Environmental pollution is considered to be one of the main concerns in the construction industry. Environmental pollution has become a major challenge to construction projects due to the huge amount of pollution caused by construction projects. There are different types of environmental impact indicators, such as the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint, eutrophication potential (EP), acidification potential (AP), human health (HH) particulate, ozone depletion, and smog. Each of these environmental impact indicators can be linked to different phases of the construction projects. The overall environmental impact indicators can be divided into direct, indirect, and operational emissions. This paper presents a Building Information Modeling (BIM)-based methodology for the assessment of environmental impacts in road construction projects. The model takes into account the overall life cycle of the road construction project, which is divided into: manufacturing phase, transportation phase, construction phase, maintenance phase, operational phase, recycling phase, and deconstruction phase. A case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model. The proposed model solves a major problem for road construction project teams who want to assess the environmental impact indicators associated with their project prior to the start of the execution of their projects.

Activated carbon produced from cotton stalks was examined for the removal of heavy metal contaminants. Adsorption studies in completely mixed batch reactors were used to generate equilibrium pH adsorption edges. Continuous flow experiments using the activated carbon in fixed beds were conducted to determine heavy metal breakthrough versus bed volumes treated. At given pH value in the range 5–7, the adsorption capacity was similar for copper and lead and clearly greater than for cadmium. A surface titration experiment indicated negative surface charge of the activated carbon at pH > 6, meaning that electrostatic attraction of the divalent heavy metals can occur below the pH required for precipitation. Substantive metal removal below the pH of zero charge might be due to surface complexation. Accordingly, a surface complexation model approach that utilizes an electrostatic term in the double-layer description was used to estimate equilibrium constants for the protolysis interactions of the activated carbon surface as well as equilibria between background ions used to establish ionic strength and the sorbent surface. Pb(II) adsorption edges were best modeled using inner-layer surface complexation of Pb²⁺, while Cd(II) and Cu(II) data were best fit by outer-layer complexes with Me²⁺. The full set of equilibrium constants were used as input in a dual-rate dynamic model to simulate the breakthrough curves of the target metals (Pb, Cu and Cd) from fixed bed experiments and to estimate external (or film) diffusion and internal (surface) diffusion coefficients.

Ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and chemical precipitation have been investigated extensively for heavy metal uptake. However, they are deemed too expensive to meet stringent effluent characteristics. In this study, cement kiln dust (CKD) was examined for the removal of target heavy metals. Adsorption studies in completely mixed batch reactors were used to generate equilibrium pH adsorption edges. Studies showed the ability of CKD to remove the target heavy metals in a pH range below that of precipitation after an equilibrium reaction time of 24 h. A surface titration experiment indicated negative surface charge of the CKD at pH below 10, meaning that electrostatic attraction of the divalent metals can occur below the pH required for precipitation. However, surface complexation was also important due to the substantive metal removal. Accordingly, a surface complexation model approach that utilizes an electrostatic term in the double-layer description was used to estimate equilibrium constants for the protolysis interactions of the CKD surface as well as equilibria between background ions and the sorbent surface. It was concluded that the removal strength of adsorption is in the order: Pb > Cu > Cd. The experiments were also supported by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

The evaporation from Lake Nasser is about 12.0 x109 m3/year that could increase due to climate change. Decreasing evaporation losses using floating photovoltaic (FPV) is an important method of conserving water resources and producing energy. This study aims to assess the environmental impact assessment of using FPV to generate electricity and reduce the evaporation losses. The environmental impacts from the installation of solar panels were examined on local microclimate and ecosystems. The key advantages of FPV are the water's cooling effect, helping in maintaining the temperature of photovoltaic panels, the effective reduction in water evaporation caused by photovoltaic system's coverage, and the utilization of excess power production from the light reflected from the water. As a result, FPV systems provide environmental and energy efficiency benefits. Therefore, covering parts of lake Nasser using FPV could be an appropriate solution to decrease the evaporation losses and produce energy.