Most of the city of Uppsala rests on postglacial clay with a varying content of sulphur. The sulphur occurs naturally in the clay in reduced form as sulphide and the clay is for that reason usually called ?sulphide clay?. Excavation during construction activities gives rise to large amounts of excavation material, of which the sulphide clay is a considerable part.When the clay is exposed to air and water, an oxidation of the sulphides occurs which may produce an acid leachate and the mobilisation of heavy metals bound in the clay or underlying material. The aim of the work has been to improve our understanding of the behaviour of sulphide clays and produce a basis for risk assessment in the future handling of excavation material with high sulphide content.

The varieties of paint are today very big, but many of the more popular paints are less than environmental friendly. The uses of fossilized fuel in paints are common because these paints dry fast and are color true. It would be beneficial for the environment if more renewable source were used to produce paint. Linseed oil is an old base for oil paints. It is renewable and easily procured.

Joint injury (inflammation) or osteoarthritis is the most common cause of poor performance in the athletic horse. Osteoarthritis is the ensuing degeneration of joint cartilage due to inflammation/injury. The single most important factor in the inflammation cascade of joint injuries is interleukin-1 (IL-1). Until recently, these injuries have been treated with products like hyaluronic acid, cortisone and polysulphated glycosaminoglycans (PSGAG). Several studies have not been able to demonstrate a significant difference in the clinical improvement of joint injuries treated with hyaluronic acid or PSGAG and saline.

In hydropower plants it is necessary to always have local power supply. Therefore, the plants are equipped with batteries as stationary back up power. Vattenfall Vattenkraft is using lead acid batteries but has been investigating alternatives to replace them. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of using Li-ion technology as back up power.The study showed that Li-ion batteries have many qualities. The Li-ion technology will decrease the space and maintenance demand.

During the last couple of years it has been more important to reduce the driving on the field to prepair the soil after ploughing. The machine costs are high so it is necessary to be effective. To reach a pleasant soilbed directly after ploughing is sometimes possible on easier soils but heavier clay soils always need more tillages. There is a lot of equipment mounted on the ploughs on the market, for example Furrow Cracker and Furrow presses, which makes a pleasant soilbed on easier soils. The last year Överum and Kverneland have presented knives which are mounted on the wing or moulboard.

Following the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in 1986, great volumes of137Cs were distributed over large parts of the former Soviet Union and Europe. Over Scotland,radiocaesium was deposited as wet deposition. Due to the relatively long physical half-life of30 years, there are still measurable activity concentrations in the natural environment. Thisstudy was made on two organic soils, Knockandy Hill and Rora Moss, situated in the easternpart of the central highlands of Scotland. At these two sites, studies on migration and transferbetween soil and plants were conducted.

Following the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in 1986, great volumes of137Cs were distributed over large parts of the former Soviet Union and Europe. Over Scotland,radiocaesium was deposited as wet deposition. Due to the relatively long physical half-life of30 years, there are still measurable activity concentrations in the natural environment. Thisstudy was made on two organic soils, Knockandy Hill and Rora Moss, situated in the easternpart of the central highlands of Scotland. At these two sites, studies on migration and transferbetween soil and plants were conducted.

Botanically diverse pastures are commonly used in New Zealand to reduce the ruminant environmental impact by reducing the methane production from the rumen digestion. In order to evaluate the effects diverse pasture species have on the milk fatty acid profile seventy-two lactating Friesian-Jersey crossbred dairy cows were used in a randomised block design with two replicates of six treatments. Six different pasture mixtures were fed at a daily allowance of approximately 15 kg DM/cow/day. The mixtures were categorised as either a simple or a diverse pasture. The simple mixtures all contained white clover with the addition of either a standard diploid perennial ryegrass (RG), a diploid high sugar ryegrass (HS) or tall fescue (TF).

The objective for this master?s thesis was to test and evaluate two methods for determining the content of tannin in a pinebarkextract. The methods used at Södra for this previously have not been specific enough, only the amount of polyphenolics have been measured. One of these methods is a test based on the Stiasny test and it determines the extracts ability to form a gel with formaldehyde. When this test was carried out it showed that the extract did not contain much tannin.

This report deals with handling and interim storage of soils which are planned tobe reused in construction works. The types of soils that are dealt with are gravel, topsoil and sand. The thesis work has been carried out in collaboration with Skanska Sverige Väg och Anläggning Sydost. The main goal is to find an area for using to store soil in between projects.Studies of laws and regulations regarding exploitation and storage of soil has led to a theoretical background upon which the report is based. Background informationhas also been gathered in meetings with the employees at Tekniska Kontoret and Länsstyrelsen in Jönköping.On the basis of literature studies results, a general template has been developed for which desirable properties a possible location should meet.The model was applied to find a number of possible options in the vicinity of Jönköping.

When harvesting ley you hope to get a fast drying and a faster harvest. If there is a system with round bales, you need to have a dry matter close to 45 %. To make this as fast as possible, there is made a machine which pick up the grass with an pick-up. It turn the grass over and put it behind the machine (figure 2 and 4). There are few tests to prove the efficiency of this machine.

Soils in a metal contaminated site on Stångberget in Gusum in southeastSweden were investigated and compared to relatively unaffected soils a fewkilometres away. Pollution came from historical release of untreated flue gasesfrom a brass mill. The objective was to find information on how high the metalconcentrations are, if metals from the polluted soil affect the surroundings andif the metal contamination affects the microbial community. The soil wasinvestigated using several different methods, such as field XRF measurements,chemical analysis of metal, carbon and nitrogen content, pH, acid neutralizingcapacity, texture, soil depth, field leach tests, sequential extraction and microbialfunctional profiles. The study showed that copper and zinc concentrationswere above Swedish Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for lesssensitive land use on the entire investigated area.

Ethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass has the potential to become a promisingalternative to gasoline. In this work the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF)technology was applied for ethanol production from hardwood with focus on cell growth,ethanol production and contamination.The SSF was performed at PH 5.5 and 35°C for different suspended solid concentrations(8%, 10% and 12%) of pretreated birch slurry which contained 16 % total suspended solids.Two different hexose fermenting yeast strain (Ethanol Red) and pentose fermenting yeaststrain were used.Quantifying the concentration of chemical components and metabolites in the fermentationmedium demonstrated that glucose and xylose are the major fermentable sugars in the slurry.The higher load of slurry (12%) represents a higher content of carbohydrates and potentiallyhigher end concentration of ethanol. Moreover, more lactic acid is produced with the lowerload of slurry (8 % or 10 %), presumably due to a result of a less inhibitory environment forbacterial growth. In this context, acetic acid sticks out as the most important inhibitor withconcentrations of 15.2 and 12.5 and 9.7 g/l respectively in the 12 %, 10 % and 8 % (ofsuspended solids) trials. Using pentose fermenting yeast may lead to higher ethanolproduction, lower xylose uptake and lower lactic acid formation.

The field trial Exploatering av höga P-AL-tal (Exploiting P in heavily P dressed soils) started in 1982-1983 and included seventeen study sites placed across Sweden. Each site included three treatments, one unfertilized control (A), one aiming at replenishment of harvest removal, i.e. fertilized with 15 kg P ha-1 year-1 (B) and one over-fertilized (C) with 30 kg P ha-1 year-1. In this thesis data from the five longestrunning study sites are analysed based on four hypotheses. The hypotheses stated that in soils with high P-AL values and a pH over 6.0 P-AL will not decrease over time in the control (A) or in the replenishment treatment (B), that P-AL and P-HCl in the top soil will increase at all sites for the over-fertilized treatment (C) and that yields will not decrease as long as the P-AL is above 12 mg P 100 g-1 soil. My conclusions from the analysis of data from the selected sites are as follows: - A pH above 6.0 cannot guarantee a stable P-AL value in an unfertilized but phosphorus-rich soil. - The P-AL of unfertilized soils decreased faster at lower soil pH than at higher pH. - In the replenishment treatment (B) the rate of P-AL decrease seems to fall at a pH of 6.5. However, the influence of the soil type cannot be ignored. - P-AL and P-HCl did not increase in all over-fertilized treatments.

The production of ferrochromium alloys at Vargön Alloys AB contributes to formation of unwanted ferrochromium dust, which contains toxic Cr(VI). The dust is since summer 2005 treated with an iron-sulphate solution to reduce Cr(VI) to the non-toxic Cr(III). A year later the treatment technique was improved and disposal occurs in cells on the landfill. The cells can be up to 300 m3 and the edges can be made out of fro example concrete. Tests are conducted on the treated dust when it is disposed.