Pharmaceuticals have been widely remaining contaminants in wastewater, and diclofenac is the most common pharmaceutical pollutant. Therefore, the removal of diclofenac from aqueous solutions using activated carbon produced by pyrocarbonic acid and microwaves was investigated in this research. Apricot seed powder and pyrophosphoric acid (45 wt%) were selected as raw material and activator respectively, and microwave irradiation technique was used to prepare the activated carbon. The raw material was impregnated in pyrophosphoric acid at 80◦C with an impregnation ratio of 1: 3 (apricot seeds to phosphoric acid), the impregnation time was 4 h, whereas the power of the microwave was 700 watts with a radiation time of 20 min. A series of experiments were conducted at constant mixing speed (300 revolutions per minute) to evaluate the effect of experimental factors likes, adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, and dosage of activated carbon on removal efficiency. The design of experiments (version 13 Stat-Ease) was implemented using the central composite method to define the optimum effect of the process factors on the removal efficiency. The analysis of variance showed that the quadratic model for the experiment was significant with a very low probability value (P- value < 0.0001). The adjusted R2 of the model was 0.9826 and the predicted R2 was 0.9574. Whereas the optimum conditions suggested by the model for the process variable were found to be 150 min, 3.25 pH, 30 mg/L, 0.267g, for adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, a dosage of activated carbon, respectively and the maximum removal efficiency was found to be 94.6%. The data obtained from the experiments were fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich models and the results show that the data was well fitted Langmuir model with R2 = 0.9685 as compared to the Freundlich model which has R2 = 0.93249. Likewise, the data was analyzed by pseudo first and second-order kinetic models and the results show that the adsorption on apricot-activated carbon was well adequate with the pseudo-second-order model.
Speech is the essential way to interact between humans or between human and machine. However, it is always contaminated with different types of environment noise. Therefore, speech enhancement algorithms (SEA) have appeared as a significant approach in speech processing filed to suppress background noise and return back the original speech signal. In this paper, a new efficient two-stage SEA with low distortion is proposed based on minimum mean square error sense. The estimation of clean signal is performed by taking the advantages of Laplacian speech and noise modeling based on orthogonal transform (Discrete Krawtchouk-Tchebichef transform) coefficients distribution. The Discrete Kra
Abstract
These experiments seek to investigate the effects of the fixed variations to the basic box plot on subjects' judgments of the box lengths. The study consists of two experiments, were constructed as an extension to the experiments carried out previously by Hussin, M.M. (1989, 2006). Subjects were asked to judge what percentage the shorter represented of the longer length in pairs of box lengths and give an estimate of percentage, one being a standard plot and the other being of a different box length and also varying with respect to other elements such as, box width or whisker length. When he (1989) suggested in the future research points (1, 2), the changing length of the st
... Show MoreSince start studying the subject of this research, I have been busy with several queries; most of them were trying to reach the relation of technical civilization development and its role in the appearance & transformation the modern painting schools. This had been enhanced by checking the artistic works for different times and trying to understand and study the subjects of these paintings and how those works had been done. Did we reach to the result that the great success of the modern techniques had caused intellectual and psychological change inside the artist himself, making him changing his subjects & turning over the roof of his portrait and minimizing the time needed to fulfill the portrait and its ingredients. This can be touchable
... Show Moreكان لنهاية الحرب الباردة وعولمة العالم على وفق رؤية كونية تتجاوز حدود ومفاهيم السيادة الوطنية والقومية الاثر الواضح في ترتيب العلاقات الدولية , واصبحت تلك العلاقات تدور حول محورين الاول .. هو الاعتماد المتبادل بين الدول من اجل الوصول الى خطوط مشتركة للمصالح المختلفة بين هذه الدول . والآخر.. هو تبعية الدول الضعيفة للدول القوية لافتقار الاولى توفير الحاجيات الى مواطنيها . هذا يشير الى نشأة علا
... Show More. The concepts of structural flexibility became one of the important goals in the design phases to reach high performance in architecture. The pioneering projects and ideas that linked architecture with technologies and scientific innovations appeared, with the aim of reaching projects that mix the concepts of flexibility with the development of machine thought and modern technology to meet the functional, environmental, and aesthetic requirements for human wellbeing. The aim of this paper is to identify the mechanisms used in order to reach flexible structural systems capable of accommodating technological changes and developments. The research hypothesizes that the structural design according to the concepts of flexibility achieves high s
... Show MoreMercury is a heavy metal that is extremely toxic. There are three types of it: inorganic, organic, and elemental. Mercury in all its forms has been shown to have harmful effects on living things. It can multiply its concentration from lower to higher trophic levels and accumulate in the body's various tissues. Aquatic organisms bodies have been exposed to mercury mostly through various human activities. The largest source of mercury pollution in the air is thermal power plants that mostly use coal as fuel. It is carried to a body of water after being deposited on the ground surface from the air. The way it enters the food chain is through aquatic plants and animals. Mercury accumulations in the kidney, liver, gills, or gonadal tissues of sp
... Show MoreDeaf and dumb peoples are suffering difficulties most of the time in communicating with society. They use sign language to communicate with each other and with normal people. But Normal people find it more difficult to understand the sign language and gestures made by deaf and dumb people. Therefore, many techniques have been employed to tackle this problem by converting the sign language to a text or a voice and vice versa. In recent years, research has progressed steadily in regard to the use of computers to recognize and translate the sign language. This paper reviews significant projects in the field beginning with important steps of sign language translation. These projects can b
The study presents the test results of Completely Decomposed Granite (CDG) soil tested under drained triaxial compression, direct shear and simple shear tests. Special attention was focused on the modification of the upper halve of conventional Direct Shear Test (DST) to behave as free
head in movement along with vertical strain control during shear stage by using Geotechnical Digital System (GDS). The results show that Free Direct Shear Test (FDST) has clear effect on the measured shear stress and vertical strain during the test. It has been found that shear strength
parameters measured from FDST were closer to those measured from simple shear and drained triaxial compression test. This study also provides an independent check on