1. Production of Compost and Organic Fertilizer from Sugarcane Residues

    Dalia A. Nakhla1, Y.I. Mahmoud2, Salah El Haggar3

    1, Environmental Management Consultant, 40 Mohi El Din Abu ElEzz, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

    2, Soil, Water and Environment Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt.

    3, Mechanical Engineering Department, School of Sciences and Engineering, American University in Cairo, Egypt.

    Abstract: The main residues generated from the sugarcane industry, in Egypt, are green tops and dry leaves from the harvesting process as well as bagasse, filter cake/mud and furnace ash from the cane milling process. The green tops are directly fed to the farmers’ livestock in its raw form during the sugar harvesting season which is from January to April. As for the dry leaves, it represents a burden due to its large volume and fire hazard and so it is daily burnt in the fields causing considerable air pollution. Bagasse, on the other hand, is currently used in Egyptian sugar mills as fuel to generate the mill’s steam and electricity or as fiber to make fiberboard and paper. However, as natural gas is replacing bagasse as fuel, bagasse will be available in large quantities in the factories that are not currently utilizing it for fiber. In addition, filter cake/mud and furnace ash are currently applied directly on reclaimed lands to act as soil additive. However, direct incorporation of raw agro-industrial waste into the soil may cause undesirable outcomes as phytotoxicity and soil nitrogen immobilization. The objective of this research was to test for the possibility and feasibility of producing compost/organic fertilizer from the waste streams generated from the agricultural and industrial phases of sugarcane manufacture, as an environmentally friendly reuse alternative to produce organic fertilizer that is more safe than chemical or artificial fertilizers. The pilot experiment has demonstrated that a variety of compost types and organic fertilizers can be produced from a combination of the residues generated from the sugarcane residues according to their chemical and biological properties.

    Keywords: Baggase, Compost, Filter Mud, Sugarcane Residues.

    Pages: 69 – 89 | Full PDF Paper

  2. Estimation of Flow for Ungauged Watersheds in Pranhita of Godavari River Basin in India Using SWAT

    Shuvra Sangeeta1, Satesh Rahatwal1

    CES (I) Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon, India.

    Abstract:

    For sustainable growth with a rational Engineering and Environmental solutions, the long term records of hydrological observation are of immense value. The current paper is an attempt to apply the physically based, spatially distributed SWAT (Soil Water Assessment Tool) to assess its ability to predict flow at watershed scale ungauged locations in Pranhita sub-basin. The test sub-basin belongs to the Godavari basin located in the central part of India, draining an area of 1,09,079 km2. The SWAT model is tested for streamflow, calibrated at outlet of Wardha, Penganga and Pranhita sub-basins of Pranhita. The spatial heterogeneity in the parameter settings are tested at 16 monitoring gauge locations within the sub-basin, treating them as ungauged sites. The results indicate that SWAT can capture the amount and variability of streamflow acceptably well both at annual and monthly time scale. The model performance at testing sites range between acceptable and good. In general, the results show more than 90% of the stations have annual NSE values greater than 0.5 and about 60% have NSE greater than 0.8. Also, measure for annual R2 of 0.8 were exceeded by 14 out of 16 stations and 0.9 by 10 out of 16 sites. On similar lines, monthly NSE of 0.5 is exceeded by 95% stations and 0.8 by 56%.

    Regression is the most widely used technique for transferring information to ungauged catchment. A Regional Analysis has been made for Pranhita sub-basin. Empirical relations have been developed based on the climate and catchment parameter dataset generated by SWAT. The correlation matrix of  six variables viz. precipitation, % cropped area, % forest area, mean temperature, relief, and sub basin area with average natural runoff was developed. This was followed by clustering of sub-basins, which involved Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and K-Means Clustering. After dividing the dataset into clusters, empirical equations for the formed clusters were developed for monsoon months from the dataset of SWAT, that related the dependent variable “monthly discharge” with the climate and watershed attributes.

    A comparison of SWAT flow simulated at watershed level in ungauged locations is made with flow series developed from Regional equation of Pranhita for monsoon months. Overall, the SWAT model can satisfactorily predict hydrologic budget for the ungauged basins in Pranhita with calibration at basin scale using both the approaches. The Regression based hydrogical response gives a lower NSE as compared to the direct SWAT output. However, the ease of applicability of Empirical equation makes it a viable alternative to adopt for small watersheds, in the absence of other suitable technique.

    Keywords: Hydrological Budget, sub-basin, ungauged, Godavari, assessment, watershed, Cluster, simulation, prediction.

    Pages: 90 – 106 | Full PDF Paper

  3. Design and Development of a Pilot Plant for WEEE-Computers Reusing

    J.A. Vilán1, P. Izquierdo1, P. Yañez1

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Vigo, Lagoas-Marcosende, 36210, Vigo, Spain.

    Abstract:

    This paper is focus on one of the main problems at the end of useful life of electrical and electronic equipment (eee). waste of eee (weee) are growing at a rate three times faster than the rest of the solid waste and it is expected to be more than 12 million tonnes by 2020 in the ue, according to european commission. as a consequence of this important issue, an environmental project was developed called ecoraee by a consortium of two companies and university of vigo. this project aims to solve the weee problem from different points of view: technical, environmental and also economic, and it was funded by life European program (life env/es/574 11).

    According to circular economy, actions to contribute to ‘closing the loop’ of product lifecycles must be done in order to sustainability. in the case of eee there are two options: just recycling or reuse before recycling. increase useful life of eee, especially computers, is best way to reduce the problematic of weee. department of mechanical engineering at university of vigo leads, within ecoraee project, the demonstration of a reuse process for computers could be done under a perspective of enlarge useful life to different application. in fact, an operation process is defined to prepare any computer to reuse in three specific applications:

    – recover material to create a building air-conditioning control and lighting system (demo 1)

    – create a cluster of computers for grid processing (demo 2)

    – create perimeter security devices for intranets (demo 3)

    Under these conditions of computers reuse, a demonstrative pilot plant was designed and finally built at university of vigo, including the implementation of flow of operation to reuse. a pilot plant was operative from march to september 2014 and they were processed about 4-5 computers per day. taking into account that there was a first stage of set-up of the plant, the result during the second stage (full operative stage) of computer processing for each demo show a tax pcs reuse of about a 21% and a 25% in the case of demo 1 and demo 3, respectively, in which full computers reused, and about of a 100% of hdd and a 50% of motherboards in the case of components reused.

    Ecoraee pilot plant shows that reuse of computer is technically possible in order to enlarge useful life of computers, or components, to a second use. pilot plant was also electrically and energetically monitored and the results of computers processing were used by other research groups involved in ecoraee project to make an environmental analysis of weee reuse.

    Keywords: Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment’, WEEE, pilot plant, reuse, UE LIFE program.

    Pages: 107 – 118 | Full PDF Paper

  4. Impact of Sweet Cherry Varieties on Quality Parameters after Harvest and During Storage Period

    Vladimir Sabados, Jana Konjevic Mrdjenovic, Olivera Sekulic, Zoran Boca, Tatjana Veselinovic

    PSS Sombor, Staparski put 35, 25000 Sombor, Serbia.

    Abstract:

    The study included evaluation of the biological ,pomological and chemical parameters and sensory characteristics of the friuts with the aim of pointing differences between varieties and finding the best way to preserve the quality of the friut, that would guarantee a succesfull placement on the market.

    The research was conducted in the trial orchard of The Extension Service Sombor and included three varieties ( cultivars ) of sweet cherry Kordia, Ferrovia and Regina, on rootstock Gisela 5. During research we based a part of our study on pomological, biological and chemical features after harvest such as shape, color, weight of the friut, stone, etc. The other part of research was based on sugar content, soluble solids content and visual evaluation of the friut before storing, as well as after the storage period.

    Keywords: Prunus avium, sweet cherry, quality parameters, varieties, storage.

    Pages: 119 – 127 | Full PDF Paper

  5. Quantification of Construction Waste: Egypt Case Study

    S.M. Elgizawy1, K. Nassar1, S.M. El-Haggar2

    1.Department of Construction Engineering, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

    2.Department of Mechanical Engineering, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

    Abstract:

    As the world is shifting towards sustainability in construction, C&D waste quantity estimates will be of ultimate importance in seeking to determine the necessary capacity of the recycling facilities and for companies seeking to offer processing or recycling of recovered items. Assessing the right quantity of C&D waste is rather complex and many researches focused on providing reliable estimates to C&D waste generation rates.

    Currently in Egypt, despite the emerging interest in sustainability and efficient waste management, there is very limited research on the quantity of waste resulting from construction activities. Unfortunately, waste is still seen as an unfavorable byproduct of construction activities rather than an opportunity to benefit from.

    The study aims to assess the various quantification methodologies present in the literature highlighting the benefits and deficiencies in each of them. The study provides a construction waste analysis for two LEED certified projects in Egypt and two medium scale residential projects and assesses the Construction waste Index for all of them. The index obtained for the two LEED certified projects were about 0.025 t/m2 and 0.026 t/m2 whereas the index obtained for the medium scale projects was of 0.115 t/m2 in average. The CW index for this small to medium projects is 4 times as big as the ones calculated for large scale projects. The index analyzed for the different projects will help provide a basis for comparison for different types of projects in Egypt and facilitates the estimation and prediction of waste generation for future projects which in turn improves the process of waste management.

    Keywords: Construction Waste, Construction Waste Index (CWI), Waste Generation Rates, Waste in Egypt.

    Pages: 128 – 140 | Full PDF Paper