Chemicals are everywhere in todays society, in humans, animals as well as nature, and they are difficult to avoid. The chemical industry is regarded to be the fastest growing industrial sector, accounting for ten percent of the global economy. A large amount of chemicals are used to produce hygiene products and cosmetics, products that in Sweden only are consumed in quantities of 110 tons per day. Researchers find it increasingly difficult to determine which chemicals that are dangerous and which that are safe, and how they might affect us in the long run. Correlations have been found between chemicals, diseases and other health effects such as cancer, allergies, reproductive and endocrine disorders.

The euthropthication of the Baltic Sea is a threat that is beginning to be taken seriously by the governments concerned. In Sweden, regulations concerning the allowed nitrogen (N) concentration in the effluent water from wastewater treatment plants are being tightened up. The Rimbo wastewater treatment plant has been imposed to reduce the annual mean concentration of total N in the effluent water to levels below 15 mg l-1. A more and more common way to reduce the nitrogen level in wastewater is to let the water pass through a wetland. This study investigates the possibility to build this kind of wetland at the outlet of the Rimbo wastewater treatment plant.A prestudy of the topography, soil characteristics and groundwater flow indicates that the land area in question is well suited for the construction of a wetland.

Chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons (CAH´s) were used widely within dry cleaning facilities and for metal degreasing until their toxicity was discovered. PCE is still used as dry cleaning liquid. Today CAH´s are found in soil environment at places where they have been used in the past. The CAH-concentration in trees growing on contaminated land has quite recently received attention as a cheap and effective way of assessing the extent of a CAH-contamination. The method has however, not been put into use in Sweden.The aim of the study has been to investigate whether the CAH-concentration in tree cores could be used to delineate the spread of CAH in a soil environment under Swedish conditions in different seasons.

The development within the textile industry is always ongoing with development of new andbetter textiles, which often mean the use of non-natural materials like polyester. This doesn?t lineup with the work shared around the world against an improved environment, so the idea came touse a form of linen fibers instead of polyester as the reinforcing material together with cotton.The idea was to use flax, linen of low quality, which is seen as a waste product and garbage inthe production of high quality linen and flax seed oil. This flax of low quality needs to beseparated before it can be used in cotton spinning machines. Fireball 2 is just that, a process toseparate flax fibers through the treatment of a technique called electrohydraulic discharge.The thesis works goal is to evaluate the Fireball 2 process ability to separate flax fiber.

An excessive input of nutrients to lakes and other water bodies has created a problem with eutrophication in Sweden. Untreated, or partially treated, domestic sewage is a major source for discharge of phosphorus (P), which is the nutrient most frequently responsible for eutrophication of most fresh waters and the Baltic Sea. The waste water can be cleaned by filter materials, which have a high P-retention ability and which after saturation may be used as fertilizers. Four potentially suitable filter materials were tested in batch- and column experiments in this study. In the batch experiments, the following materials were shaken with waste water in time series ranging from 5 seconds to 60 minutes: coarse (1-4 mm) and fine (0-2 mm) Polonite® (heated bedrock from Poland); Filtralite® (light expanded clay aggregates with limestone added before burning); water cooled blast furnace slag (BF-slag) and BF-slag mixed with 10% burned limestone.

Water hardness indicates the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions in water. Water with high concentrations of these ions is described as hard water and water with low concentrations is described as soft water. Water that is too hard or too soft can lead to technical and economical problems. In collaboration with Midvatten AB, groundwater hardness in the Badelunda esker between Leksand and Avesta has been mapped, and an attempt has been made to explain the variations. For this purpose, different GIS programs, such as ArcView, ArcInfo, IDIRISI, and one geochemical modelling program, PHREEQC, has been used.

In Scandinavia, capercaillie are often associated with pine trees (Pinus sylvestris) in winter, with pine needles as the main diet. Few dietary studies have been conducted in Sweden and winter diet is subject to little debate. The interesting thing is that this "pine specialist? is also found in spruce (Picea abies) forest habitats where pine is scarce or unavailable. In many studies outside Sweden (primarily Central Europe) spruce is regularly observed in the winter diet, but I have found no reports on the selection of the diet in spruce forest areas in Sweden.

The most common way to treat wastewater in Sweden today is by a combination of an activated sludge process and a chemical treatment. These processes are not very energy efficient and may not be the most environmentally friendly. That is why it is interesting to evaluate new alternative methods to see if they can be less harmful to the environment and help to a lower resource consumption. New techniques are tested in a pilot installation at Hammarby Sjöstad, Sjöstadsverket. To be able to evaluate these techniques in a wide perspective system analyses are conducted where different impacts can be considered, advantages and disadvantages in the systems.Five system structures for water treatment have been constructed in Matlab/Simulink in this study.

The EU-project HEALTHGRAIN has suggested a new definition for whole grain which allows a small part of the grain to be removed during processing. By removing the outer part or the grain the hygienic quality will increase but it is not clear how the taste and colour is affected. So therefore in this study three different debranning methods, peeling, pearling and polishing, which remove the outer parts of the grains have been used on common and durum wheat. The dietary fibre and ash content, as well as germination was analysed in untreated, peeled, pearled and polished grains. The decrease in dietary fibre and ash was higher in grains that had been pearled compared to those that had been peeled or polished.

During the past 30 years the fuels for energy production in heating and power plants have changed. Fossil fuels have decreased in usage whereas bio fuels in Sweden have increased with 60% since the 1970's. Different fuels affects combustion and the release of various substances and particles into the flue gas. This is caused by the diverse components and chemical structures of fossil fuels and bio fuels. When the flue gas leave the combustion chamber and enters the path to the chimney particles in the gas are being transported out of the combustion chamber.

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.

The project was initiated by Medipharm which produce microbial inoculants which used as additives to preserve forage. The main goal was to test three inoculants to produce maize silege. The following Medipharm produced inoculants were tested, Milab 393, Lactisil Wolecrop II, Lactisil 300 2. An untreated control was included in the study. The trial was done at Swedish university of Agriculture and Science in Alnarp, Sweden. Eurostar was the cultivar of the maize and was grown on 20, 5 hectares.

Most of the saw and pulp industries have stored wood nearby their production, the main reason is to have a continuous wood flow to the production. Wet storage of wood is of great importance to keep the wood quality. Without water sprinkling the risk of drying outand decomposition through biological activity increases significantly and will result in a negative effect on future production and quality. One drawback of wet storage of wood is the leaching of chemical substances into the surrounding recipient. The log yard run-off contains phosphorus, nitrogen, phenols and organic substances. These substances can cause problems for the surrounding environment. The main objective of this project is to gain an understanding of the wet storage used by the Swedish wood industry and estimate the environmental consequences that run-off water will have on the recipient.

The aim of this study was to examine the amounts of heavy metals in the sediment of a wetland constructed for stormwater treatment. The wetland is called Vattenparken and is located in the city of Enköping. The heavy metals which were analysed were Pb, Cd, Ni, Zn, Cu, Cr and Hg. The total metal concentrations were determined using HNO3 chemical extraction. From 8 sampling sites 5 sediment cores were taken.

The environmental demands are increasing when it comes to product development. EcoDesign isabout minimizing the environmental impact of a product, considering the entire life cycle of it,without compromising other qualities like function or cost. In this master of science thesis amobile phone has been analysed with Ten Golden Rules in EcoDesign regarding production, useand End of Life. Also a functional and an environmental profile were made. The goal was tomake a new concept phone, based on the previous analysis, which communicates userfriendlinessand sustainable development.