The Effects of Carbon Dioxide Concentration on Residents in the Area of a Cement Plant in Perak, Malaysia

Nowadays, concrete is used extensively in construction. The cement factory must generate massive amounts of cement each year in order to deliver enough concrete. Carbon dioxide emitted during the cement manufacturing and raw materials transportation processes contributes to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, deteriorating air and water quality and posing health risks to residents. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of carbon dioxide absorption on local residents and their buildings. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to determine the influence of carbon dioxide absorption on local residents’ health as well as the consequences on structures. A total of 375 questionnaires were distributed throughout the Perak cities of Kampar, Malim Nawar, and Kota Bharu. This research were conducted in Malaysia in 2019. It was decided to adopt convenience sampling. This paper’s findings are separated into two (2) sections: effects on local residents’ health, structures, and environment. According to the Pearson Correlation data, there are several dead cases, as well as locals suffering from cancer and other respiratory problems. The concrete, timber, and metal frames, as well as other faults on the door and windows, have all deteriorated significantly. To preserve human health and the environment, the government should tighten the rule on pollution discharge compliance, and all plant owners should be accountable for building a buffer zone and installing industrial air filters surrounding their factories.

Investigating Increased CO2 concentration on the pH of various plant species

The concept of bioremediation is quickly becoming the norm in the resolution of environmental issues. The steady increase in carbon dioxide levels, as documented by NASA, inspired scientists to engineer plants to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Here, we have explored the consequences of the uptake of excess carbon dioxide by select plants. Carbon dioxide dissolves in water to produce carbonic acid, which dissociates to yield H+ ions. We hypothesized that increased carbon dioxide absorption results in decrease in pH of plant sap. Three plants (Byophyllum pinnatum, Romaine Lettuce and Nevada Lettuce), exposed to increased carbon dioxide concentrations (15%), demonstrated a consistent increase in pH towards alkalinity compared to control plants. Based on the outcome being opposite of what we have hypothesized, our results suggest Byophyllum pinnatum, Romaine lettuce and Nevada lettuce, all have a unique homeostatic system to prevent over-absorption of carbon dioxide in a carbon dioxide-rich environment.

Time evolution of temperature profiles retrieved from 13 years of IASI data using an artificial neural network

The three IASI instruments, launched in 2006, 2012, and 2018, are key instruments to weather forecasting, and most meteorological centers assimilate IASI nadir radiance data into atmospheric models to feed their forecasts. The EUropean organisation for the exploitation of METeorological SATellites (EUMETSAT) recently released a reprocessed homogeneous radiance record for the whole IASI observation period, from which thirteen years (2008–2020) of temperature profiles can be obtained. In this work, atmospheric temperatures at different altitudes are retrieved from IASI radiances measured in the carbon dioxide absorption bands (654–800 cm−1 and 2250–2400 cm−1) by selecting the channels that are the most sensitive to the temperature at different altitudes. We rely on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to retrieve atmospheric temperatures from a selected set of IASI radiances. We trained the ANN with IASI radiances as input and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) as output. The retrieved temperatures were validated with ERA5, with in-situ radiosonde temperatures from the Analysed RadioSoundings Archive (ARSA) network and with EUMETSAT temperatures retrieved from IASI radiances using a different method. Between 750 and 7 hPa, where IASI is most sensitive to temperature, a good agreement is observed between the three datasets: the differences between IASI on one hand, and ERA5, ARSA or EUMETSAT on the other hand are usually less than 0.5 K at these altitudes. At 2 hPa, as the IASI sensitivity decreases, we found differences up to 2 K between IASI and the three validation datasets. We then computed atmospheric temperature linear trends from atmospheric temperatures between 750 and 2 hPa. We found that in the past thirteen years, there is a general warming trend of the troposphere, that is more important at the poles than at the equator (0.7 K/decade at the equator, 1 K/decade at the North Pole). The stratosphere is globally cooling on average, except at the South Pole as a result of the ozone layer recovery. The cooling is most pronounced in the equatorial upper stratosphere (−1 K/decade). This work shows that ANN can be a powerful and simple tool to retrieve IASI temperatures at different altitudes in the upper troposphere and in the stratosphere, allowing us to construct a homogeneous and consistent temperature data record adapted to trend analyis.

Effect of Physical Properties of Synthesized Protic Ionic Liquid On Carbon Dioxide Absorption Rate

Concentration of carbon dioxide gas has accelerated from the last two decades which cause drastic changes in the climatic conditions. In industries, carbon capture plants use volatile organic solvent which causes many environmental threats. So, a low-cost green absorbent has been formulated with nontoxicity and high selectivity properties for absorbing carbon dioxide gas. This paper contains the synthesis process along with the structure confirmation using 1H NMR, 13C NMR, FT-IR, and mass spectroscopy. Density, viscosity, and diffusivity are measured at different ranges with standard instruments. The kinetic studies were also conducted in a standard predefined-interface stirred-cell reactor. The kinetic parameters were calculated at different parameters like agitation speeds, absorption temperature, initial concentrations of ionic liquid, and partial pressure of carbon dioxide. The reaction regime of carbon dioxide absorption is found to be in fast reaction kinetics with pseudo first order. The reaction rate and the activation energy of CO2 absorption are experimentally determined in the range of 299 K to 333K with different initial concentrations of ionic liquid (0.1-1.1 kmol/m3). The second order rate constant and activation energy of carbon dioxide absorption in the synthesized ionic liquid is found to be (6385.93 to 12632.01 m3 mol-1 s-1) and 16.61 kJ mol−1 respectively. This solvent has shown great potential to absorb CO2 at large scale.