Estudo de um sistema híbrido de destilação solar para polimento de águas produzidas

The oil industry, experiencing a great economic and environmental impact, has increasingly invested in researches aiming a more satisfactory treatment of its largest effluent, i.e., produced water. These are mostly discarded at sea, without reuse and after a basic treatment. Such effluent contains a range of organic compounds with high toxicity and are difficult to remove, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, salts, heavy metals, etc.. The main objective of this work was to study the solar distillation of produced water pre-treated to remove salts and other contaminants trough of a hybrid system with a pre-heater. This developed apparatus was called solar system, which consists of a solar heater and a conventional distillation solar still. The first device consisted of a water tank, a solar flat plate collector and a thermal reservoir. The solar distillator is of simple effect, with 1m2 of flat area and 20° of inclination. This dissertation was divided in five steps: measurements in the solar system, i.e. temperatures and distillate flow rate and weather data; modeling and simulation of the system; study of vapor-liquid equilibrium of the synthetic wastewater by the aqueous solution of p-xylene; physical and chemical analyses of samples of the feed, distillate and residue, as well as climatology pertinent variables of Natal-RN. The solar system was tested separately, with the supply water, aqueous NaCl and synthetic oil produced water. Temperature measurements were taken every minute of the thermal reservoir, water tank and distillator (liquid and vapor phases). Data of solar radiation and rainfall were obtained from INPE (National Institute for Space Research). The solar pre-heater demonstrated to be effective for the liquid systems tested. The reservoir fluid had an average temperature of 58°C, which enabled the feed to be pre-heated in the distillator. The temperature profile in the solar distillator showed a similar behavior to daily solar radiation, with temperatures near 70°C. The distillation had an average yield of 2.4 L /day, i.e., an efficiency of 27.2%. Mathematical modeling aided the identification of the most important variables and parameters in the solar system. The study of the vapor-liquid equilibrium from Total Organic Carbon (TOC) analysis indicated heteroazeotropia and the vapor phase resulted more concentrated in p-xylene. The physical-chemical analysis of pH, conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), chlorides, cations (including heavy metals) and anions, the effluent distillate showed satisfactory results, which presents a potential for reuse. The climatological study indicates the region of Natal-RN as favorable to the operation of solar systems, but the use of auxiliary heating during periods of higher rainfall and cloud cover is also recommended

Análise de terrenos na porção setentrional da Província Borborema, NE do Brasil: integração de dados geológicos e gravimétricos

It is presently assumed that the Borborema Province resulted from a complex collisional process associated with the convergent movement of plates, possibly involving amalgamation and accretion of microplates. This process was consolidated at the end of the Brasiliano event. It is investigated the possible limits for the tectonostratigraphic terranes in the northern portion of the province based on an integrated study of geological and gravity data. The study area comprises the portion of the Borborema Province located north of the Patos Lineament, limited by longitudes 33º00 W and 43º29 44"W and latitudes 1º36 S and 8º00 S. A revision of the regional geology allowed to identify areas presenting contrasting geological attributes, possibly representing different terranes whose limits are always shear zones of Brasiliano-age. The Sobral-Pedro II shear zone is the only one undoubtedly presenting geological attributes of sutures zones. The other shear zones are very likely associated with a geodinymic context of accretion, involving oblique collisions (docking), transcurrent and/or transforming sutures, and deep intracrustal shear zones. The gravity data contributed as a tool to identify strong lateral contrasts of density inside the upper crust possibly associated with crustal blocks tectonically juxtaposed. The dominant long wavelength anomaly in the Bouguer anomaly map is an expressive gradient, grossly parallel to the continental margin, caused by density variation across the crust-mantle interface in the transition from the continental crust to the oceanic crust originated by the separation between South America and Africa. Medium to small wavelength anomalies are due to intracrustal heterogeneities such as different Precambrian crustal blocks, Brasiliano-age granites and Mesozoic sedimentary basins. A regional-residual separation of the Bouguer anomaly map was performed in order to enhance in the residual map the effect due to intracrustal heterogeneities. The methodology used for this separation was a robust polinomial fitting. The inversion of residual gravity field resulted in a density contrast map (Δρ), in an equivalent layer that provided more accurated anomalies contours and consolidated the model which the sources of residual anomalies are located in the upper part of the present crust. Based on the coincidence of gravity lineaments in the residual map and Brasiliano shear zones, and using additional geological information, the following shear zones are proposed as limits between terranes: Patos shear zone, Sobral-Pedro II shear zone, Picuí-João Câmara shear zone, Remígio-Pocinhos shear zone, Senador Pompeu shear zone, Tauá shear zone, and Portalegre shear zone. Based on the geological/geophysical information it is attributed a higher level of confidence to the first three proposed limits(Patos, Sobral Pedro II, and Picuí-João Câmara shear zones). From west to east, these shear zones individualize the following terranes: Northwest of Ceará terrane, Central Ceará terrane, Tauá terrane, Orós-Jaguaribe terrane, Seridó terrane, and São José de Campestre terrane. In our study, the Rio Piranhas and Patos terranes are questioned because their previously proposed limits do not present good geological and gravimetric evidences. On the other hand, the previously proposed Cearense terrane is now subdivided into Central Ceará and Tauá terranes. Two residual gravity profiles located in the Seridó belt were interpreted using 2 ½ D direct gravity modeling. The main result of the modeling process is that all anomalies, with the exception of one, can be explained by outcroppring bodies, therefore restricted to the upper part of the present crust

Estruturação litosférica da Província Borborema ao longo da Transecta Angüera (BA) Macau (RN), com base em dados gravimétricos

Since 2005, geophysical surveys have been carried out in the Precambri-an Borborema Province, along two transects with 800 km long each one. A pool of Brazilian public universities and institutions has been acquired deep refrac-tion seismic, gravity and magnetotelluric, with the purpose to model the conti-nental lithosphere of the region. This paper present the gravity survey of the second transect, that crosses the Borborema Province from SW to NE, passing through the São Francisco Craton, Transversal and Meridional zones and Rio Grande do Norte Domain, in the Setentrional Zone. In this way, it cuts some important geologic structures, like the limit of the São Francis Craton and the Borborema Province, Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary basins of Tucano, Jatobá and Potiguar and the extensive Pernambuco and Patos shear zones. Recognition techniques gravity sources in the subsurface, such as spectral analysis and Euler Deconvolution, were applied to the Bouguer anomalies, as well as their regional and residual components. These techniques provided in-formation on possible anomalous bodies, which correlated with pre-existing geological and geophysical data, subsidized a 2.5 D gravity modeling of the lithosphere beneath the Borborema Province and its southern limit with the São Francisco Craton.

Análise proteômica de Chromobacterium violaceum: acúmulo estacionário e diferencial após exposição à luz UVC

Chromobacterium violaceum is a free-living bacillus, Gram-negative commonly found in water and sand of tropical and subtropical regions. One of its main characteristic it's the ability to produce the purple pigment named violacein, that shows countless biological activities. In 2003, the genome of this organism was totally sequenced and revealed important informations about the physiology of this bacteria. However, few post-genomics studies had been accomplished. This work evaluated the protein profile of C. violaceum cultivated in LB medium at 28ºC that allowed the identification and characterization of proteins related to a possible secretion system that wasn't identified and characterized yet in C. violaceum, to the quorum sensing system, to regulatory process of transcription and translation, stress adaptation and biotechnological potential. Moreover, the response of the bacteria to UVC radiation was evaluated. The comparison of the protein profile, analyzed through 2-D electrophoresis, of the control group versus the treatment group allowed the identification of 52 proteins that arose after stress induction. The obtained results enable the elaboration of a stress response pathway in C. violaceum generated by the UVC light. This pathway, that seems to be a general stress response, involves the expression of proteins related to cellular division, purine and pirimidine metabolism, heat chock or chaperones, energy supply, regulation of biofilm formation, transport, regulation of lytic cycle of bacteriophages, besides proteins that show undefined function. Despite the response present similarities with the classic SOS response of E. coli, we still cannot assert that C. violaceum shows a SOS-like response, mainly due to the absence of characterization of a LexA-like protein in this organism

Análise hidrodinâmica e morfodinâmica do complexo estuarino do Rio Piranhas-Açu/RN, Nordeste do Brasil

The aim of this study was the seasonal characterization of the morphology, sedimentology and hydrodynamic of the Açu, Cavalos and Conchas estuaries. These estuaries are inserted in a semi-arid climate area and form the mouth of the hydrographic basin of the Piranhas-Açu river, that represent the discharge of the largest watershed in the state. They are embedded in an environment consisting of a fluvial-marine floodplain, mangrove ecosystem, sandbanks, fields of dunes, spits and sandy beaches. Adjacent to the natural units are the main local socioeconomic activities (oil industry, salt industry, shrimp farming, fishing and tourism) are dependent on this river and its conservation. The environmental monitoring is necessary because it is an area under constant action of coastal processes and at high risk of oil spill. The acquisition and interpretation of hydrodynamic, sonographic and sediment data was conducted in two campaigns, dry season (2010) and rainy season (2011), using respectively the current profiler ADCP Doppler effect, the side-scan sonar and Van Veen sampler. In these estuaries: Açu, Cavalos and Conchas were identified the following types of bedforms: flatbed and Dunes 2-D and 3-D (small to medium size), generated at lower flow regime (Froude number <1). Structures such as ripples were observed in the Açu estuary mouth. The higher values of flow discharge and velocity were recorded in the Açu estuary (434,992 m³.s-¹ and 0,554 m.s-¹). In rainy season, despite the record of highest values of discharge and flow velocities at the mouth, the energy rates upstream did not differ much from the data of the dry season. However, in all estuaries were recorded an increase in speed and flow, with reservation to the flow in the Açu estuary and flow at the mouth of the Conchas estuary. Sediment grain sizes tend to increase towards the mouth of the estuary and these ranged from very fine sand to very coarse sand, medium sand fraction being the most recurrent. Based on the data acquired and analyzed, the estuaries Açu, Cavalos and Conchas are classified as mixed , dominated by waves and tides. According to their morphology, they are classified as estuaries constructed by bar and according to the classification by salinity, estuaries Conchas and Cavalos were ranked as hypersaline estuaries, and Açu as hypersaline and vertically well mixed type C