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Ion-acoustic envelope solitons in a collisionless unmagnetized electron-positron-ion plasma are studied. The Krylov-Bogoliubov-Mitropolsky perturbative technique is used to obtain the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The critical wave number for the modulational instability depends upon the concentration of different species and the temperature ratios of electrons and positrons. In the limiting case of zero positron concentration we recover the previous results of electron-ion plasma. It is found that a small concentration of ions in the electron-positron plasmas can change the dynamics of the system significantly. The ions can introduce slow time and long spatial scales in the plasmas. Thus the electron-positron plasmas become richer in linear and nonlinear wave dynamics.

A criterion is presented to decide whether a produced plasma can be called a pure pair-ion plasma or not. The theory is discussed in the light of recent experiments which claim that a pure pair-ion fullerene (C60±) plasma has been produced. It is also shown that the ion acoustic wave is replaced by the pair ion convective cell (PPCC) mode as the electron density becomes vanishingly small in a magnetized plasma comprised of positive and negative ions. The nonlinear dynamics of pure pair plasmas is described by two coupled equations which have no analog in electron-ion plasmas. In a stationary frame, it becomes similar to the Hasegawa-Mima equation but does not contain drift waves and ion acoustic waves.

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A theoretical analysis of the ion acoustic wave in pair-ion plasmas is presented using a kinetic model. It is shown that a small concentration of electrons in pair-ion plasmas can break down the quasineutrality in perturbed systems because the electron Debye length can become very large. In the limit 1⪡λDe2k2 (where λDe is the electron Debye length), the damping is reduced and hence the acoustic wave can be easily excited. The real frequency of acoustic wave can be larger than the ion plasma oscillation frequency in this case. But the decreasing number density of electrons can increase the Landau damping significantly in the limit λDe2k2⪡1. The results are discussed in comparison with the recent experimental and theoretical findings. It is pointed out that this investigation can be very useful for further research on pair-ion plasmas.

Helophytic plants contribute significantly in phytoremediation of a variety of pollutants due to their physiological or biochemical mechanisms. Phenol, which is reported to have negative/deleterious effects on plant metabolism at concentrations higher than 500 mg/L, remains hard to be removed from the environmental compartments using conventional phytoremediation procedures. The present study aims to investigate the feasibility of using P. australis (a helophytic grass) in combination with three bacterial strains namely Acinetobacter lwofii ACRH76, Bacillus cereus LORH97, and Pseudomonas sp. LCRH90, in a floating treatment wetland (FTW) for the removal of phenol from contaminated water. The strains were screened based on their phenol degrading and plant growth promoting activities. We found that inoculated bacteria were able to colonize in the roots and shoots of P. australis, suggesting their potential role in the successful removal of phenol from the contaminated water. Pseudomonas sp. LCRH90 dominated the bacterial community structure followed by A. lowfii ACRH76 and B. cereus LORH97. The removal rate was significantly high when compared with the individual partners, i.e., plants and bacteria separately. The plant biomass, which was drastically reduced in the presence of phenol, recovered significantly with the inoculation of bacterial consortia. Likewise, highest reduction in chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and total organic carbon (TOC) is achieved when both plants and bacteria were employed. The study, therefore, suggests that P. australis in combination with efficient bacteria can be a suitable choice to FTWs for phenol-degradation in water.

The nonlinear wave modulation of planar and nonplanar (cylindrical and spherical) ion-acoustic envelope solitons in a collisionless unmagnetized electron-positron-ion plasma with two-electron temperature distributions has been studied. The reductive perturbative technique is used to obtain a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which includes a damping term that accounts for the geometrical effect. The critical wave number threshold Kc, which indicates where the modulational instability sets in, has been determined for various regimes. It is found that an increase in the positron concentration (alpha) leads to a decrease in the critical wave number (Kc) until alpha approaches certain value alphac (critical positron concentration), then further increase in alpha beyond alphac increases the value of Kc. Also, it is found that there is a modulation instability period for the cylindrical and spherical wave modulation, which does not exist in the one-dimensional case.

It is suggested that low-frequency drift waves can play an important role in the dynamics of electron-positron plasmas comprising some concentration of ions. In the electromagnetic case the drift wave couples with the shear Alfvén wave in an electron-positron-ion plasma. The drift wave frequency can be very low in such plasmas depending on the concentration and density scale lengths of the plasma components. In the nonlinear regime these waves can give rise to dipolar vortices in both electrostatic and electromagnetic limits. The velocity of the nonlinear structure turns out to be different compared to the case of an electron-ion plasma.