Academic literature on the topic 'Environmental pollution control'

This thesis comprises of the analysis of a commercial three way catalyst (TWC), as well as the discovery, development and analysis of a novel environmental pollution control catalyst for the abatement of automobile exhaust gases (namely CO by oxidation, HC (propane) by oxidation and NOX by reduction. All work was undertaken in collaboration with Blackthorn Autocatalysts, Chichester, West Sussex. The commercial TWC work comprised of two parts: (i) catalytic poisoning effects on the commercial TWC by metal compounds used in lead replacement petrol on activity of CO oxidation and HC oxidation. (ii) platinum group metal losses from the commercial TWC during laboratory simulation of an automobile exhaust gas during normal driving conditions. Here the author finds that (i) is more significant than (ii). The work on the novel catalyst also comprises of two parts: (i) The activity of a Keggin-type catalyst of the form [AlO4Al12(OH)24(H2O)12]7+ was compared to that of the TWC with respect to CO oxidation, HC oxidation and NOX reduction with varying Fe3+/Al3+ and Au3+/Fe3+/Al3+ substitutions. Comparisons of various preparative methods are made. Selected catalysts are characterised and probed in depth. (ii) A spinel-type catalyst of the form %Au/CoXFe3-XO4 was selected and activity with respect to CO oxidation, HC oxidation and NOX reduction with varying values of x and Au3+ loadings were compared to the TWC. It was characterised in full. Fe substituted Keggins-type catalysts proved to compare favourably with a commercial TWC in HC oxidation, but no CO oxidation and proved to be thermally unstable at the high temperatures experienced by TWCs. 1% Au containing cobalt-ferrite spinel-type catalysts of the form COXFe3-XO4 were x = 1.5 proved to compare very favourable when compared to the commercial TWC. Achieving lower LOTs for CO and HC oxidation under stoichiometric conditions. It was also found to be very active in NOX reduction under net reducing conditions. These Au/CoXFe3-XO4 catalysts were readily supported on pre-calcined Fecralloy at a level of 0.2 wt%, but more work is required to achieve higher loadings and higher activities. The application of such materials to the catalysis of environmental pollution control could be significant.

This dissertation studies the policy process which produced and implemented the Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) system in 1990, administered by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP). It assesses how IPC was implemented in terms of setting pollution control standards, hQWIPC compares with the air pollution regime it replaced, and in terms of IPC's policy output. Policy network concepts are used to analyse the networks of interaction between policy actors as they seek to influence the policy process. The research involved interviews with these policy actors, plus analysis of relevant documentation - including a content analysis of the new IPC public register. The analysis is presented historically, beginning with the policy network of regulator and industry which negotiated air pollution controls. Public interest groups criticised this regime in the early 1970s for the informal, consensual, and confidential way it set and enforced air pollution standards. During the 1980s, European legislation put pressure upon domestic pollution control practice. Industry began lobbying for improvements to the flexible British regime as a bulwark against European formalism. Several factors led to HMJP's creation and IPC introduction, including European and industrial pressures, but also a belief by government that change had deregulatory potential. Regulatory procedures under IPC are more transparent and formal. However, standard setting was at HMIP's discretion, to be exercised during IPC implementation. HMIP initially intended to break from the past and do this at arms'length from industry. Analysis of this implementation stage uses the organic chemicals sector for case study. It explains why IPC has suffered an 'implementation deficit' compared to HMIP's initial intentions. Moreover, improvements to industrial pollution control are negotiated in a policy network similar to its air pollution predecessor. It is argued that within the formal legal framework, persists an infonnal, consensual, and somewhat opaque pollution regime.

This thesis studies the issues on sustainability with nonrenewable resources and on practical problem with environment: regulation to control pollution. The first essay proves the converse of Hartwick's rule with general production function. Hartwick's rule shows that if one reinvests all the rents from nonrenewable resource, then constant sustainable consumption can be maintained. This ensures intergenerational equity. The converse of Hartwick's rule is proved by directly solving ordinary differential equations. It means the constant consumption must imply the total reinvesting of the rents from the exhaustible resource, and so the Hartwick's rule prescribes the unique sustainable policy.<br>In the second essay, Rawls' "just saving principle" is fonnulated with a model for constant utility in an intergenerational allocation framework. A term comparing consumption of adjacent generations is added to the utility function. The model is analyzed in the context of optimal control theory. In a two-sector economy, consumption growth is incorporated with equity. This property removes the disadvantage that a society starting out poor will be in such poverty forever, which is inherent in the model of constant consumption with nonrenewable resources. Different forms of generalized Hartwick's Rule are obtained. Optimal consumption path is characterized to achieve the highest utility.<br>The third essay investigates the optimal emission tax schemes for oligopolistic firms with differentiated goods. In the model, pollution stock creates disutility on social welfare. Firms play dynamic games against themselves, trying to maximize the long-run profit given the tax rules and their opponents' behavior. Open-loop and Markov Nash Equilibria are studied. The model is analyzed with optimal control theory and differential game theory. Time-independent tax rules are shown to exist that guide polluting oligopolists to produce along socially optimum path. For linear market demand and quadratic damage function, the tax rules are shown to be linear in the pollution stock. Numerical examples show that even the polluting firm can receive subsidy at the periods when initial pollution stock is low. The optimal tax in general is dependent on the current pollutant stock. The results shed a light on policy making of the related market structure.

A number of sustainable and economically viable treatment methodologies have been developed and optimised to combat environmental pollution problems associated with the diversity and scattered nature of industries in Pakistan. The use of both electro-precipitation and electro-oxidation processes are shown to lead to the removal of dyes from textile effluent streams originating from various operations. The use of the electro-precipitation process, however, leads to a secondary disposal problem because sludge produced has to be disposed of safely. The use of an electrooxidation process does not produce sludge but is unable to remove some of the organic impurities from industrial textile effluent. Both processes do, however, result in colour removal from dye effluents with the degradation of dyes during electro-oxidation proceeding through the formation of different intermediate species before mineralization leading to complete mineralization in 30-40 minutes. Ames tests confirm that the treated effluent streams from both electro-precipitation and electro-oxidation processes are non-mutagenic. The electro-Precipitation process with mild steel anodes is also be used for the treatment of leather effluent streams to remove chromium by producing a mixed Cr(III) / Fe(III) hydroxide sludge. The same treatment process was successfully used for the simultaneous removal of dyes and chromium from mixed textile/leather effluent streams. The electro-precipitation process developed has been successfully tested on pilot scale at a textile mill in Faisalabad, Pakistan. A number of transition metal supported catalysts were shown to be ineffective in the oxidation of volatile organic compounds. For this reason a method of preparing platinum group metal catalysts on inert supports at low temperatures was developed and used to oxidise toluene, as an indicator of volatile organic compounds. The preferred catalyst support is y-A1203 which can be in the form of spheres or washcoated monoliths. In the case of y-A1203 spheres and the y-A1203 washcoated monolith complete oxidation of toluene was achieved at the relatively low temperatures of 236 and 2680C. A number of novel room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) were synthesised, characterised and their potential application for selective extraction of copper from industrial wastes is also reported. The solubility studies of different metal oxides in the RTIL, 1-(2-cyanoethyl)-3-methylimidazolium bromide, show that it can be used for the selective extraction of copper from industrial waste samples containing other metal oxides. This RTIL has the ability to selectively dissolve, copper, copper oxide and copper sulfide when the reaction is carried out in the presence of water.

This dissertation explores the firm-level, state, and federal characteristics that explain pollution emissions during 1988-1996. Differences in pollution approach between different types of firms and the states in which they operate provide a unique research setting to investigate the following questions: (1) How do firms respond to differing levels of state environmental regulation? (2) What effect does a change in regime at the federal level have on firm pollution control? (3) How do firms with favorable environmental reputations compare to firms with unfavorable environmental reputations regarding emissions? (4) What firm characteristics are related to environmental performance (e.g., profitability, size, industry)? At the firm level, I hypothesize that emissions will be lower for firms that: (1) have established a 'green' reputation, and (2) are more profitable per pound of emission. At the state level, I hypothesize that firms with weak environmental reputations with a greater proportion of emissions in states with weak environmental regulations will be more profitable than firms with weak environmental reputations with a lower proportion of emissions in those states. At the federal level, the sub period 1988-1992, under a pro-industry Republican administration, has weaker environmental regulations than the sub period 1993-1996, under a pro-environmental Democratic administration. I predict that emissions will decrease faster during the latter sub-period. I test the predictions with ordinary least squares regressions, corrected for autocorrelation. Data consist of firm-level pollution emission data from the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and financial data from Compustat. Of firms with unfavorable environmental reputations, those that emit a greater percentage of their pollution in pro-industry states are more profitable. This result provides evidence to suggest that governmental regulation does influence where firms choose to emit. The results indicate firms that emit more of their emissions in pro-industry states for the 1993-1996 sub-period exhibit larger decreases in overall emissions during that time. This suggests firms that emit more in pro-industry states during the 1993-1996 sub-period have organizational slack available to meet the increase in federal environmental regulations. Other results indicate that firms with favorable environmental reputations did not reduce emissions significantly more than firms with unfavorable environmental reputations.

This thesis examines the contention that effective regulation has as much to do with the capacity for co-operation between inter-dependent actors as it has to do with the state's capacity for control. This contention, and the alternative conception of regulation that it implies, is significant because it is associated with a tension that runs through many areas of public policy: does cooperation between the public and the private, or between the regulators and the regulated, lead to effective collective action or to regulatory capture? Following a conceptual examination of the nature of regulation and implementation, the thesis considers the explanatory value of two different perspectives on cooperation and collective action: the rational choice perspective, which suggests that the behaviour of economically responsive actors is shaped by the incentives for cooperation that stem from their interdependence, and the institutional perspective, which contends that as particular forms of behaviour emerge, evolve and become institutionalised, so the implementation process becomes embedded in particular institutional structures that enable the continuation of existing approaches whilst restricting the potential for change. In seeking to examine the explanatory value of these perspectives, the thesis considers the factors shaping the implementation of two frameworks of environmental regulation, namely the frameworks of Integrated Pollution Control and Local Air Pollution Control as applied in England and Wales. Based on a comparative analysis of the factors that shape the nature and influence of each implementation process, the thesis concludes that the explanatory value of the rational choice perspective is fundamentally limited and that the value of the institutional perspective is much more complete. On this basis, the thesis proposes an institutional perspective on regulation and implementation that recognises the significance of resource inter-dependencies and the ways in which cooperative approaches can increase the prospects for collective action whilst reducing the accountability and the manageability of the implementation process. As is discussed, this conclusion has significant implications for broader debates on regulation and governance.

Water pollution has long been considered a challenge in urban areas, and new types of pollution are continuously introduced to society. Urban wastewater and stormwater act as transport pathways of pollution from urban areas to receiving waterways. Microplastics are a new type of pollution that is being highlighted as problematic, and the presence of microplastics is widespread in the environment. The knowledge about behaviour, sources and transport pathways is still limited. Still, there have been suggestions for ways to control microplastic pollution. Moreover, many other pollutants have been introduced, and to a various extent controlled, in the urban water system before, which means that there are strategies for pollution control in place. The problem of microplastic pollution is receiving attention from both research and policy. Therefore, there is a need to simultaneously explore ways to handle the pollution and learn more about the flows of microplastics. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of flows of microplastics in urban waters and investigate strategies and measures that can control the flows. This aim has been addressed through three different studies presented in the three appended papers. The empirical material was gathered between 2017 and 2020 using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The flows of microplastics were investigated using a quantitative approach with inspiration from substance flow analysis. Strategies and measures to control pollution were investigated by means of analyses of documents, literature review and interviews. In terms of flows, the results show that laundry seems to be a large contributor to the wastewater system, while the contribution from cigarette filters was smaller than anticipated. Littering, in general, as well as paint, are potentially important sources of microplastics where the understanding is very limited. In terms of strategies and measures to control the flows, there are both preventive and treatment options for microplastics. As microplastics are a diverse pollutant group, several different solutions are needed. Some aspects that influence control efforts are related to the properties and behaviour of the specific pollutant and can therefore be more or less suitable for different pollutants. Other aspects are more general, such as what compartments are seen as valuable and prioritised in terms of protection. Further, treatment moves the pollution from the water to another medium, and this movement also needs to be considered. Challenges in terms of changing, limited or even lack of legislation, as well as unclear responsibility, and problems with collaboration among urban actors also impact the possibilities to control pollution. The case of microplastics also raises questions about when and how pollution should be controlled and by whom. Further, emerging practices in the urban water system, such as source separation, pipe-separation, and water reuse, will have implications for how pollution will be handled in the future.

Most countries aim to regulate and protect the state of our environment under a system of environmental standards to control the level of certain pollutants present in various media of concern. Many such standards are often set without due consideration of uncertainty and variation and based on poorly defined principles. A sound statisticallybased approach to setting environmental standards can be based on the statistically verifiable ideal standard (SVIS) of Barnett and O'Hagan (1997). The SVIS is developed and practical implications of its use considered in terms of applications to pollution situations in air, water and soil, working in co-operation with relevant bodies. Developments include a non-parametric binomial approach and quantile testing for several simple parent pollutant distributions; properties of these approaches are examined in detail. A best linear unbiased quantile estimator (BLUQE) is examined, and 5% and 1 % critical values for the 0.95 and 0.99 BLUQE tabulated for use in an approximate significance testing procedure. This work is extended to a BLUQE for ranked set sampling, demonstrating impressive efficiency gains. Assessment of the SVIS using composite sample data is also investigated, with major improvements in test perrormance over the use of the commonly accepted 'divide-by-n' rule for critical value calculation. Following Barnett and O'Hagan (1997), the problem of setting directly equivalent compatible standards at different stages of the pollutant cause-effect chain is investigated. A statistically verifiable ideal guard point standard with two levels is also developed to avoid benefit of the doubt in testing procedures for standards, and its use demonstrated for both normal and gamma parent pollutant distributions. A reference point standard is proposed for a spatially dependent pollutant variable, with a krigingbased testing procedure. Finally, a 'hotspot' identification procedure is also developed, using outlier methods and composite sampling. The work concludes with suggestions for further related research.