The present study examines historical perspectives of the macrobenthic community in response to different phases of anthropogenic perturbations in Kakinada Bay, a tropical embayment on the east coast of India. Multivariate analysis of the snapshot data (1958-2017) revealed considerable changes in the Bay environment following a breakwater construction across the Bay mouth in 1997. Subsequently, port expansion activities, industrialization, urbanization, and geomorphic alterations in the Godavari delta brought deterrent changes in the Bay. The fluctuations over the years in hydrographical and sediment characteristics increased environmental heterogeneity and caused significant spatio-temporal shifts in the macrobenthic community between 1995-1996 and 2016-2017. The observed variabilities were suggestive of anthropogenic perturbations of the system with future repercussions on Bay ecosystem functioning. Overall, this study provides evidence on the long-term impact of anthropogenic activities on coastal marine communities and stresses the importance of macrobenthos as bioindicators of such changes in tropical systems.
Catalytic hydrolysis of sodium borohydride can potentially be considered as a convenient and safe method to generate hydrogen, an environmentally clean and sustainable fuel for the future. The present effort establishes the development of FeCuCo tri-metallic oxide catalyst by a simple, single-step solution combustion synthesis (SCS) method for hydrogen generation from NaBH4 hydrolysis. Amongst series of FeCuCo tri-metallic oxide catalyst synthesized, FeCuCo with 50:37.5:12.5 wt% respective precursor loading displayed remarkable activity by generating hydrogen at the rate of 1380 mL min-1 g-1 (1242 mL in 18 min) with turnover frequency (TOF) of 62.02 mol g-1 min-1. The catalyst was characterized by using various techniques to understand their physiochemical and morphological properties. The results revealed that the catalyst synthesized by combustion method led to the formation of FeCuCo with appreciable surface area, porous foam-like morphology and high surface acidity. Major factors affecting the hydrolysis of NaBH4 such as catalyst loading, NaOH concentration and temperature variation were studied in detail. Additionally, the FeCuCo catalyst also displayed substantial recyclability performance up to eight cycles without considerable loss in its catalytic activity. Therefore, FeCuCo oxide can be demonstrated as one of the most efficient, cost effective tri-metallic catalyst so far for application in the hydrogen generation.