Rasa Vaiškūnaitė

Biodiversity impact assessment in road development in Lithuania

Abstract Roads affect wildlife in different ways. Road construction increases fragmentation of habitats, influences landscape pattern and alters the physical environment. Roads act as barriers to animal movements, increase their mortality rates and cause other negative impacts on biodiversity. The current paper overviews the assessment of road impacts in Lithuania, reviews approaches applied to evaluation of road development impacts as well as analyses application of Lithuanian legal documents in the field. In Lithuania, assessment of possible effects inflicted by envisaged road construction is determined by the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment of Planned Economic Activities and orders of the Ministry of Environment. Although the legislation covers some aspects of biodiversity, little attention is given to the assessment of the impact on biodiversity; meanwhile the impact assessment of proposed economic activities on Natura 2000 sites is clarified more extensively. Lithuanian methodological guidelin...

KREOZOTU IMPREGNUOTŲ MEDINIŲ GELEŽINKELIO PABĖGIŲUTILIZAVIMO TECHNOLOGIJŲ ANALIZĖ IR VERTINIMAS

Mediniai geležinkelio pabėgiai yra impregnuojami naudojant chemines medžiagas, taip siekiant padidinti jų ilgaamžiskumą, apsaugoti nuo neigiamo aplinkos poveikio, biologinės korozijos ir suteikti kitas naudingas eksploatacines savybes. Impregnavimui yra naudojama cheminė medžiaga – kreozotas, kuris gaunamas is akmens anglies ir susideda is PAA (policiklinių aromatinių angliavandenilių), fenolinių junginių ir heterociklinių aromatinių junginių, kurie yra stiprūs kancerogenai. Impregnuoti mediniai geležinkelio pabėgiai yra kenksmingi aplinkai ir žmogui, todėl jų atliekos turi būti tvarkomos (utilizuojamos) vadovaujantis galiojanciais teisės aktais ir mažiausiai neigiamą poveikį aplinkai daranciu būdu. Placiausiai paplites atliekų, tarp jų ir medinių geležinkelio pabėgių, utilizavimo būdas yra terminis apdorojimas. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/aainz.2017.023

Modelling of a biofiltration process of volatile organic compound mixtures in a biofilter

ABSTRACT Currently, different methods for air clean-up from chemical pollutants are applied worldwide: adsorption, absorption, and thermal and catalytic oxidation. One of the most promising methods is biological air cleaning. The aim of this study was to test the performance of a developed biofilter with packing material of activated pine bark for biological air cleaning and to mathematically model the biofiltration processes. Comparative analysis of the modelling results for individual pollutants (butyl acetate, butanol and xylene) showed strongest dependence of the efficiency of xylene removal from the air on the amount and ratio of other substances (from 20% to 70%). Thus, the process of removal of pollutants (butanol and butyl acetate) that are easier to biologically decompose was obtained to be influenced to a lesser extent by the amount and ratio (%) of other components. The results also showed that the efficiency of butyl acetate removal mostly depended on the ratio of other substances in the mixture (from 15% to 100%), whereas the efficiency of butyl acetate and xylene removal mostly depended on the amount of other substances in the mixture (from 20% to 100%). With the parameters of the biofilter (height of packing material, incoming air flow velocity) and the pollutants to be removed known, the mathematical expression of the filter efficiency was found, which would allow to make theoretical calculation and selection of the most appropriate parameters of the device as well as to achieve maximum efficiency of air cleaning.