Microwave (MW) is applied to enhance pentachlorophenol (PCP) removal using zerovalent iron (ZVI, Fe 0 ) or granular activated carbon (GAC) as the dielectric media. Applying MW energy at 700 W for 20 s, the results show that Fe 0 is capable of enhancing the CB removing 2.7 times (91% vs. 34 %) than GAC. Because Fe 0 has higher dielectric loss (39.5 F/m vs. 8.3 F/m), it absorbs more MW energy to speed up the oxidation rate resulting in a faster temperature rise than GAC. Thus, in the presence of MW, Fe 0 is superior to GAC for PCP removal. Additionally, excessive MW exposure will damage the surface structure of either Fe 0 or GAC causing excessive electric charges to accumulate in the media that brings about the phenomenon of sparks.

Organic compounds such as chlorobenzene cannot be effectively decomposed with currently available biological and chemical treatment methods. Preliminary studies show that nano-scale zero-valent iron particles irradiated by microwave is effective in decomposing chemically refractive organic compounds such as chlorobenzene. In this study, microwave is applied to enhance chlorobenzene removal using micron-scale iron particles and nano-scale zero-valent iron particles suspended in the chlorobenzene solution as the dielectric media. The results show that better chlorobenzene removal can be achieved when the chlorobenzene solution is irradiated with 250 W microwave for 150 s than without microwave irradiation. The microwave radiation increases iron reaction rate and surface activity, thus enhancing the chlorobenzene removal. The microwave-induced iron particles cause the chlorobenzene activation energy to drop 34.0% for micronscale iron and 16.1% for nano-scale zero-valent iron. They can remove 13.6 times more chlorobenzene for micro iron, and 3.6 times more chlorobenzene for nano iron. We have demonstrated that the microwave-induced nano-scale iron particles are effective in treating toxic organic substances as demonstrated in this laboratory study.

No abstract

Traditionally, market imperfections are measured separately. In dealing with the impacts of market imperfections on a financial theory, financial researchers often modify the theory by incorporating one type of market imperfections into the theory, one by one, and then derive a new modified formula. The major problem with this approach is that when considering a type of market imperfections, the new modified formula still ignores the effects of other types of market imperfections. Another problem is that the modified formula is often tedious. Following the concept of degree of market imperfection in Hsu and Wang (2004), this article aims to derive a more easy measurement of market imperfections between markets, discuss some useful applications and provide one of empirical tests. The degree of market imperfection between markets can be applied at least to the following areas: (1) theoretical model building for pricing derivatives in imperfect markets, (2) predicting the deviations of the actual derivative prices from their theoretical prices based on the model of perfect market assumptions and (3) showing the extent of arbitrage activities between markets.