Adsorption of arsenic from ammonia containing waste water by ferrous hydroxide waste

Arsenic is a toxic substance. The amount of arsenic in waste water is a raising problem because of increasing mining industry. Arsenic is connected to cancers in areas where arsenic concentration in drinking water is higher than recommendations. The main object in this master’s thesis was to research how ferrous hydroxide waste material is adsorbed arsenic from ammonia containing waste water. In this master’s thesis there is two parts: theoretical and experimental part. In theoretical part harmful effects of arsenic, theory of adsorption, isotherms modeling of adsorption and analysis methods of arsenic are described. In experimental part adsorption capacity of ferrous hydroxide waste material and adsorption time with different concentrations of arsenic were studied. Waste material was modified with two modification methods. Based on experimental results the adsorption capacity of waste material was high. The problem with waste material was that at same time with arsenic adsorption sulfur was dissolving in solution. Waste material was purified from sulfur but purification methods were not efficient enough. Purification methods require more research.

Wooden packaging waste reuse and refining

The aim of the thesis was both to study wooden packaging waste reuse and refining generated in the forestry machine factory environment, and to find alternative wooden packaging waste utilization options in order to create a new operating model which would decrease the overall amount of waste produced. As environmental and waste legislation has become more rigid and companies' own environmental management systems’ requirements and control have increased, companies have had to consider their environmental aspects more carefully. Companies have to take into account alternative ways of reducing waste through an increase in reuse and recycling. A part of this waste is from different forms of packaging. In the metal industry the most heavily used packaging material is wooden packaging, as such material is heavy and the packaging has to be able to bear heavy stress. In the theoretical part of the thesis, the requirements of packaging and packaging waste legislation, as well as environmental management systems governing companies’ processing of their packaging waste, are studied. The theoretical part includes a process study of systems, which direct packaging waste and wooden packaging waste refining. In addition, methods related to the continuous improvement of these processes are introduced. This thesis concentrates on designing and creating a new operating model in relation to wooden packaging waste processing. The main target was to find an efficient model in order to decrease the total amount of wooden packaging waste and to increase refining. The empirical part introduces methods for approaches to wooden packaging waste re-utilization, as well as a description of a new operating model and its impact.

Biofuel handling, pretreatment and traffic use in China

This paper describes the development situation of biofuel in China and the research progress and application in transportation and aviation area, including several key technologies of biofuel production: biofuel pretreatment and handling. This paper is aiming to find the best storing, transmitting, feeding and pretreating methods of various materials, as well as a comparison among the advantages and disadvantages of different pretreatment methods, which is expected to reduce cost in production process and reach the maximized benefits. Meanwhile, a case study of one biomass fuel production factory in China is presented with evaluation and analysis on their technology application.

Espoon puhdistamolietteen käsittelymenetelmien selvitys Ämmässuon käsittelykeskukselle

Ravinteiden kierrätys yhä enemmän luonnonvaroja kuluttavassa yhteiskunnassa on noussut tärkeäksi. Hyötykäyttämällä luonnollisesti syntyvät orgaaniset virrat yhteiskunnasta voidaan kierrättää pellolta nostetut ravinteet takaisin. Tässä diplomityössä on tarkasteltu Helsingin seudun ympäristöpalveluiden toteuttamaa mädätetyn puhdistamolietteen käsittelyä ja pohdittu sen käsittelymahdollisuuksia erityisesti Ämmässuon käsittelykeskuksessa. Tarkastelussa on keskitytty kahteen yleisimpään kompostointimenetelmään, eli auma- ja tunnelikompostointiin. Kompostointimenetelmien tarkastelussa on pyritty löytämään optimaalinen tukiaine sekä prosessiaika käsiteltävälle lietteelle Ämmässuolla olemassa olleilla resursseilla. Tutkimuksessa toteutettiin käytännön pilot -kokeita sekä toteutettiin teoreettista prosessin parametrien laskentaa mukaan lukien kustannukset ja resurssit. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan todeta, että kyseisen tyyppisellä käsittelyalueella tunneli-kompostointi on näillä parametreilla testattuna paras vaihtoehto. Menetelmällä voidaan saavuttaa nopeampi käsittelyaika sekä vähentää kompostoinnista aiheutuvia hajuhaittoja ympäristöön. Tukiaineseoksessa voidaan korvata yleisestikin käytetty turve vastaanotettavalla lehti-puru viherjäteseoksella sekä risuhakkeella ja prosessiaika on noin 12 -16 viikkoa. Käsittelyn kustannukset verrattuna tämän hetkiseen käsittelyyn Metsäpirtissä eivät olleet merkittävästi suuremmat ja ympäristövaikutusarvioinnin perusteella syntypaikkaa lähellä oleva käsittelyalue sekä prosessin pienemmät vaikutukset tuovat ympäristöedun käsittelylle Ämmässuolla.

Production unit’s overhead cost allocation with activity-based costing in food industry enterprise

The main objective of this Master’s thesis is to develop a cost allocation model for a leading food industry company in Finland. The goal is to develop an allocation method for fixed overhead expenses produced in a specific production unit and create a plausible tracking system for product costs. The second objective is to construct an allocation model and modify the created model to be suited for other units as well. Costs, activities, drivers and appropriate allocation methods are studied. This thesis is started with literature review of existing theory of ABC, inspecting cost information and then conducting interviews with officials to get a general view of the requirements for the model to be constructed. The familiarization of the company started with becoming acquainted with the existing cost accounting methods. The main proposals for a new allocation model were revealed through interviews, which were utilized in setting targets for developing the new allocation method. As a result of this thesis, an Excel-based model is created based on the theoretical and empiric data. The new system is able to handle overhead costs in more detail improving the cost awareness, transparency in cost allocations and enhancing products’ cost structure. The improved cost awareness is received by selecting the best possible cost drivers for this situation. Also the capacity changes are taken into consideration, such as usage of practical or normal capacity instead of theoretical is suggested to apply. Also some recommendations for further development are made about capacity handling and cost collection.

Optimal processing chain for waste power plant

This study is done to examine waste power plant’s optimal processing chain and it is important to consider from several points of view on why one option is better than the other. This is to insure that the right decision is made. Incineration of waste has devel-oped to be one decent option for waste disposal. There are several legislation matters and technical options to consider when starting up a waste power plant. From the tech-niques pretreatment, burner and flue gas cleaning are the biggest ones to consider. The treatment of incineration residues is important since it can be very harmful for the envi-ronment. The actual energy production from waste is not highly efficient and there are several harmful compounds emitted. Recycling of waste before incineration is not very typical and there are not many recycling options for materials that cannot be easily re-cycled to same product. Life cycle assessment is a good option for studying the envi-ronmental effect of the system. It has four phases that are part of the iterative study process. In this study the case environment is a waste power plant. The modeling of the plant is done with GaBi 6 software and the scope is from gate-to-grave. There are three different scenarios, from which the first and second are compared to each other to reach conclusions. Zero scenario is part of the study to demonstrate situation without the power plant. The power plant in this study is recycling some materials in scenario one and in scenario two even more materials and utilize the bottom ash more ways than one. The model has the substitutive processes for the materials when they are not recycled in the plant. The global warming potential results show that scenario one is the best option. The variable costs that have been considered tell the same result. The conclusion is that the waste power plant should not recycle more and utilize bottom ash in a number of ways. The area is not ready for that kind of utilization and production from recycled materials.

Fusion of Data from Quadcopter’s Inertial Measurement Unit Using Complementary Filter

A quadcopter is a helicopter with four rotors, which is mechanically simple device, but requires complex electrical control for each motor. Control system needs accurate information about quadcopter’s attitude in order to achieve stable flight. The goal of this bachelor’s thesis was to research how this information could be obtained. Literature review revealed that most of the quadcopters, whose source-code is available, use a complementary filter or some derivative of it to fuse data from a gyroscope, an accelerometer and often also a magnetometer. These sensors combined are called an Inertial Measurement Unit. This thesis focuses on calculating angles from each sensor’s data and fusing these with a complementary filter. On the basis of literature review and measurements using a quadcopter, the proposed filter provides sufficiently accurate attitude data for flight control system. However, a simple complementary filter has one significant drawback – it works reliably only when the quadcopter is hovering or moving at a constant speed. The reason is that an accelerometer can’t be used to measure angles accurately if linear acceleration is present. This problem can be fixed using some derivative of a complementary filter like an adaptive complementary filter or a Kalman filter, which are not covered in this thesis.

Potential of energy and nutrient recovery from biodegradable waste by co-treatment in Lithuania

Biodegradable waste quantities in Lithuania and their potential for the co-treatment in renewable energy and organic fertilizer production are investigated. Two scenarios are formulated to study the differences of the amounts of obtainable energy and fertilizers between different ways of utilization. In the first scenario, only digestion is used, and in the second scenario, other materials than straw are digested, and straw and the solid fraction of sewage sludge digestate are combusted. As a result, the amounts of heat and electricity, as well as the fertilizer amounts in the counties are obtained for both scenarios. Based on this study, the share of renewable energy in Lithuania could be doubled by the co-treatment of different biodegradable materials.