The effect of low power ultrasonic radiation on anaerobic biodegradability of sewage sludge was investigated. For this purpose, soluble substances and variation of microbial system of sewage sludge subjected to low power ultrasonic radiation were tested. The well known hydromechanical shear forces and heating effect of low frequency ultrasound plays a major role in the sludge pre treatment proc...

The a priori knowledge about biodegradability is adopted to save time and money for research and design of new products. Quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) models as a tool for biodegradability prediction of chemicals have been encouraged by environmental organizations. In the current work, a new algorithm has been proposed to investigate the importance of chemical descriptors ...

Al2 (SO4)3, 18H2O, FeCl3 and Ca (OH)2 were used for the treatment of tannery wastewaters. The influences of pH and coagulant dosages were studied. Conditions were optimised according to the pollutant removal efficiencies, the volume of decanted sludge and the biodegradability index improvement. The results indicate that 6771% of total COD, 76-92% of color and 79-97% of Cr can be removed using t...

Biodegradability describes the capacity of substances to be mineralized by free-living bacteria. It is a crucial property in estimating a compound's long-term impact on the environment. The ability to reliably predict biodegradability would reduce the need for laborious experimental testing. However, this endpoint is difficult to model due to unavailability or inconsistency of experimental data...

In this paper, we apply various data mining techniques including continuous numeric and discrete classification prediction models of base oils biodegradability, with emphasis on improving prediction accuracy. The results show that highly biodegradable oils can be better predicted through numeric models. In contrast, classification models did not uncover a similar dichotomy. With the exception o...

Poly(hydroxyalkanoate) (PHA), which is produced from renewable carbon resources by many microorganisms, is an environmentally compatible polymeric material and can be processed into films and fibers. Biodegradation of PHA material occurs due to the action of extracellular PHA depolymerase secreted from microorganisms in various natural environments. A key step in determining the overall enzymat...

This paper is concerned with the use of AI techniques in ecology. More specifically, we present a novel application of inductive logic programming (ILP) in the area of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs). The activity we want to predict is the biodegradability of chemical compounds in water. In particular, the target variable is the half-life for aerobic aqueous biodegradation...

Based on the test results of a large number of chemical substances, the comparability of different biodegradation test methods was assessed in terms of passing or failing threshold values commonly used for the biodegradability characterisation of chemicals. The comparison revealed a high consistency of the ready biodegradability evaluations in OECD 301 tests regardless of the analytical paramet...

Treatment experiments of a landfill leachate were performed by wet air oxidation (WAO) with the addition of H2O2 (as free radical promoter), and a Fenton-type (at pH 7) process, in order to compare COD (chemical oxygen demand) and AOX (adsorbable organic halogen) reduction as well as biodegradability enhancement measured by OUR respirometric parameter. The WAO reactions were performed in a batc...