Methods of Analysis of Soils, Plants, Waters and Fertilisers

Agriculture has always remained backbone of economy and sociopolitical stability of low and middle income countries, and employs largest work force in India. Maintenance of soil quality has been pointed out as one of the major contributing factors for sustainability of agricultural production. Rising contribution of industry to India’s GDP has been speculated to cause adverse impact on the precious land resources; though the issue has received less attention among the policy makers. There is a complex relationship of Indian economy with industry and agriculture, both of which competing for same natural resources with differential impact on land resources. This chapter highlights the need for reviewing different developmental activities having direct or indirect impact on agricultural productivity and the need for accelarating soil research to investigate upon migration of pollutants from source of generation and their impact on soil so as to devise strategies for protection and remediation of precious non-renewable soil resources.

Soil Pollution - An Emerging Threat to Agriculture

Over the past few decades, the rapid development of agriculture and industries has resulted in contamination of the environment by diverse pollutants, including heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, plastics, and various agrochemicals. Their presence in the environment is of great concern due to their toxicity and non-biodegradable nature. Their interaction with each other and coexistence in the environment greatly influence and threaten the ecological environment and human health. Furthermore, the presence of these pollutants affects the soil quality and fertility. Physicochemical techniques are used to remediate such environments, but they are less effective and demand high costs of operation. Bioremediation is an efficient, widespread, cost-effective, and eco-friendly cleanup tool. The use of microorganisms has received significant attention as an efficient biotechnological strategy to decontaminate the environment. Bioremediation through microorganisms appears to be an economically viable and efficient approach because it poses the lowest risk to the environment. This technique utilizes the metabolic potential of microorganisms to clean up contaminated environments. Many microbial genera have been known to be involved in bioremediation, including Alcaligenes, Arthrobacter, Aspergillus, Bacillus, Burkholderia, Mucor, Penicillium, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Talaromyces, and Trichoderma. Archaea, including Natrialba and Haloferax, from extreme environments have also been reported as potent bioresources for biological remediation. Thus, utilizing microbes for managing environmental pollution is promising technology, and, in fact, the microbes provide a useful podium that can be used for an enhanced bioremediation model of diverse environmental pollutants.

Beneficial microbiomes for bioremediation of diverse contaminated environments for environmental sustainability: present status and future challenges

Phenol and its derivatives are the major environmental pollutants discharged from paper and pulp industries into water bodies. All these compounds and chlorinated phenolic compounds in particular are very toxic to fauna and flora, even at relatively low concentration. This study aimed to investigate the removal rate of phenolic compounds from the effluent of pulp and paper industries using a combination of ozonation and photocatalytic processes. Firstly, a certain volume from the effluent of paper and pulp industries containing certain phenol concentrations was obtained and fed into a prefabricated reactor at laboratory scale. Then, the combined and separate effects of zinc oxide dosage (ZnO), ozone flow rate (O3), and pH under ultra violet radiation for 30 min were evaluated. The concentration of phenolic compounds and the produced ozone gas flow rate were measured by a spectrophotometry and iodometric method, respectively. The results showed that the phenolic removal rate increased at acidic PHs compared with alkaline PHs; it was also decreased with the increase in ZnO dosages. Furthermore, the highest phenolic compound’s removal rate was 99% at the optimal condition (pH 5, ZnO dosage of 0.1 g L−1 at the 30 min with UV-C illumination of 125 W). Finally, Daphnia toxicity test showed that treated effluent was safe and met the standards to the extent that it can be discharged into the receiving waters.

A review and investigation of the effect of nanophotocatalytic ozonation process for phenolic compound removal from real effluent of pulp and paper industry

This review article depicts the presence of coliform bacteria in the pulp and paper mill wastewater and also emphasizes their effect in health hazards. Pulp and paper-mill wastewater discharged into freshwater, estuarine and marine ecosystems alter aquatic habitats, affect aquatic life and adversely impact on human health.The wastewater contains many organic and inorganic compounds including large number of coliforms that are severely hazardous to living being. In which Klebsiella is predominately present in pulp and paper mill wastewater while Escherichia coli, Citrobacter, Enterobacter, etc. are in less number. The fecal Streptococci (Enterococci) alternative indicators of fecal health hazards are commonly present in all mills wastewater in the absence of fecal matter. Total coliforms, fecal coliforms and Enterococci or E. coli counts as indicators of fecal contamination, which causes health hazard in human and animals. This review is focused on various aspects such as nature and characteristics of organic and inorganic pollutants, coliform population, detection techniques, diseases caused by coliforms and persistent organic pollutant (POP) in industrial waste.

Pulp and paper mill wastewater and coliform as health hazards: A review

Industrial effluents of Paper and Pulp industries Mill were characterized and their impact on soil properties and chemical composition of crop plants was studied in Uttarakhand State of India. The effluent characteristics particularly, total suspended and total dissolved solids, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and the content of Na were higher than the prescribed limits. In general, a considerable decrease in the concentration of total suspended and dissolved solids, bicarbonate, chloride, ammoniacal, calcium, sodium, potassium, copper, manganese and cobalt occurred during the flow of effluents downstream. The lateral seepage of paper and pulp industrial effluent to agricultural lands increased the soil pH and electrical conductivity (EC). At shorter distances from point source, the lateral seepage of effluent increased exchangeable K, Na and extractable S, Zn, Fe, Mn, Pb and Ni in soil. The contents of P, K, micronutrients, Pb and Ni in wheat plants increased due to seepage of effluent to the nearby agricultural fields close to the point source.

Effluents from Paper and Pulp Industries and their impact on soil properties and chemical composition of plants in Uttarakhand, India

The condenser is a piece of equipment used to effectively transfer heat from water to the environment. The fin and tube condenser is the most commonly used in commercial applications. The improved performance of heat transfer in the fin and tube condenser is a significant area of study all over the world because optimizing the efficiency of heat transfer in the condenser will contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of system performance. The vapor deposition, plasma spray, and thermal spray techniques are being used, and it is determined that a heat transfer enhancing coating improves condenser performance. This review discusses the nanomaterial coating over the fin and tube condenser in detail. The various nanomaterial coatings with various propositions and coating methods had been discussed with the evidence of previous researchers. At a 50-degree inclination angle on the condensate plate, the condensate over the coating surface increases by more than 30%. The thermal properties of the working fluid are improved over the condenser, and the overall effectiveness of the condenser is increased by approximately 40% over the non-coated condenser. A 1% volumetric concentration of Nanoparticles in the coated material achieves a maximum efficiency increase of 78.7%. 

A comprehensive review of the energy efficiency on nano coated fin and tube condenser

Maximisation of energy and exergy efficiencies for a sustainable thermoelectric cooling system by applying genetic algorithm

This work focuses on the significant family of stochastic approaches for global optimization known as simulated annealing (SA), which is based on the key concept of annealing, which describes the cooling of a solid until it reaches the configuration of lowest energy. This paper presents a review of simulated annealing applications meant to solve many problems in the field of mechanical engineering.

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Jitendra Giri

Papers

Effluents from Paper and Pulp Industries and their impact on soil properties and chemical composition of plants in Uttarakhand, India

A comprehensive review of the energy efficiency on nano coated fin and tube condenser

Maximisation of energy and exergy efficiencies for a sustainable thermoelectric cooling system by applying genetic algorithm

Simulated Annealing and Its Applications to Mechanical Engineering: A Review