The surface area of the individual phyllosilicates (clay minerals) in Athabasca oil sands determined from XRD crystallite size measurements was found to be comparable to the bulk surface area measured by ethylene glycol monoethyl ether adsorption. The primary phyllosilicates are kaolin and illite but the large surface area is imparted by varying degrees of smectitic interstratifications in the ...

Foundries employ green sand molds, which contain coal, silica sand, clay, water, and core binders. This represents one of the largest non-combustion users of coal. When the coal experiences high temperature during the metal casting process, it undergoes pyrolysis reactions and can generate significant amounts of volatile organic compounds. Some of the compounds are released as hazardous air pol...

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) affects cervids and is the only known prion disease to affect free-ranging wildlife populations. CWD spread continues unabated, and exact mechanisms of its seemingly facile spread among deer and elk across landscapes in North America remain elusive. Here we confirm that naturally contaminated soil contains infectious CWD prions that can be transmitted to susceptibl...

Particles with nanometer dimensions (nanoparticles) are all around us. The finest particles of sand are blown by the wind over thousands of kilometers. The finest particles of soils are either eroded by the wind in extremely dry conditions or by water under wet conditions and deposited hundreds of kilometers or more from the origin. The air contains nanoparticles of carbon, ice, and oxides and ...

Adsorption of organic cations on several clay minerals is reviewed with an emphasis on the effect of ionic strength and modeling. The clay exchanged with suitable organic cations forms a basis for ecologically acceptable formulations of herbicides with reduced leaching, ground water contamination and enhanced weed control efficacy. Incomplete neutralization of the clay surface charge by an orga...

This paper proposes the use of desalination brine as a setting and hydration activator in set-on-demand 3D concrete printing. A series tests were conducted to investigate effect adding different concentrations on stiffness evolution early-age Portland cement mortars (PC mixtures) limestone-calcined clay-based cementitious materials (LC mixtures). Results show that, increasing concentration decr...

1922). In this approach, solution, containing sediment particles, is directly sampled at a given depth and time, Limitations of traditional methods for particle-size analysis warrant and particle concentrations are measured by gravimetric the investigation of new techniques. An alternative method based on the difference between the dielectric constant of soil solids (≈4) and analysis. Because o...

a greenhouse experiment was conducted during the growing seasons (2008/2009 and 2009/2010) to investigate the effects of water quality and soil amendments, irrigation methods and rates on tomato (solanum lycopersicon l. cv. red gold) yield and water use efficiency (wue). irrigation management treatments were fresh (0.86 ds m-1) and saline waters (3.6 ds m-1), surface and subsurface irrigation m...