A successful oil well drilling depends largely on a good mud Program. During drilling, mud provides sufficient hydrostatic pressure, removes drill cuttings and cools drill bits. Mud additives are always required to provide sufficient hydrostatic pressure to ensure borehole stability. Barium Sulphate ($BaSO_4$) also known as barite is the prevalent weighting material but there is needed to develop local materials to augment the use of Barite. The present search is concerned on the early Carboniferous succession exposed in Um Bogma Formation, west central Sinai, Egypt as a new weighting agent in drilling fluids. The increases in the cost of drilling fluids and a shortage of using barite have introduced the locale dolomite as alternative weighting materials. The rheological properties of mud drilling samples weighted by local dolomite samples are being examined and investigated to know its potential to be used as a weighting material in drilling mud. Two mud samples were prepared which comprised of fresh water, caustic soda, bentonite and the weighting material. The weighting materials are added to achieve the required density. The first sample: Water-based mud with commercial barite of density between 10.00 lb/gm and 18.00 lb/gm. The second sample: Water-based mud with dolomite of density between 10.00 lb/gm and 18.00 lb/gm. These samples were analyzed and the density, rheological properties, aging of barite and dolomite and solid contents were investigated. At 10.00 lb/gm, the yield point of dolomite was $20.00lb/100ft^2$ and barite $22.00lb/100ft^2$ while the 10 second gel strength of dolomite was $30.00lb/100ft^2$ and $22.00lb/100ft^2$ for barite. Similarly, little difference was observed in plastic and apparent viscosities. At 10.00 lb/gm, the plastic and apparent viscosities of dolomite were 8.00 cp and 20.00 cp while barite was 8.00 cp and 24.00 cp. The result show that dolomite mud sample gave a little higher yield point and gel strength than barite mud sample. Therefore, dolomite has the potential to be used as weighting material in drilling mud in place of barite thereby enhancing the local content initiative of the government. When dolomite is sourced locally and used it will reduce overall mud and drilling costs.

Heavy metals, such as vanadium, are some of the most toxic types of water contaminants. In this study, vanadium was removed using a new composite adsorbent called BAZLSC. The impacts of pH and initial concentration of vanadium(V) on the elimination effectiveness of this metal by using BAZLSC were investigated in the first step of the study. Vanadium removal increased as pH increased to 3-3.5, and initial concentration increased to 60-70 mg/L. The removal efficiency then decreased. Central composite design and response surface methodology were employed to examine experimental data. Initial concentration of V ($mg.L^{-1}$), pH, and dosage of adsorbent (g/L) were the independent factors. Based on RSM, the removal effectiveness of vanadium was 86.36% at the optimum of initial concentration (52.69 mg/L), pH (3.49), and adsorbent dosage (1.71 g/L). Also adsorption isotherm investigations displayed that the Freundlich isotherm could explain vanadium adsorption by BAZLSC better than the Langmuir isotherm. Beside them, desorption studies showed sorption was slightly diminished after six continuous cycles.

This study examines the concentrations of particulate-phase polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and gas-phase PAHs in sidestream cigarette smoke. Sixteen PAHs were determined for four brands of cigarettes. The volume of the experimental room is approximately $66m^3$. The air samples in the room were collected before and after smoking. The median total of particulate-phase and gas-phase PAH concentrations before smoking $3.13ng/m^3$and $48.0ng/m^3$, respectively. The median concentrations of them after smoking were $10.0ng/m^3$ and $79.6ng/m^3$. The median increases in the total of 16 PAH concentrations per cigarette during smoking were 271 ng for the particulate-phase PAHs and 1960 ng for the gas-phase PAHs. According to the relationship between particulate-phase and gas-phase PAHs after smoking, the two- to four-ring gas-phase PAHs and the higher molecular weight particulate-phase PAHs were probably formed from similar precursors. The relationship between the total suspended particulate (TSP) concentration and the increase in the total particulate-phase concentration of the 16 PAHs per cigarette during smoking were significantly positive. The increase in the total gas-phase concentration of the 16 PAHs tended to increase as the TSP concentration increased. This may indicates that decreasing the amount of TSP produced inhibit the production of PAHs during smoking.

For survival of human beings clean water is an essential commodity whereas contamination in drinking water threatens to mankind. The main cause of water contamination is social and development activities of human being along with increasing population. The community in the study area has acute shortage of drinking water along with about 40 to 60% has no access to safe drinking water. This study indicates drinking water quality of two major sources of coastal belt of Karachi one is supplied by Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB) as tap water and the other through groundwater. The physicochemical analysis was carried out by following the standard methods for checking the quality of drinking water. The analyzed results showed that the quality of groundwater was unfit as potable water. The most critical situation was observed as high level of contamination followed by high turbidity and increased salinity levels. TDS in surface water were found 12% above and TDS in groundwater was 20% below the National Drinking Water Quality Standards (NDWQS) of Pakistan as well as the permissible WHO drinking water quality guidelines.

In this study, the elimination of $Ni^{2+}$ using 13X sorbent due to an electrostatic interaction was reported. The significant factors including pH, time and 13X sorbent amount were investigated using Box-Behnken design (BBD). In the optimum experimental conditions, the linear rang and limit of detection of the proposed method were 0.1-20 and $0.102mg\;L^{-1}$, respectively. The precision as RSD% was 1.3% for concentration of $2mg\;L^{-1}$. Concerning the excellent recoveries in a short time with highly efficient sample clean-up and removal, this method may be a very powerful and innovative future sample removal technique. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on using BBD for optimizing the parameters affected the removal of $Ni^{2+}$ by 13X zeolite sorbent.

This paper assessed environmental sanitation behaviour of market operators in selected markets in Ibadan, Nigeria. The two largest markets in the study area (Aleshinloye and Bodija markets) were selected for sampling. The selected markets represented the two types of markets; modern and traditional markets. The modern market comprises 3803 shops while the traditional market comprises 5943 shops. Multistage sampling technique was adopted in questionnaire administration. The selected markets were stratified into zones based on the goods sold. Systematic sampling was used in the selection of traders across the markets. 2% of traders were selected for sampling in each category of goods sold making a total of 189 respondents. This comprises 77 of traders from modern market and 112 traders from traditional markets. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used in analysing the data. Findings revealed poor access to environmental sanitation facilities especially at the traditional market. The study also established poor environmental sanitation behaviour in terms of utilisation of available amenities across both markets. It recommended a synergy of efforts by all environmentally concerned institutions in managing the market environment. It also advocated for the provision of environmental sanitation facilities in markets by, government, market management authorities, traders, Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs). In addition environmental education is imperative while enforcement of environmental regulations in the market and others with similar setting is strongly encouraged.