Mitigating the environmental impacts of milk production via anaerobic digestion of manure: case study of a dairy farm in the Po Valley.

This work analyzes the environmental impacts of milk production in an intensive dairy farm situated in the Northern Italy region of the Po Valley. Three manure management scenarios are compared: in Scenario 1 the animal slurry is stored in an open tank and then used as fertilizer. In scenario 2 the manure is processed in an anaerobic digestion plant and the biogas produced is combusted in an internal combustion engine to produce heat (required by the digester) and electricity (exported).

Photocatalytic degradation of methyl tert-butyl ether in the gas-phase: a kinetic study.

Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is the basic oxygenated motor fuel additive in Europe and is included in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can produce photochemical oxidants. In the present study the gas-phase photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) of MTBE over illuminated titanium dioxide was carried out at ambient temperature in a plug flow reactor. The intermediates detected are mainly tert-butyl formate and acetone, while the final products are CO(2) and water.

Treatment of 2-chlorophenol aqueous solutions by wet oxidation.

In the present work, the wet oxidation (WO) of 2-chlorophenol (2-CP) was studied in aqueous solutions, in a high-pressure agitated autoclave reactor. Specifically, the effect of temperature (160-190 degrees C), oxygen partial pressure (5-40 bar) and 2-CP initial concentration (250-1500 mg L(-1)) was examined. The process was attended via total organic carbon (TOC), 2-CP, chloride ion, acetic acid, formic acid and pH measurements.