Advanced Materials Research Vols. 622-623

Abstract: Sustainable development is a significant research theme in various fields. With the developments to theory, the fundamental concept of sustainable development has expanded from only the environment perspective to now including economic, social and environment perspectives. As a resource-intensive industry, the policy, processes and practices in relation to sustainable development of the construction industry is critical. An important theoretical and practical concern is the creation of indicator systems that assist with the measurement of sustainable urban development. However there is no an internationally agreed one especially for construction industry. Past research and practice has tended to focus on the measurement of sustainability of the construction projects in relation to the individual projects or at the organizational level. Zhang and London (2011) generated a new sustainable development measurement according to the characteristics of construction industry, the availability of data and other sustainable development indicators system which have been proposed before. This measurement will be used to analyze the performance of Chinese construction industry’s sustainability from 2001 to 2010.

Abstract: In recent years, fluctuations have been on traditional gases prices, problems of energy emission pollution are also worsening. In the Copenhagen conference at the end of 2009, developing new energy is again appealed by many countries, among which China clearly proposed that it will take the new energy development as a switching point to optimize and upgrade the new energy industry development. This thesis is about a deep analysis on the genera of new energy industry as well as its life-circle and value flow, thereafter is some suggestion to the chain and structural optimization of China’s future new energy development.

Abstract: The theoretical understanding suggests that geotourism relates tourism and geology in such a way that the public can experience the earth’s geological wonders with environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation, and conservation through formal and informal education. With proper enforcement emplaced, this idea of protection through usage should lead to an increase in ecological and socio-cultural awareness and behaviour among geotourists and local guardians of geological heritage. In the prospect of geotourism, geotourists and local public are related in a way that the former play its part in geoheritage conservation through visiting geological heritages while expenditures spent by geotourists contributed to the gross income of the latter and partially to the nation through various tax structures. These economic benefit as well as environmental incentives of geotourism would encourage local public to embrace into geotourism industry and geoheritage conservation. Thus, when these mechanisms work perfectly, geotourism will offer one realistic key solution to the apparent conflict between environmental and cultural protection, and economic growth.

Abstract: This work investigates the applicability of electrocoagulation using aluminum (Al) electrodes to treat a typical Malaysian leachate sample. The treated leachate sample well met Malaysian discharge standards in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color. Color was lowered by 72 %. To the knowledge of the authors, no earlier study on the use of Al electrodes in the treatment of a real leachate sample has been reported elsewhere. This work suggests that Electrocoagulation using Al electrodes could an efficient approach in real leachate treatment processes.

Abstract: Using DPT and plate loading test, the paper analyzed different reinforcement effects from four different reinforcement technologies－gravel piles method, dynamic compaction method, dynamic compaction replacement (DCR) method and impact compacted method for Cha-Ge highway saline soils ground located in salt lake area, and got the following conclusions: (1) DCR method has the best reinforcement effect, and impact compacted method has the worst. There is a difference of 166.9 % between them. (2)Tamping energy is important on reinforcement effect to the last three methods and related directly to the values of the strengthened bearing capacity and deformation modulus. The DCR method and gravel piles method mentioned above are useful on reducing the settlement of natural saline soils foundation. In recent years, a lot of ground treatment methods are widely used to consolidate soft soil foundation for its short period and simple construction and so on. Numerous scientists and engineers have obtained useful results and experience from DCR and gravel piles foundation treatment of soft soil [1,2,3,4]. (e.g., A. G. Phear, S. J. Harris, 2008; Dong,Yan and , 2009; Huang, Zhou and He, 2006; Liu, 2006;); But the reinforcement in regions of saline soils, such as DCR hasn't been well researched; theoretical study is far behind engineering practice; so it is hard to build up the design theory and method..

Abstract: Aiming at reducing agricultural pollution caused by plastic film and increasing soil moisture and water use efficiency (WUE), the field experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of re-used plastic film mulching on soil moisture, sunflower’s yield and water use efficiency by compared with new plastic film mulching and bare field in Hetao area, China. The results showed that, soil water of re-used film mulching increased at different degree. Compared with bare field and new film mulching, soi1 moisture of re-used film were higher significantly 1.5 percentage points in 0-100 cm, and especially 1.9 or 2.6 percentage points in 0-10 cm during sunflower’s growth stage. Soil water of re-used film was more than that of bare field 24.8 mm (in 2010) and 33.0 mm (in 2011) before seeding, and 21.6mm (in 2010) and 24.5mm (in 2011) at harvest when soil water was replenished to same level for each treatment before sowing. Meanwhile, the grain yield of re-used film was higher significantly than that of bare field 11.4% (in 2010) and 16.8% (in 2011), and WUE of re-used film was higher significantly 15.7% (in 2010) and 22.7% (in 2011) respectively, no significant with new film. So it was worth to apply re-used film to agriculture production for improving the soil moisture, enhancing water use efficiency and increasing the yield of sunflower. We suggest that the application of re-used film mulching is a suitable soil management practice for increase water and WUE in Hetao area or other areas with similar conditions.

Abstract: In order to find an effective way to degrade the effluent, the Cu/TiO2, La/TiO2, Cr/TiO2 films with unique 3-D network structures were prepared using Ti(OBu)4 by sol-gel method loaded on the gauzes. These films structures were characterized by means of XRD and SEM. The effects of doped TiO2 films and combination of magnetic field and doped TiO2 films on the degradation of methyl orange (MO) were studied. The results indicated that after combinating the magnetic field, the photocatalysis efficiency of doped TiO2 films have been improved,especially the influence on Cu/TiO2 film was more obvious than other films.When magnetic intensity was around 30mT ,the MO degradation ratio went up to 60% by using Cu/TiO2 films.But the influences of magnetic intensity on photocatalytic activities of doped TiO2 films had a maximum value which was 30mT.

Abstract: Damage and degradation of the concrete structure is based on the combination of the mechanical and environmental factors (double or multiple), so the durability of the concrete structure is a very complicated research subject. The key of the multi-factor durability test of concrete under load is how to choose the loading device. In this paper, the adopted loading device which is suitable for the multi-factor durability test of concrete in the atmosphere environment is determined by analyzing the force principle of different loading systems and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of various loading methods. So far, inland and aboard, the valuation about durability of concrete structure and service life, and also the improving measures are basically based on the research about single environment factor. While it is not conform to reality that the actual engineering bears the damage of multiple factors, mechanics, environmental change and the interaction among them. In fact, concrete structure is not only a structure that operates under different environment factors mixed, also a supporting load structure. Therefore, it is more realistically to reflect the damage of engineering structures suffered by carrying out the study about the loads of concrete multi-factor durability. The using dosage of concrete in engineering construction in our country is ranking in the world, most of the concrete structures including bridges, dams and other important projects are directly exposed to the atmosphere environment, corroded by CO₂ and acid rain. Besides, the load always exists during the using process in actual structures, it is lacking of sufficient data to prove whether the structure stress state aggravate the degradation process of materials under the environment. So it is necessary to study the durability of concrete structure under loading in general atmospheric environment. The appropriate loading devices must be had for doing the test of loading concrete which carbonized or eroded by acid-rain. Firstly, the load applied should be the most common form in the structures. The researchers used to selecting bending load, because structure bending component can apply tensile stress to one side of concrete samples and apply compression stress to another side. Secondly, due to the limited volume of test boxes such as the carbonization tank, a loading device which have small volume and can not be affected by temperature changes and corrosive solution should be selected to assure the quantity and quality of the experiments. Besides, loading devices must have enough load precision, and considering the concrete samples are ponderous, so loading devices shall be as simple as possible to use.

Abstract: A²O process is shortened form Anaerobic-Anoxic-Aerobic process, which can achieve carbon, nitrogen and phosphate removal, is widely used for its low cost and high efficiency. The Experiment using a 52.15 L anaerobic-anoxic- aerobic (A²O) reactor with simulate synthetic wastewater, by adjusting the aeration of Aerobic units, observing the performance of nitrogen and phosphorus removal under different dissolved oxygen(DO). The result of the whole operation show that the system can not keep a high TN removal efficiency under high aeration, and the low aeration made the system a significant decline in nitrogen and phosphorus removal.

Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate MES and CEM for the extraction of essential oils from Jasminum sambac flowers using various methods such as dry distillation (DD), wet distillation (WD), hydro distillation (HD) and steam distillation (SD). The MES was performed by DD and WD at irradiation power of about 450 W and temperature about 100 °C for 1 hour whereas CEM was performed by HD and SD at extraction power of 450 W and temperature 100 °C for 8 hours. After 1 hour of microwave extraction, it was possible to collect sufficient essential oil which provided comparable yields to those obtained with 8 hours by CEM. To obtain its first oil droplet, it was necessary to heat only 5 min with DD and 9 min with WD against 15 min for HD and 42 min for SD. In terms of yield, MES contributed higher percentage of yield with 0.10 % and 0.06 % for DD and WD, respectively whereas both HD and SD contributed only 0.02 %.