Here we report for the first time the presence of Apoleptomastix bicoloricornis (Girault, 1915) (Hymenoptera, Encyrtidae), as parasitoid of the rice mealybug, Brevennia rehi (Lindinger, 1943) (Hemiptera, Psedococcidae) in Iraq. Brief notes are provided in distinguishing the parasitoid from other closely allied species.

The interest of application of liquid membrane (pertraction) processes for recovery of medicinal compounds from dilute ammoniacal leach solutions is demonstrated. Selectivity of the liquid membrane ensures a preferential transport of the desired solute from the native extract into the strip solution, vinblastine was successfully extracted from basic media (pH 9.2) and stripped by acidic media of sulfuric acid (pH= 1.3) applying continuous pertraction in a rotating discs contactor and using n-decane as liquid membrane. Transport of vinblastine in three-liquid-phase system was studied and performed by means of a kinetic model involving two consecutive irreversible first-order reactions. The kinetic parameters (apparent rate constants of th

In Iraq, water shortages and drought, especially during the hot summer months, necessitates that municipal authorities adopt water reuse projects like reusing treated domestic wastewater for crop irrigation. This work gives the conceptual and basic design elements for the necessary steps of filtration, UV irradiation and chlorination to make such a wastewater fit for agricultural use. A typical rural community of 50,000 people is considered as an example case for which functionality and relative simplicity of the proposed designs are prime factors. The objectives are 1) to show what is required and 2) that the presented information may be utilized to embark on the following phases of detailed design and execution of such projects.

There are still areas around the world suffer from severe shortage of freshwater supplies. Desalination technologies are not widely used due to their high energy usage, cost, and environmental damaging effects. In this study, a mathematical model of single-bed adsorption desalination system using silica gel-water as working pair is developed and validated via earlier experiments. A very good match between the model predictions and the experimental results is recorded. The objective is to reveal the factors affecting the productivity of fresh water and cooling effect in the solar adsorption system. The proposed model is setup for solving within the commercially-available software (Engineering Equation Solver). It is implemented to so

The removal of COD from wastewater generated by petroleum refinery has been investigated by adopting electrocoagulation (EC) combined with adsorption using activated carbon (AC) derived from avocado seeds. The process variables influencing COD removal were studied: current density (2–10 mA/cm2), pH (4–9), and AC dosage (0.2–1 g/L). Response surface methodology (RSM) based on Box–Behnken design (BBD) was used to construct a mathematical model of the EC/AC process. Results showed that current density has the major effect on the COD removal with a percent of contribution 32.78% followed by pH while AC dosage has not a remarkable effect due to the good characteristics of AC derived from avocado seeds. Increasing current density gives be