An alternative for Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) consumption is the production and integration of green cement. In other words, the clinker consumption has to be replaced with new low-carbon binders. A possible solution was introduced by the geopolymerisation technology. However, the alkaline activation of geopolymers offers the possibility of obtaining greener materials with high properties, superior to OPC, but due to the high price of sodium silicate, their industrial use is limited. In the past few years, a new activator has been discovered, namely phosphoric acid. This study approaches the obtaining of coal ash-based geopolymers activated with acid solution cured at room temperature. Accordingly, phosphoric acid, 85% by mass, was diluted in distilled water to obtain a corresponding activation solution for H3PO4/Al2O3 ratio of 1.0 and two types of geopolymers were ambient cured (22°C ±2°C). Moreover, to evaluate the geopolymerisation potential of this system (coal ash – phosphoric acid), SEM and EDS analysis was performed to investigate their morphologic characteristics.

In this research work, high uniform CuFeS2 chalcopyrite with 20-40 nm particles were synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method. Different analysis were used to characterize the obtained product such as X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The photocatalytic activity of the product was investigated by degradation three different dyes namely acid brown, acid red and methylene blue. The results showed the synthesized CuFeS2 nanoparticles have high photocatalytic activity and can degrade the used dyes in large quantities.

The properties of the nonlinear phenomenon in water, including sea water, have been well known for many decades. The feature of the non homogeneous distribution of the speed of sound along the depth of the sea is very interesting from the physical and technical point of view. It is important especially in the observation of underwater area by means of acoustical method (Grelowska et al., 2013; 2014). The observation of the underwater space has been carried out for more than hundred years. In the second half of the twentieth century we observed very intense trend of development of the measuring methods of underwater sound speed. It was done mainly in the linear sound propagation aspect. At the end of 20th century nonlinear devices were invented. Thus, from this point of view, knowledge on the nonlinear properties of the sea water is the matter of interest. The phenomenon of nonlinear distortion of elastic waves, and the same the efficiency of nonlinear transfer of energy from the primary wave to the higher harmonic components depend on properties of the medium, especially on the material constant known as the nonlinearity parameter B/A. The Baltic Sea is a specific reservoir with untypically low salinity and low depth (Grelowska, 2000). In the paper results of investigation of nonlinear properties of the South and the Central Baltic by means of thermodynamic method are presented.