RESUMO
CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) has for some years carried out research into more efficient ways of purifying water and wastewater. More intensive processing has been achieved by the use of finely divided solid reagents which can be regenerated and reused. The age-old problem of quickly separating the very small particles of loaded reagent from the accompanying liquid has been solved by utilizing a magnetic reagent in the form of magnetite, Fe3O4. A water clarification process is fully developed for the production of potable supplies from low quality ground and surface waters, with five plants in operation or under construction in Australia, the United Kingdom and Taiwan. The method has been extended to the removal of heavy metals from tailings dams, which has also reached full-scale with a plant near Canberra, to other industrial effluents, and more recently to sewage treatment. Successful pilot plant studies of the latter in Melbourne and Sydney have led to the decision to carry out a large-scale trial at Malabar, near Sydney.
RESUMO
Our molecular modeling software package, MORPHEUS, allows the study of the interactions between biologically active molecules and their receptors. The package is capable of exploring the multidimensional conformational space accessible to each molecule of the data set under study. By specifying distance constraints or hypothetical receptor binding points, the package is able to filter the biologically accessible conformations of each active compound and deduce a three-dimensional model of the binding sites consistent with the properties of the agonists (or antagonists) under scrutiny. The electrostatic potentials in the environment of a putative binding site can also be investigated using the MORPHEUS package. The molecular modeling module CRYS-X, which is written in FORTRAN 77 for IBM PC machines, is capable of building, displaying and manipulating molecules.