High strength and high toughness are usually mutually exclusive in engineering materials. Improving the toughness of strong but brittle materials like ceramics thus relies on the introduction of a metallic or polymeric ductile phase to dissipate energy, which conversely decreases the strength, stiffness, and the ability to operate at high temperature. In many natural materials, toughness is achieved through a combination of multiple mechanisms operating at different length scales but such structures have been extremely difficult to replicate. Building upon such biological structures, we demonstrate a simple approach that yields bulk ceramics characterized by a unique combination of high strength (470 MPa), high toughness (22 MPa.m1/2), and high stiffness (290 GPa) without the assistance of a ductile phase. Because only mineral constituents were used, this material retains its mechanical properties at high temperature (600{\deg}C). The bioinspired, material-independent design presented here is a specific but relevant example of a strong, tough, and stiff material, in great need for structural, transportations, and energy-related applications.

Strong, Tough and Stiff Bioinspired Ceramics from Brittle Constituents

Mercury (Hg) is ubiquitary, naturally enriched in volcanic regions, and has wide applications in science, industry, and agriculture Recently, the increasing awareness of Hg toxicity has led to the replacement of Hg in many areas; however, anthropogenic activities such as coal burning and smelting of metal ores continue to release large amounts of Hg into the environment In particular, the atmospheric distribution of the highly volatile Hg around the globe can result in the pollution of pristine regions without local emission sources The chemical speciation of Hg determines its mobility and toxicity; in flooded soils and sediments, microbial methylation can occur Bioaccumulative (mono)methylmercury (MeHg; CH3Hg+) can affect human health particularly via the consumption of contaminated fish and rice since methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin Also, elemental Hg vapor is harmful for the central nervous system, while inorganic Hg compounds primarily affect the kidney This review summarizes recent

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10643389.2017.1326277

Cycling of mercury in the environment: Sources, fate, and human health implications: A review

Due to increase population, advanced agricultural practices, industrialization, manmade activity, water is being highly polluted with different contaminants Water is a vital resource for human survival The availability of good quality water is an indispensable feature for preventing diseases and improving quality of life It is necessary to know details about different physico-chemical parameters such as colour, temperature, Total hardness, pH, sulphate, chloride, DO, BOD, COD, alkalinity used for testing of water

https://www.chemijournal.com/vol3Issue4/pdf/3-3-8.1.pdf

Physico-chemical parameters for testing of water- A review

Bio-methane potential (BMP) tests are widely used in studies concerning the anaerobic digestion of organic solids. Although they are often criticized to be time consumer, with an average length longer than 30 days, such tests are doubtless easy to be conducted, relatively inexpensive and repeatable. Moreover, BMP tests give significant information about the bio-methanation of specific substrates and provide experimental results essential to calibrate and validate mathematical models. These last two aspects have been handled in this work where the following elements have been de- scribed in detail: i) the methods used to conduct the BMP tests; ii) the cumulative bio-methane curves obtained from three BMP tests, concerning respectively two pure organic substrates (swine manure-SM and greengrocery waste-GW) and an organic substrate obtained by mixing buffalo manure (BM) and maize silage (MS); iii) the procedure used to calibrate a mathematical model proposed by the authors to simulate the anaerobic digestion process; iv) the results of the calibration process. This paper shows that BMP tests are extremely helpful to determine the amount of bio-methane obtainable from different organic solids and under different operational conditions as well as the biodegradability of the investigated sub- strate, the relative specific rate of bio-methanation and the synergic effect of multiple co-digested substrates. Furthermore BMP tests represent an interesting tool for the technical and economical optimization of bio-methane producing plants.

/pdf/bio-methane-potential-tests-to-measure-the-biogas-production-d3cabxwi2k.pdf

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