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.
This work compares the changes in optical and structural properties of cerium oxide (CeO2) when doped with different concentrations (3%,5%,7%, and 9%) of two oxides, In2O3 and Eu2O3. X-ray diffraction and spectrophotometry were employed in the visible, ultraviolet, and near-infrared regions. The findings demonstrated that CeO2 doped with In2O3 and Eu2O3 thin films were polycrystalline and had a cubic structure. The crystal size increased from 20.5 to 32.15 when Eu2O3 doping ratio increased from 0% to 7% and then decreased to 28.46 nm at 9%. While the crystal size showed an increase from 20.5 to 21.42 nm with the increase of the In2O3 doping ratio, while the lattice constant measured for cubic CeO2 changed opposite to that
... Show MoreTo test the effect of 4 levels of nitrogen (i.e. 0, 45, 90 and 135 Kg N ha-1) as urea (46% N) and 3 levels of phosphorus (i.e. 0, 17.5 and 35 Kg P ha-1) as triple superphosphate (21.8% P) on yield and concentration of dill (Anethum graveolens L. local cultivar) seed oil this experiment was carried out during winter season of 1999 - 2000 at the experimental field of Agriculture College, Abu-Ghraib.
Both fertilizers were applied in two equal splits, first at seeds sowing and the second was added one month after emergence. Dried and ground seed samples were subjected to water distillation for extraction of volatile oils
Result indicated that fertilization of dill plants with 90 Kg N
... Show MoreA polycrystalline CdTefilms have been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate at room temperature. The films thickness was about700±50 nm. Some of these films were annealed at 573 K for different duration times (60, 120 and 180 minutes), and other CdTe films followed by a layer of CdCl2 which has been deposited on them, and then the prepared CdTe films with CdCl2 layer have been annealed for the same conditions. The structures of CdTe films without and with CdCl2 layer have been investigated by X-ray diffraction. The as prepared and annealed films without and with CdCl2 layer were polycrystalline structure with preferred orientation at (111) plane. The better structural pr
... Show MoreNano-structural of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) thin films were
deposited by chemical spray pyrolysis technique (CSPT). Nd and Ce
doped vanadium oxide films were prepared, adding Neodymium
chloride (NdCl3) and ceric sulfate (Ce(SO4)2) of 3% in separate
solution. These precursor solutions were used to deposit un-doped
V2O5 and doped with Nd and Ce films on the p-type Si (111) and
glass substrate at 250°C. The structural, optical and electrical
properties were investigated. The X-ray diffraction study revealed a
polycrystalline nature of the orthorhombic structure with the
preferred orientation of (010) with nano-grains. Atomic force
microscopy (AFM) was used to characterize the morphology of the
films. Un-do
Fiber reinforced polymer composite is an important material for structural application. The diversified application of FRP composite has taken center of attraction for interdisciplinary research. However, improvements on mechanical properties of this class of materials are still under research for different applications. In this paper we have modified the epoxy matrix by Al2O3, SiO2 and TiO2 nano particles in glass fiber/epoxy composite to improve the mechanical and physical properties. The composites are fabricated by hand lay-up method. It is observed that mechanical properties like flexural strength, hardness are more in case of SiO2 modified epoxy composite compare to other nano
... Show MoreFour new copolymers were synthesized from reaction of bis acid monomer 3-((4-carboxyphenyl) diazenyl)-5-chloro-2-hydroxybenzoic acid with five diacidhydrazide in presence of poly phosphoric acid. The resulted monomers and copolymers have been characterized by FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR spectroscopy as well as EIMs technique. The number averages of molecular weights of the copolymers are between 4822 and 9144, and their polydispersity indexes are between 1.02 and 2.15. All the copolymers show good thermal stability with the temperatures higher than 305.86 C when losing 10% weight under nitrogen. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurement and the electrochemical band gaps (Eg) of these copolymers are found below 2.00 ev.
The compounding of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with two types of fillers and some additives were studied for the manufacturing of acid resistant tile. Various concentrations of two types of fillers namely; calcium carbonate and recycled glass powder were used along with different additives generally categorized as plasticizers, stabilizers, and lubricants were mixed in the standard concentration unit parts per hundred resins (phr) with the PVC as base polymer. The effects of filler materials on acid resistant towered different acids like sulphuric, nitric and hydrochloric at different concentration were studied. Samples which passed the test were further checked for dielectric strength and mechanical properties. It was found that the recycl
... Show MoreIn the present work, nanocomposite of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) incorporated with functionalized graphene oxide (FGO) were fabricated using casting method. PVA was dispersed by varying content of FGO (0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1 wt %). The PVA- FGO nanocomposite was characterized by FT‐IR, FE-SEM and XRD. Frequency dependence of real permittivity (ε’), imaginary (ε’’) and a.c conductivity of PVA/FGO and PVA/GO nanocomposite were studied in the frequency range 100 Hz- 1 MHz. The experimental results showed that the values of real (ε’) and imaginary permittivity (ε’’) increased dramatically by increasing the FGO content in PVA matrix. PVA/ FGO (1 wt %) nanocomposite revealed higher electrical conductivity of 6.4×10-4 Sm-1 compared to
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