IRSPAS 2017
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Item Rural responsiveness on the usage and adverse effects of plastic and polythene: Case study, Vavuniya District, Northern Sri Lanka.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Arjunan, K.Plastic and polythene frequently chronicled with environmental pollution and health hazards to human, animals as well as on plants. It has been realized as a wide spreading and worsening environmental scenario among developed and developing nations worldwide. Respective governments and authorities are intensively seeking possible alleviation measures on controlling, banning and introducing alternatives on safeguard the deterioration of environmental health and wealth of nations. This study was aimed to assess the socio-economic aspects of plastic and polythene usage and the perception of rural community on environmental conservation with respect to plastic and polythene. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 120 randomly selected respondents belonging to12 villages and respondents were grouped in three categories: low, medium and high income group to identify the respondent’s socio-economic condition, extent of plastic and polythene use, total waste production, proportion of plastic/polythene in waste, existing disposal practices and awareness on the environmental risk of usage along with their educational status. The results revealed that the major proportion (73, 60.83%) of the respondents used plastic/polythene bags and plastic household items more frequently than any other products (metal/paper) regardless of their economic and educational status. Low cost (86, 71.66 %) and easy availability (93, 77.5%) were the main reasons for the widespread utilization of these products. Among the practices used for disposal of plastic bag wastes, open dumping to surrounding areas (88, 73.50%) was the practice widely used by almost all the residents of the villages followed by open burning. Major environmental impacts of usage were identified as accumulation of polythene bags into the surface water bodies (58%), wells (41%), agricultural lands (41%), and health hazards for cattle (28%) animal deaths (7%) and deterioration of scenic beauty of natural landscapes (24%). As far as the perception of respondents on the environmental conservation was concerned; even though they have the intended environmental care, the increased usage of plastic/polythene bags at retail shops, low cost and easy accessibility of kitchen and household items at pavement or retail shops were the driven forces which facilitated the increased use of plastics and polythene products by rural community. Therefore enforcing a monitoring system on the sales of plastic/polythene products at whole and retail scale, further awareness of rural community, introduction of eco-friendly products instead of polythene/plastic products with reasonable cost would be the potential efforts for the good deal of rural community towards the sustainable rural environmental management.Item Environmental issues associated with the environmental protection area of Thalangama tank in the Western Province of Sri Lanka.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Radhika, N. M. L.; Padmalal, U. K. G. K.Thalangama tank is considered as one of “the shelters for animals and plants inhabiting in and around the city of Colombo” of Sri Lanka, and declared as an Environmental Protection Area (EPA) in 2007. It was built by the great king Parakramabahu VI and is a unique remnant of the historic past. At the time of the survey (June and May, 2009), this valuable wetland was under threat due to the various activities. This study was carried out with the objective of studying the environmental issues associated with the EPA of Thalangama tank. During this study, a pre-tested questionnaire was adopted to gather socio-economic data from the villagers and field visits were also conducted for two months. Five major environmental issues have been highlighted at five locations of EPA. The selected locations were the boundary of Depa Ela, Northern and Eastern boundaries of Thalangama tank, connecting canal of Thalangama tank and Ewarihena wewa and North-Western and Northern boundaries of Ewarihena wewa. The major environmental issues identified were spreading of invasive plant species (Annona glabra, Eichhornia crassipes), improper disposal of solid wastes, water pollution, inappropriate visitor use and poor community participation in environmental management. The ranking system of the issues was consisted of six levels according to the severity of the issue as very low, low, moderate, moderately high, high, and extremely high. Spreading of invasive plant species was extremely high along the North-western and Northern boundaries of Ewarihena wewa, high along the Eastern boundary of the tank and along the boundary of Depa Ela, moderately high along the connecting canal, and moderate along the Northern boundary of the tank. Improper disposal of solid wastes was moderately high along the Eastern boundary and the North-Western and Northern Boundaries of Ewarihena wewa, moderate along the boundary of Depa Ela, the Northern boundary of the tank and along the connecting canal. Water pollution was high along the boundary of Depa Ela, moderately high along the Eastern boundary of the tank, connecting canal and the North-Western and Northern boundary of Ewarihena wewa, but moderate along the Northern boundary of the tank. Improper visitor use was moderately high along the Eastern boundary, moderate along the Northern boundary, low along the connecting canal and along the North-Western and Northern boundary of Ewarihena wewa, but not prominent along the boundary of Depa Ela. Issues arisen due to poor community participation was high along the North-Western and Northern boundary of Ewarihena wewa, moderately high along the Eastern boundary of the tank, and moderate along the boundary of Depa Ela, along the Northern boundary of the tank and along the connecting canal. Therefore, strong sectorial coordination is required to strengthen the village wetland management committee to get the maximum community participation to protect the natural resources of the EPA of Talangama tank in a sensible way.Item A computational approach to identify suitable compounds from Sri Lankan flora envisaging remedial therapy for selected neurodegenerative diseases.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Thiruchittampalam, S.; Weerasinghe, S.Gaining understanding of neurological disorders affecting a large number of people worldwide, contemplating lower quality of life of patients and their caregivers, would reduce the burden on the society. Neurodegenerative disorders, Alzheimer’s (AD), Parkinson’s (PD), prion and Huntington’s (HD) disorders are known to be caused by main common factors; oxidative stress, protein misfolding and aggregation triggered by metal accumulation. Since the metal ions have to be the prime consideration, chelation therapy is a plausible approach to restore metal balance. Therefore, apt metal binding ligands are categorized from an existing database of 200 chemical compounds identified from Sri Lankan flora, particularly for Fe3+, Cu2+, Zn2+ and Al3+ ions via a computational approach to be used as lead compounds for drug development. Screened compounds were evaluated regarding binding free energy with the aid of umbrella sampling molecular dynamics (MD) where 13 numbers of similar simulation system was restrained with harmonic potential along a reaction coordinate (z) assigned. Here, the reaction coordinate is the distance between the center of mass of the ligand and the metal ion. The MD simulations were performed using GROMACS 4.5.1 program on the LINUX operating system. The potential of mean force was computed using the weighted histogram analysis method (WHAM) from the independent trajectories of 13 windows. Upshots of the WHAM technique are given below in the figure. Overlap of neighbouring windows from the Figure ensures there are sufficient windows to cover the entire reaction coordinate space. The free energy change upon binding has been inferred from the inset of the Figure. Free energy calculations reveal number of compounds might possess the potential to alleviate the symptoms of AD (15 compounds) PD (13 compounds) and prion disease (6 compounds) which should be further analysed in an interdisciplinary way. Furthermore, it indicates no suitable compound for HD from the 200 compounds incorporated in this research. Moreover, this study upholds molecular dynamics simulation output viable within the expected time period.Item Equilibrium studies on the adsorption of heavy metals, dyes and phenol by phosphoric acid modified rice husk.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Parthiban, G.; Rifna, M. S. F.The removal of contaminants from wastewater is still far away from a satisfactory solution. In fact, the selection of a particular wastewater treatment technology should not be based uniquely on its efficiency, but should rather integrate environmental and economical aspects. Within this framework, the main objective of this study is the removal of various contaminants in wastewater including heavy metals (Cadmium and Copper), dyes (Methyl Red and Methylene Blue) and Phenolic compounds via an environmental friendly green technology method. In this study, grounded rice husk was examined as sorbent material which was chemically modified with Phosphoric acid (1.0 M) and was found to be effective in removing the contaminants. Batch studies were performed on synthetic wastewater at room temperature to evaluate the effects of various parameters such as contact time, pH, initial concentration of the solution and adsorbent dose on removal efficiency of the pollutants. The experiment was also applied to treat two samples of industrial wastewater containing Cadmium and Carmoisine E122. The removal efficiency was found to be pH dependant. The removal efficiency was higher for Phenol and Methyl Red at low pH values and it was shown that the removal efficiency was higher for heavy metals and Methylene Blue at higher pH values. The equilibrium was reached approximately in 2 hours for all the contaminants. Equilibrium sorption data were fitted into Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isotherms. Of the four adsorption isotherms, the R2 value was higher for D-R isotherm for the adsorption of Cadmium (0.979), Freundlich and Temkin isotherms for the adsorption of Copper (0.945), Freundlich isotherm for the adsorption of Methyl Red (0.994), Temkin isotherm for the adsorption of Methylene Blue (0.953) and Langmuir isotherm for the adsorption of Phenol (0.987). Adsorption data were well described and adsorption isotherm constants were determined from the respective adsorption isotherm equations. The present study analyzed the adsorption of rice husk and concluded that treated rice husk gave comparatively better adsorption efficiency. The treated rice husk can be implemented on large scale industrial applications after field studies.Item Computational investigation of the structural and thermodynamic properties of nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Narthani, B. D. S.; Pandithavidana, D. R.The word “sufactant” has originated from the three words “surface active agents.” Surfactants are compounds that have potential to lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid. Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) are a group of non-ionic surfactants commonly known as Tergitol NP surfactants. Nonylphenol ethoxylates are classified according to the number of ethoxylate units in the hydrophilic chain. The properties of the nonylphenol ethoxylates differ with the number of ethoxylate units in the molecule. The hydrophilic–lipophilic-balance (HLB value) is the key parameter that the surfactant formulates are focused on when studying the properties of non-ionic surfactants. Even though the HLB values of two surfactants are equal or close enough to each other, the expected properties cannot be obtained by replacing one surfactant with another one. This issue leads to the necessity to carry out many trial and error tests to identify the equivalent surfactants in industrial applications. To address this issue, a comprehensive investigation of the nonylphenol ethoxylate molecules was carried out computationally at B3LYP level of theory using 6-311G basis set in Linux version of Gaussian 09 computer software package. The aqueous phase investigation focused on deducing the interactions between nonylphenol ethoxylates and water with extending the chain length of ethoxylate part, branching the nonyl hydrocarbon chain and varying the substituent position (-ortho, -meta and -para) of nonylphenol ethoxylate molecules. To interpret the interactions of nonylphenol ethoxylate molecules with water, molecular properties such as Gibbs free energy changes of solvation (ΔGsolv) in aqueous medium, molecular dipole moments and hydrogen bond lengths between surfactant molecules and water molecules were investigated. The more negative values (-46.62 to -116.88 kJ/mol) of the solvation Gibbs free energy (ΔGsolv) indicated that stability of the NPEs in aqueous medium increases with the extension of the length of ethoxylate chain (4 to 16 ethoxylate units). The substituent position and the branching of the nonyl-hydrocarbon chain have not caused a change in Gibbs free energy of solvation significantly. Although electrical dipole moment of NPEs in aqueous medium varied with the position of the substituents, it was not affected by branching patterns of nonyl hydrocarbon group. Computationally simulated UV-Visible spectra of NPEs revealed the absorption maximum of NPEs ( λmax) was independent of ethoxylate chain length. UV-Visible spectra generated from selected molecules of NPEs confirmed that absorption maximum ( λmax) of the surfactant species was significantly affected by the change in position of substituents.Item Assessment of environmental and economic impacts of mangrove deforestation in Vidataltivu lagoon, Sri Lanka.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Marynathan, E.; Sosai, A. S.; Wickramasinghe, W. M. S.; Jayasinghe, G. Y.Mangroves are unique plants that grow in specific topographic locations under special conditions. Most mangrove ecosystems are under threat because of human interventions. Since Sri Lanka is an island, the mangrove extent is high compared to other countries in the world. The study was aimed at assessing the environmental impact of mangrove deforestation, the effect of mangrove destruction on the economic status of local residents and the degree of awareness about mangroves in the nearby community. The researched location in Vidataltivu has optimal conditions for mangrove ecosystems along with fresh waterfronts entering the sea water. The area selected had 600 families and 90% of them were fishermen. A questionnaire survey was conducted using the stratified random sampling technique for 50 fishermen from Vidataltivu. According to the study 93% of the people had awareness on the damages, causes, human interaction, species diversity and the importance of mangroves to the economy of the community. 36% of the fishermen engaged in fishing for their freedom, 24% of them do not have any alternatives. However, the research has shown that the displacement of people from other parts of the Northern Province had increased the population in this area resulting in excessive consumption of mangroves for various needs. The younger generation (40%) of Vidataltivu has the awareness, but the feel of responsibility is absent as 25% people do not bother about the environment. Ninety two percent people have the basic awareness about mangroves but they do not want to take responsibility. The analysis of data shows a lack of passion for prevention of mangrove destruction. Ninety percent of the people stated that the destruction of mangroves cause a problem to the ecosystem and 92% people also acknowledge that mangrove destruction is one of the major reasons for why the quantity of species has gone down. They also believe that if the mangroves were not destroyed, they must have had a better yield in their fishing nets. However, contradictorily and surprisingly, 78% of them do not want to feel that they were responsible, and are still causing the destruction of most of these mangroves. Therefore, in conclusion this research makes several suggestions such as enabling community participation on mangrove protection and restoration, encouraging youngsters in the area as well as identifying leaders and focus groups within the peripheral community to be trained and motivated towards environmental protection together with enforcement of self-awareness. Eventually, this will lead to a protected mangrove ecosystem in Vidataltivu lagoon in future.Item A simulation modelling approach for vehicle routing problem in cluster-based pharmaceutical supply chains.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Niwunhella, D. H. H.; Rupasinghe, T. D.Pharmaceuticals directly affect the health conditions of millions of people. It is important to find the most effective and optimized methods for pharmaceutical supply chains to provide a better quality product from manufacturers to the end-consumer. The supply chain process of the pharmaceutical products, when compared with the other commercial goods and services, is given higher priority since it costs high amount of money and time to produce and deliver pharmaceutical products, since the process is not well-managed. Furthermore, all the contributors in the pharmaceutical domain go through specific rules and regulations, uncertainty in demand, constraints such as biological factors in the process. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the medical service level and technical level, people’s demand for drugs significantly improved year by year. Therefore, it is vital that the delivery of pharmaceutical products is conducted effectively and efficiently. In addition to quality, the routing and scheduling of vehicles represent an important component of many distribution and transportation systems’ costs. With the computational constraints of solving Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) which is NP-hard, a few optimization and approximation approaches have been introduced to successfully solve VRPs in the recent past. Thus, this study depicts a vehicle routing optimization with the objective of minimizing the cost based on the pharmaceutical product clusters using a simulation-based solution approach using SupplyChainGuru® modelling and simulation tool. Vehicle routing models are developed to simulate the pre-identified clusters (product families) using test cases from the literature and the benchmark instances listed on the repository of CVRPLib. Then the behavior and the nature of vehicle routing in pre-defined product clusters are identified and modelled via varying wide variety of variables. The baseline model is compared with the scenarios of each product cluster and the most optimized vehicle routing model will be identified and validated through simulation. The study concluded that the overall cost is minimized, when the pharmaceuticals are routed to better suit their product characteristics, rather than distributing the products without considering the inherent product characteristics, which are dynamically modelled and evaluated to provide better quality products to the patients. This product clustering-based simulation of VRP will indeed optimize the VRP in Pharmaceutical Supply Chains and will provide the platform to extend the cluster based optimization to related industries as well.Item Effective information sharing and integration to enhance performance of fresh produce supply chains: A systematic review of literature.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Weeabahu, W. M. S. K.Effective information sharing and integration are enablers of supply chain integration and have become a major driver of supply chain performance improvement. Agricultural supply chains involve larger number of stakeholders including, private sector, logistics partners, and regulatory bodies. From mud to mouth, multiple supply chain player’s information requirement varies through supply chain processes. The lack of information sharing and integration among supply chain players, result in inefficiency in the supply chain processes. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the literature on effective information sharing and integration in the fresh produce supply chains for performance enhancement. In defining the scope of the study mainly fresh fruits and vegetable supply chain related literature is considered for the review. A comprehensive systematic review of existing literature specifically focusing on the supply chain information flow and supply chain performance is carried out to identify supply chain players’ information network and their various information needs. In most research studies, information integration has been viewed as information sharing and collaborative planning among supply chain entities using information and communication, technology. Even though the relationship between effective information integration and supply chain performance is not clearly examined, various studies have recognized the presence of a tacit relationship. Effective information flow from upstream to downstream as well as downstream to upstream with fresh produce supply chain entities affect the performance of supply chain. Some of the past research studies highlighted the importance of analyzing and validating exact information needs of the supply chain entities for effective supply chain performance. These findings of the study are useful for policymakers in formulating supply chain performance improvement strategies and for practitioners to understand the supply chain players’ information specific needs and network for supply chain performance improvement.Item Monitoring the accumulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the water bodies around Kelanitissa and Kerawalapitiya power plants in Sri Lanka.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Chandrasiri, H. M. H. B.; Doole, F. T.; Subramanium, S. S.Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of environmental contaminants which are formed due to natural processes such as forest fires and anthropogenic activities including incomplete combustion of organic matter (eg. wood, carbon, coke, fossil fuel etc.). These ubiquitous contaminants have attracted attention due to their toxicity and carcinogenicity. The Agency for the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) have identified 16 PAHs as priority pollutants based on their health effects. In this study, the water samples which were collected from Sebastian canal near Kelanitissa power plant and Hamilton canal near Kerawalapitiya power plant were extracted using dichloromethane and were analyzed by HPLC with UV-DAD (254 nm) and FLD (excitation at 250 nm, emission at 410 nm) detectors. This study aim to determine the seasonal variation and accumulation trend of the PAH content in water bodies around Kelanitissa and Kerawalapitiya power stations in Sri Lanka. The study revealed the presence of low, medium and high molecular weight PAHs in the water samples obtained from Sebastian canal near Kelanitissa power plant and Hamilton canal near Kerawalapitiya power plant. Total concentration of PAHs in surface water samples obtained from Sebastian canal during rainy season (April 2015), dry season (July 2015) and rainy season (June 2016) were 0.11-1.71 μg/L, 2.36-14.68 μg/L and 6.88 μg/L - 10.05 μg/L, respectively. Furthermore, PAH content in water samples obtained from Hamilton canal during rainy season (April 2015), dry season (July 2015) and rainy season (April 2016) were 0.16-2.74 μg/L, 11.06- 54.89 μg/L and 5.35 - 7.79 μg/L, respectively. As expected, high amount of PAHs were detected during the dry season due to the accumulation. However, the total PAHs in the Sebastian canal during the rainy season of June 2016 has shown a significantly high amount than during the rainy season of April 2015. Also the same trend can be observed in Hamilton canal where high amount of PAHs were detected during the rainy season of April 2016 than during the rainy season of April 2015. This may indicate an accumulation of PAHs with time in the water bodies near the power plants. Further monitoring for longer durations is required to identify the accumulation trend.Item Model study on the adsorptive removal of nickel and cobalt ions from waste water using clay soil as a natural adsorbent.(International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, 2017 Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Kumarihami, C. A. U. K.; Kulathunga, S.; Subramanium, S. S.Requirement for developing strategies for employing cost effective and efficient adsorbents for the removal of heavy metals from waste streams has been steadily increasing over the past years. Naturally occurring clay is a cost effective and efficient adsorbent due to its natural abundance, high surface area, porosity and high cation exchange capacity. In Sri Lanka, untreated laboratory waste water which contains toxic heavy metals is released to the environment continuously due to the absence of proper laboratory waste water management strategies. An effective heavy metal adsorption into a particular adsorbent is governed by the factors such as initial metal ion concentration, ionic strength, pH and contact time etc. The present study mainly focused on optimizing pH and contact time to achieve maximum adsorption of Nickel and Cobalt on to clay soil. In this regard, clay soil sampling was carried out at a clay mining site of a brick making facility at Malwana area, followed by the standard soil characterization. The highest cation exchange capacity bearing clay soil was used to prepare the Na+ homoionic clay soil adsorbent. During this study, heavy metals under six different initial concentrations (i.e., 900 mg L-1, 1200 mg L-1, 1500 mg L-1, 1800 mg L-1, 2400 mg L-1 and 3000 mg L-1) were used. Adsorptive removals of Ni2+ and Co2+ by Na+ homoionic clay soil under different pH values (pH 3, pH 7 and pH 11) were studied by conducting single element batch experiments under each initial metal ion concentration in order to determine the effect of pH for the adsorption capacities of Nickel and Cobalt. Similarly, contact time of 1 day, 3 days and 5 days were used to determine the effect of the contact time. Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used for the analysis of metal concentrations. The present study revealed that the nickel and cobalt ion adsorption capacities increase for each initial metal ion concentration upon increasing the pH and the contact time. Ni2+ at initial metal ion concentration of 3000 mg L-1 had the maximum adsorption of 64.09 ± 0.51 mg g-1 at pH 11 for the contact time of 3 days. Co2+ adsorption capacity nearly attained constant after 3 days. The maximum adsorption value of 63.88 ± 0.25 mg g-1 at pH 11 after 3 days was observed for Co2+ at the initial concentration of 3000 mg L-1. Further, for both metal ions, even though there was a significant increment with the increase of pH values, there was no significant difference in the adsorption capacities for the contact time after 3 days. This trend is in good agreement with previous studies carried out on removing of Cu, Pb, Cd and Cr ions using clay soil adsorbents.