Environmental Sciences Commons^™

A Review On The Visible Light Active Titanium Dioxide Photocatalysts For Environmental Applications, Miguel Pelaez, Nicholas Nolan, Suresh Pillai, Michael Seery, Polycarpos Falaras, Athanassios G. Kontos, Patrick S.M. Dunlop, Jeremy W.J. Hamiltone, J. Anthony Byrne, Kevin O’Shea, Mohammad H. Entezari, Dionysios D. Dionysiou

Articles

Development of visible light active (VLA) titania photocatalysts

Fujishima and Honda (1972) demonstrated the potential of titanium dioxide (TiO 2) semiconductor mate-rials to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a photo-electrochemical cell. Their work triggered the development of semiconductor photocatalysis for a wide range of environmental and energy applica-tions. One of the most significant scientific and commercial advances to date has been the development of visible light active (VLA) TiO2 photocatalytic materials. In this review, a background on TiO2 struc-ture, properties and electronic properties in photocatalysis is presented. The development of different strategies to modify TiO2 for the utilization …

Mobile Spatial Interaction In The Future Internet Of Things, James Carswell, Junjun Yin

Conference papers

Research and development of mobile information systems in the Future Internet of Things is about delivering technologies built around management and access to real-time heterogeneous datasets. Analyzing these enormous volumes of disparate data on mobile devices requires context-aware smart applications and services. 3DQ (Three Dimensional Query) is our novel mobile spatial interaction (MSI) prototype for data mining and analysis on today’s location and orientation aware “smartphones” within such 3D sensor web environments. Our application tailors a military style threat dome query calculation using MSI with “hidden query removal” functionality to reduce information overload and heighten situation awareness on these commercial …

A Life Cycle Assessment Of Emissions Reduction Potential In The Existing Irish Housing Stock: A Perspective Of International And Domestic Sources, Albert Famuyibo, Aidan Duffy, Paul Strachan

Conference Papers

As the volume of imported materials increases, the magnitude of the imported environmental impacts becomes a greater factor in the energy demand and related CO₂ emissions from the residential sector. As supply chains of goods within the global arena expands across country and region, domestic consumption of imported goods results in CO₂ emissions in countries of production. Given that these emissions are attributable to countries of import, directing information towards environmental policy experts on a complete view of total emissions of retrofitting along international and domestic sources will have an impact on decision making, and for the first …

An Investigation Of The Bioactivity Of Irish Seaweeds And Potential Applications As Nutraceuticals., Sabrina Cox

Doctoral

The primary goals of this research were to; identify the bioactivity of a range of edible Irish seaweeds, to examine the current technological procedures currently applied with respect to seaweed processing and in light of this information, to examine the potential of incorporating seaweeds into traditional food products in order to enhance their nutraceutical properties. Currently most Irish seaweeds are washed, dried and packaged, with little done to increase consumer appeal or interest and dried seaweed may appear inaccessible and unfamiliar to consumers. Seaweeds possess an excellent nutritional quality, such as high fibre and phytochemical content, low cholesterol and low …

Physicochemical And Microbiological Quality Of Harvested Rainwater From An Agricultural Installation In Ireland, Sean O'Hogain, Liam Mccarton, Niamh Mcintyre, Jenny Pender, Anna Reid

Articles

Members of DTC Research Group. Dublin Institute of Technology was commissioned in 2005 by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government in Ireland to assess the feasibility of utilising rainwater to replace treated mains water for nonpotable uses. The project involved the design, installation, commissioning and monitoring of rainwater harvesting on a farm. Two monitoring programmes, Regime 1 and Regime 2, examined the physicochemical and microbiological quality of the harvested rainwater. Samples were taken monthly and tested. Regime 1 analysis showed that the microbiological quality of the rainwater from the site did not comply with the requirements of the …

Industrial And Agricultural Applications Of Solar Heat, Brian Norton

Books/Book chapters

Mankind’s earliest use of solar energy was probably the drying of food crops to aid their preservation. Open sun drying of fruit, vegetables, fish and meats often improved or enhanced particular flavors and textures such that solely because of those attributes many dried products remain in culinary use today, as examples, dried seaweed, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins and dried pistachio nuts. Open sun drying is displaced increasingly by glazed solar dryers that (i) enable equilibrium moisture content to be reached sooner and (ii) avoid losses of the crop to insects and rodents.

A further agricultural application, the greenhouse extended the use …

Technology Platform For Sampling Water With Electrolyte-Gated Organic Transistors Sensitised With Langmuiur-Deposited Calixarene Surface Layers., Delia Puzzovio, Abdullah Al Naim, Lee Hague, Mary Deasy, James P. Ward, Tim Richardson, Martin Grell

Articles

We demonstrate a technology platform that enables the development of new, surface-sensitised organic transistor sensors. We show that an organic semiconductor can still be gated by an electric double layer within the electrochemical window of water after the deposition of up to four Langmuir- Schäfer calixarene layers onto its surface. Since many calixarenes are known to selectively bind waterborne cations, this facilitates sensitising a conventional organic semiconductor with a physically deposited layer for specific cation recognition. When at least two Langmuir-Schäfer layers are deposited, these also block the electrochemical doping of the organic semiconductor, which otherwise competes with the field …

An Improved Flood Forecasting Model Of The Blue Nile River In Sudan, Gamal Abdo, Ahmed Nasr

Articles

Reliable flood predictions with a reasonable lead time in the Blue Nile River in Sudan are vitally important to avoid catastrophic damages due to flooding of this river and the main River Nile. A HEC-RAS model was initially applied to the Blue Nile by representing the river as a single reach. The resulting original model was subsequently improved by including the two tributaries of the river, Rahad and Dindir, and also the two existing reservoirs, Rosaries and Sinnar, to the model. The original and the improved models were calibrated using 1988 flood data for the period from June to September …