Global and diffuse solar irradiances in urban and rural areas in southeast Brazil

The seasonal evolution of daily and hourly values of global and diffuse solar radiation at the surface are compared for the cities of São Paulo and Botucatu, both located in Southeast Brazil and representative of urban and rural areas, respectively. The comparisons are based on measurements of global and diffuse solar irradiance carried out at the surface during a six year simultaneous period in these two cities. Despite the similar latitude and altitude, the seasonal evolution of daily values indicate that São Paulo receives, during clear sky days, 7.8% less global irradiance in August and 5.1% less in June than Botucatu. on the other hand, São Paulo receives, during clear sky days, 3.6% more diffuse irradiance in August and 15.6% more in June than Botucatu. The seasonal variation of the diurnal cycle confirms these differences and indicates that they are more pronounced during the afternoon. The regional differences are related to the distance from the Atlantic Ocean, systematic penetration of the sea breeze and daytime evolution of the particulate matter in São Paulo. An important mechanism controlling the spatial distribution of solar radiation, on a regional scale, is the sea breeze penetration in São Paulo, bringing moisture and maritime aerosol that in turn further increases the solar radiation scattering due to pollution and further reduces the intensity of the direct component of solar radiation at the surface. Surprisingly, under clear sky conditions the atmospheric attenuation of solar radiation in Botucatu during winter - the biomass burning period due to the sugar cane harvest - is equivalent to that at São Paulo City, indicating that the contamination during sugar cane harvest in Southeast Brazil has a large impact in the solar radiation field at the surface.

Improving the Fluorescence Detectability of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons for Evaluation of Workplace Environments of Cement Industries Processing Organic Residues

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Sedimentation rates of tripton in Jurumirim Reservoir (São Paulo, Brazil)

Sedimentation rates of particulate material and some physicochemical parameters of water were determined in October, January, April and July 1990-91 at seven stations in the Jurumirim Reservoir (São Paulo, Brazil), three located in the Paranapanema arm, three in the Taquari arm and one near the dam. Higher sedimentation rates of tripton were found in the Paranapanema arm, followed by those from the Taquari arm and the dam. Suspended matter (2.5-48.7 mg · 1-1) and chlorophyll-a (0.7-8.1 mg · m-3) concentrations in the Paranapanema arm were in general higher resulting in lower water transparency (0.3-1.7m) than in the Taquari arm. Temporal and spatial variations in the tripton sedimentation rates were mainly influenced by allochthonous input at the stations near the river mouth. The settling fluxes at station near the dam of the reservoir were affected rather by a small autochthonous production (65 g C ass m-2 ;yr-1), indicated by a higher organic content (64-87%). Therefore, sedimentation rates measured by bottom traps were affected by sediment ressuspension especially at isothermal conditions. With respect to sedimentation, the riverine, the transition and the lacustrine zones commonly found in reservoires could be distinguished. The extent of the riverine zone in each arm of the Jurumirim Reservoir depends on the seasonal change of allochthonous input.

Electrical properties of a composite of Polyurethane and ferroelectric ceramics

Ferroelectric ceramic particles based on lead titanate zirconate (PZT) were dispersed in a polymer matrix based on castor oil. After the poling process, the pyroelectric activity of this composite was measured using a direct method in which a linear heating rate was applied to the pre-poled samples. The pyroelectric coefficient at 343 K is comparable with that of a PZT-poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composite and significantly higher than that of PVDF. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Bose-Einstein correlations in W-pair decays

Bose-Einstein correlations are studied in semileptonic (WW → qq̄lv) and fully hadronic (WW → qq̄qq̄) W-pair decays with the ALEPH detector at LEP at centre-of-mass energies of 172, 183 and 189 GeV. They are compared with those made at the Z peak after correction for the different flavour compositions. A Monte Carlo model of Bose-Einstein correlations based on the JETSET hadronization scheme was tuned to the Z data and reproduces the correlations in the WW → qq̄lv events. The same Monte Carlo reproduces the correlations in the WW → qq̄qq̄ channel assuming independent fragmentation of the two W's. A variant of this model with Bose-Einstein correlations between decay products of different W's is disfavoured. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

Free expansion of attractive and repulsive Bose-Einstein condensed vortex states

A numerical study of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation for an axially symmetric trap to obtain insight into the free expansion of vortex states of BEC is presented. As such, the ratio of vortex-core radius to radia rms radius xc/xrms(<1) is found to play an interesting role in the free expansion of condensed vortex states. the larger this ratio, the more prominent is the vortex core and the easier is the possibility of experimental detection of vortex states.

Diurnal evolution of solar radiation at the surface in the city of São Paulo: Seasonal variation and modeling

Seasonal variations in the diurnal evolution of the global, diffuse and direct solar radiation at the surface, the clearness index, diffuse fraction and direct fraction are described in detail for the City of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The description is based on measurements of global and diffuse solar radiation carried out over 5.25 years. The diffuse component was measured with a shadow-band device. The annual evolution of the amplitude of the diurnal cycle of all radiometric parameters indicates a seasonal pattern with two distinct periods: autumn-winter and spring-summer. About 10% of the observed period was characterized by clear sky days. This seasonal variation is determined by a larger incidence of clear sky days in the autumn-winter period. Reductions of up to 10% in hourly and daily values of global radiation were observed in conjunction with an increase in particulate matter concentration on clear sky days. The pollution effect may be responsible for the discrepancy, of 16%, found between local and more regional estimates of global solar radiation in Sao Paulo. The diurnal evolution of hourly values of monthly-averaged global and diffuse solar radiation were successfully estimated by the empirical expressions derived here. Daily values of monthly-averaged global solar radiation were satisfactorily estimated using the Angstrom expression.

Efeito da salinidade e do esgoto orgânico sobre a comunidade zooplanctônica, com ênfase nos copépodes, do estuário do rio Itanhaém, Estado de São Paulo

The objective of this work is to analyze the effects of salinity and wastewater on the zooplankton community of the Itanhaém river estuary, São Paulo state. Samples of zooplankton as well as physical and chemical variables of water were collected in four sites, located between the coastal line and the superior part of the estuary, including a secondary channel where wastewater is thrown without previous treatment. The samples were collected in low and high tide in winter and summer. Results showed that the estuary presents a temporal and spatial variation of physical and chemical characteristics, especially salinity, in function of the tide and seasonal variation of rain. The high values of salinity occurred in winter and high tide. Zooplankton community was adapted to the dynamic of salinity, and marine and estuarine species occurred in the low part of the estuary in winter. Although the Itanhaém river estuary has the same temporal and spatial dynamic of other estuaries, the values of salinity are low when compared with others located in the southern coast of São Paulo. Consequently, mainly oligohaline and fresh water species constitute the zooplankton community. These characteristics are due to the great drainage area of the Itanhaém river basin. The waste water modified physical and chemical characteristics of water that now presents higher concentrations of nutrients, higher values of suspended matter and lower concentrations of oxygen. It was observed a positive relation between the density of nauplii of copepods and organic pollution in this estuary.

Thermoeconomic model considering the environment impacts on thermoelectric power plants: Natural gas versus diesel

In this paper a comparative analysis of the environmental impact caused by the use of natural gas and diesel in thermoelectric power plants utilizing combined cycle is performed. The objective is to apply a thermoeconomical analysis in order to compare the two proposed fuels. In this analysis, a new methodology that incorporates the economical engineering concept to the ecological efficiency once Cardu and Baica [1, 2], which evaluates, in general terms, the environmental impacts caused by CO2, SO2, NOx and Particulate Matter (PM), adopting as reference the air quality standards in vigour is employed. The thermoeconomic model herein proposed utilizes functional diagrams that allow the minimization the Exergetic Manufacturing Cost, which represents the cost of production of electricity incorporating the environmental impact effects to study the performance of the thermoelectric power plant [3,4], It follows that it is possible to determine the environmental impact caused by thermoelectric power plants and, under the ecological standpoint, the use of natural gas as a fuel is the best option compared to the use of the diesel, presenting ecological efficiency values of 0.944 and 0.914 respectively. From the Exergoeconomic point of view of, it was found out that the EMC (Exergetic Manufacturing Cost) is better when natural gas is used as fuel compared to the diesel fuel. Copyright © 2006 by ASME.

Pre-harvest sugarcane burning: Determination of emission factors through laboratory measurements

Sugarcane is an important crop for the Brazilian economy and roughly 50% of its production is used to produce ethanol. However, the common practice of pre-harvest burning of sugarcane straw emits particulate material, greenhouse gases, and tropospheric ozone precursors to the atmosphere. Even with policies to eliminate the practice of pre-harvest sugarcane burning in the near future, there is still significant environmental damage. Thus, the generation of reliable inventories of emissions due to this activity is crucial in order to assess their environmental impact. Nevertheless, the official Brazilian emissions inventory does not presently include the contribution from pre-harvest sugarcane burning. In this context, this work aims to determine sugarcane straw burning emission factors for some trace gases and particulate material smaller than 2.5μm in the laboratory. Excess mixing ratios for CO2, CO, NOX, UHC (unburned hydrocarbons), and PM2.5 were measured, allowing the estimation of their respective emission factors. Average estimated values for emission factors (g kg-1 of burned dry biomass) were 1,303 ± 218 for CO2, 65 ± 14 for CO, 1.5 ± 0.4 for NOX, 16 ± 6 for UHC, and 2.6 ± 1.6 for PM2.5. These emission factors can be used to generate more realistic emission inventories and therefore improve the results of air quality models. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Toxicogenetic monitoring in urban cities exposed to different airborne contaminants

Microparticles found in the air may be associated with organic matter that contains several compounds, such as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nitro-PAHs, and may pose a significant risk to human health, possibly leading to DNA mutations and cancers. This study associated genotoxicity assays for evaluating human exposure with the atmospheric air of two urban areas in southern Brazil, that received different atmospheric contributions. Site 1 was under urban-industrial influence and the other was a non-industrial reference, Site 2. Organic extracts from the airborne particulate matter were tested for mutagenicity via the Salmonella/microsome assay and analyzed for PAH composition. Cells samples of people residing in these two cities were evaluated using the comet and micronucleus assay (MN).Concentrations of the individual PAHs ranged from 0.01ng/m3 (benzo[a]anthracene) to 5.08ng/m3 (benzo[ghi]perylene). As to mutagenicity analysis of airborne, Site 1 presented all the mutagenic responses, which varied from 3.2±1.22rev/m3 (TA98 no S9) to 32.6±2.05rev/m3 (TA98, S9), while Site 2 ranged from negative to minimal responses. Site 1 presented a high quantity of nitro and amino derivatives of PAHs, and peaked at 56.0±3.68rev/μg (YG1024 strain). The two groups presented very low DNA damage levels without intergroup difference. Although Site 1 presented high mutagenic responses in the air samples, high PAH levels, healthy people exposed to this environment did not show significative damage in their genetic material. However, the evaluation of different environmental and genetic damage in such population is necessary to monitor possible damages. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) degradation promoted by nanoparticulate zerovalent iron (nZVI) in aerobic suspensions

Reactive species generated by Fe0 oxidation promoted by O2 (catalyzed or not by ligands) are able to degrade contaminant compounds like the herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. The degradation of 2,4-D was influenced by the concentrations of zero valent iron (ZVI) and different ligands, as well as by pH. In the absence of ligands, the highest 2,4-D degradation rate was obtained at pH 3, while the highest percentage degradation (50%) was achieved at pH 5 after 120 min of reaction. Among the ligands studied (DTPA, EDTA, glycine, oxalate, and citrate), only ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) significantly enhanced oxidation of 2,4-D. This increase in oxidation was observed at all pH values tested (including neutral to alkaline conditions), indicating the feasibility of the technique for treatment of contaminated water. In the presence of EDTA, the oxidation rate was greater at pH 3 than at pH 5 or 7. Increasing the EDTA concentration increased the rate and percentage of 2,4-D degradation, however increasing the Fe0 concentration resulted in the opposite behavior. It was found that degradation of EDTA and 2,4-D occurred simultaneously, and that the new methodology avoided any 2,4-D removal by adsorption/coprecipitation. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Efeitos dos poluentes gerados pela queima de biomassa no transporte mucociliar nasal e percepção da qualidade de vida de cortadores de cana

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Uso de filtro de mangas para tratamento de gases resultantes da combustão de bagaço de cana

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Mecânica - FEB

Poluição do ar por veículos automotores e tipos de tempo em áreas metropolitanas: a elaboração de um roteiro metodológico

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)