In this study, sawdust as a cheap method and abundant raw material was utilized to produce active carbon (SDAC). Physiochemical activation was utilized where potassium hydroxide   used as a chemical activating agent and carbon dioxide was used as a physical activating agent. Taguchi method of experimental design was used to find the optimum conditions of SDAC production. The produced SDAC was characterized using SEM to investigate surface morphology and BET to estimate the specific surface area. SDAC was used in aqueous lead ions adsorption. Adsorption process was modeled statistically and represented by an empirical model. The highest specific surface area of SDAC was 688.3 m2/gm. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were used to

Industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper can be produced by many industries. The reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technologies are very efficient for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper ions to reduce water consumption and preserving the environment. Synthetic industrial wastewater samples containing Ni(II), Pb(II), and Cu(II) ions at various concentrations (50 to 200 ppm), pressures (1 to 4 bar), temperatures (10 to 40 ^oC), pH (2 to 5.5), and flow rates (10 to 40 L/hr), were prepared and subjected to treatment by RO system in the laboratory. The results showed that high removal efficiency of the heavy metals could be achieved by RO process (98.5%, 97.5% and 96% for Ni(II),

Composting is one of the solid waste management (SWM) methods where the organic component decomposed biologically under controlled conditions. In this study, a 0.166 m³ bioreactor tank was designed to compose 59.2Kg of simulated common municipal solid food waste having a bulk density, organic matter, organic carbon, pH, nitrogen content, C/N and nitrification index (NH₄-N/ NO₃-N) of 536.62 kg/m³, 62.34%, 34.76%, 6.53, 1.86%, 23 and 0.34 respectively. The bioreactor operated aerobically for 30 days, and anaerobically for 70 days, until the end of the composting process. Results proved that the composting process could reduce the mass of the waste by 69%.  Nitrogen content,

The study aims to evaluate the removal of sulfur content from Iraqi light naphtha produced in Al-Dora refinery by adsorption desulfurization DS technique using modified activated carbon MAC loaded with nickel Ni and copper Cu as single binary metals. The experiments were carried in a batch unit with various operating parameters;  MAC dosage, agitation speed, and a contact time of 300 min at constant initial sulfur concentration 155 ppm and temperature. The results showed higher DS% by AC/Ni-Cu (66.45)% at 500 rpm and 1 g dosage than DS (29.03)% by activated carbon AC, increasing MAC dosage, agitation speed, and contact time led to increasing DS% values.  The adsorption capacity of MAC results was recorded (16,

There are many aims of this book: The first aim is to develop a model equation that describes the spread of contamination through soils which can be used to determine the rate of environmental contamination by estimate the concentration of heavy metals (HMs) in soil. The developed model equation can be considered as a good representation for a problem of environmental contamination. The second aim of this work is to design two feed forward neural networks (FFNN) as an alternative accurate technique to determine the rate of environmental contamination which can be used to solve the model equation. The first network is to simulate the soil parameters which can be used as input data in the second suggested network, while the second network sim

An assembled pulsed Nd:YAG laser-robot system for spot welding similar and dissimilar metals is presented in this paper. The study evaluates the performance of this system through investigating the possibility and accuracy of executing laser spot welding of 0.2 mm in thickness stainless steel grade AISI302 to 0.5 mm in thickness low carbon steel grade AISI1008. The influence of laser beam parameters (peak power, pulse energy, pulse duration, repetition rate, and focal plane position on the final gained best results are evaluated. Enhancement of the experimental results was carried by a computational simulation using ANSYS FLUENT 6.3 package code.

The study aims to evaluate the removal of sulfur content from Iraqi light naphtha produced in Al-Dora refinery by adsorption desulfurization DS technique using modified activated carbon MAC loaded with nickel Ni and copper Cu as single binary metals. The experiments were carried in a batch unit with various operating parameters;  MAC dosage, agitation speed, and a contact time of 300 min at constant initial sulfur concentration 155 ppm and temperature. The results showed higher DS% by AC/Ni-Cu (66.45)% at 500 rpm and 1 g dosage than DS (29.03)% by activated carbon AC, increasing MAC dosage, agitation speed, and contact time led to increasing DS% values.  The adsorption capacity of MAC results was recorded (16, 15, and 20) mg sulfu

Clinical index is needed to predict the outcome of pregnancy after in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection-embryo transfer (IVF/ICSI-ET) for infertile patients. Growth differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8), also known as myostatin, is one of transforming growth factor-â superfamily localized in antral follicles in normal and PCOS ovaries but its function in female reproductive system is still unknown. Aim of the study is to assess the correlation between levels of GDF8 in follicular fluid (FF) with outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF/ICSI) in women with and without PCOS. A prospective case control study was performed enrolling (40) patients with PCOS and (40) non-PCOS women (male infertility) undergoing IVF/ICSI. The collect

This study is to evaluate plasma levels of several cytokines in preeclamptic pregnancies compared to those of healthy pregnancies. Ninety pregnant women with preeclampsia (37 mild & 53 severe) and thirty healthy pregnant women were enrolled in the study. Blood samples were taken and plasma levels of IL-8, IL-10, and IFN-? were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Preeclamptic women and their severe cases but not mild cases had significantly (P<0.05) increased levels of plasma IL-8, and IFN-? as compared with healthy pregnancies. By contrast, plasma levels of IL-10 was significantly (P<0.05) increased in healthy pregnant women as compared to all groups of preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is associated with an imbalance betwe