Grammccallum1045

5 kg N/m3/d. Microbial communities revealed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing indicated the dominance of n-DAMO archaea in both reactors, along with the existence of anammox bacteria and n-DAMO bacteria. As the first demonstration of n-DAMO process in real wastewater, this study comprehensively confirmed the applicability of using methane as carbon source to remove nitrogen from both mainstream and sidestream wastewater, supporting their adoption by industries in practice.The sustainable management of water resources is required to avoid water scarcity becoming widespread. This article explores the potential application of a social-ecological framework, used predominantly in the fields of ecology and conservation, as a tool to improve the sustainability and resilience of water resources. The "red-loop green-loop" (RL-GL) model has previously been used to map both sustainable and unsustainable social-ecological feedbacks between ecosystems and their communities in countries such as Sweden and Jamaica. In this article, we demonstrate the novel application of the RL-GL framework to water resources management using the 2017/18 Cape Town water crisis. We used the framework to analyse the social-ecological dynamics of pre-crisis and planned contingency scenarios. We found that the water resources management system was almost solely reliant on a single, non-ecosystem form of infrastructure, the provincial dam system. As prolonged drought impacted this key water resource, resilience to resource collapse was shown to be low and a missing feedback between the water resource and the Cape Town community was highlighted. The collapse of water resources ("Day Zero") was averted through a combination of government and community group led measures, incorporating both local ecosystem (green-loop) and non-local ecosystem (red-loop) forms of water resource management, and increased rainfall returning to the area. Additional disaster management plans proposed by the municipality included the tighter integration of red and green-loop water management approaches, which acted to foster a stronger connection between the Cape Town community and their water resources. We advocate the wider development and application of the RL-GL model, theoretically and empirically, to investigate missing feedbacks between water resources and their communities.An in-depth understanding of peanut shell pyrolysis reaction is essential for its efficient utilization. Detailed analysis of thermodynamics, kinetics, and reaction products can provide valuable information about pyrolysis reaction. In this work, pyrolytic reaction mechanism was elucidated with the analysis of thermogravimetric-mass spectrometry and the structural characterization of the derived biochar. The thermodynamic and kinetic parameters of three sub-stages were matched well in different model-free methods. The positive ΔH and ΔG values indicated that the pyrolysis reactions for three stages were endothermic and nonspontaneous. The reaction mechanism predicted by integral master-plots were F3 (f(α) = (1-α)3), F1 (f(α) = (1-α), and F3 (f(α) = (1-α)3) for the three sub-stages, respectively. The negative ΔS in the third stage was related to the reduced releasing of low-molecular weight gases and ordered graphite-like carbon structure. This study provides a prospective approach to understand the pyrolysis mechanism of biomass.The aim of this work was to investigate the performance of a novel humic acid modified oyster shell (MOS) bulking agent on the digestate composting. MOS was prepared by immobilizing humic acid onto oyster shell using solid phase grafting method, and then applied to the composting process. Results showed more obvious degradation of lignocellulose was observed in the MOS treatment, which was probably due to the high relative abundance of Actinobacteria. Moreover, the addition of MOS could significantly preserve NH4+ and reduce the NO3- generation with the decreasing abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea. Besides, adding MOS reduced the N2O emission by 59.63% compared with the control. see more After composting, excitation-emission matrix fluorescence spectra demonstrated that the humification degree as well as compost maturity was enhanced with MOS added.Removing pollutants and producing high value-added products are essential steps for sustainable disposal and utilization of biogas residues. Here, a coupled thermophilic composting and vermicomposting process was used to remove Cr from biogas residues, and the composting products were co-fermented with the plant growth-promoting fungus Trichoderma to produce high value-added biofertilizers. The results showed that thermophilic composting for 37 d markedly increased the total content of Cr but decreased the percentage of available Cr fractions. Synchrotron-radiation-based observations further provided direct evidence of the binding sites to support the results from traditional sequential extraction. At a density of 60 g earthworm/kg biogas residues, vermicomposting removed 23-31% of Cr from biogas residues. After vermicomposting, co-fermentation of biogas residues and Trichoderma was optimized, in which Trichoderma spores were 2-5 × 108 cfu/g substrates. Together, coupling thermophilic composting and vermicomposting processes is a promising technique to remove a portion of heavy metals from biogas residues.Biomass is a promising carbon source because of its low-cost and rich carbon component. Here, lotus root as self N-source was used to produce N-doped biochar via a simple carbonization after freeze-drying, showing surface areas up to 694 m2/g with partial mesopores. Applicability of biochar as adsorbent for dyes removal was explored using methyl orange (MO) as model pollutant dye. LBC-800 sample obtained at 800 °C had the largest capacity of 320 mg/g in 300 mg/L solution at 25 °C with fast equilibrium time of 60 min, and pseudo-second order model expressed better for kinetics. LBC-800 also had an unprecedented maximum capacity of 449 mg/g with superior conformity to Langmuir model. The biochar was efficient for MO removal with high capacity and fast kinetic, and significantly the sustainable feature of lotus root would allow a large-scale production of biochar as well as promising use in wastewater treatment fields.There is a great interest for replacing petroleum-derived chemical processes with biological processes to obtain fuels and plastics from industrial waste. Accordingly, Rhodopseudomonas species are capable of producing hydrogen and polyhydroxybutyrate. Culture conditions for production of both hydrogen and polyhydroxybutyrate with Rhodopseudomonas pseudopalustris (DSM 123) from tequila vinasses were analyzed. The production of hydrogen using tequila vinasses was higher with respect to two synthetic media. Replacing the headspace with N2 increased the production of hydrogen with respect to Argon, while a higher concentration of polyhydroxybutyrate was achieved using Argon as compared to N2. A higher concentration of phosphates increased the production of hydrogen (250 mL), while the highest concentration of polyhydroxybutyrate (305 mg/L) was accomplished when the bacteria were cultivated only with phosphates contained in tequila vinasses. This study revealed that the culture conditions for Rhodopseudomonas pseudopalustris (DSM 123) for production of hydrogen are the opposite of those for production of polyhydroxybutyrate.In this study, the influence of headspace pressure (HP; 20-100 kPa) and organic loading rate (OLR; 10-30 g/L) on H2 and volatile fatty acid (VFA) yield were investigated. The experiments were carried out in the semi-continuous mode, the main products in VFAs were ethanol and butyrate, which accounted for more than 75%. More than 79% generated H2 was consumed through homoacetogenesis pathway when HP was 100 kPa, and lowing HP could effectively promote the accumulation of H2 (increased by at least 2 times). Even though consumed H2 through homoacetogenesis was related to OLR and HP, the lower HP was more likely to reduce this part H2 consumption, especially under 10 g/L condition. As for acid production rate, both OLR and HP have a significant effect (p less then 0.05). Maximum acid production rate was 489.86 mg-COD/g-CODdegrade·d-1when OLR was 20 g/L and HP was 40 kPa.Millions of tons of plastic enter the environment every year, where much of it concentrates in environmental sinks such as tidal marshes. With prior studies documenting harm to marine fauna caused by this plastic pollution, the need to understand how this novel type of pollution affects estuarine fauna is great. Yet, research on the fate and uptake of plastic pollutants in estuarine ecosystems is sparse. Therefore, we quantified plastic prevalence and ingestion by two species of resident marsh bird, Clapper Rails (Rallus crepitans) and Seaside Sparrows (Ammospiza maritima), in coastal marsh ecosystems within Mississippi. We detected microplastics (plastics smaller than 5 mm) in 64% of marsh sediment samples, 83% of Clapper Rail and 69% of Seaside Sparrow proventriculus samples. Dominant types of microplastics detected in sediment and bird samples were fibers. This study provides the first evidence of microplastic ingestion by marsh birds and its distribution in coastal marshes within Mississippi.Older adults tend to have a broader vocabulary compared to younger adults - indicating a richer storage of semantic knowledge - but their retrieval abilities decline with age. Recent advances in quantitative methods based on network science have investigated the effect of aging on semantic memory structure. However, it is yet to be determined how this aging effect on semantic memory structure relates to its overall flexibility. Percolation analysis provides a quantitative measure of the flexibility of a semantic network, by examining how a semantic memory network is resistant to "attacks" or breaking apart. In this study, we incorporated percolation analyses to examine how semantic networks of younger and older adults break apart to investigate potential age-related differences in language production. We applied the percolation analysis to 3 independent sets of data (total N = 78 younger, 78 older adults) from which we generated semantic networks based on verbal fluency performance. Across all 3 datasets, the percolation integrals of the younger adults were larger than older adults, indicating that older adults' semantic networks were less flexible and broke down faster than the younger adults'. Our findings provide quantitative evidence for diminished flexibility in older adults' semantic networks, despite the stability of semantic knowledge across the lifespan. This may be one contributing factor to age-related differences in language production.The present work (N = 1906 U.S. residents) investigates the extent to which peoples' evaluations of actions can be biased by the strategic use of euphemistic (agreeable) and dysphemistic (disagreeable) terms. We find that participants' evaluations of actions are made more favorable by replacing a disagreeable term (e.g., torture) with a semantically related agreeable term (e.g., enhanced interrogation) in an act's description. Notably, the influence of agreeable and disagreeable terms was reduced (but not eliminated) when making actions less ambiguous by providing participants with a detailed description of each action. Despite their influence, participants judged both agreeable and disagreeable action descriptions as largely truthful and distinct from lies, and judged agents using such descriptions as more trustworthy and moral than liars. Overall, the results of the current study suggest that a strategic speaker can, through the careful use of language, sway the opinions of others in a preferred direction while avoiding many of the reputational costs associated with less subtle forms of linguistic manipulation (e.