Faculty Publications
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Item Biodegradability of PMMA blends with some cellulose derivatives(2006) Bhat, D.K.; Muthu, M.S.High polymer blends of Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) with cellulose acetate (CA) and Cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) of varying blend compositions have been prepared to study their biodegradation behavior and blend miscibility. Films of PMMA-CA, and PMMA-CAP blends have been prepared by solution casting using Acetone and Dimethyl formamide(DMF) as solvents respectively. Biodegradability of these blends has been studied by four different methods namely, soil burial test, enzymatic degradation, and degradation in phosphate buffer and activated sludge degradation followed by water absorption tests to support the degradation studies. Degradation analysis was done by weight loss method. The results of all the tests showed sufficient biodegradability of these blends. Degradability increased with the increase in CA and CAP content in the blend compositions. The miscibility of PMMA-CA and PMMA-CAP blends have been studied by solution viscometric and ultrasonic methods. The results obtained reveal that PMMA forms miscible blends with either CA or CAP in the entire composition range. Miscibility of the blends may be due to the formation of hydrogen bond between the carbonyl group of PMMA and the free hydroxyl group of CA and CAP. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006.Item The combined effects of carbon/nitrogen ratio, suspended biomass, hydraulic retention time and dissolved oxygen on nutrient removal in a laboratory-scale anaerobic–anoxic–oxic activated sludge biofilm reactor(IWA Publishing, 2018) Manu, D.S.; Thalla, A.K.The current trend in sustainable development deals mainly with environmental management. There is a need for economically affordable, advanced treatment methods for the proper treatment and management of domestic wastewater containing excess nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) which can cause eutrophication. The reduction of the excess nutrient content of wastewater by appropriate technology is of much concern to the environmentalist. In the current study, a novel integrated anaerobic–anoxic–oxic activated sludge biofilm (A2O-AS-biofilm) reactor was designed and operated to improve the biological nutrient removal by varying reactor operating conditions such as carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio, suspended biomass, hydraulic retention time (HRT) and dissolved oxygen (DO). Based on various trials, it was seen that the A2O-AS-biofilm reactor achieved good removal efficiencies with regard to chemical oxygen demand (95.5%), total phosphorus (93.1%), ammonia nitrogen concentration (NH4þ-N) (98%) and total nitrogen (80%) when the reactor was maintained at C/N ratio of 4, suspended biomass of 3 to 3.5 g/L, HRT of 10 h, and DO of 1.5 to 2.5 mg/L. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of suspended and attached biofilm showed a dense structure of coccus and bacillus bacteria with the diameter ranging from 0.3 to 1.2 ?m. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy results indicated phosphorylated macromolecules and carbohydrates mix or bind with extracellular proteins in exopolysaccharides. © IWA Publishing 2018.Item Experimental investigation on sludge dewatering using granulated blast furnace slag as skeleton material(Springer, 2020) Rashmi, R.H.; Devatha, C.P.The highly compressible nature of sludge and the presence of colloidal particles cause difficulties in sludge dewatering. Reducing the moisture content in secondary sludge is a key factor in reducing the capital costs, operational costs, and transportation costs in wastewater management. This investigation concerned the combined utilization of quicklime and granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to improve sludge dewatering. The experimental work included the initial characterization of the sludge and granulated blast furnace slag and evaluation of the dewatering ability of the treated sludge (CST, moisture content, turbidity, zeta potential, and heavy metal and biopolymer contents). Optimization using the Box-Behnken design (BBD) was carried out with various operational parameters, and the best performance was found to be at a pH of 10.2, a dose of 0.34 g/g DS, and a contact time of 14 min. A characterization study was carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in conjunction with EDS, X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to confirm the structural features (dense), elemental composition, and the presence of different functional groups. Hence, this study concluded that the use of quicklime with granulated blast furnace slag is suitable for conditioning during sludge dewatering. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]. © 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.Item Computational investigation of hydrodynamics and drying of industrial sludge waste in a spouted bed column(Scientific Publishers, 2020) Santhosh Kumar, N.; Ali, B.The disposal of sludge from waste water treatment plants adversely affects the environment. Since sludge wastes are sticky, drying of such waste water sludge is challenging. Conventionally, these sludges are dried in open spaces where a large area of land is required which is a time-consuming process. To overcome this, spouted bed is used in the present investigation. The spouted bed is a gas-solid contactor for handling coarse particles of size greater than 1 mm with low operating pressure. In this work, hydrodynamics of waste water sludge in a conventional spouted bed is numerically investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Euler-Eulerian CFD model is used to study the flow pattern in such system. The continuous phase turbulence (air) is modeled using standard - model. The spouting height and solid circulation rate are calculated to analyze spouting behavior. This is compared with a draft tube spouted bed system and found that the draft tube supports in enhancing the spouting characteristics of the bed. Further, an optimum draft tube configuration is found that promotes solid circulation rate. The drying characteristics are analyzed for various operating conditions and found that the temperature of air significantly improves the rate of drying. © 2020 Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.