Volume 11 [2009]

In a composting process the monitoring of heat flows is a useful tool in terms of
phenomenological comprehension and diagnosis of the process. Indeed, the temperature
fields are generic markers of the micro-biological phenomena governing a composting
process. Moreover, as heat flows are largely influenced by the air flowing through the porous
solid waste, the temperature fields also characterize the influence of the air flow distribution
on the composting process. However, at the industrial scale, it may be difficult to measure
precisely the temperature distribution. In this paper, an in situ experimental data acquisition
method of these thermal fields is described. Obtained data were used to reconstruct the
evolution of the temperature in the whole composting reactor along the industrial composting
process, in order to understand the influence of the air flow distribution. On the basis of these
results, a model for the description of the thermal behaviour and the optimization of the
aeration system was proposed.

The objective of this research is to show how sediment micro-pollution, including heavy
metals, hydrocarbons and PAHs, can be reduced by means of a physical treatment based on
screening and attrition. The study was carried out on five stormwater sediments, the
developed pilot unit allows to isolate pollutants in the fine particles, hence a possible reuse of
the coarse, unpolluted fractions. Geotechnical tests carried out on the treated sediments
show that most of these fractions are likely to be reused as road embankments, capping
layers or pipe embankments. The remediation of stormwater sediments is indeed possible
and the development of a mobile unit is actually under study. As sediment treatment is a wide
problem, largely exceeding stormwater, ATTRISED process could be used for the remediation
of other sediments such as river dredging sediments or sediments from sewer networks.

In the present work, wood and bone ash were used to remove metal cations from solutions.
Cation-removal capacity of the ashes was analyzed by potentiometric titration. It was found
that the capacity of wood ash was two times higher (37.3 meq g-1) than bone ash (15.2 meq g-1).
Kinetics of metal ions removal by both ashes was described with pseudo-second order
equation and Langmuir model was employed to describe equilibrium of the process. Wood
ash had better removal properties than bone ash - at the same experimental conditions
biosorption capacity at equilibrium for wood ash was 2 times higher (244 mg g-1) than for bone
ash (123 mg g-1).
Promising results were also obtained for wood ash, which was capable of removing 67.9 % of
Zn(II) ions, 70.4 % of Cd(II) ions, 92.8 % of Cu(II) ions and 99.1 % of Cr(III) ions from model
solution of wastewater from metallurgical industry and 84.5 % of Cr(III) ions from the postbiosorption
solution from the production process of biological feed additives. The utilization of
ashes of biological origin was found to be a promising alternative to conventional processes
of wastewater treatment.

Laboratory studies reported earlier, have shown very promising results in the selective
removal of dyes from aqueous solutions by a commercially available (super absorbent
polymer) SAP, Jalshakti® (JS). JS is mesoporous in nature and is a potential adsorbent for the
basic dyes studied. This paper presents the adsorption and kinetic studies for the Methylene
blue dye (MB) in a batch mode. The equilibrium adsorption capacity increases from 138.9 to
1428.6 mgg-1 as the initial concentration of MB increases from 100-1000 mg l-1. The
maximum adsorption capacity obtained is 1200 mgg-1 which is more than the adsorbents
reported in literature. The Kf value is 165.3 mg1-(1/n)g-1L1/n. The slope 1/n, ranging between 0
and 1, is indicative of the relative energy distribution on the adsorbent surface (or surface
heterogeneity) The kinetics of the adsorption process suggests that the pseudo second order
model is predominant. The pore diffusion kinetics as described by intraparticle diffusion model
also controls the adsorption process but is not the only rate limiting mechanism.