No adequate reaction has been observed of the decreased contaminant loads discharged by Łódź, particularly the loads of phosphorus, on its concentration in the Ner River. That’s why the im-pact of sediment on phosphorus content in the water was evaluated. Not only was the amount of phosphorus taken under consideration but also the equilibrium phosphate concentration (EPCo). The meaning of EPCo is that any phosphate concentration in the water below this value will lead to phos-phorus release from sediments. Performed study shows that in the Puczniew cross-section EPCo is higher then phosphorus concentration in water, thus with mean concentration of PO4 equal to 9.5 mg PO4·dm–3 phosphorus could be released from sediments. This concentration in Lutomiersk cross-section, however, equals 1.2 mg PO4·dm–3.

The efficient protection (support reinforcement) of a wall and heading crossing ensures continuity of the production cycle, and that is a quick moving of the scraper conveyor to the wall. Using low or high bolting as a support reinforcement element in wall and heading crossings allows for the elimination of traditional methods of maintaining longwall-gate crossings, and therefore allows for the efficient use high performance modern wall complexes. The paper presents the long underground experience, of the Knurów–Szczygłowice mine of efficient support wall and heading crossing maintenance, which was bolted to the rock mass with the usage of two pairs of bolts, showing full technical and economical usefulness of this support reinforcement method. The article also highlights work safety and the increasingly common usage of endoscopies when specifying the range of crack areas which directly effects the proper choice in number, load-capacity and length of the used bolts. The underground studies the measurements of the reach of the zones of fracturing and roof stratification (using endoscopes and wire type stratification meters) and the laboratory tests (using the test stand) have allowed to determine the safety factor for maintenance of the longwall gangway crossing, directly resulting in the necessity to install additional reinforcement. The value of the safety factor Sbsc-ch greater than 1 is advantageous and safe, and the value less than or equal to 1 can lead to a significant deterioration of the conditions of maintenance of a wall and heading crossing which was bolted.

A new method for measurement of local heat flux to water-walls of steam boilers was developed. A flux meter tube was made from an eccentric tube of short length to which two longitudinal fins were attached. These two fins prevent the boiler setting from heating by a thermal radiation from the combustion chamber. The fins are not welded to the adjacent water-wall tubes, so that the temperature distribution in the heat flux meter is not influenced by neighbouring water-wall tubes. The thickness of the heat flux tube wall is larger on the fireside to obtain a greater distance between the thermocouples located inside the wall which increases the accuracy of heat flux determination. Based on the temperature measurements at selected points inside the heat flux meter, the heat flux absorbed by the water-wall, heat transfer coefficient on the inner tube surface and temperature of the water-steam mixture was determined.

In the last decade a growing interest was observed in low-cost adsorbents for heavy metal ions. Clinoptilolite is a mineral sorbent extracted in Poland that is used to remove heavy metal ions from diluted solutions. The experiments in this study were carried out in a laboratory column for multicomponent water solutions of heavy metal ions, i.e. Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II). A mathematical model to calculate the metals' concentration of water solution at the column outlet and the concentration of adsorbed substances in the adsorbent was proposed. It enables determination of breakthrough curves for different process conditions and column dimensions. The model of process dynamics in the column took into account the specificity of sorption described by the Elovich equation (for chemical sorption and ion exchange). Identification of the column dynamics consisted in finding model coefficients β, KE and Deff and comparing the calculated values with experimental data. Searching for coefficients which identify the column operation can involve the use of optimisation methods to find the area of feasible solutions in order to obtain a global extremum. For that purpose our own procedure of genetic algorithm is applied in the study.