used are 150 µm, 212 µm and 500 µm and the weight percentage added to the gamma alumina powder during the preparation of the extrudates are (1%, 3%, 5% and 10%). The results showed that the addition of wood flour to the gamma alumina powder in order to get gamma alumina extrudates used as catalyst carrier is one of the successful methods to improve the pore volume
... Show MoreBack ground: During acrylic resin processing, the mold must be separated from the surface of the gypsum to prevent liquid resin from penetrating into the gypsum, and water from the gypsum seeping into the acrylic resin. For many years, tin foil was the most acceptable separating medium, and because it's difficult to apply, a tin-foil substitute is used. In this study, olive oil is used as an alternative to tin foil separating medium for first time, so the aim of the study was to evaluate its effect as a separating medium on some physical properties such as (surface roughness, water sorption and solubility) of acrylic resins denture base comparing it with those processed using tin-foil and tin foil substitute such as (cold mold seal) separat
... Show MoreThis work concerns the thermal and sound insulation as well as the mechanical properties of polymer matrix composite reinforced with glass fibers. These fibers may have dangerous effect during handling, for example the glass fibers might cause some damage to the eyes, lungs and even skin. For this reason the present work, investigates the behavior of polymer composite reinforced with natural fibers (Plant fibers) as replacement to glass fibers. Unsaturated Polyester resin was used as matrix material reinforced with two types of fibers, one of them is artificial (Glass fibers) and the other type is natural (Jute, Fronds Palm and Reed Fibers) by hand lay-up technique. All fibers are untreated with any chemical solvent. The Percentage of mi
... Show MoreThis study discussed the effects of doping with silver (Ag) on the optical and structural properties of
CdO nanoparticles at different concentrations 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 wt% prepared by the precipitation method. The
materials were annealed at 550˚C for 1 h. The structural, topographical, and optical properties were
diagnosed by X-ray diffraction analysis, atomic force instrument, and visible and ultraviolet spectrometers.
The results show that the average diameter of the grains depends on the percentage of added silver to the
material, as the diameter decreased from 88.8 to 59.7 nm, and it was found that the roughness increased from
5.56 to 26.5. When studying the optical properties, it was noted that th
Nanoparticles of Pb1-xCdxS within the composition of 0≤x≤1 were prepared from the reaction of aqueous solution of cadmium acetate, lead acetate, thiourea, and NaOH by chemical co-precipitation. The prepared samples were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy(in the range 300-1100nm) to study the optical properties, AFM and SEM to check the surface morphology(Roughness average and shape) and the particle size. XRD technique was used to determine the crystalline structure, XRD technique was used to determine the purity of the phase and the crystalline structure, The crystalline size average of the nanoparticles have been found to be 20.7, 15.48, 11.9, 11.8, and 13.65 nm for PbS, Pb0.75Cd0.25S,
... Show MoreIn this study, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was synthesized from graphene oxide (GO) via an ascorbic acid-assisted reduction process. GO was synthesized from graphite powder using a modified Hummers technique. The surface morphology, structure, functional groups, and elemental compositions of the produced materials were studied using various methods, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/EDX, X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and UV-Vis. The removal of oxygen-containing functional groups in rGO through reduction resulted in poor sample quality. In addition, FTIR investigations revealed that GO contained more oxygen-containing functional groups than rGO. Typical peaks at 2
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