An Internet application, VEDAIR, for estimation of air quality in regions with small-scale combustion of bio fuel has been developed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute with financing from Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The model contains user interface and a coupled model concept where concentrations of atmospheric pollutions are calculated for regional, urban and local contributions. In this report the model is described and a first study of air quality considering PM10 (particles with a diameter less than 10 µm) in two Swedish municipalities, Vänersborg and Gnosjö, is introduced.According to the result, there are areas with poor air quality even in smaller Swedish municipalities, mostly due to high emission from buildings with older wood heating furnace without hydraulic accumulator.In Vänersborg three areas were analysed in VEDAIR for the year 2003: Vargön, Mariedal and the downtown district. In the whole municipality the upper evaluation threshold for PM10, which is defined as 14 µg/m3 for annual average, was exceeded due to background contribution of Particles. In all areas, however, the concentrations of PM10 were less than the environmental quality norms.

At the end of April 1986 reactor number 4 of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl explod-ed and large amounts of radioactive particles were then released into the atmosphere due to both the explosion as well as the consecutive fire of the graphite core. A cloud of radioac-tivity was spread over the northern hemisphere, including Sweden, due to the prevailing wind directions. The radioactive particles were washed out from the cloud by rain and snowfall in some areas of Sweden and deposited on the ground. The deposited radionu-clides, primarily cesium and iodine isotopes, were later absorbed into the soil and taken up by the roots of the plants. Some of these radionuclides, like 137Cs, still persist in some of the terrestrial ecosystems at relatively high concentrations which lead to contamination of the meat of moose, roe deer and wild boar even today.The two municipalities Heby and Uppsala, in the eastern part of central Sweden, experi-enced a relatively large deposition of 137Cs which resulted in high levels of 137Cs in moose and other game.

The manor Fållnäs gård is situated at the northern end of the bay Fållnäsviken, c. 12 km north-west of Nynäshamn, Sweden. A 300 cm long sediment core collected in the bay has been analyzed regarding pollen stratigraphy. AMS 14C dating of terrestrial macrofossils indicates that the sequence covers the last c. 5400 years.The aim has been to study vegetational changes, especially human impact, in the surroundings of Fållnäs gård.

The thesis describes a completely new biofuel system to generate particle-free heat from combustion of ash-containing biofuel particles at high temperatures.The suggested system gives opportunities to introduce biofuels in new areas.Main components in the suggested system is a heat radiating combustion chamber intended for pulverized wood, combined with regenerators to extract heat from flue gases and simultaneously preheating the combustion air.The thesis contains a description of the suggested system, theoretical considerations, calculations regarding the combustion, and includes results from tests performed.The results from calculations and tests performed concludes that the system is workable and possible to apply..

One of the environmental problems today in seas, lakes and streams is eutrophication. This is often caused by nutrients such as phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) that leak from agricultural areas. A measure to partly prevent the nutrient discharge is to construct or restore wetlands.In order to control the efficiency of nutrient reduction of existing wetlands in the county, the administrative board in Västra Götaland wants to find different criterias for reference wetlands. These reference wetlands should represent other wetlands and be used in future evaluations of reduction of nutrients and design of constructed wetlands. According to the administrative board in Västra Götaland the reference wetlands should have a catchment area of about 50 hectare consisting of at least 70 % arable land, to represent wetlands created to remove nutrients.

Concrete is one of the world?s most common construction materials and is composed of 70-80 % stone material. Today crushed stone is used as aggregate in concrete in order to replace natural aggregates due to strong environmental reasons. Stone crushing yields flaky material and in this thesis studies are made on the flaky particle shape and how it influence properties of concrete such as workability, rheology and strength. The concrete recipes used in this thesis have fixed values, the only variable is the flakiness of the crushed stone.

The different characteristics of many food products, such as aroma and texture, changes during storage time and become undesirable. The reason is instabilities within the product which become prominent as the product ages. These changes in characteristics are quality losses caused by changes in the product?s intrinsic and extrinsic environment. The stability in UHT-milk and beverages similar to it have been studied in the past decades and a certain focus have been on age gelation which is a common defect in these type of products.

Nanotechnology, one of the most interesting sciences today will no doubt have an enourmous impact on tomorrow's society and industry. One of the most interesting nanomaterial that has been discovered is the semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This material shows interesting novel properties such as a size-dependent band gap, which is an effect caused by the quantum confinement effect in all three dimensions. Due to this phenomenon the absorption spectrum can be tuned to the desired value by adjusting the size of the QD.This thesis aims to investigate how the solvent ratio of H2O/Ethanol affects the optical and structural properties of copper sulfide QDs manufactured in a chemical synthesis way using modern microwave heating. The process of manufacturing QDs using chemical synthesis often involve a capping-agent to prevent the QDs from agglomerate into bigger structures.

The landscape in the interior of Norrland has undergone dramatic changes since the deglaciation as a consequence of faultings, earthquakes and tilting of the landscape westwards. Archaeological investigations along former shorelines by the use of models of isostatic land uplift, have revealed many Mesolitic settlements in northern Sweden. Döudden, in the county of Arjeplog, has been investigated by archaeologists that identified settlements from 5200 BC. The objective of this study was to analyse the history of the vegetation and if the vegetation showed traces of human activity during early Holocene, by pollen analysis. The results indicate that the area had an established vegetation c.

AbstractThe dependency of fossil fuels in the transport sector causes large emissions of carbondioxide. This problem can we reduce by using vehicle gas from digested solid manure and leftover of pasture. I have studied the potential for this in the county of Västernorrland. Thepurpose is to investigate how much vehicle gas that can be extracted.One central, large scale digestion and upgrade plant should be placed in Härnösand. Theamount of pasture and manure that is economical and practical available is enough to produce2,7-3,5 millions Nm3 vehicle gas.

The coproduct, dried distillers grains + solubles (DDGS) from ethanol production based on wheat contains much rumen degradable protein and fiber with low digestibility. To compliment this quality in an effective way a grass silage low in protein and much digestible fiber is needed. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of adjusting the crude-protein concentration and fiber quality of the silage when feeding DDGS and of varying the inclusion level of DDGS, when feeding the adjusted grass silage, on intake, milk yield and composition, faecal traits and feed efficiency. Four different total mixed rations were compared. The normal grass-clover silage had a crude protein content of 17,8 % and an NDF content of 46,2 % of dry matter. The adapted grass silage had a crude protein content of 14,6 % and an NDF content of 52,9 % of dry matter. The diets were formulated to have similar nutritional content except for A + 4 which had a higher content of rumen degradable crude protein and a lower concentration of NDF.

Eutrophication is a major problem in the Baltic Sea, as a result of increased loading of nitrogen and phosphorus. In the coastal parts of Östergötland the soil largely consists of clay and contains high levels of phosphorus bound to clay Particles. Erosion of the soil in agricultural areas makes the water turbid and transports phosphorus to the Baltic Sea. The aim of this project was to examine the relationship between phosphorus and turbidity in the coastal streams of Östergötland. The aim was also to evaluate the possibility to use turbidity as a surrogate measure for phosphorus.

Swedish biogas is currently produced mainly by anaerobic digestion of sewage sludgeat sewage treatment plants, landfills and anaerobic digestion of household or industrialwaste. Also cattle ma-nure from farms can be used to produce biogas. Upgradingbiogas represents an increase in methane concentration from about 65 % to about 97%. In addition, particles and contaminants must be sepa-rated from the upgradedbiogas. There are various methods for upgrading and this report compares sixdifferent methods with respect to environment and economy: water scrubber,Biosling, cryo technology, chemical absorption, Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) andmembrane separation.According to the used ORWARE model, chemical adsorption with amine has the leastenvironmen-tal impact (methane emissions) and the lowest costs.

Eutrophication is a major problem in the Baltic Sea, as a result of increased loading of nitrogen and phosphorus. In the coastal parts of Östergötland the soil largely consists of clay and contains high levels of phosphorus bound to clay Particles. Erosion of the soil in agricultural areas makes the water turbid and transports phosphorus to the Baltic Sea. The aim of this project was to examine the relationship between phosphorus and turbidity in the coastal streams of Östergötland. The aim was also to evaluate the possibility to use turbidity as a surrogate measure for phosphorus.

So far, only limited research has been carried out on viruses infecting raspberry, even though the diseases that these viruses cause result in economical losses for raspberry growers. Raspberry ringspot virus (RpRSV) belongs to the family Comoviridae and the genus Nepovirus. Nepoviruses are characterized by their icosahedral virus particles and bipartite genome of single-stranded (+) RNA (RNA-1 and RNA-2). These viruses are transmitted mainly by nematodes of the genus Longidorus, which feed on the roots of plants. RpRSV causes disease in raspberry, grapevine, strawberry and many other plants.