Search

The biosolids management is becoming an increased concern for the wastewater sector in recent times due to production of large volume of biosolids, their higher processing costs and the presence of emerging contaminants. The pyrolysis of biosolids is gaining significant interest in the industry sector as well as research community over the last decade due to its ability to reduce biosolids volume, produce high-value biochar product and minimise the risk associated with contaminants. This paper aims to critically review the literature on biosolids management techniques and their current challenges, biosolids characteristics and its suitability for pyrolysis, pyrolysis product characterisation from different reactor designs and biochar application as a soil amendment, adsorbent and catalyst. The efforts have also been made to critically summarise studies on the process modelling activities and techno-economic assessments including some key pilot-scale demonstrations of recent time. The review concludes that biosolids to biochar can be an effective alternative to biosolids management; however, its commercial viability is limited in the current scenario. In the end, efforts have been made to highlight current challenges including research gaps and future perspectives in improving its commercial viability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a new examination of the gender pay gap for Germany based on a family of distribution-sensitive indicators. Wage distributions for men and women do not only differ by a fixed constant; differences are more complex. We show that focusing on the bottom of the wage distribution reveals a larger gender gap. Our distribution-sensitive analysis can also be used to study whether the statistical disadvantage of women in average pay might be 'offset' by lower inequality. Over a broad range of plausible preferences over inequality, we show however that 'inequality-adjusted' estimates of the gap can be up to three times higher than standard inequality-neutral measures in Eastern Germany and up to fifty percent higher in Western Germany. Using preference parameters elicited from a hypothetical risky investment question in our sample, inequality-adjusted gender gap measures turn out to be close to those upper bounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermoelectric transport properties of InGaAs with a high concentration of embedded semimetallic TbAs nanoparticles were studied in a 300-600 K temperature range. The TbAs concentrations studied were over 1% in a regime where coherent multiple scattering could affect electron transport. Scattering by ionized embedded nanoparticles, which are approximately one nanometer in diameter, is significantly different from scattering by shallow ionized impurities. The Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity were characterized as a function of temperature. The coefficients showed unusual behavior for a typical semiconductor, both growing with temperature. However, drastic worsening of the electrical conductivity compared with Si-doped InGaAs was also observed. The measured room temperature thermal conductivities of TbAs:InGaAs nanocomposites were lower than those of Si-doped InGaAs. Nonetheless, the thermoelectric performance was still governed by the electrical conductivity, and no enhancement of the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT was achieved at room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]