The Environmental Noise Directive (2002/49/EC) requires EU Member States to determine the exposure to environmental noise through strategic noise mapping and to elaborate action plans in order to reduce noise pollution, where necessary. A common framework for noise assessment methods (CNOSSOS-EU) has been developed by the European Commission in co-operation with the EU Member States to be applied for strategic noise mapping as required by the Environment Noise Directive (2002/49/EC). CNOSSOS-EU represents a harmonised and coherent approach to assess noise levels from the main sources of noise (road traffic, railway traffic, aircraft and industrial) across Europe. This paper outlines the process behind the development of CNOSSOS-EU and the parts of the CNOSSOS-EU core methodological framework which were developed during phase A of the CNOSSOS-EU process (2010-2012), whilst focusing on the main scientific and technical issues that were addressed, and the implementation challenges that are being faced before it can become fully operational in the EU MS.

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Humic acid was immobilized on a polypropylene supported sodium alginate/hydroxyethyl cellulose blend membrane in the current work. The adsorption property of this membrane for the removal of cationic dyes, namely, methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB) was extensively studied. Batch-adsorption experiments were conducted to investigate the adsorption behavior of dyes on the membrane with variation in adsorbent mass, initial dye concentration, pH, time and temperature. The membranes were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Atomic force microscopy (AFM). Prepared membranes showed more than 98% removal capacity for both dyes under optimal conditions. Kinetic experiments revealed that, the pseudo second order model exhibited best correlation with the adsorption data. Dubinin-Radushkevich model indicated that, the adsorption of dyes onto the membrane surface was by simple physisorption. The membrane was easily regenerated by simple acid treatment and its efficiency remained significant even after four adsorption cycles.

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