Functional porous carbons from waste cotton fabrics for dyeing wastewater purification

A new functional porous carbons (PC-WF) is prepared by activation-pyrolysis method use waste cotton fabrics (WF) as an abundant, cheap and available precursor for removal of Brilliant Crocein (BC-GR) and Cationic Red 2GL (CR-GL) from aqueous phase. The PC-WF was characterized by BET, FTIR, SEM, and XRD techniques, the surface area, total pore volume, average pore diameter was found as 1463.5 m² g^-1, 0.783 cm³ g^-1 and 2.14 nm, respectively. The influences on BC-GR and CR-GL adsorption of various experimental factors such as initial concentration and temperature were investigated. Adsorption kinetics was found to be best represented by the pseudo-second order model. The adsorption capacity was 319.8 mg g^-1 for BC-GR and 842.5 mg g^-1 for CR-GL at 30 °C, respectively. The results indicate that for waste cotton fabrics in particular, the practical application of this process to the production of porous carbon would be possible.     

Characterizing long-term forest disturbance history and its drivers in the Ning-Zhen Mountains,Jiangsu Province of eastern China using yearly Landsat observations (1987–2011)

Forest losses or gains have long been recognized as critical processes modulating the carbon flux between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Timely, accurate and spatially explicit information on forest disturbance and recovery history is required for assessing the effectiveness of existing forest management. The major objectives of our research focused on testing the mapping efficacy of the vegetation change tracker (VCT) model over a forested area in China. We used a new version of VCT algorithm built upon the Landsat time series stacks (LTSS). The LTSS consisted of yearly image acquisitions to map forest disturbance history from 1987 to 2011 over the Ning-Zhen Mountains, Jiangsu Province of east China. The LTSS consisted of TM and ETM+ scenes with different projections due to distinct data sources (Beijing remote sensing ground station and the USGS EROS Center). The validation results of the disturbance year maps showed that most spatial agreement measures ranged from 70 to 86 %, comparable with the VCT accuracies reported for many places in USA. Very low accuracies were identified in 1995 (38.3 %) and 1992 (56.2 %) in the current analysis. These resulted from the insensitivity of the VCT algorithm to detect low intensity disturbances and also from the mis-registration errors of the image pairs. Major forest disturbance types existing in our study area were identified as agricultural expansion (39.8 %), urbanization (24.9 %), forest management practice (19.3 %), and mining (12.8 %). In general, there was a gradual decreasing trend in forest cover throughout this region, caused principally by China’s economic, demographic, environmental and political policies and decisions, as well as some weather events. While VCT has largely been used to assess long term changes and trends in the USA, it has great potential for assessing landscape level change elsewhere throughout the world.     

Effect of ammonia and nitrite on vigour,survival rate,moulting rate of the blue swimming crab <Emphasis Type="Italic">Portunus pelagicus</Emphasis> zoea

The effects of ammonia and nitrite on vigour, survival rate, moulting rate of zoea of blue swimming crab, Portunus pelagicus, were studied. A total of five nitrite-N treatments (26.67, 53.34, 106.68, 213.36, 426.72 mg/l) and a control (no nitrite-N added) were set up for the acute nitrite-N toxicity experiment; a total of five ammonia-N treatments (8.43, 16.86, 33.72, 67.44, 134.88 mg/l) and a control (no ammonia-N added) were set up for the acute ammonia-N toxicity experiment. The results showed that the vigour, survival rate and moulting rate of zoea of the blue swimming crabs exposed to over 53.34 mg/l were significantly different (P < 0.05) from the control group. The zoea LC₅₀ values (mg/l) of nitrite-N were 179.47, 76.56, 66.70, 37.49, 25.01, 25.35, 25.34 mg/l for 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96 h, respectively. The vigour, survival rate and moulting rate of zoea of the blue swimming crabs exposed to over 16.86 mg/l were significantly different (P < 0.05) from the control group. The zoea LC₅₀ values (mg/l) of ammonia-N were 51.04, 39.62, 38.72, 24.43, 16.90, 13.42, 11.16 mg/l for 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96 h, respectively. The zoeae are highly sensitive to ammonia and nitrite, and the toxicity of ammonia and nitrite on Portunus pelagicus decrease with development of this crab.     

Black soldier fly and yellow mealworm live larvae for broiler chickens: Effects on bird performance and health status

The commercial broiler chicken strains are the result of successful selection programmes. Most of the problems related to welfare arise from the high growth rate and body weight. The use of environmental enrichments in intensive farming could have a positive effect on birds by increasing animal welfare. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of Hermetia illucens (HI) and Tenebrio molitor (TM) live larvae in the diets of broiler chickens on growth performance, carcass yield and health status. A total of 180 four-day-old male broiler chickens (Ross 308) were randomly allotted to 18 pens. Each pen was assigned to one of the three dietary treatments (6 replicates/treatment, 10 birds/replicate) as follows: (i) control diet (C): commercial feed (two feeding phases: starter [4–11 days] and grower [12–38 days]), (ii) HI: C + 5% of the expected daily feed intake (DFI) HI live larvae (calculated on dry matter [DM]) and (iii) TM: C + 5% of DFI TM live larvae (DM). At 39 days of age, birds were slaughtered. Growth performance parameters were overall not affected by dietary treatments, except for the grower phase feed conversion ratio (FCR) and the overall FCR being better in the TM broilers than the others (p < 0.01). No differences were observed for slaughtering performance and haematological and serum parameters, except for the spleen relative weight being higher (p < 0.01) in the birds administered with larvae when compared to the C group. Gut morphometric indexes and histopathological alterations were not influenced by insect larvae administration. In conclusion, the administration in limited quantities of HI and TM live larvae as environmental enrichment has no negative effects on broiler chicken growth performance and health status. A behavioural study could confirm that live insect larvae represent a novel natural environmental enrichment in broiler farming.     

Relationship between a plant-based ‘vegan’ pet food and clinical manifestation of multiple nutrient deficiencies in two cats

A topical subject in human nutrition is the steadily growing number of people choosing to limit or completely avoid all animal-derived food products either for moral dilemma, health concerns or both. To meet people's will of applying their dietary choices to their domestic animals, the pet food industry answered by launching on the market some plant-based diets. This leads to concerns about whether these diets are adequately formulated to satisfy the target species nutritional requirements, especially for cats which are still considered strict carnivores. This case report follows a 2-year-old male neutered Main Coon and a 1-year-old female spayed Domestic Shorthair cat, presented to the nutrition service of the University of Toulouse, France. Reason for consultation was lethargy with in anamnesis a recent dietary transition to a plant-based pet food. Dysorexia, lethargy and muscle waste were present at first consultation. Progressive weight loss developed during follow-ups. A macrocytic, non-regenerative anaemia with serum folates below reference were the main clinical features. Analysis of pet food showed multiple nutrients below minimum recommendation at the average daily intake of both cats. Folic acid supplementation improved dysorexia, and subsequent reintroduction of animal-derived ingredients in the diet restored appetite, weight and a normal mentation in both cases.