The concentrations of Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, and Cr in top soils (0-15 cm) from urbanized and rural areas of Iraq were measured by X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF). The results revealed that soil samples located in urban areas had higher metal contents than did soil samples from rural areas. This was probably due to local pollution from increased population and other industrial sources.The comparison with the soil quality guidelines showed that metal concentrations in all the studied locations are lower than the permissible levels admitted by the World Health Organization (WHO).The mineralogical composition of the top soils, identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD), was predominantly Quartz, Calcite and minor minerals such as Dolomite, Feldspar and clay minerals. Total clay minerals in the soil samples, ranged from 3-10%, were found to be dominated by Montmorillonite, Kaolinite and Feldspar. The highest clay content was observed in Diala soils near the river Tigris.

The conversion of glycerol into value added chemicals have emerged in recent years as a result of glycerol unique structure, properties, bioavailability, and renewability. Glycerol is produced in large amounts during trans-esterification of fatty acids into biodiesel, and as such represents a useful by-product. In this paper, the liquid phase oxidation of glycerol has been studied over gold nanoparticles supported on TiO 2 , and synthesized by using deposition-precipitation method. The catalysts are characterized by XRD, TEM, XPS, and activity towards CO oxidation. Active catalysts comprise particle size distributions (2-5 nm diameters) for gold nanoparticles. The results indicate that the Au/TiO 2 catalyst showed the best performances both for activity and selectivity toward glyceric acid. We have also studied the effect of reaction conditions such as, amount of catalyst and concentration of base in the catalytic activity.

Corannulene, coronene and circulene are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compounds were chosen to study the preparation of carbon tubes with diameters smaller fraction of nano-meter theoretically may achievable using the density function theory (DFT). The results showed that the stability of the molecules are; corannulene molecule is bowl-shaped, coronene molecule is planar, circulene molecule has a unique saddle-shaped structure. Upon to molecular polymerization a tube for three of the molecules selected results a sub-nanotubes formation. The results showed thermodynamic all preparations reactions are spontaneous and exothermic; the tubes prepared have high efficiency in the gap energy, making it potentially useful for solar cell applications.