The basket willow, commonly known as wicker, has for ages been used as raw material for weaving baskets, as a filtrating medium or for pharmaceutical needs. One of the most important uses of the plant are the hydraulic engineering and - present on larger scale for several years in Poland - as energetic raw material. Among the unquestionable advantages of the willow are fast biomass growth, relatively high immunity from diseases and pests, and the possibility to use its sticks and rods, which are cut off for caring purposes, for power generation. Due to such qualities, the willow should be more frequently used in economical development of the environment, also as a substitute for other plants. The plant-derived-fuels are undoubtedly the energetic future the World. This decided not only by the finite nature of traditional, mining energy resources, but also due to the cost of production and generation of power from biomass, and first of all due to ecological aspects. The present paper focuses on the alternative cultivation of energetic plants (natural cultivation), which - in the author's opinion - will largely contribute to propagation of clean energy production and consequently improve the condition of natural environment. According to analysis ...
Changes in ground beetles assemblage structure in relation to bankfull discharge in mountain stream have been tested. The research was performed in one of the Polish Carpathian streams in the Gorce Mountains region: the Ochotnica Stream. As the index of determination of bankfull volume the size of terrestrial invertebrates (carabids) was advocated which were present in the investigated research cross-section and were resistant to specific water discharge conditions. Redundancy analysis shoved that only variation of community biomass depended on frequency of changing water discharge. Distribution of mean abundance in body length classes is unimodal for upper benches meanwhile on the lowest bench abundance decreased linearly. This parameter can be used in practice as a good indicator of bankfull discharge on mountain streams. The need of fluvial processes in conservation approach for riverine communities is discussed. ...
Biogas, landfill gas originates from fermentation of organic compounds. The fuel contains between 30 and 70% of methane, between 30 and 60% CO2 and small amounts of other components, such as nitrogen, hydrogen or water vapour. Its fuel value oscillates around 17-27 MJ/m3. Biogas is widely used, mainly as a fuel for electricity generators, the source of energy for water heating and after cleaning and compressing also as a fuel for engines. It is manufactures mainly in small agricultural biogas plants. It is obtained by means of degassing post-landfill objects. The investigates conducted by the Authors aimed at determining the amount of biogas possible to obtain from typical fractions which occur in municipal wastes, i.e. potato peelings, cabbage leaves, vegetable peelings, citrus fruit and banana skins and animal wastes. The research considered six kinds of biowastes of plant origin and one control sample randomly mixed of all five kinds of wastes. The fractions were broken and liquefied to dry matter content of about 10%. Biogas was obtained through anaerobic fermentation process in a regulated temperature environment. A chamber with fixed temperature was used for this purpose (the temperature was set at c.a. 33oC – optimal for mesophilic methane bacteria) in ...
