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                    <text>2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

The Importance of Information Problem in Financial Markets

Nedret DEMĠRCĠ
Asst. Prof. Dr., Kırıkkale University, Department of Economics,
Kırıkkale, Turkey
nedretdemirci@kku.edu.tr
Ercan SANCAK
Asst. Prof.Dr., Fatih University, Department of Management
Ankara, Turkey
esancak@fatih.edu.tr

Abstract: Information can be considered just as an economic good, because it has a price
in the market like every economic product and to produce and disperse it is costly. Also it
allows individuals to make choices that yield higher expected payoffs or expected utility
than they would obtain from choices made in the absence of information. Information
has some other special characteristics than other economic values. It is easy to create but
hard to trust. It is easy to spread but hard to control. It influences many decisions. These
special characteristics (as compared with other types of goods) complicate many standard
economic theories and make sense on the financial markets. The goal of this paper is to
emphasize on what information means generally in economics and especially in financial
markets and to evaluate the economic problems in a detailed manner when ―imperfect
information‖ is available in the financial markets.
Key words: financial markets, asymmetric information, adverse selection, moral hazard,
credit rationing.

The Role of Information in Market Economy
Information economics is a branch of microeconomic theory that studies how information affects an
economy and economic decisions. In economic literature, nearly everything in the world can be treated a commodity,
including information. However, it is not all treated the same. Information in economics as a commodity apart from
other goods has special characteristics. It is easy to create but costly, because creating information has a transaction
cost. It influences many decisions. These special characteristics (as compared with other types of goods) complicate
many standard economic theories. Some of these characteristics can be put in line as follows.
First, in the normal economy, the buying and selling of goods means those goods are no longer able to be
used by others, at least not in the same condition. That simply does not exist in information economics. One person
consuming information does not prevent another person from consuming that information.
Second, in normal economic theory, items for trade are usually valued based on their scarcity, as well as
their demand. If products become scarcer or demand is increased while supply stays the same, the price increases.
However, that is not true in information economics. Information is not scarce and is becoming even less scarce all
the time. Technological progress makes information more ample and easy to reach it.
The first thing we have to emphasis on is that information has economic value because it allows individuals
to make choices that yield higher expected payoffs or expected utility than they would obtain from choices made in
the absence of information. This special characteristic of information leads the economy some important problems.
Because of the transaction cost of having the complete information on contracts parties are not likely to have the
same information. We call this incompleteness ―asymmetric information problem‖ or ―imperfect information
problem‖.

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Asymmetric Versus Complete Information; a Close Look at the Problem
Markets allow economic agents to separate the consumption and production of goods and services through
trade. Thus, theoretically markets produce Pareto-optimal allocation of resources that is a situation in which no
individual can be made better off without making someone else worse off. According to the Arrow and Debreu
(1954) model when:
1. there is full information,
2. agents are atomistic (too small to influence market and prices)
3. there are no externalities (unpriced side effects like pollution)
there are market clearing prices and that makes individual plans consistent (Spencer, 2000). When we
consider above explanation, it is obviously assumed that there is an efficient market that allocates resources in a
Pareto-optimal manner; once the market opens, equilibrium prices are found and exchanges are made without any
problem.
According to the Classical Economists, perfect competition is prevalent in the market hence information for
every market type is perfect and reachable. That means for especially financial markets there is no friction, so the
economy is a well- functioning device like a clock. Actually this argument of Classical School arises from Adam
Smith`s ―Laissez-Faire Laissez-Passer‖ philosophy. As it is well-known, A. Smith and other Classics argue against
the state intervention because of their prominent assumption arguing that there is a ―mysterious chef‖ bringing the
market always into equilibrium. That ―mysterious chef‖ is sometimes called ―invisible hand‖. In Smithian thought,
this ―invisible hand‖ commands the whole economy without any undesired results. As it is well known by
economists, ―invisible hand‖ is none other than ―prices‖. Thus, according to this idea there is perfect competition in
the market and information is perfectly attainable by every participant of this market without any barrier.
The asymmetric information literature which looks at the impact of financial structure on economic activity
focuses on the differences in information available to different parties in a financial contract (Mishkin, 1990;4).
Asymmetric information is a situation in which one party in a transaction has more or superior information
compared to another. This often happens in transactions where the seller knows more than the buyer, although the
reverse can happen as well. For example agents on one side of the market have much better information than those
on the other side. Borrowers know more than the lender about their repayment prospects; the seller knows more than
buyers about the quality of his car.
Disputes on asymmetric information theory go back to Hayek, in his path breaking work ―The Use of
Knowledge in Society‖ he says ―The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined
precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated
or integrated form, but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all
the separate individuals possess‖ (Hayek, 1945:519). Hayek implicitly accept that in a contract having more
information of one party than another leads to asymmetric information problem.

Imperfect Information and Its Mechanism
As we can remember from classical economics, prices convey all the relevant information (especially about
the scarcity value of resources). We now realize that there are a variety of other ways in which economically relevant
information is conveyed, and that prices convey information other than that about scarcity. Producers and consumers
realize that their actions—both individually and ‗‗collectively,‘‘ e.g., through aggregate movements in prices and
quantities convey information, and this affects actions, so that the simple theory of consumer and producer behavior
does not describe the behavior of consumers or producers in several central aspects (Stiglitz, 2000:1449).
Because information possesses many of the properties of a public good, non-rivalrous consumption (which
means that consuming information does not exclude someone else from also consuming it even if it is potentially
possible, it is socially inefficient to do this ) and non-excludability (it is difficult to exclude others from its use),
there is a presumption that information will be ―underproduced‖ in competitive market economies. There are also
externalities associated with the acquisition of information since it is not easy (or is sometimes not possible) to
appropriate the returns to collecting information (Islam, 2007:2). Correspondingly, the asymmetric information
theory focuses on the differences in information that different parties have with different degree in a financial
contract. For example in a lending transaction borrowers have an informational advantage over lenders because
borrowers have more information about the quality of the investment projects they want to undertake than lenders
have.
Informational difference and its arising drawbacks in the financial markets like classic "lemons" problem
first described by Akerlof (1970) in his pioneering article. Akerlof gives an simple and quite apparent example from

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used car market. In his essay, he says the example of used cars captures the essence of the problem. This kind of used
car‘s sellers are better informed in comparison with the buyers about the quality of cars. Defective cars in the market
are called ―Lemons‖.
We can explain Akerlof‘s idea with a simple example. Individuals want to buy used cars in the market but
they don‘t know which car have high quality and which one have poor quality (e.g. lemon). On the other hand, they
can make an estimation with q probability that car will be high quality and with (1-q) will be lemon. We are making
an assumption here that q is the proportıon of good car and (1-q) is the proportion of lemons in second hand market.
Information asymmetry arises here and sellers have more knowledge about their cars than buyers. However, good
cars and bad cars sell at the same price due to buyers can not differ easily the good one from the bad (to be able to do
that they have to get extra knowledge by paying its charge, e.g. that requires a transaction cost). Clerarly their prices
have to be at different values because of the quality difference. If this situation continue in this manner, the seller of
bad cars is going to sell ―lemons‖ at the price of good car and buy a new one that may be good with the probability
of q. Obviously this will be a good trade for the bad car sellers.
In Akerlof‘s example, sellers and buyers make different valuations about the cars for both high quality and
poor quality. By using Let‘s say buyers evaluate high quality cars with a price W h and poor quality Wp and, sellers
evaluate high quality with a price Vh and poor quality VP. In buyer‘s mind Wh ˃ Wp and according to the sellers‘ VP
&lt; WP and Vh ˂ Wh. In practice, the markets would merge into a single market with one and the same price for all
units (Lofgren, Persson and Weibull, 2002:197-198). Suppose that this occurs and that the sellers' valuation of high
quality exceeds the consumers' average valuation. In accordance with the former explanation, we make a new
assumption that buyers evaluate all cars in the market with an average price W a. We may represent this case with the
following inequality: Vh ˃ Wa, where the average valuation Wa is given by Wa = qWp + (1-q)Wh. In the market,
consumers want to pay for the car at most W a. But this price is under Vh, what sellers want. Hence, high-quality
sellers leave the market to low-quality goods, the lemons, due to demand for their good quality cars doesn‘t meet the
price that they expect. Therefore the only machines remain in the market are bad quality. As a result, while good cars
can not find their worth, bad cars are sold at a higher value that they don‘t deserve. Apparently bad cars drive out the
good from the market30.

Asymmetric Information and Deriving Problems
Information asymmetry can lead to three main problems:
1. Adverse selection: immoral behavior that takes advantage of asymmetric information before a
transaction. For example, a person who is not in optimal health may be more inclined to purchase life
insurance than someone who feels fine.
2. Moral Hazard: immoral behavior that takes advantage of asymmetric information after a transaction. For
example, if someone has fire insurance they may be more likely to commit arson to reap the benefits of the
insurance.
3. Principal-Agent Problem: if information is asymmetrically distributed between those who make decisions
(agents) and the theoretical beneficiaries of those decisions (principals), then the reward functions which
govern firm decision-making may not have the form of simple valuation maximization assumed in the
neoclassical theory (Greenwald and Stiglitz, 1990).

Adverse Selection
In accordance with the explanations in the previous topic, we can better identify “adverse selection” mechanism
with following illustration:
Buyer Knows
Doesn‘t know every car‘s quality and
Make decision according to average price
$600

30

Excellent Car
Good Car
Fair Car
Lemon Car
Average Value

Seller Knows
$1500
$600
$300
$200
$600

This situation is known as Gresham‘s Law and is defined ―bad money drives out good‖.

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Table 1: The Mechanism of Adverse Selection
Buyers know that the sellers of excellent cars won‘t sell for the average value, so they recalculate the
average value without excellent car:
($600 + $300 + $200) / 3 = $366.
With this new average price, only fair car owner will be wishful to sell car, and buyer will revise the
average price once again excluding good car:
($300 + $200) / 2 = 250.
At this time the only lemons will sell at this price, and last time buyer will revise average price. Last
evaluation:
$200 (that is lemon).
According to the above explanation, at the end, only lemons will be sold in the second hand market and
high quality cars will leave the market. This situation is called ―adverse selection”. This result is completely
dissimilar what A. Smith argues in the classical theory.
A firm or fund users have an incentive to present lenders with an evaluation of positive financial condition
and have an incentive to persuade them about the positive return of the investment. If lenders knew perfectly the
risks associated with each borrower, this would matter little; each borrower would be charged an appropriate risk
premium. It is because lenders do not know the risk properties perfectly that this process of adverse selection has
important consequences
Because of lack of sufficient information, or having this information is costly about the riskiness of the
projects, in the similar way that we developed in used car example, lenders will make a classification among the
projects according to the their level of risk and define only one average interest rate to apply for all borrowers. But
healthy projects with high level of returns will find this rate of interest is quite high and not affordable, on the other
hand, poor quality projects with a high probability of negative result (that is lemon) will be demanding the loan at
this high rates. As a result, poor investment projects will drive out the healthy projects from the market. This
situation is called ―adverse selection‖ in financial markets.

Moral Hazard
The lack of appropriate information about the quality of borrowers may result in another problem called
―moral hazard‖ which effects the well-functioning of financial markest. Because the insufficient information that
lenders have about the riskiness of the barrower, barrower has incentives to engage in activities that most probably
will result in with a high loss (Mishkin, 1990:7). Because that low probability of positive return of the project there
is a default risk at the end and this situation harm the lender.
Moral hazard occurs when a barrower's behavior is hard to monitor and control and thus payment to that
barrower is based on incomplete information. Thus, moral hazard takes place after having the credit from the lender.
In financial markets, due to less information and low degree of control and monitoring about the barrowers‘ actions,
barrowers have a tendency to deal with risky projects. In particular, if there is a deposit insurance the state provide to
the financial institutions like banks, that encourages the lenders to monitor their barrower appropriately because they
will not have to carry the full burden of losses. If the majority of the barrowers consist of risky projects, the total
amount of default risk will be higher at that much. Hence, the abundance of the losses may reduce the total amount
of credits in the financial markets. This circumstance is called “credit crunch” that is the real crises. So, better
information on the economy helps borrowers and lenders make better decisions and may be expected to rise lending.
Principal-Agent Problem
Principal-agent problem occurs when one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the
principal. The agent usually has more information about his or her actions or intentions than the principal does,
because the principal usually cannot completely monitor the agent. The agent may have an incentive to act
inappropriately (from the viewpoint of the principal) if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned. For
example the CEO of a firm knows more than shareholders about the profitability of the firm and may engage in some
risky actions without the knowledge of the firm owner (shareholder). Consequently the firm faces a loss. Incentive
problems may intensify when a firm is equity financed. Managers, who receive only a small fraction of any
additional profit, are likely to put forth less than optimal amounts of effort (Stiglitz, Greenwald and Weiss, 1984:4).

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Credit Rationing
One result deriving from the asymmetric information is credit rationing. Why credit is rationed? When there
is an excess demand for credit, in order to meet this increase in financial market, lenders apply credit rationing
mechanism instead of increasing the interest rates due to falling short of this demand.
The adverse selection aspect of interest rates is a consequence of different borrowers having different
probabilities of repaying their loan. The expected return to the bank obviously depends on the probability of repayment, so the bank would like to be able to identify borrowers who are more likely to repay. It is difficult to
identify good bor-rowers, and to do so require the bank to use a variety of screening devices (Stiglitz and Weiss,
1981:393). As the interest rate rises, the average riskiness of those who borrow increases, possibly lowering the
bank's profits because of the default risk. So, that increases the pool of the risky project and discards the high quality
projects from market.
In the figure, the space I shows the interest rate r* that maximize the expected returns of the banks. Both
credit demand (LD) and credit supply (LS) are the function of the interest rate and at the rate of r*, credit demand
exceeds credit supply. Excess demand is shown with Z. In the conventional analysis, the investors who are not
eligible to get the credit will offer higher interest rates to the banks and in this way they will induce to increase the
amount of funs supplied in the market. However, in the credit rationing mechanism a Walrasian market equilibrium
is not realizied and, though the fund demand is not equal to fund supply, r* is the equilibrium interest rate (Jaffee and
Stiglitz, 1990:854).
When we look at the space II, we can find out that banks are not willing to lend credit with the rate above r*
because of the adverse selection effect. From the viewpoint of banks, borrowers offering interest above the rate r*
have a higher level of risk than the borrowers with rate r*. Consistently, former projects will have lower return in
comparison with latter. Lower rate of R than r* shows this relationship.

L

L

IV

IV

I

z

I

Z

LS
0

45 (

LS

m

r

r*

R

III

II
G
Figure 1: Credit Rationing in Financial Markets
Source: Villanueva and Mirakhor, 516

133

LD

r

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Space III represents the relationship between supply of funds and expected rate of return. For more rate of
return the amount of funds supplied have to be increased. Space IV shows the relationship between supply of funds
and the quantity of funds at equilibrium. When there is a credit rationing in the financial market, the equilibrium
interest rate is realized at the rate r*. There is an excess demand at this rate r*, on the other hand the market clearing
interest rate is rm. This rate is neither optimal nor effective for banks, because that provides the banks lower rate of
return in comparison with the rate r*. Despite r* is not market clearing rate, it is both optimal and effective because
banking sector profits are at the maximum level and the risky projects are excluded.
As a result, credit rationing mechanism may be good solution for the adverse selection problem when there
is asymmetric information about the credit market.

References
Akerlof, George A., ― The Market For Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism‖, The Quarterly Journal of
Economics, Vol. 84, No. 3, August 1970, pp. 488-500.
Greenwald, Bruce C., Stiglitz, Joseph E., ―Asymmetric Information And The New Theory Of The Firm: Financial Constraints
And Risk Behavior‖, National Bureau Of Economic Research, Cambridge, May 1990.
Hayek, F.A., ― The Use of Knowledge in Society‖, The American Economic Review, Vol. XXXV, September 1945.
Islam, R. ―Economic Information and Finance: More information means more credit, fewer bad loans and less corruption‖,
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No: 4250, June 2007.
Jaffee, Dwight Ve J. Stiglitz, ―Credit Rationing‖, B. M. Friedman Ve F. H. Hahn (Ed.), Handbook Of Monatary Economics,
Elsevier Science Publishers, Volume II, Chapter 16, 1990
Lofgren, Karl-Gustaf, Torsten Persson, and Jorgen W. Weibull, ―Markets with Asymmetric Information: The Contributions of
George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz‖, The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Vol. 104, No. 2, June 2002.
Mishkin, Frederic S., ―Asymmetric Information And Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective‖, National Bureau Of Economic
Research, Working Paper No. 3400, 1990, Cambridge. Ma 02138 July 1990
Spencer, Peter D., ―The Structer and Regulation of Financial Markets‖, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., Bruce Greenwald And, Andrew Weiss, ―Informational Imperfections On The Capital Market And MacroEconomic Fluctuations‖, National Bureau Of Economic Research Working Paper No. 1335, Cambridge, April 1984.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., ― The Contributions of the Economics of Information To Twentieth Century Economics‖, The Quarterly
Journal Of Economics, November 2000.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., and Andrew Weiss, ―Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information‖, The American Economic
Review, Vol. 71, No. 3, June, 1981.
Villanueva, Delano Ve A. Mirakhor, ―Strategies For Financial Reforms: Interest Rate Policies, Stabilization, And Bank
Supervision Ġn Developing Countries‖, IMF Staff Papers, Vol.37, No:3, September, 1999.

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                <text>Information can be considered just as an economic good, because it has a price  in the market like every economic product and to produce and disperse it is costly. Also it  allows individuals to make choices that yield higher expected payoffs or expected utility  than they would obtain from choices made in the absence of information. Information  has some other special characteristics than other economic values. It is easy to create but  hard to trust. It is easy to spread but hard to control. It influences many decisions. These  special characteristics (as compared with other types of goods) complicate many standard  economic theories and make sense on the financial markets. The goal of this paper is to  emphasize on what information means generally in economics and especially in financial  markets and to evaluate the economic problems in a detailed manner when ―imperfect  information‖ is available in the financial markets.</text>
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                    <text>2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Employee Empowerment and Its Effect on Organizational Performance
M. Kemal DEMĠRCĠ
Dumlupınar University, Turkey
mkdemirci26@hotmail.com
Ali ERBAġ
EskiĢehir Osman Gazi University, Turkey
mkdemirci26@hotmail.com
Abstract: Employee empowerment is frequently used by business academicians and managers on
business activities. It refers to employees being more proactive and self-sufficient in assisting an
organization to achieve its goals. The term became prominent as part of the total quality
management, although its roots are in issues raised earlier under the heading ―employee
involvement‖ or employee participation. The purpose is not only to ensure that effective decisions
are made by the right employees but to provide a mechanism by which responsibility for those
decisions is vested in individuals and teams. The right to share authority and to codetermine
important decisions is accompanied by responsibility to exercise this power for the legitimate
benefit of multiple stakeholders. Responsible decision-making requires that employees have
access to managerial level knowledge and information about the enterprise, as well as to
opportunities to learn new skills that will enable them to interpret and use the information. Such
information may, however, involve technical, economic, or interpersonal and organizational
aspects of the firm that many employees will be unprepared by their previous education, training,
and work experience to understand and make use of. A democratic workplace will need to provide
for the ongoing education and training of employees not only in relation to their immediate work
tasks but also for their broader role in participating in the management of complex enterprises.
Key Words: Employee Empowerment, Organizational Performance.

Introduction
Empowerment, participation or participative management is a classic concept in business administration
literature (Wilkinson, 1988). Empowerment, although generally seen as a key to employee satisfaction and improved
productivity, opponents regard it merely as an action toward downsizing a company and increasing workloads. The
advocates of empowerment see it as the essential underpinning of continuous improvement. Empowerment concept
has emerged as a development of the total quality management philosophy in recent years. Common ground has been
established as to the acceptance that empowerment is one of the more difficult factors of continuous improvement,
but should not also be understood as a cure to all contemporary corporate ills. Empowerment yet, has no any metric
to assess its impact on business performance and this condition caused the concept to remain fundamentally
qualitative rather than quantitative.

Empowerment and Its Relation to Decision Making Process
In our study we see participative management, empowerment (see for a wide range of definitions of
empowerment: Geroy, Wright, and Anderson) and participation as synonyms. We consider empowerment as the
new version of participative management of 1970‘s. On the other hand, concepts of involvement and commitment
(Becker, Billings, Evaleth and Gilbert, 1996) as elements included in empowerment. Empowerment is achieved
through involvement and commitment of employees. Without involvement of employees in the decision-making
process, the base of decisions will not be properly maintained, and thereby the members of organization can not be
accountable for the quality of their tasks. Members of the organizations should always think strategically and by
employing employees in decision making activities, human resources of the business should be directed towards the
satisfaction of customers, better than before.
In essence, empowerment is a management style where managers share endeavors with the rest of the
organizational members. Their influence in the decision-making process – or the collaboration in the decision-

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making is not limited to the formal power – with certain characteristics as far as information systems, training,
rewarding, power sharing, leadership style and organizational culture are concerned (Pardo del Val and Lloyd, 2003).
Participation of employees in the decisions is not a simple act. Decision process is composed of a couple of
stages, like a chain where each link can be regarded as equally valuable and essential. These stages mainly are;
identification of the problem, intelligence stage, conception or design of alternatives stage, choosing one of the
alternatives as decision, implementation and revision of the decision. All of these stages need to be elaborated
properly and at each level of hierarchy, managers should continuously perform influence and collaboration.
There are a variety of decisions in every organization. Therefore it is better to classify decisions in three
fold in a pyramidal way, as a best known and generally accepted classification. Of a hierarchical division of
decisions, at top strategic, then tactical and at the bottom operational decisions take place. Such classification also
will be helpful in identifying the collaboration degree of the individuals in the decision making process.

The Implementation Conditions of Empowerment
According to Herrenkohl (Herrenkohl, Judson and Heffner, 1999) and Wooddell (2009), effective
implementation of employee empowerment projects in the organization needs maintaining the following four
conditions.
Shared Vision
As his top strategic priorities, like financial solvency, improved reporting process, increasing the level of
customer satisfaction of the company, for example, might be the vision of the director of the organization. Thus,
unless the same vision is shared with the director, it would be very difficult, even sometimes impossible to
implement an employee empowerment project. Shared vision with the director plays a key role and the
empowerment endeavors can obtain ground and can identify its own goals and then can design its own process to
achieve its goals. Starting with the lacking of empowerment areas, the department or the company would provide the
empowerment team with the opportunity to train selected employees to improve their leadership skills.
Organizational Support
Without a concrete support of the director, securing attendance of the supervisors and managers to training
workshops would be almost impossible. Beside this, to plan for access to staff meetings would not be expected to be
successful. Therefore executive director has a critical effect and role on the successfully implementation of the
empowerment project in the organization.
Knowledge and Learning
After the implementation of the empowerment project, the members of the team are expected to improve
their skills in project management and team development skills which would be an asset applicable for other projects
as well. And also skills like, brainstorming, time management, improved discussion, consensus-based decision
making and problem solving techniques for managers and supervisors, and leadership development training and
customer service training for employees could be maintained.
Institutional Recognition
For a successful implementation of an empowerment project, team members need to receive a widespread
appreciation and recognition for their skills in their endeavors. Therefore good reputation of an empowerment team
and its members, could directly impact span of acceptance of the director and department managers, supervisors and
front line employees.

Empowerment And Its Effect On Performance
Organizations need to manage and improve the performance of their employees. As the power or capacity to
produce a desired effect, efficacy of an employee is enhanced by empowerment, doubtlessly. Empowerment can be
formulated as the combination of four dimensions. Thus, the equation is derived keeping in mind the factor of
empowerment enhancing the role efficacy of individual employees (Table 1) (Shulagna, 2009). Some argue that
lacking of one of these elements will deflate, though not completely eliminate, the overall degree of empowerment
(Shulagna, 2009), but still others (Bowen and Lawler III, 1995) believe that, any one of four elements, that is power,
information, knowledge and rewards will completely destroy empowerment. Thus, employees provided with the

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elements of power, knowledge, information and rewards would be more involved and empowered in all levels of
business development programs. Basing on above explanations, empowerment equation could be formed as the
following:

Empowerment = Power * information * Knowledge * Rewards
Power
Autonomy

Information
HRI (Feedback)

Authority
Delegation

Role Clarification
Motivation Participation
(Work Suggest)

Knowledge
Training (mentoring and
Tutor)
Counseling
Appraisals

Reward
Compensation (awards)
Career Planning
Job Enrichment

Table 1: Instruments of Empowerment
It is now widely recognized that decisions concentrated at the top hampers flexibility and timely action at
the lower levels, but pushing down decision making at lower levels, may lead to chaos, conflicting decisions and a
discernible lack of common purpose ((Shulagna, 2009). Therefore to avoid such disadvantages, the decision of
taking decisions, or to push it upwards should be left at employee‘s prudence. To develop the prudence of employees
on the other hand, the organization should develop its personnel and also should create an organizational culture and
a climate that would provide the employee with the right to decide or to push it up the hierarchy. Empowerment
helps to achieve such a culture and an environment in the organization by increasing organizational effectiveness
through developing and deploying competent influence in the human resource.
The term empowerment denotes the enhanced involvement of employees in the organizational processes
and decision-making (Sinha, 2005). All visions and strategies in the organization need able and empowered
personnel. Unfortunately, empowerment is rarely used in the organizations and is less common than other
management efforts like teamwork, quality management or inventory control.
Although empowerment influence performance in a positive way, unfortunately it can not be measured
properly and directly, yet.
Figure 1 represents a view of empowerment process that churns out competent influence in the workforce
and ultimately affects performance by leading to customer satisfaction, customer involvement, customer loyalty and
customer recognition (Shulagna, 2009).

Prompt decision
making
satisfaction
Enhanced
accountability

Involvement

empowerment

Performance
loyataly
Understanding the
value of work

recognition

Job mastery

Figure 1: Empowerment and Its Relation to Performance
Enhanced employee
engagement

144
creativity

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Each and every employee in the organization must consider the elements of competent influence which can
be aligned as commitment, capability, and ethicality, in order to create empowered individuals and climate which
also would secure a much better performance in the organization.
Commitment: Empowerment leads employee‘s psychological attachment to the organization, that is
commitment. Commitment towards the job is increased as accountability increases. Empowerment also leads to
employee engagement. And when there is a shared purpose, employee becomes a self-directed decision-maker
towards the goals and objectives of the organization.
Capability: Through history, when an opportunity is given to a person with a right attitude he/she always
has done the best of his means and capabilities. Therefore, by employing empowerment, employee is motivated and
given the chance to make the best utilization of the opportunities given to him. Workplace will provide him freedom
and fun and he/she will get the pleasure of fulfillment of his contribution to work and get full job satisfaction in
return.
Ethicality: Being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of
an employee is called ethicality. When employees are empowered, it will lead to exercising competent influence.
Empowering by enhancing more freedom would cause employees express the truth and prevent them from
falsehood, and pretends.
After creating empowered individuals and climate in the organization, we propose the decision making
performance of all employees at all levels to be improved as shown in Figure 2.

Top management
Decision making
(Planning)

Collaboration
And planning
Degree line

Routine duties

Middle management

Low management

Figure 2: Collaboration degree of the individuals in the decision making process
On the above figure, top level managers have the highest degree of collaboration and planning duties as
depicted by the collaboration and planning degree line. Adversely the lower-level managers are expected to have the
least degree of collaboration engagement in decision making process and spend their efforts to routine daily tasks
more than the higher management levels. If the management at all levels, obey the above division of responsibilities
for decision making and routine daily tasks and degree of collaboration(diagonal line), all managers would be
expected to contribute the organization at maximum level possible.

Conclusion
Employees need to be provided with the greater authority to make independent decisions as more decisionmaking responsibility is deconcentrated and concerned through empowerment. There is no doubt that empowerment
is achieved by objective and structural organizational changes which provides individuals greater convenience to
make decisions and use greater influence regarding their work.
When empowerment projects are launched, of course considerations regarding to some of the internal
resistance of the organization should be taken into account. Involved negative behaviors are; improper conduct of

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some managers towards change, resistance to delegate their control to their subordinates, reluctance to invest
resources and make commitment, that are expected to insure long term success of empowerment, as well as
employees negative behaviors to change, etc. Employees attitude against change is generally due to their conditioned
behavior to follow orders, and tendencies not to collaborate with others, and not willing to accept greater
responsibilities and risks, in work environment. Such difficulties are potential in every organization, and therefore
should be accepted as normal, and are expected to be overcomed by shared vision of director, intensive
organizational support, knowledge, continuous learning, and institutional recognition of the empowerment project
team.
A successful empowerment endeavor, as an important organizational challenge proves to be successful in
providing employee feelings of self-efficacy, and removing conditions which cause restlessness and powerlessness.
It also achieves job mastery by providing for role clarification, job enrichment and proper training.
Empowerment also gives growth support to its employees through career planning, rewards and welfare, and
by employing counseling, motivation, and appraisals techniques, uses social reinforcement and persuasion in the
organization.
When empowerment approaches adopted, employees gradually would start to feel that they are valued,
competent and the jobs they are doing have so great meaning and impact, and, when legitimately empowered, they
would continuously be in a mood to believe they have so vast opportunities to apply their skills. In return they are
expected to change their behaviors towards using their talents in the work place better than before, and such
employee driven changes are expected to bring contribution to the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.

References
Wilkinson, A. (1988). Empowerment: theory and practice, Personnel Review, Vol. 27 No 1, (pp. 40-56).
Geroy, G.D., Wright, P.C and Anderson, J. Strategic performance empowerment model, Empowerment in Organizations, V. 6
N.2, (pp 57-63).
Becker, T.E., Billings, R.S., Evaleth, D.M. and Gilbert, N.L. (1996). …bases of employee commitment: implications for job
performance, Academy of Management Journal, V. 39 N.2. (pp. 464-481)
Pardo del Val, M. and Lloyd, B. (2003). Measuring Empowerment, Leadership &amp; Organization Development Journal, (pp. 102103.)
Herrenkohl, R., Judson, G and Heffner, J. (1999). Defining and measuring employee empowerment, Journal of Applied
Behavioral Science, 35, (pp. 373-385).
Wooddell, V. (2009). Employee Empowerment, Action Research and Organizational Change: A Case Study, Organization
Management Journal, 6, (pp.15-18).
Bowen, D. E. and Lawler, E.E III (1995), Empowering Service Employees, Sloan Management Review, 36, 4, (pp. 73-82).
Sinha R. (2005). Lighting of a Spark, Human Capital, 8, 9.
Shulagna S. (2009). Employee Empowerment in the Banking Sector‖, IUP Journal of Management Research. Hyderabad: Sep. 8,
9, (pp. 48-67)

146

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                <text>Employee empowerment is frequently used by business academicians and managers on  business activities. It refers to employees being more proactive and self-sufficient in assisting an  organization to achieve its goals. The term became prominent as part of the total quality  management, although its roots are in issues raised earlier under the heading ―employee  involvement‖ or employee participation. The purpose is not only to ensure that effective decisions  are made by the right employees but to provide a mechanism by which responsibility for those  decisions is vested in individuals and teams. The right to share authority and to codetermine  important decisions is accompanied by responsibility to exercise this power for the legitimate  benefit of multiple stakeholders. Responsible decision-making requires that employees have  access to managerial level knowledge and information about the enterprise, as well as to  opportunities to learn new skills that will enable them to interpret and use the information. Such  information may, however, involve technical, economic, or interpersonal and organizational  aspects of the firm that many employees will be unprepared by their previous education, training,  and work experience to understand and make use of. A democratic workplace will need to provide  for the ongoing education and training of employees not only in relation to their immediate work  tasks but also for their broader role in participating in the management of complex enterprises.</text>
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                    <text>2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Property Right in the 1982 Constitution As a Social Right
Fatih DEMĠRCĠ
Dumlupınar University,
Kütahya, Turkey
fdemirci@hotmail.com

Abstract : Property right is often referred to for defining political regimes. Therefore to study
property right in the 1982 Constitution is crucial for analyzing the Turkish political structure.
Property right in the 1982 Constitution stands within the Article 35. This article consists of three
clauses. The first two clauses may often exist in any democratic constitution but the third clause
has a very interesting and peculiar feature. Because the first two clauses say that everyone has
right to own and inherit property and this right may be limited by law only in view of public
interest. But the third clause says that exercise of the right to own property shall not be in
contravention of the public interest.
This third clause is objectionable in two reasons. First; this clause ordains the citizens an
impossible thing. Because it is impossible for people to use their properties always in favor of
public interest. If this article said that property right could not be used against the public interest,
it could be acceptable and reasonable. But this clause as written in the constitution puts an
impossible obligation but the law cannot order any obligation on the citizens.
Secondly; the limit of property in liberal democracies may be in line with the public interest and
this limit can be defined only by law. Using the property right in favor of public interest is
merely a matter of people‘s choice. However this article literally obliges people to use their
property in favor of public interest. This is not appropriate for liberal democracies.

Introduction
Property has always been a critical issue in political philosophy. Every political philosopher has something
to say about it. However, the theme of property has become particularly central in modern political thought: at times
the whole science of politics has seemed to be subordinate to, or even identical with, the science of economics.
While Rousseau defines property as the source of all kinds of evil, Aristotle and John Locke place the right of
property in the basis of state. Especially in his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke attaches to property as the
motive for establishing and maintaining political society (Zvesper, 1996, p.91). To Locke, property is a natural right
for an individual and each individual has a natural right of property before state. For Locke, what makes a
government legitimate is its preservation of property. To him, the aim of government is preservation of property
(Tully, 1993, p.120). Thus Locke favors any form of government that supports an individual‘s natural right of
property, its acquisition and its preservation in the hands of its rightful owner (Tannenbaum-Schultz, 2004, p. 184).
Actually, the right of property is listed among the personal rights and the basic rights of the individual in the
constitutions of the American States where they declared their independency, in ―the American Declaration of
Independency‖ and the French Revolution‘s ―The Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen‖ (Soysal,
1987, p. 229). For example, in 1789 the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which has been
announced after the French Revolution it is declared that “since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one
shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on
condition
that
the
owner
shall
have
been
previously
and
equitably
indemnified.”(
http://www.hrcr.org/docs/frenchdec.html). Thus property is still one of the most prominent issues in politics.
Property right so important in some certain ways that some suggest that what reveals the difference between
Eastern and Western political regimes is property3. In this context, many constitutions in the West oblige the state to
protect property.

3

For details about this issue see ―Feodalite ve Osmanlı Toplumu‖ by Murat Özyüksel, Derin Yayınları, 2007, Ġstanbul.

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Property Right in Turkey
Private possession of land has been limited, as feudalism as a political regime flourished after the fall of the
Roman Empire through right of property, in order to prevent the advance of such a fragmented government structure
like feudalism. The most detailed regulation concerning property is the Noble Edict of the Rose Chamber. This edict
reads:
“If there is an absence of security for property, everyone remains indifferent to his
state and his community; no one interests himself in the prosperity of the country,
absorbed as he is in his own troubles and worries. If, on the contrary, the individual feels
complete security about his possessions then he will become preoccupied with his own
affairs, which he will seek to expand, and his devotion and love for his state and his
community will steadily grow and will undoubtedly spur him into becoming a useful
member of society”(http://www.yursil.com/blog/2010/01/hatt-i-sherif-of-gulhane-noble-edict-of-the-rosechamber-beginning-of-tanzimat-reforms)
But the given importance to property that took place in this edict is for protection of the state exclusively. In
the Republican Era, Ziya Gökalp‘s solidarist thoughts prevail as against the liberal economic and political thoughts.
While 1924 Constitution declares that property is an inviolable right, 1961 and 1982 Constitutions declare that
property is used for only public benefit.

Property Right in the Constitution of 1982
The text of the article concerning property right in 1982 Constitution is exactly the same with the one
included in 1961 Constitution (Soysal, 1987, p. 229). However, property right was listed under the heading ―Social
and Economic Rights and Liabilities‖ in the 1961 Constitution while it takes place in the ―Rights of the Individual‖
section of the 1982 Constitution (Tanör-YüzbaĢıoğlu, 2009, p.174). Moreover, considering the content of the article,
it is clear that property right was regulated as a ―social‖ right rather than an ―individual‖ right in the constitution. In
the Constitution, the right of property was regulated in the Article 35 (the Article 36 of 1961 Constitution) as
follows:
“Everyone has the right to own and inherit property.
These rights may be limited by law only in view of public interest.
The exercise of the right to own property shall not be in contravention of the public interest”
Although property right was placed in the section of ―Rights and Duties of the Individual‖ instead of ―Social And
Economic Rights And Duties‖ section in the 1982 Constitution, it was stated that this right can be limited by law
for the sake of public interest and its exercise cannot be in contravention with public interest. Clearly, a big and
fundamental change took place in terms of property; this sacred, inviolable right was limited for the sake of the
society for the first time (Polatcan, 1989, p. 140). However, inclusion of property right in the section of personal
rights has got two results in terms of application: the Article 91 that gives the authority to issue Decree Law (KHK)
states that during normal periods, the subjects concerning personal rights cannot be regulated with KHKs and such
regulations can only be performed during the period of martial law and state of emergency. But it is always possible
to issue KHK about social and economic rights and to regulate the subjects concerning these rights with KHKs
(Bulut, 2006, p. 23). On one hand this replacement can be considered as a kind of weakening in the social state
principle, on the other hand, maybe as a more appropriate comment, because of being listed with individual‘s rights
the property right has been strengthened and protected better by the 1982 Constitution. Nonetheless, it would be
beneficial to consider as a whole the way the property right was regulated in the constitution.
Although the first two clauses of the Article 35 in the Constitution include some provisions, which are
normally included in any other modern constitution, the last clause of the Article is one of the interesting regulations
concerning property right. The interesting part of the last clause of the article concerning property right in the
Constitution is that its projection saying property rights shall not be exercised against ―the public interest‖. This
provision is interesting because the condition not to use property against public interest is independent from the
provision of limiting property right merely for the sake of public interest and only by law. This provision reveals the
content in which property right is recognized; that is, this right is recognized within limitation by ―public interest‖
from the beginning. There is also a disadvantage of this provision because it leaves room for arbitrary intervention in
exercise of this right, even if it is not a legitimate limitation based on law, by claiming that the property was not used
in line with public interest, thus giving the courts the right to decide on the way property owners should use their
property right (Erdoğan, 2006, p. 77).

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Justifications in the Constitutions of 1961 and 1982 of the Article text are vitally important for a better understanding
of the subject. In the article justification in 1961 Constitution, especially about the last clause of the article, it was
stated that property right has the quality of unlimited freedom that can be exercised however the individual wants to,
inconsiderate of public interests with the same interpretation of this right in Roman Law and that even in our old law,
property had also a social characteristic and inclusion of this right in the constitution would guide the legislator and
would have a disciplinary influence on the individuals (Özer, 1996, p. 175). In the justification of 1982 Constitution,
it is stated that together with the guaranty provided to property right, the economic systems that ignore private
property would be unable to remove private property (Özer, 1996, p.170). The 1982 Constitution considers property
right basically as private property. This understanding of property includes free enterprise, private property of
production tools. Therefore, choice of a fascist or communist system or a system based on religious principles is not
possible because of the provisions of the Constitution concerning property as well as its other provisions (Polatcan,
1989, p.140). Moreover, although the right of property is a basic right, its exercise was determined not to be against
the public interest. Public interest may necessitate total abolition of property right in some cases. Therefore,
expropriation and nationalization were regulated within the Constitution (Polatcan, 1987, p.139). Because of its
definition this regulation is based on the privilege of private enterprise and private property, as stated by Taha Parla
in his study on Ziya Gökalp‘s model of state, and it has some features of capitalism while it also reminds
corporatism, which bears ―anti-Marxist‖ and ―anti-Socialist‖ characteristics (Parla, 1999, p.90).
As observed above, in essence the 1982 constitution considers property right within the framework of
―property right as a social function‖ idea. Property right is not an absolute right in the constitution as the owner of
something is adorned by a set of responsibilities, yet a relative right that can be limited on social grounds (Bulut,
2006, p.25). The judgment of the Supreme Court concerning property right is in a similar vein:
“Property right has already lost its former connotation as a right which the individual might use at his will
and a boundless liberty, the understanding of property has developed labeling it as a social right and the principle
that this right also could be limited for public interests as many others was adopted.
Property right, which initially meant the absolute sovereignty of an individual over a thing and was deemed
sacred lost these implications and this absolute and subjective right has transformed into a conditional situation and
bounded by its social functions (Akad-Dinçkol, 2007, p.230).
In another judgment the Supreme Court accounts for the fact that property right could not be used against
public interest as follows:
“It is quoted that property right cannot be used against public interests. In our constitution property right is
not recognized as an absolute right and it is foreseen that public interests would be privileged in case individual
interests conflict with public interests and the social function of property is identified with using in line with public
interests. The constitution does not permit using property right against this (Akad-Dinçkol, 2007, p.232).
The motivation behind this and similar regulations concerning property right has traces of the public
property understanding before the Republic and the solidarist corporatist state model in the Republican period
developed by Ziya Gökalp. Yet, according to Parla, the corporatist thought of Gökalp might be considered as a
model of ―corporatist capitalism‖ which deeply influenced the Turkish thought and provided the governing classes
(including those who prepared the constitution) with a paradigmatic worldview. Unlike the individual-based liberal
social model, corporatism considers individualism and individual property as a force that atomizes and disintegrates
society. Hence it is asserted that this has an annihilating effect on the balance of social organism and its possibility to
survive. So to speak, as he believes the liberal society has anarchist tendencies, the self-interested efforts of
individuals, their private properties and enterprises are considered legal in this model as far as they serve social
solidarity and unless they damage the public interest which is a supreme value per se (Parla, 1999, p.93).
In his study which examines modern constitutions Wheare states that constitutions are primarily prepared in
two types. He notes that, the first approach considers the constitution as a legal document in principle and thus only
includes laws in praxis and excludes others while the second approach considers constitutions as a kind of manifesto,
an acknowledgement of belief, an expression of ideals (Wheare, 1984, p.43). While denoting which one to choose he
says that it would be wise to exclude anything that would not be considered as a law from the constitution (Wheare,
1984, p. 67) and the ideal constitution would include the least number of laws (Wheare, 1984, p. 45).
In this context, the article of the constitution on property is more a petition that clarifies the desired ends
than a law expressing the recognition and exercise of rights. However, according to Wheare, a constitution which is
considered as a political manifesto or creed by some should limit not ideas, desires or plans but itself as far as
possible with laws (Wheare, 1984, p. 62-67).
The judgment expressed in the third clause of the property rights article of the 1982 constitution which is the
expression of the yearning for property in a solidarist and corporatist society more than a law clause, especially the
provision ―property rights cannot be used against public interests‖, is problematic in its insistence as a law.

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�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

In the first place, laws do not demand impossible things. That is to say, laws include applicable
commandments. However, the provision ―property rights cannot be against public interests‖, is not applicable. An
applicable provision would exist if the provision in the constitution were ―property cannot be used to damage the
public‖. Nevertheless, the provision in the constitution, considering the critics of the concept, necessitates each and
every use of property by the individuals should contribute to public interests, which is impossible.
However, the important discrepancy between these two concepts is neglected and comments interpret that
the constitution only commands not to impair. For instance, while the Supreme Court pointed out in a judgment that
property right is limited by ―not violating others‘ rights‖ (Akad-Dinçkol, 2007, p. 237) a scientific study on this
provision asserts that the provision that asserts property rights cannot be against public interests is unnecessary since
it was accepted by law that property should not be used in contravention of public interests (ġahin, 2009, p.96).
However, it must be kept in mind that what the constitution commands is ―property should not be against public
interests‖ and not that ―property should not impair public interests‖.
In the second place, it should be discussed whether the constitutions aimed at guaranteeing rights and
limiting the governments in this respect limit the individuals with the liability of being in favor of the public
whenever they exercise their property right or not. While the primary task of the state is preserving the rights through
law, the introduction of the moral principle of appealing to public interest as a legal obligation for individuals is not
fully consistent with the universal principles of law.

Conclusion
Considering the comments of K. C. Wheare, who studied modern constitutions, about the Article 43 of the
Irish Constitution4 where it is declared that the State guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish property right,
and then states that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be
regulated by the principles of social justice, thus may, as occasion requires, delimit by law the exercise of the said
rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good; in other words, although
property right is recognized, it is limited by social considerations, which Wheare considers as ―a classical example of
giving a right by one hand and taking it back with the other‖ (Wheare, 1984, p.57) it can be concluded that some
rulings in constitutions that conflict with legal techniques are not only unable to maintain the desired aims but also
fall short in protecting rights and liberties, which is the main reason of their existence, and might leave them without
guarantee.

References
Akad, M. &amp; Dinçkol, A. (2007). 1982 Anayasası ve Anayasa Mahkemesi Kararları, Ġstanbul, Der Yayınları.
Bulut, N. (2006). Mülkiyet Konusundaki Temel YaklaĢımlar ve Türk Anayasasında Mülkiyet Hakkı, Erzincan Üniversitesi Hukuk
Fakültesi Dergisi, Atatürk‘ün 125. Doğum Yılına Armağan, Cilt : X, Sayı: 3-4, Aralık 2006 (pp. 15- 26).
Erdoğan, M. (2006). Ġnsan Hakları, Ankara, BaĢbakanlık Ġnsan Hakları BaĢkanlığı Yayını.
http://www.constitution.ie/reports/ConstitutionofIreland.pdf
http://www.hrcr.org/docs/frenchdec.html

4

Full text of tihs article :
Private Property
Article 43
1. 1° The State acknowledges that man, in virtue of his rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the
private ownership of external goods.
2° The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to
transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.
2. 1° The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in
civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.
2° The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their
exercise with the exigencies of the common good.
(http://www.constitution.ie/reports/ConstitutionofIreland.pdf)

53

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

http://www.yursil.com/blog/2010/01/hatt-i-sherif-of-gulhane-noble-edict-of-the-rose-chamber-beginning-of-tanzimat-reforms
Özer, A. (1996). Gerekçeli ve 1961 Anayasası ile Mukayeseli 1982 Anayasası, Ankara, Lazer Ofset.
Parla, T. (1999). Ziya Gökalp, Kemalizm ve Türkiye‘de Korporatizm, Ġstanbul, ĠletiĢim Yayınları.
Polatcan, Ġ. (1989). Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Anayasası, Gerekçeler, Anayasa Mahkemesi Kararları, Bilimsel GörüĢler, Ġstanbul,
Bayrak Yayımcılık.
ġahin, A. (2009). Ulusalüstü Ġnsan Hakları Hukukunda ve Türk Anayasa Hukukunda Mülkiyet Hakkının Sınırlandırılması
Sorunu, Liberal DüĢünce, KıĢ-Bahar 2009, Sayı: 53-54, (pp.65-83).
Soysal, M. (1987). 100 Soruda Anayasanın Anlamı, Ġstanbul, Gerçek Yayınevi.
Tannenbaum D.G. &amp; Schultz, D. (2004). Inventors of Ideas, An Introduction to Western Political Philosophy, Toronto, Thomson
Wadsworth.
Tanör, B. &amp; YüzbaĢıoğlu N. (2009). 1982 Anayasası‘na Göre Türk Anaysa Hukuku, Ġstanbul, Beta Yayınları.
Tully, J. (1993). An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wheare, K.C. (1984), Modern Anayasalar, Çev. Mehmet Turhan, Ġstanbul, DeğiĢim Yayınları.
Zvesper, J. (1996). Locke and Aristotle on Property, In Richard Bellamy &amp; Angus Ross (Editors) A Textual Introduction to Social
and Political Theory, (pp. 91-121), Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press.

54

�</text>
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                <text>Property Right in the 1982 Constitution As a Social Right</text>
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                <text>Property right is often referred to for defining political regimes. Therefore to study  property right in the 1982 Constitution is crucial for analyzing the Turkish political structure.  Property right in the 1982 Constitution stands within the Article 35. This article consists of three  clauses. The first two clauses may often exist in any democratic constitution but the third clause  has a very interesting and peculiar feature. Because the first two clauses say that everyone has  right to own and inherit property and this right may be limited by law only in view of public  interest. But the third clause says that exercise of the right to own property shall not be in  contravention of the public interest.  This third clause is objectionable in two reasons. First; this clause ordains the citizens an  impossible thing. Because it is impossible for people to use their properties always in favor of  public interest. If this article said that property right could not be used against the public interest,  it could be acceptable and reasonable. But this clause as written in the constitution puts an  impossible obligation but the law cannot order any obligation on the citizens.  Secondly; the limit of property in liberal democracies may be in line with the public interest and  this limit can be defined only by law. Using the property right in favor of public interest is  merely a matter of people‘s choice. However this article literally obliges people to use their  property in favor of public interest. This is not appropriate for liberal democracies.</text>
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                    <text>Table Grapes Transport Simulation Study by Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.)
Cultivar Grown in Karaman Turkey
Fikret DEMĐR
Selcuk UniversityFaculty of Agriculture
Department of Agricultural Machinery 42003 Konya, Turkey
fdemir@selcuk.edu.tr
Zeki KARA
Selcuk University Faculty of Agriculture
Department of Horticulture
42003 Konya, Turkey
zkara@selcuk.edu.tr
Kazım CARMAN
Selcuk University Faculty of Agriculture
Department of Agricultural Machinery 42003 Konya, Turkey
kcarman@selcuk.edu.tr

Abstract: Table grapes is a second industry in viticulture in Turkey and have been grown in
primarily Mediterranean region a popular fruit for local consumption and export to many
European and Asian countries as a fresh dessert and for this reason this product has to be
transport so long distances for marketing. This simulated export transit experiment with
Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.) local table grape cultivar grown in Karaman province was conducted
in lab condition Selcuk University Faculty of Agriculture. To produce main knowledge, and
to improve the application of resources used to produce, pack, transport, and merchandise
Turkish table grapes by increasing efficiency, controlling cost and managing risk throughout
the supply chain. In order to develop optimized methods of reducing table grape damage
transport stimulatory as vibration stimulator have been used to measure the shocks and
vibrations in market bins during 30 min and 60 min transport stimulation. During road
transport simulation at 25°C in wooden boxes damages of clusters and berries were measured
by laboratory trials to stimulate the events in a controlled and repeatable manner. 3 bins full
of fruits were placed onto a vibration table, and during the stimulation three-load profile
sensor were placed inside each of bins. While the number of separated berry was determined
as a 31.33 in 30 min, the number was 83.10 in vibration period of 60 min. Starting with the
beginning the numbers separate resistance of berry, resistance to cracking of berry and
elasticity modulus is continuously lowering in 30-60 min vibration periods. The berry
separate resistance from cluster were changing between 4.46 N to 1.73 N, and berry cracking
resistance were measured between 31.59 N to 26.01 N, and berry elasticity modulus were
obtained as between 1423 kPa to 1076.7 kPa. Natural frequency of berry was calculated as on
109.332 Hz that was obtained in of 1.42 m box height.

Introduction
Table grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) are physiologically speaking, a relatively durable fruit. They have a low
respiration rate and can therefore live a long time after harvest. However, they are extremely susceptible to
decay, can be injured easily, and lose water readily. If any of these deterioration factors is not well controlled,
the potentially long post harvest life will be drastically shortened (Nelson, 1985; Bollen et al., 1994; Burton et
al., 1989; Campbell et al., 1986; Maindonald &amp; Finsh, 1986; Hinsch et al., 1993).
Many of horticultural products are in consumer hands within 2 day of harvest in another part of the
world. Transportation and packaging is the key to this success. Under the best circumstances the quality of table
grapes can only be maintained, not improved, during transportation. During transportation, storage and
marketing table grapes may be exposed to rough handling during loading and unloading, compression from the
overhead weight of other containers of products, impact and vibration during transportation.
Grapes are not ripening after harvest. Transits and storage life is 1-6 months. Packaging is by
fiberboard, polystyrene foam, or wood lugs, or perforated film liners and 100 – 110 N some with sulfur dioxide
456

�pads. Transportation is by highways, and piggyback trailers, van containers or break-bulk vessels. Loading is
unitized on pallets with corner. Proper packaging of table grapes is essential to maintaining product quality
during transportation and marketing (Olorunda &amp; Tung, 1985; McGregor, 1989; Kaynaş et al., 1989).
In Turkey, current produce container standardization is not, but many of markets prefer to outside
dimension of a 420 x 310 x 150 mm wooden containers that have 60-80 N grapes for table grape transportation.
Pang et al. (1995) in their investigation observed solve natural handling conditions for transportation
and used his observation to replicate the same situation in laboratory simulations.
Mechanical damage on agricultural products changes depending on physical and biological structure of
the products and type of the force applied. First damage on the products appears during harvest and
transportation. This damage usually occurs as a result of colliding of products with the others or vibrations of the
transportation system, and causes severe deformation, such as breakage, separation and bruise. According to the
estimates, approximately 25% of the agricultural products harvested in Turkey is spoilt and wasted away
between the producer and consumer (Dokuzoğuz, 1997).
Transportation of vegetables and fruits should be rearranged to avoid any loss in quality and to provide
more economical and productive conditions. Transportation type is chosen depending on the biological decay
rate, rigidness and maturity of the product, on the carrier type, distance and purpose of the product usage. Other
factors influencing this are physical characteristics, basic dimensions (geometrical measures, weight, density,
pouring and shaking density), static- dynamic press resistance elasticity, vibration, behavior and also biological
characteristics and product’s content, carriage style and type of container (Moser 1984). Static-dynamic press
resistance and form changing characteristics of the product determine the allowable pouring and filling amount,
fall height and vibration limit during the transportation of the product.
Allowable static resistance (cell blowout biological resistance limit) is calculated by force deformation
diagrams and dynamic resistance by crashing experiments for applications, allowable press resistance limit is the
point of biological crashing. But some safety distance should be allocated. The resonance frequency, fR of the
product is closely related to the speed and shock absorber of the transportation vehicle and to the filling depth of
the container. In order to prevent the crushing, resonance frequency should not be the same with vehicles
generated from outside factory frequency. Resonance frequency is inversely proportional to the pouring dept and
the densityρ, λ of the container frequency acceleration affecting fruits carried in low depth containers is doubled
especially in upper and middle levels when compared to deep containers (Moser 1984; Pang et al., 1995).
The purpose of this study is to investigate factors on concerning the damage in table grape during
transportation period in a simulated transportation environment in terms of separation resistance of berry from
pedicel, number of separated berry, resistance to cracking of berry and elasticity modulus.

Materials and Methods
Materials
In this study, table grape cv Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.) were used since it is an important product in
Konya and Karaman, Province of Turkey. The description of cv. Bardas is as follow. This is a local variety. It
accounts for about 20 percent of the table grape production in Göksu Valley in Turkey. Sex of flower is
hermaphrodite. The cluster is large in size and compact in density. The very large and uniform berries are
somewhat ovoid and elongated in shape dark red to reddish black in color with advanced maturity, particular
flavor is none, and are seeded. Berry must yield is very high sugar and total acid content of must is medium.
Harvest season extends from mid September through October. Because the berry is thick skinned and crisp, and
stem attachment is hard clusters resist damage well during post harvest handling. The cluster of this variety is
shown Fig 1.

457

�Fig 1. Table grape cv. Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.)

Methods
Chemical Properties
The titration acidity of the fruits was analysis established with titration method by using 2,6 dichlorophenal indophenol solution. Soluble solids of the fruits were determined by Atago hand refractometer
(Kara, 1992; Anonymous 1997). The initial moisture content of the berry was determined by using standard
method (USDA, 1970).
Technological Properties
To determine the sizes and projected areas of berry, 10% samples were randomly taken and their linear
dimensions were measured, i.e. length (L), width (W) and projected area (P). Projected area of a fruit was
determined using a digital camera (Kodak DC 240) and Sigma Scan Pro5 program (Trooien &amp; Heermann, 1992).
Also, linear dimensions were established by using a digital vernier caliper with sensitivity of 0.01 mm. Several
investigators (Deshpande et al., 1993; Gubta &amp; Das, 1997; Demir &amp; Özcan, 2001) have measured these
dimensions for other grains and seeds in a similar manner to determine size and shape properties.
The geometric mean diameter Dg of the berry was calculated by using the following formula (Sreenarayanan et
al., 1985):
(W=T)
(1)
Dg = (LW2)1/3
The berry volume V was calculated by using the following formula and its berry or true density Pk, Pycnometer
and toluene displacement method. Toluene (C7H8) was used rather than water because it is absorbed by fruits to
a lesser extent. Also, its surface tension is low, so that it fills even shallow dips in a berry and its dissolution
power is low (Sahay &amp; Singh, 1994).
(2)
V=πW2L2/6(2L-W)
According to Mohsenin (1986); Sreenarayanan et al., 1985), the degree of sphericity (Ø) can be expressed as
follows;
(3)
Ø = (LW2)1/3 / L = Dg/L
(4)
The surface area S of the fruit was calculated by using the following formula (McCabe et al., 1986);
(5)
S = (πWL2) / (2L-W) = π Dg2
The containers used in this study are of 420 x 310 x 150 mm size. These have four pieces horizontal
wooden bar and bottom four pieces leveled wooden bar and four pieces flat wooden vertically, fixed nails. This
is shown Fig. 2. Paperbound cartons were used as cushion materials, in order to reduce the damage on the bunch
in transit. Paperbound cartons were placed at the bottom and side at the containers. The grape bunches were
lined up in one layer in containers. Bunches contact with one another. According to the observation, 60-80 N
bunches were placed in the containers.

Fig. 2. Experiment device for simulates table grapes transport in laboratory
During the transportation in truck and trailer the frequency is between 7.5 and 11.5 Hz and the
acceleration g’ value is between 0.8 and 13 ms-2. It’s amplitude A is 0.6 and 6 mm (Aydin, 1993; Witney 1996).
458

�An important application of dynamic test is the determination of the vibration properties of table grape cultivars,
in order to assess, their sensitivity to damage during transit. The table grape cultivars are generally transporting
in containers on board motor vehicle. fR during transport the resonance frequency of the road or vehicle, then the
acceleration of the grape berries will increase considerably owing to resonance and it will be damaged by impact.
The natural frequency fn of table grapes in a container may be calculated approximately from the equation:
(6)
fn = [1/4λ]√Eg/ρ
Computation using Eqn. (6) were found to correspond well with those of table grapes in bins vibration
at resonance on a laboratory condition Fig. 3. Observation of berries were measured at average of 100 berries
taken from the 1/3 medium scope of bunches.

Fig. 3. Test equipment used in compression test
The vibration simulation container used in this study, like the vibration container was projected
California University (Öğüt et.al., 1999; O’Birien &amp; Guillou, 1969). On this box, vibration was formed at every
cycle using unbalanced weights. Changing the number of weights enables setting of maximum acceleration and
expansion plate caused by natural frequency fn of the spiral system and the container. The vibration container is
activated by a 0,55 kW electrical engine with a 2800 min-1 rotation and cos ϕ=0,827 and rotation of the box is set
by an electronic vibrator. In treatments, the resonance frequency was adjusted as or 11.5 Hz. This frequency was
obtained in 690 min-1 of simulation platform. The movement flow diagram in the vibration simulation container
is given in Fig 2. Motor’s rotation is measured as min-1 using an electrical dynamo coupled directly with motor’
once and working linearly and measuring instrument’s monitor. Damage on the product was determined after 3060 minutes of vibrating the container at the set frequency.
The vibration box had worked for 30 min and 60 min, which are equal to transportation of track with
540 km and 1080 km respectively in Turkish highways. The value of vibration were measured and recorded on
magnetic tape. In order to determine the elasticity of berry, a plate test was used (Zohadie 1982). The test
equipment is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Deformation of berry during compression
The calculation of elasticity modulus is based on the following assumptions: 1) The berries are long
elliptic in shaped very small expansion in the longitudinal plane occurred with compression in vertical plane,
and 2) Each side of the berry in contact with the flat plates has and equal deflection (O’Brien et al., 1965).
According to following expression, the modulus of elasticity was calculated following equation:
(7)
E= F/πδ2
In order to determine damage during transport, the modulus of elasticity before the berries (which were
harvested by hand) was placed on the vibration container and 30 and 60 min after than the modulus of elasticity
that is subject to vibration was determined.

459

�In this study, damage is described as a difference of elasticity modulus, separation resistance, number of
separated berry and resistance to cracking before and after the test. This study was carried out tree replication.
MINITAB was used for statistical analysis.
Vibration of the simulation container was measured using a HBM, SMM-31 type instrument which can
measure vibration’s expansion, speed and acceleration at different levels.

Results and Discussion
Physical and chemical characteristics of grape fruits are given in Table 1. Among chemical
characteristics; titration acidity content was 5.1 g/l and with 17.4 ⁰Brix soluble solids, and 83 ml/100 g fruit juice.
Berry volume
Berry weight
Berry length
Berry width
Number of seeds per berry
Cluster weight
Number of berry per cluster
Soluble solids
Titration acidity
Berry juice
Project area
Surface area
Sphericity
Geometric mean diameter
Moisture content
Natural frequency
Elasticity modulus
Density of berry in the container
Separating resistance of berry from pedicel
Berry density
Resistance to cracking of berry

5476.05
11.17 ± 2.36
34.59 ± 1.81
20.61 ± 1.28
1.92 ± 0.79
682.65 ± 33.19
62.06 ± 4.70
17.4
5.1
83
763.3
1594.19
0.708
24.49
82.48
109.322
1347
3072.196
3.846±0.095
2.137
31.743±0.479

mm3
g
mm
mm
number
g
number
⁰Brix
g/l
ml / 100 g
mm2
mm2
mm
%
Hz
kPa
N/m3
N
g/cm3
N

Table 1. Some characteristics of berry and cluster
Average berry moisture content was 82.48% (w.b.), berry length was 34.59 mm, berry width was 20.61
mm, berry weight was 11.79 g, berry volume was 5476.05 mm3, and berry sphericity was 0.708, the geometric
mean diameter was 24.49 mm, the project area 763.3 mm2 and the surface area is 1594.19 mm2 found ( by using
the method of Moser, 1984).
It’s found that there was a decrease in the separate resistance of the grape in the beginning. First related
to 30 min vibration period it was 44.40% and there was a decrease of 61.21% in the vibration period of 60 min.
This decrease is found significant (p&lt;0.01) from statistical respect and the lowest separate resistance was found
at 60 min. period with 1.73 N average (Table 2). The increase in the period vibration lowered the separate
resistance. Moser (1984) reports similar results.
Containers position
Top
Middle
Bottom
Average (LSD: 0.58)

Beginning
(N)
4.33
4.46
4.60
4.46 a

30 min
(N)
2.26
2.60
2.60
2.48 b

60 min
(N)
1.33
1.61
2.24
1.73 c

Table 2. Separating resistance of berry from pedicel
Means followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the 1% level of significance

460

�The container position and the vibration period is found statistically significant (p&lt;0.01) on the number
of separated berry (Table 3). The number of the separated berry was determined 82.83 at average in the top
container and it decreased with 31.6% in the middle container. The number again reduced with 61.17% in the
bottom container. These numbers were found at 30-60 min. vibration period. This results from the effect of high
acceleration in the top container. Turczyn et al., (1986) found similar conclusions. The number of the separated
berry had an increase of 265.2% in 30 min. vibration period to the period of 60 min.
Containers
position
Top
Middle
Bottom
Average

30 min
(Number)
51.00
24.33
18.66
31.33 a

60 min
(Number)
114.66
89.00
45.66
83.10 b

Average
(LSD: 4.70)
82.83 a
56.66 b
32.16 c

Table 3. Number of separated berry
Means followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the 1% level of significance
The numbers of the cracking resistance of the berry related to the position of the container and the
vibration period is given in Table 4. The effect of the containers position and vibration period on the cracking
resistance was found statistically significant (p&lt;0.01). While the highest cracking resistance number was found
in the bottom container with 28.81 N, the numbers were 27.67 N and 28.0 N in the middle and top containers.
Statistically there was no difference between the middle and top container. While the cracking resistance number
was 31.59 N averages in the beginning, the numbers were 26.01 N and 26.87 N at 30-60 min vibration periods.
There has been no difference between the two vibrations periods found at statistical respect.
Containers position
Top
Middle
Bottom
Average (LSD: 0.94)

Beginning
(N)
31.74
31.59
31.47
31.59 a

30 min
(N)
24.79
24.72
28.53
26.01 b

60 min
(N)
27.48
26.70
26.43
26.87 b

Average
(LSD=0.94)
28.00 b
27.67 b
28.81 a

Table 4. Resistance to cracking of berry
Means followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the 1% level of significance.
Although the effect of elasticity modulus on the container position was not significant, the vibration
period’s effect was found significant (p&lt;0.01). While the elasticity modulus was 1423 kPa in the beginning the
number was 1203,7 kPa and 1076,7 kPa at 30-60 min vibration period, but there has no statistical difference
observed between the two vibration periods (Table 5). (O’Brien et al., 1965; Fridley et al., 1968; Zohadie, 1982)
These investigators found similar results.
Box acceleration at top, middle and bottom were 1.90 ms-2, 0.90 ms-2 and 0.7 ms-2 respectively.
Natural frequency of berry was calculated as on 109.332 Hz. This frequency was obtained in box height
of 1.42 m. Aydin (1993) reported that natural frequency for the peach is varied between 7-110 Hz according to
the box height.
Containers position
Top
Middle

Beginning
(kPa)
1464
1381

30 min
(kPa)
1228
1140

60 min
(kPa)
1098
1020

Bottom
Average ( LSD: 153.7)

1424
1423 a

1245
1203.7 b

1112
1076.7 b

Table 5. Elasticity modulus
Means followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the %1 level of significance

461

�Conclusions
1. Berry separating resistance from pedicel, number of separated berry, and berry resistance to cracking, and
elasticity modulus were affected significantly by the vibration time. The affection was less at the 30 min
vibration than 60 min vibration. The number of separated berry and resistance of the cracking of berry are
affected significantly by the position of the container.
2. The separate resistance which is 4.46 N in the beginning becomes 2.48 N in the periods of 30 min and 1.73 N
averages in the periods of 60 min.
3. The number of separated berry is 31.33 in the period of 30 min average and increased to 83.10 in the period
of 60 min. While this is 82.83 in the top box the number is 32.16 in the bottom box.
4. Resistance to cracking is determined 28.81 N in the bottom box as the highest number. The resistance of
cracking is 31.59 N in the beginning, and changes to 26.01 N and 26.87 N in the period of 30 and 60 min
vibration time respectively.
5. While the elasticity modulus is 1423 kPa in the beginning these are 1203.7 kPa and 1076.7 kPa in 30 min and
60 min periods respectively.
6. Natural frequency of berry was calculated as on 109.332 Hz. This frequency was obtained in box height of
1.42 m.
7. Table grape variety Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.) grown in Karaman Turkey have been found resistance to
transportation.

References
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Aydın, C. (1993). Bazı biyolojik malzemede titreşim etkilerinin belirlenmesi. [Determination of the vibration effects on some
biological materials.] PhD Thesis, Department of Agricultural Mechanisation, Graduate School of Natural Applied Sciences,
Selçuk University, Konya, Turkey.
Bollen, A.F., Wead, I. &amp; Dela Rue, B.T. (1994). Compression forces and damage in the postharvest handling system, Harvest
and postharvest technologies for fresh fruits and vegetables, Guanajuato, Mexico, February 20-24, 1995.
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463

�</text>
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KARA, Zeki
CARMAN, Kazım</text>
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                <text>Table grapes is a second industry in viticulture in Turkey and have been grown in  primarily Mediterranean region a popular fruit for local consumption and export to many  European and Asian countries as a fresh dessert and for this reason this product has to be  transport so long distances for marketing. This simulated export transit experiment with  Bardas (Vitis vinifera L.) local table grape cultivar grown in Karaman province was conducted  in lab condition Selcuk University Faculty of Agriculture. To produce main knowledge, and  to improve the application of resources used to produce, pack, transport, and merchandise  Turkish table grapes by increasing efficiency, controlling cost and managing risk throughout  the supply chain. In order to develop optimized methods of reducing table grape damage  transport stimulatory as vibration stimulator have been used to measure the shocks and  vibrations in market bins during 30 min and 60 min transport stimulation. During road  transport simulation at 25°C in wooden boxes damages of clusters and berries were measured  by laboratory trials to stimulate the events in a controlled and repeatable manner. 3 bins full  of fruits were placed onto a vibration table, and during the stimulation three-load profile  sensor were placed inside each of bins. While the number of separated berry was determined  as a 31.33 in 30 min, the number was 83.10 in vibration period of 60 min. Starting with the  beginning the numbers separate resistance of berry, resistance to cracking of berry and  elasticity modulus is continuously lowering in 30-60 min vibration periods. The berry  separate resistance from cluster were changing between 4.46 N to 1.73 N, and berry cracking  resistance were measured between 31.59 N to 26.01 N, and berry elasticity modulus were  obtained as between 1423 kPa to 1076.7 kPa. Natural frequency of berry was calculated as on  109.332 Hz that was obtained in of 1.42 m box height.</text>
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                    <text>2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Performance and Satisfaction of Work as Characteristics of Human Capital
(Comparative Analysis of Some Indicators of Human Capital in Several
Balkan Countries)
Alexi DANCHEV
Department of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Fatih University, Turkey
adanchev@fatih.edu.tr
Erkan ĠLGÜN
Department of Management
International Burch University, Bosnia and Herzegovina
eilguen@ibu.edu.ba
Abstract: The paper analyses the role of such elements of human capital as
performance and satisfaction of work for its further improvement. It is indicated that
due to its complex nature human capital is a core element in many sides of
development. Basic results of a survey of human capital carried out in Turkey,
Bosnia and Bulgaria are discussed. The multifarious effects of human capital are
analyzed indicating in particular the specific functions of performance and
satisfaction of work in its growth. From this perspective the authors look for a
broader vision of the role of satisfaction of work and its link with the performance to
improve the skill and knowledge regarded as basic indicators of human capital. The
conclusion is that despite regional differences the performance and satisfaction of
work are highly correlated with the income and the social setting within the team the
respondents work.

Introduction
The interest in the influence of human factors on economic growth and development is increasing,
which is result of many reasons. The main rationale maybe the understanding that while in the post-war
restoration of the world economy capital is of a crucial importance, nowadays human factors are decisive for the
success and survival in the sharply increasing competition in the global economy due to advantages given by the
new technologies. More and more the elements influencing human behavior in the reproduction process become
predominant in the theoretical and empirical studies on growth and development.
The present paper follows this tradition. It is aimed at tracing out the influence of such basic elements of
human capital as performance and satisfaction of job. We give short theoretical survey on the basic visions of the
role of performance and satisfaction of job in the human capital literature. Next we proceed with the empirical
study of the level of performance and satisfaction of job in three Balkan countries: Turkey, Bosnia and Bulgaria.
Finally we conclude.

The Theoretical Background
Human capital is the basic category, which reflects the contribution of labor to growth and
development. In the past it was interpreted as the level of education and experience (learning by doing, Arrow,
1962 and Sheshinski, 1967), which was complemented to the labor force indicators as for example the Harrodneutral technological progress, (Barro, and Sala-i-Martin, 2003).
While in the classic model of growth labor was included into the production function (the basic growth
model) as
Y = A(t)KαL1-α
the attempts to find more correct reflection of the labor contribution to growth resulted in the introduction of new
indicator – human capital as an exponential improvement of the quality of labor force mainly by means of
learning by doing mechanism.
Y = A(t)KαL[Leht)]1-α
ht
where e is the exponential improvement of the quality of labor force.
Nowadays it is clear that this very essential approach to such complicated factor of production as labor
is too far from outlining a realistic picture of the actual contribution of labor to growth. There are many reasons

225

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

to recommend the need for further improvements. First, human capital creation depends strongly on the health
status of the individuals, which is reflected by the health human capital indicator already commonly accepted in
the Development literature. The health is however not the only indicator necessary for more correct reflection of
labor force contribution to growth. People must be first of all satisfied with the current job they are employed
and next to be motivated to work further. Besides, we think that the job performance is standing on higher level
of contributive elements than satisfaction in sense than people may be motivated to work for many reasons one
of which can be the satisfaction to work.
Thus, we can complement the growth model with a new one, which describes the job performance as
JP = f(S, X1, X2, X3….Xn)
Where JP is the job performance
S – Satisfaction of work
X1, X2, X3 …Xn – factors influencing the performance.
The very satisfaction is however also function of other factors, some of which are common with the
performance model. So S = f(Z1, Z2, Z3…..Zn). We think of performance and satisfaction as subsets of human
capital set in which JP U S → HC.
Among the elements included into this set we can define:
1. Money paid for the job
2. Social surrounding
3. Social importance of the job
4. Nice spending of time
5. Team-working satisfaction feeling.
The choice of the variables was result of a scrutinize literature survey covering economic, social,
psychological and other studies on job performance and satisfaction. In most general terms job performance is
commonly identified with productivity. Kostiuk P. and Follmann D. (1989) are studying the effect of the on-thejob learning, experience and the individual characteristics on productivity regarding it as an indication of job
performance. Bishop (1990) however underlines that ―while job matching is an important phenomenon at most
small- and medium-sized establishments, it does not account for a significant share of the rise in average
productivity that occurs in the first year of tenure on the job‖.
The deeper roots of the job performance and satisfaction are coming from the value system of the
individuals, which origin was studying by Halaby (2003) paper of the link between the performance and the
entrepreneurial ability of ―the willingness to accept responsibility and the capacity to process information for the
purpose of effective problem-solving and decision-making under varying conditions‖. Halaby provides detailed
study of the entrepreneurial ability as a function of cognitive ability and talent, as well as ―decision-making and
problem-solving skills acquired through experience or schooling‖.
Wise (1975) early studies provide econometric estimations of job performance measured as the rate of
salary increase assumed to be adjusted ―to match individual performance‖. He found out that ―job performance,
as measured by rate of salary increase, was not only correlated with academic achievement but the evidence
suggested that mastery of academic subject matter contributed to an individual's ability to perform job-related
tasks‖.
Concerning the satisfaction of job a big variety of studies provide various evidences of its influence on
the formation of human capital. The attempts to develop a theory of job satisfaction dates back to 1970‘s with
incorporating differences in work values and perceived job characteristics as ―key explanatory variables‖
(Kalleberg, 1977). The theoretical backgrounds are empirically testing the relationship between job satisfaction
and such indicators as work values, job rewards associated with ―six dimensions of work-intrinsic, convenience,
financial, relations with co-workers, career opportunities and resource adequacy‖.
By highlighting the job satisfaction over the whole life-cycle of individuals Kalleberg and Loscocco
(1983) underline the importance of nonwork roles for explaining work-role outcomes. Two explanations are
formulated concerning the link between the age and job satisfaction: one that ―the relationship between age and
satisfaction is the result of generational differences in education and value systems (i.e., a cohort explanation)‖
and second, that ―this relationship is simply a function of older workers having moved into better jobs across
their careers (i.e., a life cycle explanation)‖. Janson and Martin (1982) find out that neither explanation is
adequate, leaving the question of what accounts for higher levels of satisfaction of older workers unresolved‖.
Since that time there is not a sufficient support of these two explanations.
Most of the literature however unambiguously indicates the direct link between education (the basic
factor of human capital) and job satisfaction. Glenn and Weaver (1982) empirically estimate that ―the total effect
of education is positive for both sexes but is considerably stronger for women than for men‖.

226

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Short Characteristics of Human Capital in the Balkan area
It is difficult to present a short characteristic of human capital in the Balkan area as it is a category with
multifarious dimensions. Normally the share of expenditure on education in GDP is regarded as the most general
indicator at least as a necessary precondition for generating of human capital. It is presented in table 1 for the last
two decades, which are a period of big transformations in the Balkans. Nevertheless, the dynamics of this
indicator shows that there is not a big gap between the Balkan countries and the rest of Euroarea and the middle
income countries.

Country

Years
1990

2000

2008

Albania

6

3

3

Croatia

7

4

5

Bulgaria

5

4

4

Greece

2

3

3

Romania

3

3

3

Serbia

..

2

4

Slovenia

..

6

6

Turkey

2

3

4

Euroarea

5

4

5

Middle income countries

4

4

4

Table 1: The share of total expenditure on education as a % of GDP.
Source: World Development Indicators on Line, (2010)
http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/report.do?method=showReport
More synthetic measure of the state of human capital in the Balkan area is given by the UNDP‘s Human
Development index (HDI), which ―is a summary composite index that measures a country's average
achievements in three basic aspects of human development: health, knowledge, and a decent standard of living‖
(UNDP, 2010). The dynamics of this indicator for the last three decades (Table 2) unambiguously indicates
convergence of the Balkan area to the advanced Western European economies, which is a good precondition for
further improvement of the quality of human capital in the area. The detailed analysis of the basic components of
the HDI reveals various details indicating the difficulties in this process. Not only increased funding is needed in
the crucial sectors forming human capital, serious institutional adjustment is also required to overcome the
difficulties of the transformation process in the formally centrally-planned economies in the area.
HDI
rank
8
22
25
29
45
61
63
67
70

Country
code
FRA
DEU
GRC
SVN
HRV
BGR
ROM
SRB
ALB

76
79

BIH
TUR

Country name
France
Germany
Greece
Slovenia
Croatia
Bulgaria
Romania
Serbia
Albania
Bosnia
and
Herzegovina
Turkey

1980
0.876
0.869
0.844
..
..
..
..
..
..

1985
0.888
0.877
0.857
..
..
..
..
..
..

1990
0.909
0.896
0.872
0.853
0.817
..
0.786
..
..

1995
0.927
0.919
0.874
0.861
0.811
..
0.780
..
..

2000
0.941
..
0.895
0.892
0.837
0.803
0.788
0.797
0.784

2005
0.956
0.942
0.935
0.918
0.862
0.829
0.824
0.817
0.811

2006
0.958
0.945
0.938
0.924
0.867
0.835
0.832
0.821
0.814

2007
0.961
0.947
0.942
0.929
0.871
0.840
0.837
0.826
0.818

..
0.628

..
0.674

..
0.705

..
0.730

..
0.758

0.803
0.796

0.807
0.802

0.812
0.806

Table 2: HDI is the Balkan countries for the period 1980 – 2007.
Source: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2010, http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/

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�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

The Study
The role of performance and job satisfaction as preconditions for improvement of human capital cannot
be revealed by means of the official statistics, they are to be obtained by interviewing. Due to a project funded
by the Research fund of Fatih University data have been collected about the quality of human capital in three
Balkan countries: Turkey, Bosnia and Bulgaria. Although the collection of data is still on-going some ideas
about the role of performance and satisfaction of job on the formation of human capital can be formulated to
trace out the influence of human capital on growth more correctly.
The sample includes 426 interviews from Turkish citizen, 275 interviews from Bosnian citizens and 182
interviews from Bulgarian citizens. The samples are not representative so the results should be cautiously
interpreted.
The performance and job satisfaction were measured mainly by 5-scale level. Special attention has been
paid on the estimation of the match between the level of skill and knowledge on one hand and the requirements
of the present job on the other. The respondents have been asked by 5-scale codes to declare do they think they
have the skill and knowledge sufficiently enough to complete their job properly.
Among the factors influencing the ability and willingness to work (the basic elements of labor supply)
the respondents have to scale out:
1. The rise of the level of skill and knowledge they possess.
2. The efficiency of management in the firm they work in.
3. The problems in their personal life and health.
4. The state of economy in their country
5. The state of the world economy

Findings
Below we report only the basic characteristics of the indicators measuring job performance and
satisfaction. Detailed study of the links between these two indicators and the factors influencing their behavior
will be published after the completion of the collection of data.
The salary promotion as an indicator of job performance commonly used in the research studies reflects
only one side of the problem. Outside the attention remains another very important aspect of the job
performance: how the very respondents estimate their own performance. Certainly this is a subjective measure of
the performance, nevertheless it is important to know the own vision of their status and to juxtapose it with the
carrier promotion. Such a comparison may provide very interesting information for many sides beyond the job
performance. For example the gap between the carrier promotion (income growth) and the self estimation can be
regarded as a proxy of the level of corruption in society. On the other hand however it is well known fact that
normally everybody pretends to receive more than he actually deserves - an old tradition in the Balkan (and not
only in the Balkans of course). Our study provides information was based on the self-estimation principle: the
respondents had to declare their own estimation of their job performance during the current year and the last
three years. The results of the interviewing are indicated in table 3.
Level
of
performance
1. Lowest
2.
3.
4.
5. Highest
No.
of
answers

Turkey
Current year
0.7%
2.4%
18.2%
51.7%
27.0%
422

Bosnia
Last 3 years
0.7%
3.1%
17.9%
51.0%
27.3%
418

Current year
0.4%
0.8%
17.9%
58.9%
22.1%
263

Bulgaria
Last 3 years
1.1%
1.1%
19.5%
58.0%
20.2%
262

Current year
0.0%
1.7%
9.1%
44.6%
44.6%
175

Last 3 years
0.0%
1.1%
11.3%
40.7%
46.9%
177

Table 3: Self-estimation of job performance
As a whole the picture is of a relatively stable short-run dynamics (the last three years) of the job
performance in the countries of observation. This is an evidence of the stability of this indicator, which
accumulates the influence of many factors.
The level of satisfaction of job is measured in the similar way – by means of 5-scale discrete choice
presented in table 4. It is distributed as follows:
Level of satisfaction
Turkey
Bosnia
Bulgaria
1. Lowest
1.4%
1.1%
3.9%

228

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

2.
3.
4.
5. Highest

8.3%
33.7%
43.9%
12.7%

2.3%
19.9%
53.8%
22.9%

7.9%
37.1%
42.1%
9.0%

Table 4. The level of satisfaction of job
The influence of the factors on the level of job satisfaction has been measured in two aspects: factors
influencing high level of satisfaction and factors influencing low level of satisfaction. Several factors influencing
positively the level of satisfaction of job have been formulated, namely:
1. Giving good money to enjoy the life
2. Ability to meet very good friends
3. The understanding of the social importance of the job
4. Spending time very nicely during the working hours
5. The pleasure to work with the team.
The respondents rank the presented above alternatives in the following way: Bulgarian respondents
(136) give highest rank on the giving money to enjoy the life (29.4%) as the reason for the high level of job
satisfaction, followed by the understanding of the social importance of job (alternative 3) – 25,0% and the
pleasure to work with the team 19.1%. The ability to meet very good friends and the spending time very nicely
during the working hours have equal ranking of 13.2% (weighted average 30). Turkish respondents (366) are
distributed in the following way: 47.9% are satisfied from their job because it gives them money to enjoy the
life, 18.7% are satisfied as they find their job socially important, 12.7% enjoy their job because it gives them
ability to meet very good friends, 11.8% have a pleasure to work with the team and 8.8% are satisfied as they
spend very nice their time during the working hours. The Bosnian respondents are more evenly distributed in the
voting for their job satisfaction: like the previous respondents they give highest share of the job as a source of
having money to enjoy the life (33,4%), followed by almost equal share of the understanding of the social
importance of their work (22.2%) and the pleasure to work with the team (21.4%). Almost equal share is given
to the understanding of social importance of their job (11.7%) and the spending time very nicely during the
working hours (11.3%).
The results look quite realistic and allowing to draw important conclusions: there is a big resemblance
of the factors influencing satisfaction of job among the compared countries. Quite normal sounds the
predominance of the materially-related motivations as having money to enjoy the life followed by the social
importance of the performed job in all countries. It is also indication of our ability to create a network of data
collection producing comparable results despite the restriction of the non-representative sample.
Similar is the picture also related to the opposite side of job satisfaction – the reasons leading to its low
level. Although in all countries the answers of this question are small, nevertheless they are important for better
understanding of the reasons for dissatisfaction of job. Bulgarian sample has only 43 answer of the ranking of
reasons leading to low job satisfaction. The biggest share of the answers (65.1) is due to the too low level of
payment, followed by the unpleasant atmosphere in the team respondent works with (18,6%), uselessness of the
job for society (9.3%) and the job as boring and irritating activity (7%). The Turkish respondents (120 answers)
are distributed in the following way: Too low level of payment is indicated as the reason for low level of
satisfaction of job by 57.5%, 15.0% indicate as such a reason the unpleasant atmosphere in the team the
respondent works with, 14.2% as the job is found as boring and irritating, 8.4% as finding the job useless for
society and 5% as the lack of interesting persons in the firm. Bosnian respondents (52 answers) find the basic
reason for dissatisfaction of job the low level of payment (67.3%), following by boring and irritating work
(11.5%), the unpleasant atmosphere in the team the respondent works with (9.6%), with equal share (5.8%) of
the uselessness of the job for society and the lack of interesting persons in the firm.
Important information related both the job performance and satisfaction was hidden into the present and
past vision of the respondents for the correspondence between their level of experience and knowledge on one
hand and the adequate completion of the tasks they were responsible for - on the other. As to the present
correspondence between the level of experience and knowledge and the present job half of the Turkish
respondents thing it is good, 28.8%, - very good, 18.4% - average, 1.2% - low and 0.9% - very low. This
distribution for the Bulgarian respondents (174) is: 55.7% - very high, 32.2% - high, 7.5% - average and 4.6% low (0 answer of very low). The Bosnian respondents (270) give the following ranking of the correspondence
between the level of experience and knowledge and the completion of the tasks of the present job: 38.9% - very
high level of correspondence. 48.5% - high level, 11.9% - average level and by 0.4% for the low and very low
levels.
The distributions of the same problem for the past are as follows: Turkish respondents (420): 22.6% very high , 54.0% - high , 21.4% - average, 1.4% - low and 0.5% - very low; Bulgarian respondents (174): 45.4%

229

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

- very high, 35.1% - high, 15.5% - average, 3.4% - low and 0.6% - very low; Bosnian respondents (263): 31.9%
as very high, 52.9% as high, 13.3% as average, 1.1% as low and 0.8% as very low.
The presented above analysis is an evidence of big similarity in the mechanisms of creating human
capital in the compared Balkan countries related to such a basic characteristics of human capital and job
performance and satisfaction. This is a good indicator of the expectations for their further successful integration
and accession to the EU – an ongoing tendency and strategic aim of the economic policy in the whole Balkans.

Conclusions
The presented above results of the empirical study of performance and job satisfaction as elements of
human capital indicate that there are good preconditions for its further growth and improvement in the selected
Balkan countries. There is a definite need for increasing the expenditure of R&amp;D and education to materialize
these preconditions in real contributions to the economic growth of the region.
The collected information which is still on-going allows constructing various models of revealing
various sides of human capital and the ability of its improvement of the aims of reaching sustainable
development in the area.
Acknowledgements:
The work on this paper has been possible due to the project ―Managing human capital for the aims of
sustainable development (case study of some Balkan countries)" supported by the Scientific Research Fund
of Fatih University under the project number P51010901_1. We express our thanks for the ability to use this
support.

References
Arrow, K. J. (1963). Human Choice and Individual Values, 2nd edition. New Haven, Conn; Yale University Press.
Barro R. J. &amp; Sala-i-Martin X. (2003). Economic Growth, Second Edition, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bishop J. H. (1990). Job Performance, Turnover, and Wage Growth, Journal of Labor Economics, (pp. 363-386), 8(3).
Glenn N. D. &amp; Weaver Ch. N. (1982). Further Evidence on Education and Job Satisfaction, Social Forces, (pp. 46-55), 61(1).
Halaby Ch. N. (2003). Where Job Values Come from: Family and Schooling Background, Cognitive Ability, and Gender,
American Sociological Review, (pp. 251-278), 68(2).
Janson Ph. &amp; Martin J. K. (1982). Source Job Satisfaction and Age: A Test of Two Views, Social Forces, (p. 1089) 60(4).
Kalleberg A.L. &amp; Loscocco K. A. (1983). Aging, Values, and Rewards: Explaining Age Differences in Job Satisfaction.
American Sociological Review, (p. 89), 48(1).
Kalleberg A.L., (1977). Work Values and Job Rewards: A Theory of Job Satisfaction. American Sociological
Review,(p.124), 42.
Kostiuk P. F. &amp; Follmann D. A. (1989). Learning Curves, Personal Characteristics, and Job Performance, Journal of Labor
Economics (pp. 129-146), 7 (2), 129-146.
Sheshinski, E. (1967). Optimal Accumulation with Learning by Doing. In Karl Shell (Ed), Essays on the Theory of Optimal
Economic Growth, (pp.31-52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2010, http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/
Wise, D. A. (1975). Personal Attributes, Job Performance, and Probability of Promotion. Econometrica, (p. 913), 43(5/6)
World Development Indicators on Line. (2010).
http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/report.do?method=showReport

230

�</text>
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                <text>Performance and Satisfaction of Work as Characteristics of Human Capital  (Comparative Analysis of Some Indicators of Human Capital in Several  Balkan Countries)</text>
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ILGÜN, Erkan</text>
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                <text>The paper analyses the role of such elements of human capital as  performance and satisfaction of work for its further improvement. It is indicated that  due to its complex nature human capital is a core element in many sides of  development. Basic results of a survey of human capital carried out in Turkey,  Bosnia and Bulgaria are discussed. The multifarious effects of human capital are  analyzed indicating in particular the specific functions of performance and  satisfaction of work in its growth. From this perspective the authors look for a  broader vision of the role of satisfaction of work and its link with the performance to  improve the skill and knowledge regarded as basic indicators of human capital. The  conclusion is that despite regional differences the performance and satisfaction of  work are highly correlated with the income and the social setting within the team the  respondents work.</text>
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                    <text>Parameters Affecting Anaerobic Color Removal of Textile Wastewaters:
An Overview
Kevser Cırık
Suleyman Demirel University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Isparta, Turkey
kewss_@hotmail.com
Özer Çınar
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
ocinar@alumni.clemson.edu

Abstract: Release of colored wastewaters represents a major environmental problem
worldwide due to the toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity of the dyes and their
breakdown products. Therefore much attention has been focused on the effective treatment of
dyes discharged from the dying and textile industries. The most widely used dyes in industries
are azo dyes which require anaerobic and aerobic phases for their complete biodegradation.
Color is removed under anaerobic conditions in which azo dyes act an electron acceptor.
Further, aerobic conditions are essential for removal of breakdown products which are known
resist to biodegradation under anaerobic conditions. Thus using both anaerobic and aerobic
stages represents both decolorization and mineralization of azo dyes. Anaerobic stage is the
first and the most important phase for color removal, however; decolorization can be affected
by so many parameters such as; organic carbon source added, microorganisms selected, dye
structure, cycle time, sludge age, and alternative electron acceptors involved. This review
article summarizes the results of several research studies dealing with the factors affecting
anaerobic color removal efficiency.

Introduction
Increased population and developments in industrialization have resulted in higher use of textile products
leading to release of its huge amount of wastewaters to the environment. Actually the main problem related to
the textile wastewaters is colored effluents. There are so many types of dyestuffs used in textile industry to give
its color to the fabrics Dye is the most difficult constituent of the textile wastewater to treat since they are
synthetic and typically derived from coal tar and petroleum based intermediates. It is estimated that almost 109
kg of dyes are produced annually in the word, of which azo dyes represent about 70% by weight (Dos Santos et
al., 2007). Azo dyes are characterized by nitrogen to nitrogen double bonds (N=N). The major problem
associated with the dyes and their breakdown products is their toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. Their
discharge into surface water leads to aesthetic problems and adversely affecting to aquatic life. To overcome this
problem, much attention has been focused on the effective treatment of dyes discharged from the dying and
textile industries. There are many reports on the use of chemical and physical methods for color removal
(Cooper, 1993; Hao et al., 2000; Dos Santos et al., 2007). The most commonly used chemical and physical
treatment methods for dye-containing textile-processing wastewaters are chemical oxidation, chemical
flocculation and settling, adsorption, membrane filtration and ion exchange. By these existing physical and
chemical color removal methods, color is generally concentrated in the sludge or colored molecules are partly
removed. Moreover, formation of large amounts of sludge and economical limitations presents disadvantages of
these methods. Alternatively, biological methods are commonly considered to be the most effective treatment
applications since they present lower operating costs and improved applicability (Shaw et al., 2002; Lourenço et
al., 2001).
It is known that several microorganisms; such as fungi, bacteria and algae; can decolorize many azo dyes
(Pandey et al., 2007). In this review we will focus on the bacterial decolorization. Bacterial decolorization
applied for textile effluents are based on anaerobic and aerobic treatment. Under anaerobic conditions, azo dyes
are readily cleaved generating aromatic amines. The required electrons are provided by electron donating carbon
sources which can be glucose, acetate, volatile fatty acids (VFAs). Hence, azo dye acts as electron acceptor and
organic matters act as electron donor under anaerobic conditions. Electrons released from oxidation of electron
donor directly accepted by azo dyes which results in azo linkage and color removal. Although these process the

571

�remove color of the wide range of azo dyes dyes, they do not completely mineralize the aromatic amines generated
in the anaerobic environment with few exceptions (Brown and Laboureur, 1983). However due to the carcinogenic
effects treatment of the aromatic amines is essential. It is known that some of the aromatic amines can be biodegraded
under aerobic conditions (Brown and Hamburger 1987; Seshadri et al. 1994; Carliell et al. 1995). Combination of
anaerobic and aerobic conditions is therefore the most convenient concept for treating colored wastewaters (Haug et al.,
1991; Zaoyan et al., 1992; Seshadri et al., 1994; Kudlich et al., 1996; Hu, 1998).
This review article summarizes the results of several research studies dealing with combined anaerobic-aerobic
SBRs. Since anaerobic stage is the first and the most important phase for color removal, parameters affecting color
removal should be determined to achieve desirable treatment. Therefore, this review study especially presents the
problems dealing with anaerobic color removal. Anaerobic color removal can be affected by so many parameters such
as; organic carbon source added, microorganisms selected, dye structure, cycle time, sludge age, and alternative
electron acceptors involved. Therefore, factors affecting anaerobic color removal efficiency are briefly discussed in
subsequent sections.

Factors Affecting Anaerobic Color Removal Efficiency
As mentioned before, anaerobic phase is the first stage of decolorization process starting with the
formation of intermediary aromatic amines by reductive cleavage of the azo bond (Walker 1970; Wuhrmann et
al., 1980; Haug et al., 1991; Blumel et al., 1998). The schematic diagram of enzymatic dye reduction is depicted
in Figure 1. The research papers reviewed are proved that color removal is mainly associated with the anaerobic
stage of the SBR, however; contribution of aerobic stage is almost none. Therefore, this review study especially
presents the problems dealing with anaerobic phase of SBRs. Since most of the azo dyes can be decolorized
under anaerobic conditions, anaerobic biodegradation seems to be nonspecific. Nevertheless; decolorization can
be affected by so many parameters such as; organic carbon source added, microorganisms selected, dye structure,
cycle time, sludge age, and alternative electron acceptors involved. Therefore, factors affecting anaerobic color
removal efficiency are briefly discussed in subsequent sections.

Figure 1. Enzymatic azo dye reduction, adapted from Subst., substrate or primary electron donor;
Subst.oxid, products of substrate oxidation (Dos Santos et al., 2007)

Microorganism
In most of the reported processes of azo dye biodegradation, a wide range of organisms are found to
reduce azo compounds such as bacteria, algae, and fungi. Azo dyes are generally known to resist aerobic
bacterial biodegradation with the exception of bacteria with specialized azo dye reducing enzymes. Bacterial
strains which can anerobically reduce azo dyes, cannot utilize dye as the growth substrate, therefore; require
organic carbon sources. There are only a few bacteria that are able to grow on azo dyes as the sole carbon source.
Aromatic amines resulting from reductive cleavage of azo bond can be used as a carbon and energy source for
bacterial growth. Like carbon source, a nitrogen source is also essential for decolorization process with exception
of bacteria that can be used azo dyes as a nitrogen source. As reported before, ammonium chloride is the most
suitable among all nitrogen sources for SBR studies, since nitrate is believed that it is a better electron acceptor
than azo bond (Wang et al., 2008). Based on the previous publications, azo dye can be reduced by azoreductasecatalyzed reduction under anaerobic conditions. But still there is a speculation whether bacterial flavin
reductases are responsible for the azo reductase activity observed with bacterial cell extracts. In a published
report, it was reported that flavin reductases are indeed able to act as azo reductases (Russ et al., 2000). Bacteria
produce extracellular oxidative enzymes which are relatively non-specific enzymes catalyzing the oxidation of a
variety of dyes. It was reported that there are so many diverse groups of bacteria playing role in decolorization. It
has been also reported that mixed microbial community could reduce various azo dyes and members of the γproteabacteria and sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) were found to prominent members of mixed bacterial
population by using molecular methods to determine the microbial population dynamics (Pandey et al., 2007).

572

�Dye Structure
It appears that almost every azo compound that has been tested is biologically reduced under anaerobic
conditions, nevertheless; though similar conditions were provided, different color removal efficiencies were
achieved. This indicates that, dye structure is important when investigating biological color removal by SBRs. It
was reported that metal-ion containing dyes can have adverse effect on decolorization efficiency (Chung et al.,
1978; Brown and De Vito 1993). It has been also reported that azo compounds with methyl, methoxy, sulpho or
nitro groups being less likely to biodegrade than the others with a hydroxyl or amino group (Zimmermann et al.,
1982; Claus et al., 2002). Azo dyes with a limited membrane permeability such as; sulfonated azo dyes, cannot
be reduced by intracellularly (Stolz, 2001).
Cycle Time
Though cycle time plays an important role in the SBR for the decolorization process, not so many reports
are found in literature. The long retention times are often applied in the anaerobic phase of the reactor studies
such as 18h, 21h. In several studies, it was reported that there is a positive correlation between the anaerobic
cycle time and color removal (Kapdan et al., 2003; Albuquerque et al., 2005). Indeed, in combined anaerobicaerobic SBRs, since bacteria shifted from aerobic to anaerobic conditions, or vice versa; anaerobic azo reductase
enzyme can be adversely affected from aerobic conditions which are essential for aromatic amine removal,
thereby resulting in insufficient color removal rate. To investigate the effect of cycle time on biodegradation of
azo dyes, Çınar et al. (2008) operated SBR in three different total cycle times (48-h, 24-h and 12-h), fed with a
synthetic textile wastewater. The results indicated that decrease in anaerobic cycle time, the system performance
on color removal is not adversely affected; on the contrary, both color removal efficiency and COD removal
efficiency are slightly improved.
Sludge Age
The sludge retention time (SRT) is known as very important operational parameter for color removal in
SBR system. To obtain efficient color removal rate, adequate microbial population is desired. It was reported
that 10 days sludge retention time remained insufficient to obtain adequate population, and to ensure the color
removal, sludge retention time was increased to 15 day (Lourenço et al., 2001).
Redox Mediators
Since long retention times are often applied in the anaerobic phase of the SBR, it can be concluded that
reduction of many azo dyes is a relatively slow process. Reactor studies indicate that however; by using redox
mediators; which are compounds that accelerate electron transfer from a primary electron donor (co-substrate) to
a terminal electron acceptor (azo dye), azo dye reduction can be increased (Keck et al., 2002; Kudlich et al.,
1997). By this way, higher decolorization rates can be achieved in SBRs operated with a low hydraulic retention
time (HRT) (Cervantes et al., 2001; Dos Santos et al., 2003). Flavin enzyme cofactors, such as flavin adenide
dinucleotide (FAD), flavin adenide mononucleotide (FMN) and riboflavin as well as several quinone compounds
such as AQS, AQDS and lawsone have been found as redox mediators (Semde et al., 1998; Cervantes et al.,
2000; Rau et al.,2002a; Rau et al.,2002b).Though accelerating effect of redox mediators is proved, differences in
electro-chemical factors between mediator and azo dye is limiting factor for this application. It was reported that
redox mediator applied for biological azo dye reduction must have redox potential between the half reactions of
the azo dye and the primary electron donor (van der Zee et al., 2003). The standard redox potential for different
azo dyes is screened generally between -430 and -180 mV (Dubin and Wright 1975).
Alternative Electron Acceptors
Decolorization of azo dyes starts by reductive cleavage of azo bond. Electrons releasing from oxidation of
organic compounds in the wastewaters goes through the azo dye and cleaves the azo bond. As anaerobic color
removal occurs by the way of reduction of the azo dye which acts a final electron acceptor in the microbial
electron transport chain, existing different electron acceptors in anaerobic zone can be assessed as limiting factor
for the dye removal. Alternative electron acceptors such as oxygen, nitrate, sulfate and ferric ion; may compete
with the azo dye for reducing equivalents, and resulting in insufficient color removals under anaerobic
conditions. Electron flow preference as a function of the different electron couples is depicted in Figure 2. Among the
electron acceptors involved in electron transport chain, oxygen is the most effective electron acceptor. Anaerobic
reactors in full-scale treatment systems are designed as open to the atmosphere. The effect of oxygen entering
anaerobic reactors through the surface is generally assumed to be negligible since surface area is small relative to

573

�the reactor volume. Oxygen can get into the anaerobic reactors of waste water treatment plants with the mixed
liquor recirculated from the aerobic zone and mixing. The impact of oxygen on anaerobic color removal
efficiency becomes progressively larger when it is thought that oxygen is the most effective electron acceptor on
the electron transport chain. Researchers have reported that decolorization is significantly affected from the,
high-redox-potential electron acceptor, dissolved oxygen. This is because; released electrons by oxidation of
organic compounds are preferentially used to reduce oxygen rather than the azo dye. Oxygen has an adverse
effect on decolorization under anaerobic conditions, therefore; facultative or obligate anaerobes are necessary for
azo dye reduction (Chang and Kuo, 2000). Inhibition of azo reductase activity by oxygen was also reported for
Pseudomonas luteola (Chung and Stevens, 1993; Blumel et al., 1998). Indeed, NADH leads to bacterial
biodegradation of azo dyes by acting electron donor. In the case of the fact that oxygen is the electron acceptor,
the consumption of NADH by oxidative phosphorylation can adversely affect the enzymatic decolorization of
azo dye. In a recent study results also suggested that the presence of oxygen inhibits azo decolorization when the
dissolved oxygen concentration in the medium was higher than 0.5 mg/L (Xu et al, 2007). This is mainly due to
the adverse effect of the molecular oxygen on anaerobic azo reductase enzyme.

Figure 2. Electron flow preference as a function of the different electron couples, RM and RMreduc are the
oxidized and the reduced form of the redox mediator, respectively (Dos Santos et al., 2007)
Among the electron acceptors involved in electron transport chain, nitrate is the second effective electron
acceptor. Nitrate is normally found in textile processing wastewaters and generally coming from the salts such as,
sodium nitrate which is included in dye baths for the improvement of dye fixation to the textile fibers. Nitrate
concentrations used during textile processing can reach 40–100 g/l (Carliell et al., 1998). The importance of
nitrate in anaerobic phase of SBR is that nitrate can compete with the azo dye for the reducing equivalents
formed and resulting in decreasing decolorization (Carliell et al., 1995; Carliell et al., 1998, Lourenço et al.,
2001; Panswad et al., 2000; Wuhrmann et al., 1980). Wuhrmann et al (1980) was reported that azo dye cannot be
decolorized until denitrification ends up. Like nitrate, sulfate is also a constitute of textile processing
wastewaters. Sulfate is generally added to the dye baths for ionic strength adjustment or it may be formed by the
oxidation of sulfur species used in dyeing processes, such as sulfide, hydrosulfide, and dithionite (van der Zee et
al., 2003). There are so many reports highlighting different effects of sulfate on azo dye degradation. It seems
that in the presence of sulfate, decolorization may be rather stimulated than competitively suppressed (Carliell et
al., 1995; Carliell et al., 1998; Panswad and Luangdilok, 2000; van der zee, 2003; Albuquerque et al., 2005). It
was reported that when inhibiting sulfate-reducing activity of microbial population in SBR by the addition of
molybdate, anaerobic azo dye removal efficiency is decreased. Indeed, since sulfate acts as an electron acceptor
under anaerobic conditions, may compete with the dyes for the electrons available, thus causing an adverse
effect on the decolorizing process. However; microbial population and sulfate concentration is also important for
the reactions taking place during anaerobic phase. High sulfate concentrations are found to adversely affect
decolorization unless sufficient amount of substrate is supplied to overcome the negative effects of elevated
concentrations of sulfate (Cervantes et al., 2007). Furthermore; when sulfate is reduced under these conditions
by sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB); sulfide, which is known as bulk reductant, is generated and can in turn serve
as an electron donor. Sulfide generation is found to also contribute to the reduction of azo dyes. It is also
reported that cofactors involved during microbial reduction of sulfate such as; cytochrome C3 (-205 mV) and
NADH (-324 mV); have appropriate redox potential. Therefore, can channel the electrons to azo dyes.

574

�Meanwhile, the redox potentials with more positive of the dye reduction than the redox potential of biological
sulfate reduction (-220 mV) can be accelerated by sulfate. It was also reported articles that ferric iron can act as
an electron acceptor under anaerobic conditions in which azo dye reduction occurs. Like sulfate, it was found
that addition of ferric iron to the reactor stimulates the azo dye reduction. Indeed, the reactions are dealing with
the redox couple Fe (III)/Fe (II) which can act as an electron shuttle for transferring electrons from electron
donor to the electron accepting azo dye. Meanwhile, reactions of both reduction of Fe (III) to Fe (II) and
oxidation of Fe (II) to Fe (III) facilitate the electron transport from the substrate to azo dye, thus acting as an
extracellular redox mediator (Albuquerque et al., 2005).
Primary Electron Donor Type
Since anaerobic azo dye reduction is an oxidation-reduction reaction, a liable electron donor is essential
to achieve effective color removal rates. It is known that most of the bond reductions are occurred during active
bacterial growth (Nigam et al., 1996). Therefore, anaerobic azo dye reduction is extremely depended on the type
of primary electron donor. It was reported that ethanol, glucose, H2/CO2 and formate are effective electron
donors, contrarily; acetate and other volatile fatty acids are normally known as poor electron donors (Dos Santos
et al., 2003; Tan et al., 1999; Pearce et al., 2006). So far, because of the substrate itself or microorganisms
involved, with some primary substrates better color removal rates have been obtained but with others no
effective decolorization have been observed. Electron donor concentration is also important to achieve higher
color removal rates. Since there are so many reactions involved in bioreactor, competition for reducing
equivalents by other reactions may increase the required amount of primary substrate. Though in theory the
amount of electron donor per mmol monoazo dye azo is 32 mg COD, it was reported in a study that even if 60300 times higher of the stoichiometric amount is used, more electron donor source is needed (O’Neill et al.,
2000).
Dye concentratıon
In several studies, large variations in dye concentrations have been applied in the reactor studies and it
was reported that dye concentration may play a role in the decolorization process. In the case of exceeding the
reactor’s biological azo dye reduction capacity, high dye concentration may adversely affect the dye removal
efficiency and COD removal efficiency. Kapdan and Özturk (2005) reported that increasing initial dyestuff
concentration adversely affect the COD removal performance of SBR. Nevertheless; dye removal rate may be
increased by increasing dye concentrations (Cruz and Buitron, 2001). Some of the reactor studies have been
proved the possibility of azo dye toxicity to microorganisms involved in biodegradation. Though toxicity is
related to dye concentration, dye type applied is also important (Luangdilok and Panswad 2000). Metal-complex
dyes and reactive dyes are known to have toxicity effect on decolorization process from the literature (Libra et
al., 2004).

Conclusion
Azo dye containing wastewaters seems one of the most polluted wastewaters which require efficient
decolorization and subsequent aromatic amine metabolism. Based on the available literature, it can be concluded
that anaerobic- aerobic SBR operations are quite convenient for the complete biodegradation of both azo dyes
and their breakdown products. Nevertheless, like the other methods used for biological treatment, SBRs treating
colored wastewaters have some limitations. Presence of forceful alternative electron acceptors such as nitrate and
oxygen, availability of an electron donor, microorganisms, and cycle times of anaerobic and aerobic reaction
phases can be evaluated as quite significant. Though treatment of azo dye containing wastewaters needs
combined anaerobic-aerobic phases, microorganisms are subjected to continually alternating anaerobic and
aerobic conditions. Thus, it is presumable that anaerobic enzymes involved in the azo dye reduction may be
adversely affected from aerobic conditions, as well as aerobic enzymes involved in the aromatic amine
mineralization may be adversely affected from anaerobic conditions. Since little is known about the regulations
of the enzymes involved in complete biodegradation of colored wastewaters, this approach seems to need
advanced investigation to improve color removal and aromatic amine mineralization.

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                <text>Parameters Affecting Anaerobic Color Removal of Textile Wastewaters:  An Overview</text>
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Çınar, Özer</text>
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                <text>Release of colored wastewaters represents a major environmental problem  worldwide due to the toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity of the dyes and their  breakdown products. Therefore much attention has been focused on the effective treatment of  dyes discharged from the dying and textile industries. The most widely used dyes in industries  are azo dyes which require anaerobic and aerobic phases for their complete biodegradation.  Color is removed under anaerobic conditions in which azo dyes act an electron acceptor.  Further, aerobic conditions are essential for removal of breakdown products which are known  resist to biodegradation under anaerobic conditions. Thus using both anaerobic and aerobic  stages represents both decolorization and mineralization of azo dyes. Anaerobic stage is the  first and the most important phase for color removal, however; decolorization can be affected  by so many parameters such as; organic carbon source added, microorganisms selected, dye  structure, cycle time, sludge age, and alternative electron acceptors involved. This review  article summarizes the results of several research studies dealing with the factors affecting  anaerobic color removal efficiency.</text>
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                    <text>Membrane Biofilm Reactors (MBfRs) for DrinkingWater Treatment
Kevser Cırık
Suleyman Demirel University, Dept. of Environmental
Engineering, Isparta, Turkey
kewss_@hotmail.com
Emine Çutay
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of
Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
chalon_e@hotmail.com
Elif Gamze Gündoğan
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of
Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
elifgamze_gundogan@hotmail.com
Arzu Kılıç
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of
Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
arzukilic38@hotmail.com
Özer Çınar
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of
Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
ocinar@alumni.clemson.edu

Abstract: Increase demand on water resources make ground waters essential due to the fact
that surface waters don’t actually meet the water requirements for agricultural, industrial,
recreational and drinking purposes. Provided that their quality and quantity are ensured, ground
waters are a good source as drinking waters. However, they are threatened by various micro
compounds coming from industrial, municipal, and agricultural activities such as; perchlorate,
chlorinated solvents, oxidized contaminants, and heavy metals. Therefore a reliable treatment
method should be applied to remove these micropollutants. Among the treatment technologies
used for water supply, biological methods are widely used for the treatment purposes of
drinking waters. Recent studies focus on the removal of micro pollutants by using membrane
biofilm reactors (MBfRs) which allow gaseous substrate to move across the membrane for gas
delivery and support biofilm formation on the outer surface of the membrane. This paper
reviews several applications of MBfRs for water treatment.

• Introduction
Increase in population and developments in industrialization have resulted in higher use of chemicals leading to
faster transport rates between environmental compartments such as ground waters which drinking water is
mainly produced. So many pollutants are known as danger for ground waters even if in micro levels such as;
oxidized pollutants, chlorinated solvents, heavy metals and pesticides (Nerenberg and Rittmann, 2004; Modin et
al., 2008; Chung and Ritmann, 2008). These pollutants are mainly the reason for industrial, municipal, and
agricultural activities. In this respect, increasing chemical pressure on drinking water sources should be taken
into account especially to be able to meet drinking water needs. Thus, due to the harmful effect on human health,
the contamination of drinking water sources with inorganic compounds is a matter of concern. Therefore a
reliable treatment method should be applied to remove these contaminants. Technologies available for the
treatment of contaminated ground waters include physical, chemical and biological processes. Application of
chemical and physical methods has been some disadvantages due to the toxic characteristics of these
contaminants that needs to transform less toxic forms (Modin et al., 2008; Xia et al., 2009). But by the help of
chemical and physical methods, these contaminants can only be transformed other toxic forms or even more

805

�toxic. Applied chemical and physical methods includes; ion exchange, reverse osmosis, adsorption, and electro
dialysis or more than one of them. However; biological treatment methods have the advantages of being
relatively inexpensive and having the ability to completely destroy the contaminants rather than producing
another waste. Biological treatment has long been known as a promising technology that use microorganism to
remove any pollutant. Biological processes are classified as attached or suspended growth has been the most
popular treatment configuration. In attached growth processes normally occur between microorganisms and a
surface that allow microorganism to make biofilm (Hasar, 2009). Membrane biofilm reactors (MBfRs) are
among the attached growth biological treatment applications which are newly adapted technologies that allow
biofilm growing on the membrane. This configuration of the MBfR allows gaseous substrate to move across the
membrane for gas delivery and support biofilm formation on the outer surface of the membrane. This exciting
new technology for removal of contaminants from ground waters has been among the most promising trends.
Therefore, to be able to operate the membrane biofilm reactors, system configurations, applications and also
limitation of MBfRs should deeply investigated. These factors will briefly be discussed in subsequent sections.

• Main MBfR components
MBfRs are among the biological treatment technologies that let biofilm grow on the membrane fiber
where pressurized gas diffuses through the membrane lumen in order to oxidize or reduce the soluble
constituents present outside the membrane lumen. The main difference between the membrane biofilm reactors
(MBRs) and MBfRs are that MBRs are only functional to separate biomass from effluent water, be sort of
clarifier (Nerenberg, 2004). Nevertheless; in MBfRs, membranes let naturally- forming biofilm that catalyzes
desired reactions. A gaseous substrate is also essential for this treatment technology. Depending on the treatment
aims; air, oxygen, hydrogen or methane can be used as gas. Thus a gas and a membrane that allows
microorganism accumulation represent the MBfR’s main components. The main advantages in use of MBfR for
the ground water treatment purposes are that contaminants available in these waters are mostly micro levels with
toxic properties and they cannot be removed with conventional biological treatment methods. Also, biological
treatment occurs with biochemical reactions in which a substrate acts commonly an electron donor for
microorganisms. However, ground waters are lack of electron donors essential for the treatment purposes; usage
of gases electron donors and its efficiency make MBfRs solve these problems.

•

Membranes

Membranes are one of the indispensable components in MBfRs. Membranes can be made of organic and
inorganic materials. Sheet or hollow-fiber geometries are generally applied for membrane design in which
hollow-fiber membranes are commonly used.

(A)

(B)

Figure 1. (A) A bundle of hollow-fiber membranes; (B) Cutaway view of one fiber (Ritmann, 2006)
A schematic bundle of hollow fiber and a cutaway view of one fiber are represented in Figure 1. This membrane
type has very small diameter as small as 0, 1 mm and consist of large number of membranes in a module.
Materials used for hollow-fiber membranes are usually made of hydrophobic materials in order to keep their

806

�pores dry and thus make gaseous molecules diffuse much more quickly through dry pores. By this way,
efficiency of the gaseous distribution can be maintained. Dry pores also eliminate the fiber clogging from liquid
and biofilm infiltration. In Figure 2, scanning electron micrograph of pore structure on the hollow fiber
membrane is depicted.

Figure 2. Pore structure on the hollow fiber membrane (Nerenberg, 2005)
•

Biofilm

Biofilms are formed on the membrane surface naturally. They are the accumulated and attached
microorganisms and are responsible for the removal of the contaminants in the effluent. Normally biofilm-based
treatment methods supply both electron donor and/or acceptor for biofilm formation from the bulk solution via
diffusion. But the mechanism in MBfRs is rather different since electron donor, which is normally a gaseous
substrate, is diffused into the biofilm from the membrane and other from the bulk liquid.

Figure 3. Biofilm microorganisms from MBfR (Xia et al., 2009)
Figure 3 indicates the surface morphology of the hollow fiber with biofilm formation. Actually biofilm
formation is a key factor to be control since it directly affects the MBfR efficiency. It has been reported that
biofilm structure such as; thickness, density and composition is vital for MBfRs. For instance, excess biofilm
development is undesirable because of the fact that it can result in biofilm sloughing, non-uniform flow
distribution, inhibition of substrate or gas diffusion. The detachment or sloughing of biomass needs to be balanced
with biomass accumulation (Hwang et al., 2009). Hence, many researchers identified biofilm control as one of the
most challenging aspect of MBfR operation (Hwang et al.,2009; Celmer et al., 2008).

•

Gas substrate
Mostly biological treatment processes are based on oxidation reduction reactions. In MBfR technologies
microorganisms use electron donors as an electron and energy source. Electrons released from electron donors
807

�(normally H2) are transfer to the electron accepting contaminants. The few rate of these electrons are used for
microbial growth and hence biofilm formation on the surface of membrane. The most known advantage of the
MBfR technology is the use of a gaseous substrate which prevents regrowth caused by organic donor materials
used as electron donors such as ethanol, methanol, and acetate. Published reports have been showed that organic
materials used for electron donor results in recontamination of waters by residual of these organic donors. By
this respect, substrate as gaseous form is usually used as electron donor but some cases as electron acceptor. For
the electron donor purposes, methane, hydrogen and for the electron acceptor purposes oxygen has been mostly
used in recent studies (Nerenberg, 2005).
Hydrogen is the ideal electron donor that has been used in most MBfR studies due to the inherent
advantages over other organic donors. H2 is non toxic to human and cost effective. Supporting autotrophic
bacteria eliminates the need for an organic carbon source since the growth rate of autotrophic bacteria is slow;
amount of produced microorganism per removed substrate is rather scarce. So H2 produces far less excess
biomass than organic donors. On the other hand, its low water solubility prevent the residual in the water which
means it cannot be over-dosed to increase effluent BOD and be wasted at the same time (Ritmann, 2006).
Additionally, it was reported in a study that use of H2 as gaseous substrate reduce the cost about 3-15 times
compaired to other common organic donors used (Lee and Rittmann,2000).

(B)

10.

Figure 4. (A) Normal biofilm and (B) MBfR biofilm; The bold line is the dissolved gas concentration, while
the dotted line is the substrate from the bulk liquid (Nerenberg, 2005).
Figure 4 compares the ways in order to supply gas (electron donor) into the bulk solution and represents
the advantages and disadvantages of these ways. Normal biofilm and biofilm formed on the MBfR have the
dissimilarities with respect to gas diffusion. The amount of required electron donor is much less in MBfRs
compare to the conventional biofilms. This promotes the usage of the membrane biofilm reactors especially for
the cost-effectiveness of the process.

• MBfR applications
This part of the review paper includes research articles mainly focusing on MBfR applications. Besides
drinking water treatment processes, there are applications of MBfRs for industrial and domestic wastewater
treatments. Researches on the applications of MBfRs have been focused on the denitrification processes and the
treatment of oxidized contaminants (Nerenberg et al., 2002; Chung et al., 2006).

Removal of nitrogen
Nitrate contamination is a widespread problem for drinking water around the world. Nitrogen is mainly
found in ground waters as mainly in the form of nitrate (
) and nitrite (
). Contamination of ground
waters with nitrate mainly the reason for the usage of nitrogen fertilizers and the irrigation with domestic
wastewater (M. Shrimali, K.P. Singh,2001). Nitrate should be regulated in drinking water since the excess levels
can cause methemologlobinemia or blue baby disease in humans. Nitrate removal in biological systems involves
denitrification processes which require anaerobic conditions. Denitrification occurs in two ways according to the
carbon source, heterotrophic and autotrophic; respectively. In heterotrophic denitrification processes, electron

808

�donor source is normally organic compounds. However, due to a very low organic carbon sources in ground
waters nitrate cannot be removed effectively through heterotrophic biological methods. Hopefully, autotrophic
denitrification has advantages over the heterotrophic denitrification, such as usage of inorganic electron donor
which makes biomass yields low (Shin et al., 2007). In a research article it has been found that denitrification
rate can be affected from gas pressure and nitrate loading (Celmer et al., 2006).
The reactions involved in autotrophic denitrification consist of oxidation of H2 gas to hydrogen ions and
reduction of nitrate to nitrogen gas. Overall half reactions and the schematic diagram of the MBfR for
denitrification process are represented in Figure 5.
Oxidation of hydrogen gas :

Reduction of nitrate:

Overall denitrification reaction:

Figure 5. Principle schematic diagram of MBfRs for autotrophic denitrification and reactions involved (Xia et
al., 2009)
•

Removal of micro contaminants

Hydrogen-based MBfR is a successful tool of reducing many oxidized pollutions such as such as;
arsenate (AsO43−), perchlorate (ClO4−), selenate (SeO42−), chromate (CrO4−), trichloroethene (TCE), and
nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), hexavalent chromium which are difficult to remove in conventional biological
treatments (Ergas and Reuss, 2001; Lee and Rittmann, 2002; Nerenberg et al., 2002). These contaminants are
usually found in micro levels in ground waters. Origin of the perchlorate in water mainly is the improperly
disposed-of rocket fuel. It inhibits thyroid function even if at low levels (Espenson, 2000). Level of 4 µg/L has
been determined in California for perchlorate in spite of the fact that there is no standard for perchlorate. Arsenic
is another micro pollutant exclusively found in groundwater which can cause gastrointestinal damage and
cardiac damage. Hence it has been considered as a human carcinogen. Level of 10 µg/L arsenic is determined by
Protection Agency (EPA) Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG). Bromate is regulated under the Stage 1
Disinfectants/Disinfection By-Products Rule at 10 µg/L (Kirisits et al., 2001). Chromium is also an inorganic
contaminant. It is released to drinking water sources from electroplating facilities, old mining operations, and
fossil-fuel power plants. It has been known that chromium can cause liver and kidney damage, and the maximum
contaminant level for drinking water is 0.1 mg/L total chromium. DCM (CH2Cl2), methylene chloride, which is
carcinogenic, highly soluble in water, and one of the most common groundwater contaminant (Kohlerstaub et al.,
1995). Consequently, these micro contaminants should be removed due to their adverse affects. In a published
report, it has been found that a wide range of oxidized contaminants (arsenate, perchlorate, selenate, chromate,
and dichloromethane) can be successfully removed by the hydrogen based hallow-fiber membrane biofilm
reactor and removals were greater than 75% without any community adaptation. It has been noted that when the
contaminants need to be reduced to very low levels nitrate or oxygen can serve as primary electron acceptors, on
the other hand; many of the contaminants can serve as primarily electron acceptors at higher concentrations.
(Nerenberg and Rittmann, 2004).

Conclusion
MBfR is a novel system that uses membranes to supply dissolved gaseous directly without bubbling to a
biofilm growing on the membrane surface. The H2-based MBfR has great potential to solve emerging problems
in water quality and has kept increasing since it appears in the early 1980s. Especially after 2000, more research

809

�studies have been published from all around the world. MBfR is a promising technology by the means of
gaseous substrate usage, which prevents regrowth caused by organic donor materials used as electron donors. By
utilizing H2 gas as the electron donor, some of the major problems such as; a large increase in excess biomass
generation, over- or under-dosing of donor, safety concerns can be able to be solved. Application studies of
MBfRs have shown promising potential and suggest the possibility of utilizing MBfR in biological treatment
technologies also for industrial and domestic wastewater treatments but mainly for the purpose of removing
micro pollutants found in ground waters. The results of the published reports confirm that the wide variety of
oxidized contaminants can be successfully reduced and removed immediately in a hydrogen-oxidizing MBfR
with oxygen or nitrate as primary acceptors. However, so many research articles has emphasized that there are
some outstanding challenges associated with MBfRs in the near-future. The principal obstacle to full scale
implementation is the problem of excess biomass control which can lead to significant performance deterioration.
Hence, field studies are needed to focus on bioﬁlm thickness and activity control to make commercial scale
applications feasible. Additionally, possible developments in this area are likely to focus on membrane material
and module design improvements in along with selection of appropriate liquid/gas scouring methodologies.

References
Celmer, D.,Oleszkiewicz, J.,Cicek,N.(2008).Impact of shear force on the biofilm structure and performance of a membrane
biofilm reactor for tertiary hydrogen-driven denitrification of municipal wastewater:Water Research ,42 3057 – 3065.
Celmer, D.,Oleszkiewicz, J.,Cicek,N.,Husain H.(2006).Hydrogen limitation- a method for controlling the performance of
membrane biofilm reactor for autotrophic denitrification of wastewater: Water Science and Technology, 54(9), 165 – 172.
Chung, J.,Brown,R.,Rittmann B.E.(2008).Bioreduction of trichloroethene using a hydrogen – based membrane biofilm
reactor : Environmental science &amp; Technology 47, 477 – 483.
Ergas, S.J. and Reuss, A.F. (2001). Hydrogenotrophic denitrification of drinking water using a hollow fibre membrane
bioreactor. Journal of Water Supply Research and Technology – Aqua, 50(3), 161–171.
Espenson, J. (2000). The problem and perversity of perchlorate. Perchlorate in the Environment, 1–9.
Hasar ,H.,Đpek,U.(2010). Gas permeable - membrane for hydrogenotropic denitrification:Clean 2010, 38(1) 23 – 26.
Hwang ,J.H.,Cicek,N.,Oleszkiewicz,J.A.(2009).Membrane biofilm reactors for nitrogen removal: state-of the art and research
needs: Water Science and Technology , 2739 – 2747.
Kirisits, M.J., Snoeyink, V.L., Inan, H., Chee-Sanford, J.C., Raskin, L. and Brown, J.C. (2001). Water quality factors
affecting bromate removal in biologically active carbon filters. Water Research, 35(4),891–900.
Kohlerstaub, D., Frank, S. and Leisinger, T. (1995). Dichloromethane as the sole carbon source for Hyphomicrobium sp
strain Dm2 under denitrification conditions. Biodegradation, 6(3), 229–235.
Lee, K.-C. and Rittmann, B.E. (2002). Applying a novel autohydrogenotrophic hollow-fiber membrane biofilm reactor for
denitrification of drinking water. Water Research, 36(8), 2040–2052.
Modin, O.,Fukushi, K.,Yamamoto, K.(2008).Simultaneous removal of nitrate and pesticides from groundwater using a
methane – fed membrane biofilm reactor :Water Science and Technology ,58.6.
Nerenberg, N.(2005).Membrane Biofilm Reactors for Water and Wastewater 2005 Borchardt Conference: A Seminar on
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Nerenberg, R., Rittmann, B.E. and Najm, I. (2002). Perchlorate reduction in a hydrogen-based membranebiofilm reactor. J.
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Nerenberg, R.,&amp;Rittmann B.E.(2004).Hydrogen–based,hollow– fiber membrane biofilm reactor for reduction of perchlorate
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            <description>A name given to the resource</description>
            <elementTextContainer>
              <elementText elementTextId="23149">
                <text>Membrane Biofilm Reactors (MBfRs) for DrinkingWater Treatment</text>
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            <name>Author</name>
            <description>Author</description>
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              <elementText elementTextId="23150">
                <text>Cırık, Kevser
Çutay, Emine
Gündoğan, Elif Gamze
Kılıç, Arzu
Çınar, Özer</text>
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            <name>Abstract</name>
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              <elementText elementTextId="23151">
                <text>Increase demand on water resources make ground waters essential due to the fact  that surface waters don’t actually meet the water requirements for agricultural, industrial,  recreational and drinking purposes. Provided that their quality and quantity are ensured, ground  waters are a good source as drinking waters. However, they are threatened by various micro  compounds coming from industrial, municipal, and agricultural activities such as; perchlorate,  chlorinated solvents, oxidized contaminants, and heavy metals. Therefore a reliable treatment  method should be applied to remove these micropollutants. Among the treatment technologies  used for water supply, biological methods are widely used for the treatment purposes of  drinking waters. Recent studies focus on the removal of micro pollutants by using membrane  biofilm reactors (MBfRs) which allow gaseous substrate to move across the membrane for gas  delivery and support biofilm formation on the outer surface of the membrane. This paper  reviews several applications of MBfRs for water treatment.</text>
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            <description>A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource</description>
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                <text>2010-06</text>
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                <text>Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed</text>
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                  <elementText elementTextId="23147">
                    <text>Parameters Affecting Polyhydroxyalkanoate Synthesis from Wastewaters
Kevser Cırık
Suleyman Demirel University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Isparta, Turkey
kewss_@hotmail.com
Dilek Aydoğmuş
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
aydogmus86@hotmail.com
Şebnem Özdemir
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
sebnemozdemir55@hotmail.com
Mehmet Gezginci
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
mehmetgezginci@gmail.com
Özer Çınar
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
ocinar@alumni.clemson.edu

Abstract: Plastics used almost every manufacturing industry are resist to biodegradation. Their
persistence in soil for a long time has become a major concern in terms of the environment.
This promotes many investigators to search for replacement of non-biodegradable by
degradable plastics. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), known as a biodegradable plastic
produced by bacteria, have received increasing attention due to the difficulties in disposal of
plastics. In recent years, researchers have focused on the processes to increase PHA production
which involve in biological phosphorus removal (BPR). Normally, BPR can be achieved
through anaerobic- aerobic cycling by a group of bacteria known as polyphosphateaccumulating organisms (PAOs). PHA is stored within the PAO as carbon polymers under
anaerobic conditions by taking up volatile fatty acids (VFAs), further it is used as energy
source and phosphorus uptake under aerobic conditions. The aim of this review is to discuss
recent advances in PHA production from wastewaters and parameters effecting PHA
production efficiency.

1. Introduction
Plastics which are known to be widely used in almost every manufacturing industry are very much
advantageous. Plastics are popular in many durable, disposal goods and as packaging materials. Beside a wide
range of benefits, they are not desirable in the environment. Especially, plastics are known as hardly
biodegradable even non-biodegradable due to the fact that they mainly have high molecular weights (Reedy et
al., 2003). Their persistence in soil for a long time has become a major concern in terms of the environment. This
promotes many investigators to search for replacement of non-biodegradable by degradable plastics. An
alternative approach to conventional plastics is Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) which are known as a
completely biodegradable plastic produced by bacteria, have received increasing attention due to the difficulties
in disposal of plastics (Bengtsson et al., 2008). Additionally, Poly-(R)-3-hydroxybutyric acid (PHB) and
hydroxyvalerate (PHV) are among the most common PHA monomers. The chemical structure of the PHAs is
shown in Figure1.

579

�Figure 1. Chemical structure of PHAs (Lee, 1996)

2. PHA Production
As mentioned before, the PHAs are non-toxic, biocompatible, biodegradable thermoplastics that can be
produced from renewable resources such as biomass. These biopolymers accumulate as storage materials in
microbial cells under stress conditions (Sudesh et al., 2000; Chen et al., 2001; Kadouri et al., 2005). Many grampositive and gram-negative bacteria are known to be able to synthesize PHAs (Reedy et al., 2003). PHAs can be
produced through anaerobic- aerobic cycling by a group of bacteria known as polyphosphate-accumulating
organisms (PAOs). Although PAOs are often present in a wide range of aerobic suspended growth cultures, they
only have the ability to store large quantities of phosphate when they are subjected to alternating anaerobic and
aerobic conditions. PHA is stored within the PAO as carbon polymers under anaerobic conditions by taking up
volatile fatty acids (VFAs), further it is used as energy source and phosphorus uptake under aerobic conditions
(Figure 2). Under aerobic conditions stored PHA or PHB within the cell is used as energy source for biomass
growth, and glycogen synthesis.

A

B

Figure 2. Anaerobic PHA production and phosphorus release (A), aerobic PHA utilization and phosphorus
uptake (B) within the cell (Lee and Choi, 1999)
Recently reported research articles have been performed to understand PAO metabolism (Seviour et al.,
2003). Acetate has been used almost exclusively as the carbon source in these studies, partially explained by the
fact that it is typically the largest volatile fatty acid (VFA) species present in the wastewater treatment plants.
Metabolic PAO models for anaerobic acetate uptake and utilization and the subsequent aerobic processes have
been proposed. As depicted in Figure 2, anaerobic process is based on fermentation in which poly-P degradation
and phosphate release take part. Under anaerobic conditions with acetate as the carbon source, phosphate

580

�accumulating microorganisms can take up acetate rapidly, accumulate PHAs in the cell. The energy for this
biotransformation is mainly generated by the cleavage of polyphosphate and release of phosphate from the cell.
They consume previously stored intracellular carbohydrate, and release P as a result of utilization of stored polyP. Thus, wastewater from anaerobic process is rich in inorganic phosphate. In aerobic processes, oxygen is
electron acceptor and microorganism use stored PHB as their carbon and energy source.
PAOs are actually known as responsible for enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) and have a
key role with respect to both PHB accumulate within the cell and phosphorous removal. The process is one of
the most commonly used and environmentally sounds methods for phosphorus (P) removal from wastewater. As
mentioned before, VFAs are preferable substrates for PHA production. Anaerobic fermentation converts various
organic compounds to VFAs hence increasing the potential to produce PHA from the wastewater. The
composition of the VFAs produced during fermentation will influence the final polymer product. However, the
number of literature reports for PHA production with mixed cultures enriched with real wastewaters is limited.
•

PHAs Extraction from the Cell

Since PHAs are accumulated within the cell, it should be extracted to be able to be used as plastic
polymers. However, the extraction of bioplastics from microorganism poses yet a challenge. There are two
common protocols used for PHA extraction from bacteria. The first protocol is developed by taking into
consideration of solubility in chloroform and insolubility in methanol. Harvested bacterial cells are exposed to
warm chloroform to make PHAs soluble. Further, residuals from harvested bacteria such as lipids and other
lipophilic components are removed by reflux in hot methanol. Purified PHA production efficiency of this
protocol is high. However, requirements of a large amount of hazardous solvent make it not environmentally
friendly (Lee, 1996). The second protocol developed for the aim of avoiding organic solvent usage. In this
protocol, a mixture of enzymes are used such as proteases, nucleases and lysozymes, additionally to remove
proteins, nucleic acids, and cell walls, detergents are used.

3. Factors Affecting PHB Production
In the previous sections the importance of PAOs on PHB production and phosphorus removal from the
wastewaters were emphasized. However, their production costs are much higher than the petrochemical- based
plastics (Fang et al., 2009). Thus, it becomes inevitable to know parameters affecting PHA production efficiency
within the cell such as; microorganisms involved, pH, substrate, solid retention time (SRT), availability of
electron acceptors, and temperature. These will be briefly discussed by taking into account the published
research articles that focus on increasing the cost-effectiveness of this process.
a.

Microbial Population

Determination of microbial population that involve in PHB production and phosphorous removal is one
of the most important factor to be able to make the process successful. It has been emphasized in so many
articles that there is a competition between two microorganisms, PAOs and glycogen (non-polyphosphate)
accumulating organisms (GAOs) respectively. Like PAOs, GAOs are able to proliferate under alternating
anaerobic and aerobic conditions but the problem is they do not contribute to P removal hence anaerobic P
release or aerobic P uptake cannot be established. This constitutes a major challenge since PHA production
without any phosphorous removal cannot be convenient according to discharge regulations. Additionally, the
presence of GAOs increase the anaerobic VFA requirements of these plants, thus so many investigators have
focused on the ways that minimize the growth of GAOs. Factors affecting GAOs and PAOs competitions can be
summarized as:
6. One factor affecting the PHA accumulation is the ratio of organic carbon to P in the influent or the so-called
COD: P ratio. In so many studies it was reported that a high COD/P ratio (e.g. 450mgCOD/mgP) in the
wastewater feed tends to favorable the growth of GAOs instead of PAOs while a low COD/P ratio (e.g. 10–
20mgCOD/mgP) tends to favorable to the growth of PAOs (Oehmen et al., 2007).
7. Effect of pH has been reported in so many research articles. They have found that increase in pH from 6.57.5 is favorable for PAOs while is not favorable for GAO. Thus it is possible to eliminate GAOs by
increasing pH. In a study performed by Filipe et al., (2001a) has shown that P uptake, PHA utilization and
biomass growth were all inhibited by a low pH (6.5), and suggested that a higher aerobic pH (7–7.5) would
be more beneficial for PAOs.

581

�8. Effect of temperature is also investigated by so many researches and they concluded that GAOs are inhibited
at 10 ºC since PAOs are the dominant microorganisms at low temperature (Carlos et al., 2009). It was also
noted that high temperatures (30 ºC) can suppress the proliferation of GAO in which operating conditions for
pH is high (&gt;7) and an adequate acetate to propionate ratio (75–25%) is supplied. The experimental evidence
obtained thus far suggests that GAOs tend to become stronger competitors with PAOs at higher temperatures.
b.

pH

In many studies it was shown that adjusting to pH higher levels results in a higher anaerobic P release
(Smolders et al., 1994; Liu et al., 1996; Bond et al., 1999; Filipe et al., 2001b). Kasemsap et al., (2007) found
that increasing the pH from 6 to 8 promoted the PHA production significantly. It was also reported in other study
that the ratio of anaerobic P release to acetate uptake increase from 0.25 to 0.75 P-mol/C-mol by increasing pH
from 5.5 to 8.5 (Smolders,1994). Actually, by adjusting pH GAOs can be eliminated, this is the reason for why
so many researchers focus on its effects.
Increase in pH makes the energy requirements for substrate uptake high. When external pH is high, more
energy is needed for acetate uptake. This increased energy is generated through an increase in polyphosphate
degradation. This scenario has been found ineffective for the acetate uptake, glycogen degradation and PHA
accumulation rates of PAOs when the pH is over the range 6.5–8.0 (Filipe et al., 2001b). Nevertheless, this
situation is rather different for the GAOs. It was reported that a higher pH results in a higher energy demand for
acetate uptake, but negatively affects the ability of GAOs to take up acetate. This is obviously related to the
differences between metabolic pathways of the microorganisms. The energy production pathways of GAOs and
PAOs are dissimilar since PAOs use the energy required for the substrate uptake from the hydrolysis of poly-P
while GAOs from the hydrolysis of glycogen (Smolders et al., 1994; Filipe et al., 2001a,b). That means PAOs
have poly-P as an extra energy source as compared to GAOs and they deplete it to meet higher energy demand.
In a published report performed by Chua et al.(2003) studied the effect of pH on the PHA content using acetate
as the substrate. They found that, through controlling the pH at 6 or 7, the PHA content (less than 5%) was lower
than at pH 8 or 9 (25–32%). Like this record, Serafim et al., (2004) was found that polymer yield per substrate
and the intracellular PHB content were higher at pH 8 than at pH 7.
c.

Substrate

It is a prerequisite to optimize all the fermentation conditions for the successful implementation of
commercial PHA production systems. Actually there is a major challenge to reduce PHA production costs.
Carbon source has a large impact on production cost of the PHA produced. Hence, recent studies have been
focused on reducing costs. The price of the product ultimately depends on the substrate cost, PHA yield on the
substrate, and the efficiency of product formulation in the downstream processing.
In so many studies different substrates were used to improve the predictability of the metabolism of both
PAOs and GAOs. Acetate has been used almost exclusively as the carbon source. It has been well known that
short chain fatty acids like acetate are favorable carbon sources for PAOs. Beside acetate, there are so many
carbon sources used in order to investigate PHA production pathway, such as; lactate, propionate, sucrose,
glucose, cheese whey, cane molasses, methanol, and hemicelluloses hydrolsate (Quillaguaman et al., 2007; Ahn
et al., 2000; Wong and Lee, 1998; Rhu et al., 2003; Hong et al., 2000). Waste materials or industrial by-products
can also be used for PHA production. However it was reported that carbohydrates are not directly stored as PHA
and they are tend to be preferentially accumulated as glycogen (Dircks et al., 2001; Karahan et al., 2006). PHA
production from raw materials requires a previous anaerobic fermentation step for their transformation into
volatile fatty acids (VFA). This is the reason why the majority of the studies related to PHA production are based
on the use of organic acids. The effect of various substrate costs, the yield on the P (3HB) and production cost
are summarized in Table 1.
Wastewater contains a much more diverse mixture of substrates other than acetate and investigations
were conducted with other compounds, alone or in mixtures, including: propionate, butyrate, valerate,
isovalerate, formate, lactate, malate, pyruvate, glucose, citrate, succinate but glutamate but the metabolism of
these organic substrates have not yet been well understood (Wang et al., 2002). Several studies concluded that
glucose as sole carbon source led to deterioration of the EBPR process, as glucose promoted the growth of
GAOs which do not accumulate polyphosphate and therefore capable of utilizing glucose without the release of
phosphate (Cech and Hartman, 1993; Mino et al., 1994; Satoh et al., 1994; Tasli et al., 1997). However, there are
also opposite research results where a stable EBPR performance could be maintained with glucose as the major
organic substrate, with no appreciable proliferation of GAOs (Carucci et al., 1999; Jeon and Park, 2000; Wang et
al., 2002).

582

�Substrate
Glucose
Sucrose
Methanol
Acetic acid
Ethanol
Cane molasses
Cheese whey
Hemicellulose hydrolysate

Substrate Price
(US$ kg_1)
0.493
0.290
0.180
0.595
0.502
0.220
0.071
0.069

P(3HB) yield
(g P(3HB) (g substrate)_1)
0.38
0.40
0.43
0.38
0.50
0.42
0.33
0.20

Product cost
(US$(kg P(3HB))_1)
1.30
0.72
0.42
1.56
1.00
0.52
0.22
0.34

Table 1. Effect of various carbon sources on PHB yield and production cost (Reddy et al., 2003)
In the past, there have been relatively few studies on EBPR systems involving propionate as a carbon
source (Satoh et al., 1992,). In recent years, however, the metabolism of propionate by PAOs (Lemos et al.,
2003) and its effect on EBPR performance has attracted considerable attention. Several studies have suggested
that propionate could be a more favorable substrate for EBPR (Chen et al., 2004; Thomas et al., 2003), likely
providing a selective advantage to PAOs over GAOs (Oehmen et al., 2004a, 2004b; Pijuan et al., 2004). In the
studies used other single substrates such as lactate, ethanol, and glutamate which can be converted into PHB,
very low storage yield has been obtained. When lactate used for carbon source, 0.20 g PHA g-1 substrate
accumulation was obtained, it was 0.25 g PHA g-1 substrate for ethanol, and 0.058 g PHA g-1 substrate for
glutamate (Dionisi et al., 2004; Doi et al.,1987). Lactate is taken up by PAO cells and converted to propionylCoA, using both poly-P and glycogen hydrolysis as energy sources. Poly-P is hydrolyzed to orthophosphate and
released from the cells, while glycogen is hydrolyzed to acetyl-CoA and CO2. Acetyl-CoA and propionyl-CoA
are reduced and condensed to form PHA, with the reducing power provided by glycogen hydrolysis. This
mechanism is compared to the situation in which acetate is used as sole carbon source in Figure 3.

A

B

Figure 3. Control of redox balance of different carbon source in PHA production under anaerobic conditions
(Mino and Satoh, 2006).
H, reducing power or hydrogen in such forms as NAD(P)H and FADH2;
S, molar amount of acetate or lactate taken up;
G, molar amount of glucose unit in glycogen consumed;
P, molar amount of monomeric units of PHA produced.
In Figure 3, redox balance regulation is depicted which is the key mechanism for anaerobic carbon uptake
and hence proliferation of PAOs. Glycolysis via Embden Meyerhof pathway (EMP) and acetate oxidation
through the TCA cycle provides the required reducing power for the conversion of acetate into 3hydroxybutyrate for PHA synthesis (Figure 3A). Mino reported in this study that the ratio S/G/P will be
1:(1/6):(2/3) and 1:0:(4/9) if all reducing power is supplied by glycolysis and by the TCA cycle, respectively. In
Figure 3 B, lactate is taken up within the cell as carbon source. By this way, ratio of S/P is increased to 2. During
conversion of lactate into acetyl-CoA the reverse operation of the TCA cycle is needed to consume excess
reducing power produced.

583

�d.

Solid Retention Time (SRT) and Temperature

It is obvious from the published reports that SRT has important impact on PHA production yield for a
given organic loading rate (OLR) .Short SRT sludge acquires higher PHA production capability, hence sludge
acclimatization with a short SRT may also be preferable for PHA production purpose. This approach is
confirmed since the sludge yield under a shorter SRT is higher than that under a longer SRT. So it can be
concluded that with a short SRT can supply sufficient amount of sludge for PHA production compared to that
with a long SRT. It was found that sludge with a short SRT (3 days) could achieve PHA content about 10% more
than sludge with a long SRT (10 days) (Chua et al, 2003). However, it was reported that higher cell growth rates
resulted in a lower PHB content higher PHB yields were produced at longer SRT when the cells were growing
more slowly (Dias et al 2006). Beun et al. (2000) reported that the PHB yield per substrate and specific
productivity were almost constant when vary the SRT from 3.8 to 19.8 day. Dionisi et al. (2001) obtained a
relatively constant storage yield in a SRT range of 0.37–3 day.
Temperature also appears to be a factor that has an important impact on the PHA production. It was
reported that temperature has actually directly affected microorganism competition which is known as GAO and
PAO. In a published report, it was mentioned that a lower temperature decrease the rates of P release/uptake,
acetate uptake, PHA oxidation, growth (Brdjanovic et al., 1998). Panswad et al. (2003) found that the rate of P
release increased with increasing temperature from 20 to 35 ºC, while the rate of P uptake decreased.
Aditionally,it was reported in a study that the increase of temperature from 15 to 35 ºC result in decrease in the
yield of PHB on acetate from 0.43 to 0.072 g PHA g-1 substrate and a decrease in the specific productivity from
0.12 to 0.060 g PHA g-1 cell dry weight h-1 (Krishna and van Loosdrecht, 1999). The yield of biomass also
decreased with temperature increase. Low temperatures (between 15 and 20 ºC) allow for a less costly process
thus increasing the PHA productivity.
e.

Availibity of Electron Acceptors

Since anaerobic P release based on fermentation process, availability of electron acceptors, such as;
oxygen, nitrate and sulphate, is not desired since this will eliminate the fermentation process. For example
availability of nitrate will result in denitrification process and nitrate reduction will take place other than
fermentation process in which organic compounds are usually used as electron acceptors. Additionally, it has
been observed that aerobic P uptake is inhibited by the presence of nitrite (Kuba et al., 1996). Saito (2004) also
reported that the presence and accumulation of nitrite inhibits PAOs, thereby favoring the growth of GAOs.
Third et al. (2003) was studied the effect of dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) on PHA production. They
found that when oxygen was limited PHA yield was 0.49 g PHA g-1 substrate using acetate as sole carbon source.
They have found that PHA yield was decreased to 0.34 g PHA g-1 substrate under excess oxygen.

4. Conclusion
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) have gained major importance because of their similar properties to
conventional plastics and their complete biodegradability. PHA can be produced from renewable carbon sources,
allowing for a sustainable process for the production and use of such polymers. PHA can be synthesized by
polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAO) under anaerobic conditions from external carbon sources and
internal glycogen. Glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAO) are also present in EBPR systems and compete for
carbon substrates with PAO. They also cycle PHA and glycogen in a fashion similar to PAO, but GAO do not
cycle polyphosphate. Hovewer, much more effort is required in this area to increase the production of bioplastics
to successfully replace the non-degradable plastics. Thus the future of bioplastics depends on the efforts towards
fulfilling requirements of price and performance. This review shows the parameters affecting PHA production
efficiency. Process monitoring and control are important factors for achieving high productivity. Since carbon
source has a large impact on production cost of the PHA produced recent studies have been focused on reducing
its costs. Besides carbon source, some other factors such as SRT, temperature, pH, availability of electron
acceptors in the anaerobic phase are proved to have important affect on PHA production yield. It can be
concluded that, low SRT, temperature ranging between 15-25 ºC, pH above 7 can be preferable for higher PHA
production efficiency. Indeed, the main challenge regarding the bioreactor operation and control is the
development of culture selection strategies of fast growing organisms that have a high PHA storage capacity. It
can be recommended to introduce the new metabolic pathways for not only to expand the utilizable substrate
range but also enhance the current PHA yields.

584

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�</text>
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                <text>Parameters Affecting Polyhydroxyalkanoate Synthesis from Wastewaters</text>
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                <text>Cırık, Kevser
Aydoğmus, Dilek Aydoğmus
Özdemir, Sebnem
Gezginci, Mehmet
Çınar, Özer</text>
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                <text>Plastics used almost every manufacturing industry are resist to biodegradation. Their  persistence in soil for a long time has become a major concern in terms of the environment.  This promotes many investigators to search for replacement of non-biodegradable by  degradable plastics. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), known as a biodegradable plastic  produced by bacteria, have received increasing attention due to the difficulties in disposal of  plastics. In recent years, researchers have focused on the processes to increase PHA production  which involve in biological phosphorus removal (BPR). Normally, BPR can be achieved  through anaerobic- aerobic cycling by a group of bacteria known as polyphosphateaccumulating  organisms (PAOs). PHA is stored within the PAO as carbon polymers under  anaerobic conditions by taking up volatile fatty acids (VFAs), further it is used as energy  source and phosphorus uptake under aerobic conditions. The aim of this review is to discuss  recent advances in PHA production from wastewaters and parameters effecting PHA  production efficiency.</text>
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                    <text>Recent Developments in Biogas Production from Pulp and Paper Industry
Wastewaters
Kevser Cırık
Suleyman Demirel University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Isparta, Turkey
kewss_@hotmail.com
Veli Özdemir
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
veli.85@hotmail.com
Emre Yazar
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Bioengineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
emre_mishima@hotmail.com
Özer Çınar
Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Đmam University, Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
ocinar@alumni.clemson.edu

Abstract: Increase in population and rapid developments in technology have enhanced production
capacity in pulp and paper industry and have resulted in formation of huge amount of wastewaters,
as high as 6-15 x 104 L per ton of paper produced. Depending on the pulping process, wastewaters
can have a wide range of various pollutants characterized by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),
chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), toxicity, and dark color. Untreated
wastewaters from pulp and paper can be potentially very polluting especially for high COD
concentrations which can be reach at 13000 mg/L. Thus a reliable treatment process is needed to
reduce any possible impacts of wastewaters on the receiving media. To overcome this problem
an environmentally friendly and economically viable treatment technology should be applied.
Indeed, high organic content of pulp and paper industry wastewaters make anaerobic treatment a
very attractive option for these wastes. Anaerobic processes not only remove the wastewater
pollution but also can produce methane gas which is a valuable and renewable energy source. This
review evaluates the recent developments of treatment technologies that highlight to practical use
and economic availability of biogas production from pulp and paper wastewaters.

1.

Introduction

The rapid increase in population and the increased industrialization to meet human requirements have
created problems leading to the environmental danger. The pulp and paper industry which is the one of the most
important industries produces a wide range of different types of papers we use today such as; channeled carton
paper, newspaper, cleaning paper, cigarette paper, and bag paper. Normally paper production can be achieved by
the help of so many process steps and each step generates a wide range of various pollutants. Generated
pollutants from the wood pulping and production of the paper products have the potential of biochemical oxygen
demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), toxicity, and color (Pokhrel
andViraraghavan, 2004). Discharge of these wastewaters without any treatment poses a significant contributor
to the environment pollution, such as; organic pollution, scum formation, color problems, loss of aesthetic beauty
in the environment, and increase in toxic substances that affects terrestrial ecosystem (Berube and Kahmark,
2001). Thus a reliable treatment process is needed to reduce any possible impacts of wastewaters on the
receiving media. Before introducing the applied treatment technologies for these wastewaters, the process of
pulp and mill industry and characterization of the wastewaters generated in each step will be discussed briefly.
Treatment methods widely used in order to remove the pollution in the process of papermaking will be deeply
described in the subsequent sections.

598

�2.

Process Description of Pulp and Paper Mill Industry and Generated Effluents

2.1 Pulp and Paper Making Process
Pulping is the initial step of the paper making industry and represents the largest source of the pollution in
the whole process of papermaking. The whole process from wood preparation to paper production can be
classified into two categories, pulping and papermaking; respectively. Each process utilizes large amounts of
waters which are then turn into a wastewater stream. The paper making operation generally consists of two parts.
One is stock preparation by treating the pulp to the required degree of fitness and the other is paper making
where the treated pulp is passed through continuous moulds/wires to form sheets (Pokhrel andViraraghavan,
2004) (Table 1).

Paper
Making

Stock
Preparation
Bleaching
Wood

Pulping

preparation Process

Paper

Table 1. Paper Process
Widely used pulping processes are mechanical pulping, chemical pulping and a combination of the two
(chemical thermo-mechanical pulping). In the process of mechanical pulping wood is prepared for the
subsequent steps by a rotating grindstone in which the fibers are stripped of. When the wood is broken down
mechanically, the resulting pulp is known as groundwood pulp. Although mechanical pulping efficiency can
reach about 90-95%, the quality of the generated pulp is highly colored, and contains short fibers. Additionally,
this process does not require chemicals, but the lignin is not removed. In the process of the chemical pulping the
wood chips are transformed into fibrous mass by using appropriate chemicals under elevated temperature and
pressure in an aqueous solution. The main aim of this process is to remove the lignin by breaking it down and
make it soluble (Smook, 1992). This process is performed under two different process, kraft process, and sulfite
process; respectively. Kraft process requires alkali conditions in which woodchips are cooked in a solution of
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium sulfide (NaS2). Differently, in sulfite process woodchips are cooked in
mixture of sulfurous acid (H2SO3) and bisulfide ions (HSO3-) to dissolve lignin (Pokhrel andViraraghavan, 2004).
This process makes the wood free from lignin and hemi-cellulose and generated bagasse is used as energy source
by burning. Remaining liquor from this step is called as black liquor (Soloman, 2009). In addition, the process in
which the wood is first partially softened by chemicals and the remainder of the pulping proceeds with
mechanical force is called the chemical thermo-mechanical pulping. By the help of this step, the wood chips are
broken down and prepared for the next step.
The bleaching process is used for removal of colored compounds and lignin by chemical agents. In
bleaching process chlorine based oxidation agents are used such as hypochlorite, NaOCl, Cl2, ClO2, etc. On the
other hand there is also oxygen based oxidation agents used for bleaching such as (such as H2O2, Na2O2, O3, etc)
however their use as not widely as the chlorine based ones. Bleaching by the chlorine-based chemicals cause
production of degradation products in which various chloro organic derivatives can be seen. The bleaching
process technology and in-mill control is improving continuously. Finally, paper making processes is the last
step in which generated pulps is used as paper production including two parts. Initially, a stock is prepared by
treating the pulp to meet the required degree of fitness and then treated pulp is passed through continuous
moulds/wires to form sheets (Pokhrel andViraraghavan, 2004). In the preparation of stock, pulp is diluted to at
least 99% with water also some additives can be used such as optical brighteners and polyvinyl alcohol
(Hentzschel, 1998).

599

�2.2 Pulp and Paper Mill Effluent
Due to the diversity of processes and chemicals used in pulping and papermaking operations there is a
significant difference between the qualities of wastewaters produced from the both (Billings and DeHass 1971).
The major difference between the generated wastewaters is that pulp wastewater contains the dissolved wood
derived substances which are extracted from the wood during the process of pulping. Additionally, the other
difference between the pulp and paper mill effluents is the color of the effluents. Due to the dissolved lignin, all
pulping effluents including papermaking effluents have some discoloration. Actually, lignin is responsible for
the mechanical strength of the wood structure and gives the brownish color to the effluents (Leiviska, 2009).
Except for the color, pulp and paper mill effluents represent some other pollutants. The sources of pollution and
the generated pollutant features are summarized in Table 2. Although the availability of trace elements including
heavy metals in the effluents is not mentioned above, there have been published reports on the discharges of
metals and other elements from the pulp and paper industries.
Process
Description

Wood preparation

Pulping

Suspended solids (SS)
Biochemical oxygen
demand (BOD)
Fibers

High pH,
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)
Chemical oxygen demand (COD)
Adsorbable organic halides (AOX)
Volitile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Suspended solids
Resins,
Fatty acids
Dissolved lignin,
Carbohydrate,
Color,
Inorganic chlorine compounds
Organo chlorine compounds

Features of
wastewaters
generated in
each step

Paper Making
Chemical oxygen demand
(COD)
Particulate waste,
Organic compounds,
Inorganic dyes,
Acetone

Table 2. The sources of pollution and the generated pollutant features (EPA, 1995)

3.

Treatment of Effluents

Pulp and paper industry generates large quantities of highly polluted wastewaters. The high water usage,
between 20,000 and 60,000 per ton of product results in large amounts of wastewater (Nemerow, 1991; Sinclair,
1990). Normally 150 m3 effluents are generated per ton paper produced (Ali, 2001). Effluents of the pulp and
paper making processes are widely expressed by its brownish color, high COD and high BOD. The effluent
generated at the pulping stage, which is called as black liquor, contains a wide range of compounds like
dissolved lignin and its degradation products, hemicelluloses, resin acid, fatty acids, tannins and phenols that are
also responsible for giving the effluent its characteristic dark brown color and toxicity (Ali, 2001; Lara, 2003;
Malaviya, 2007). Thus, the problems faced by the industry relate to the high organic content, toxicity and color.
Discharging of these wastewaters without any treatment applications can cause serious pollution problems. Thus
a reliable treatment method should be applied in order to meet discharge acceptance regulation. Mostly applied
treatment methods are physical, chemical and biological treatment methods as well as combination of different
methods in series. Application of chemical and physical methods has some disadvantages over the biological
treatment methods such as their cost-effectiveness and residual effects. Biological treatment is known to be
effective in reducing the organic load and toxic effects of pulp and paper mill effluent. There have been several
attempts to use biological methods to decontaminate effluent from kraft mills because of their ability to degrade
lignin by several microorganisms. The success of the biological treatment with respect to reduction organic load
and toxic effects of pulp and paper making effluents have been proven in so many research articles. Biological
treatment methods can be divided into two categories, aerobic and anaerobic; respectively. Aerobic treatment of
the pulp and paper making effluents has long been known and widely used for these purposes. Aerobic
treatments are effective for high COD and BOD removal efficiency (ranging from %70 to %90) but removal of
AOX which are known to toxic and hardly biodegradable, cannot be removed effectively, the overall removal of

600

�AOX from the effluents by aerobic treatment has been remained insufficient in so many situations (Savant,
2006). Alternatively, anaerobic treatment has become the most commonly used method not removes the
wastewater pollution but also can able to produce methane gas that known as a renewable energy source (Rintala,
1994). Anaerobic treatment is simple to operate, relatively inexpensive technology, moreover; it consumes little
energy. Pulp and paper making effluents are nutrient deficient. This feature of the effluent make anaerobic
treatment more convenient since commonly used COD: C: N ratio in aerobic treatment is 100:5:1 while it is
350:5:1 in the anaerobic treatment (Maat, 1990). In a study anaerobic treatment was found to reduce AOX and
COD by 73% and 66%, respectively. Also, when glucose was added to this effluent, there was generation of
biogas containing 76% methane (Ali and Sreekrishnan, 2000).
Typical COD removal data for the treatment of papermill wastewaters shows that a relatively constant
removal effciency of about 80% can be achieved and that the treated effluent has a COD concentration of about
800 mg/l. This COD concentration means that some form of additional treatment is required. Compairation of
two system was studied, the three-step sequential bioreactor treatments by anaerobic and aerobic (fungus and
aerobic bacteria) microorganisms and two step (fungus and aerobic bacteria), respectively and it was found that
microorganisms exhibited significant reduction in colour (88.5%), lignin (79.5%), chemical oxygen demand
(87.2%) and phenol (87.7%) in the two step aerobic sequential bioreactor, and colour (87.7%), lignin (76.5%),
chemical oxygen demand (83.9%) and phenol (87.2%) in the three-step anaerobic-aerobic sequential bioreactor.
They have concluded that in the anaerobic treatment, biogas is produced which can be utilized for energy
generation; however; aerobic treatment (aerobic fungus + aerobic bacteria) was more significant than anaerobic–
aerobic treatment (anaerobic + aerobic fungus + aerobicbacteria) (Chuphal et al. 2005). Numerous physicochemical processes have also been developed to remove a variety of toxic materials from pulp effuents and to
reduce parameters such as colour and COD. They include ozonation and adsorption, often in combination with
coagulation, which is used as a pre-treatment stage (Thompson et al., 2001). Bishnoi et al. (2006) reported the
biodegradation of pulp and paper mill effluent using anaerobic followed by aerobic treatment. Using a
continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) for anaerobic digestion of black liquor, these authors reported a
maximum methane production was found up to 430 ml /day.

a.

Biogas Production

The interest in biogas production has grown considerably for the most of the industries. Anaerobic
treatment producing methane that can be directly used as a source of energy has long been employed in
industrial waste treatment. Anaerobic treatment is an effective means of decreasing the organic content of
different wastewaters in the absence of oxygen (Noykova et al., 2002). Application of aerobic treatment is not
commonly preferred due to the cost of oxygen supplementation and generation of higher sludge quantities and
odors (Gavala et al., 1999). For the treatment of pulp and paper mill effluents, anaerobic digestion is essentially
viable method due to waste reduction and energy potential. Actually anaerobic digestion consists of three main
stages. The first step of anaerobic digestion called hydrolysis; complex organic molecules are broken down into
simple sugars, amino acids, and fatty acids with the addition of hydroxyl groups which is accompanied by a
rapid decrease in pH (Goblos et al., 2008). Step 2 is a fermentation process where acid-forming bacteria, also
known as acidogens, convert the products of hydrolysis into simple organic acids, alcohols, carbon dioxide, and
hydrogen gas. Finally, end-products of the fermentation process (acetate, butyrate, propionate etc.) are converted
by methanogenic microorganisms into methane and carbon dioxide, together with trace quantities of other gases
(Fig. 1).
In brief, two groups of methanogenic organisms are involved into the methane production; one group
splits acetate into methane and carbon dioxide, and the second group uses hydrogen as electron donor and carbon
dioxide as electron acceptor to produce methane. In general, biogas produced as end-product of anaerobic
digestion consists of about 65–70% methane, 30–35% carbon dioxide and trace amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen,
hydrogen sulphide and water vapor. It is the methane component of the biogas that will produce energy. The gas
can be used to generate heat or electricity or both. Anaerobic treatment seems adequately not only removing the
wastewater pollution but also producing methane gas which can be used for the energy requirement of the
industry. Anaerobic wastewater treatment is typically used in different industries such as chemical, dairy, and
pulp and paper mills. Application of anaerobic treatment of pulp and paper industry has been investigated by so
many researchers. It has been noted that the adoption of this technology by pulp and paper industries has been
limited, mainly due to the 30–60 day residence times required to process the sludge in conventional bioreactors
(Elliott and Mahmood, 2007). The published reports that evaluate the recent developments of treatment
technologies will be briefly discussed by means of biogas production from pulp and mill wastewaters and solid
wastes.

601

�Figure 1. Anaerobic Methane Production
Anaerobic biogas production is actually a sensitive process. Presence of toxic materials in the effluent can
be result in deterioration of the process which is undesirable. Unfortunately, pulp and paper industry effluents
mainly contains high amount of lignin, adsorbable organic halide, color, low biodegradability (COD: BOD, 4–6)
and potential toxicity problems. Inhibitory agents that can be found in pulp and paper industry effluents are
summarized in Table 3. Providing that biomass is protected from toxic materials biogas production from pulp
and paper industry can be successfully managed.
Wastewater
Pulping
• Thermomechanical
• Chemithermomechanical

COD
(mg/L)

Degradation
(%)

Inhibitors

1000-5600
2500-13000

60-87
40-60

Resin Acids
Resin Acids, fatty acids, sulfur

30-50
-

Sulfur, ammonia
Chlorinated phenols, resin acids

Kraft condensate

7000
900-2000
120000220000
1000-33600

83-92

Sulfite condensate

7500-50000

50-90

Sulfur, resin acids, fatty acids,
terpenes
Sulfur, organic sulfur

Sulfite condensate
Chlorine bleaching
Sulfite spent liquor

Table 3. Inhibitors to methanogens in the effluent of pulp and paper industry (Rintala et al., 1994)
In the process of chlorine bleaching, so many toxic substances that affect the methanogens can be
released. Also it is well known that chlorinated phenolics and chlorinated lignin derivatives are among the main
chemical species responsible for the toxicity of pulp and paper mill effluents. Resin acids are tricyclic diterpenes
that occur naturally in the resin of tree wood and bark and are transferred to process waters during pulping
operations. Several workers have reported the accumulation of resin acids in anaerobic reactors treating
mechanical pulping wastewaters. It was reported in a study that inhibition of methanogenic activity of the
anaerobic consortium was noted at initial resin acid/biomass ratios exceeding 0.0031 mg resin acid/mg VSS. In
addition to resin acids, unsaturated fatty acids, such as; oleic acids, linoleic acid and linolenic acid from pulp and
paper mills employing softwood are also a source of toxicity. Since fatty acids can be degraded anaerobically, it
is not entirely necessary to prevent them from entering the anaerobic reactors, however; the concentrations
present in the wastewater should be kept below the maximum allowable level so that they do not cause
significant inhibition to the anaerobic bacteria. For the removal of phenolic compounds white rot fungi have
proved their potential in the lignin/phenolic wastewater treatment (Eaton et al. 1980). They have proved ideal
organisms for decolorization as well as for the reduction of adsorbable organic halides (AOX) and the chemical
oxygen demand (COD). Several researches have also shown that kraft mill effluents can be partly decolorized by
white rot fungi (Gokcay and Dilek 1994).
602

�For these reasons, the resent studies have been focused on the application of pretreatment technologies
before anaerobic treatment in order to enhance biogas production. There are a number of physical, chemical or
biological techniques (use of fungus and bacteria) to minimize the inhibitory effects of effluents prior to
anaerobic treatment systems (Lettinga et al. 1991). Reactor design for anaerobic biogas production is also
important. The use of thermophilic digesters has recently become more attractive due to their superior
performance, better pathogen destruction, and higher digestion rates, which allow the anaerobic digestion
facilities to operate at higher loading rates. Using two-stage systems, which segregate the formation of volatile
fatty acids from methanogenesis, have also been developed, improving the overall digester performance. In a
study performed by Yamini et al. (2009), Upflow anaerobic fixed packed bed reactor (UAFPBR) with brick
ballasts as packing material was used in order to treat pulp and paper mill effluents. They have studied biogas
production from paper and mill organic sludge in combination with fermented municipal sludge and cattle
manure as inoculum. They have found that with a optimum hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 12 hr, reduction of
74.5% COD and 81% BOD was obtained. Additionally 30% inoculum concentration was best for the anaerobic
treatment of the effluent with a maximum biogas production of 1.37 L / L effluent.
Beside pulp and paper effluents, pulp and paper industry solid wastes are also valuable for biogas
production. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several research articles have been published introducing
anaerobic digestion for treating pulp and paper solid wates (Kowalczyk and Martynelis, 1989; Puhakka et al.,
1988; Puhakka, 1991). The long residence time requirement of anaerobic sludge digestion has historically
deterred its use in the pulp and paper industry. Techonological advancement that potentially can make anaerobic
digestion more feasible has been the development and establishment of pretreatment of sludge prior to anaerobic
digestion to accelerate the hydrolysis of sludge. Pretreatment enhances sludge digestion and the rate and quantity
of biogas generated, thereby reducing the retention time requirement from 15 to 25 days to approximately 7 days.
The studies were performed on both laboratory and pilot-scale systems. Generally, the results of these studies
showed that anaerobic digestion of pulp and paper biosolids could reduce solid wastes by 30–70%, with the
benefit of methane production. Studies were focused on cost and benefits of the anaerobic technology if
pretreatment technologies, including high temperature, sonication, high-pressure homogenization, addition of
acids and bases, or addition of enzymes, have been developed to solubilize the organic fraction of secondary
sludge (Elliott and Mahmood, 2007; Barjenbruch and Kopplow, 2003; Bougrier et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2007;
Khanal et al., 2007; Penaud et al., 1999; Tanaka et al., 1997; Valo et al., 2004). In addition to microbial biomass,
pulp mill secondary sludge can contain residual cellulose, lignin and chemical components from the pulping
process (Kyllönen et al., 1988). In a study performed by Wood (2009), thermal and caustic pretreatment can
significantly increase both the extent and rate of anaerobic bioconversion of pulp mill secondary sludge to biogas.

4. Conclusion
The pulp and paper industry is considered to be a highly energy intensive and polluting industry. In recent
years, the high cost of energy inputs and increased environmental concerns are forcing the pulp and paper
industry to look for cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternatives. The general characteristics of the
pulp and paper industry effluent can be listed as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

High lignin content,
High adsorbable organic halide (AOX) concentration (due to the bleaching process),
Color,
Low biodegradability which is indicated by their high chemical oxygen demand to biochemical oxygen
demand ratios (COD/BOD), often in the range of 4–6,
Potential toxicity problems

Although physical and chemical methods are available for treatment of pulp and paper mill effluent, they
are less desirable than biological treatment because of cost-ineffectiveness and residual effects. Biological
treatment is known to be effective in reducing the organic load and toxic effects of pulp and paper mill effluent.
Since the early 1980s anaerobic treatment of industrial effluents has found widespread application in the pulp
and paper industry. Over 200 anaerobic plants are treating a large variety of different pulp and paper mill
effluents. Anaerobic fermentation is especially valuable because its end product is methane, a renewable energy
source. In the resent years, studies were performed on pretreatment techonologies to decrease toxicity of the
effluent prior to anaerobic treatment. Advantages of anaerobic pretreatment are net production of renewable
energy (biogas), minimised biosolids production and reduced emission of greenhouse gases. Anaerobic treatment
of pulp and paper effluents combination with manure (co-digestion) has emerged among the new treatment

603

�perspectives for these effluents. Additionally, other energy source is the anaerobic pulp and paper solid wates.
The long residence time requirement of anaerobic sludge digestion has prevented its use in the pulp and paper
industry. In an attempt to decrease the residence time requirement, pretreatment technologies have been
developed in the recent years such as; high temperature, sonication, high-pressure homogenization, addition of
acids and bases, or addition of enzymes. These pretreatment techonologies have been developed to solubilize the
organic fraction of secondary sludge. Some of these technologies, using physical or chemical principles, and
often a combination of them, have demonstrated their ability to substantially reduce the digestion time and
thereby the reactor size. Increased gas production and reduced excess sludge generation have been reported to be
the added benefits associated with them.

References
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Valo, A., Carrère, H., Delgenès, J.P.,( 2004) Thermal, chemical and thermo-chemical pre-treatment of waste activated sludge
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Yamini S, Deepak P, Anoop SRK, Srivastava (2009) Treatment of rayon grade pulp drain effluent by upflow anaerobic fixed
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605

�</text>
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Özdemir, Veli
Yazar, Emre
Çınar, Özer</text>
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                <text>Increase in population and rapid developments in technology have enhanced production  capacity in pulp and paper industry and have resulted in formation of huge amount of wastewaters,  as high as 6-15 x 104 L per ton of paper produced. Depending on the pulping process, wastewaters  can have a wide range of various pollutants characterized by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),  chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), toxicity, and dark color. Untreated  wastewaters from pulp and paper can be potentially very polluting especially for high COD  concentrations which can be reach at 13000 mg/L. Thus a reliable treatment process is needed to  reduce any possible impacts of wastewaters on the receiving media. To overcome this problem  an environmentally friendly and economically viable treatment technology should be applied.  Indeed, high organic content of pulp and paper industry wastewaters make anaerobic treatment a  very attractive option for these wastes. Anaerobic processes not only remove the wastewater  pollution but also can produce methane gas which is a valuable and renewable energy source. This  review evaluates the recent developments of treatment technologies that highlight to practical use  and economic availability of biogas production from pulp and paper wastewaters.</text>
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                    <text>2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

International Financial Reporting Standards for Smes and
The Applicatıon Process In Turkey
Mehmet CĠVAN
Assist. Prof., The University of Gaziantep
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Business Administration
civan@gantep.edu.tr
Mehmet KÖRPĠ
Lecturer , The University of Gaziantep
Naci Topcuoglu Vocational School of Higher Education
korpi@gantep.edu.tr
Burcu BUYURAN
Vocational School Part Time Lecturer
The University of Gaziantep
Naci Topcuoglu Vocational School of Higher Education
bbuyuran@hotmail.com

Abstract: Today, 95% of the world and in our country's economic system occurs from
the Small and Medium-Large Enterprises (SMEs) constitute. Only the European Union,
more than 25,000,000 and in our country 1.000.000 companies is estimated in the SME
status. As shown the SMEs get a large share of sector ,the existence of their special
structure, has become inevitable. One of these special structure, is financial reporting.
Increasingly widespread use of International Financial Reporting Standards,the issue of
how to implement those standards to SMEs, has been brought up. And for this problem in
2009 "SMEs for IFRS''was published. by IFRS.
In this context, the basic aim of our study is to investigate and see the implemention
proses of ―IFRS for SMEs‖ which resolve the differences of national accounting systems
that applied in various countries of the world and will enable to comparison of financial
reports and to see how affects and what would bring to Turkey‘s economic system.
Keywords: Small and Medium-Large Enterprises (SME), International Financial
Reporting Standards (IFRS), Accounting, Financial Reports

1. Introductıon
After the product of the five-year study, International Accounting Standards Board ("IASB") was
released on 9 July 2009 ―International Financial Reporting Standards‖ in line with the SME accounting
standards ("IFRS for SME's") for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises ("SME") that estimated
approximately 95% of all businesses on the world. In the development of Accounting standards on SMEs;
SME Commission be formed from forty person, working like counselling to establish the contents of
standards and in order to measure of the SME-oriented approach to the final draft ,the draft was published in
five different languages. More than fifty meetings arranged to final draft, pilot applications done more than a
hundred enterprises in more than twenty different countries and after be finalized set of draft standarts , the
standarts be published
The differences between applying national accounting systems in various countries of the world,
makes hard to comparability of financial statements and makes difficult for investors the identification of

92

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

investment opportunities in different regions of the world , also slowing foreign capital inflows to
emerging economies and investors in the decision making process increases the investment risk.
Accounting standards for SMEs is expected to provide, consistently applied globally to a
common financial language requirements, that become almost indispensable for the mobility of capital
more easily and quickly in with each passing day more integrated capital markets
Accounting standards for SMEs, was prepared more simpler, more easily performed and designed with
an understandable language than IFRS and according to the needs of enterprises in various parts of the
world .
SME accounting standards published an independent set of accounting standards from IFRS
and countries which IFRS doesn‘t applied will be able to use based their initiatives. Which businesses
will be covered by these standards are left to the discretion of the relevant countries.
In order to put an end to implement the multi-headed, in Turkey's accounting and financial
reporting system ; Turkey Accounting Standards Board (TASB) that have administrative and financial
autonomy and public entities has been established. for to create and publish accounting standards
TASB have adopted IFRS in order to ensure compliance with European Union legislation and to
close the world applications. with this decision TASB) was signed between the copyright and license
agreement, by the International Accounting Standards Foundation (IASCF) and has been decided to
make an official translation by TASB. As a result of this study Turkey Accounting Standards (TMS) was
published in the Official Gazette. Corrections and additions will be made to IFRS are expected to apply
by TASB for to continue to ensure full compliance of IFRS and TFRS with the order.

2. SMEs (Small and Medium-sized enterprises) Definition and Criteria
Financial Reporting Standards published for SMEs is defined SMEs as ―SMEs are Bussinesses
without Public accountability obligations and publish general purpose financial statements for external
users‖.
External users stated in definition are;
 Business owners that are not in business management
 Lenders or potential lenders of business
 Ġnformation users such as Credit rating agencies
Standard, was sort obligation to account to the public situations like the following:
a.Company's debt and equity instruments (stocks), domestic or foreign capital market or over the
counter market, including local and regional markets the public in an open market transactions, or that
such a market process to see these instruments exported in the process of be be.
b.Assets, with the title custodian be maintained on behalf of a large mass counterparts. (Banks,
Investment Banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, pension companies, pension funds, brokerage
companies, factoring companies, leasing companies and other financial institutions, etc.)
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), defined in terms of some criteria are companies
that do not exceed a certain size. SME criteria vary between countries. The European Union and Turkey,
the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has identified the SME criteria are as follows:
Criteria
Number of Employees
Amount of sales; (Euro)
Total assets (Euro)

Micro-Scale
&lt;10
&lt;2.000.000
&lt;2.000.000

Small-Scale
&lt;50
&lt;10.000.000
&lt;10.000.000

Medium- Scale
&lt;250
&lt;50.000.000
&lt;43.000.000

Table 1: Valid from 2005, according to EU criteria for SMEs

Criteria
Number of Employees
Amount of sales; (Euro)
Total assets (Euro)

Micro-Scale
&lt;10
&lt;1.000.000
&lt;1.000.000

Small-Scale
&lt;50
&lt;5.000.000
&lt;5.000.000

Medium- Scale
&lt;250
&lt;25.000.000
&lt;25.000.000

Table 2: Criteria for SMEs according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade

93

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

3. International Financial Reporting Standards For SMEs
Financial reporting standard for SMEs, are intended to be used for small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) is simplified than the full set of accounting standards
Standard consists of a total thirty-five chapters. This sections is also included the section of the
definition of SMEs and two sections describe concepts and general principles. Ġn this state of standarts it
is not true to perceived standards as a miniature set of IFRS. Because to be enhanced that with the
standards there are found special solutions apart from IFRS.
Ġt is considered by everyone that Special standards for SMEs will be developed to meet the needs
of the individual nature of SMEs. In other words, developed a "special standard" must be applied without
no dependents set of IFRS. The major criticism of the earlier draft version of the standard is
implementation alone regardless of the standard set of IFRS can not be possible. Accordingly, the
standard version of the first set of IFRS for application to be able to fully implement, while the new
version with a very large extent, this situation has been eliminated.
Another major criticism towards IFRS is changing of the standards too often. The changing of
Standards very often, makes the implementation of standards for practitioners difficult. While the
publication of these standards, updates will be made as possible intermittent (unless absolutely necessary
to make updates every three years) have been described in the standard will make it more stable. With the
standard of such a policy be presented, especially for SMEs, should be regarded as a positive situation.

4. The Contents of Financial Reporting Standards for SMEs
Accounting standards for SME to be prepared by IASB, consisted of three parts.
 In Section One, Chapter 35 (standard) and a dictionary
 In the Second Section; Implementation Guide (sample financial statements and footnote
information to be announced)
 In the Third Section, the descriptions of the standards check list is explained.

Figure 1. "IFRS for SMEs" according to the latest draft of partitioning

94

�In the full set, Standards are released with a separate standards codes, Ġn SME financial reporting
standards as published in the Code section. Each chapter covers one or several standard according to the
situation. SME standard consists of 35 sections.
Section
No
1
2
3
4
5
6

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Section Name
Small and Medium Sized Entities
Concepts And Pervasıve Prıncıples
Fınancıal Statement Presentatıon
Statement Of Fınancıal Posıtıon
Statement Of Comprehensıve Income And
Income Statement
Statement Of Changes In Equıty And
Statement Of Income And Retaıned
Earnıngs
Statement Of Cash Flows
Notes To The Fınancıal Statements
Consolıdated And Separate Fınancıal
Statements
Accountıng Polıcıes, Estımates And Errors
Basıc Fınancıal Instruments
Other Fınancıal Instruments Issues
Inventorıes
Investments In Assocıates
Investments In Joınt Ventures
Investment Property
Property, Plant And Equıpment

Section
No
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35

Section Name
Intangıble Assets Other Than
Goodwıll
Busıness
Combınatıons
And
Goodwıll
Leases
Provısıons And Contıngencıes
Lıabılıtıes And Equıty
Revenue
Government Grants
Borrowıng Costs
Share-Based Payment
Impaırment Of Assets
Employee Benefıts
Income Tax
Foreıgn Currency Translatıon
Hyperınflatıon
Events After The End Of The
Reportıng Perıod
Related Party Dısclosures
Specıalısed Actıvıtıes
Transıtıon To The IFRS For Smes

Table 3: Department of IFRS for SMEs

5. " IFRS For SMEs " of the United States, European Union and in Turkey Forecast
Developed standards, largely to meet the needs of SMEs are expected.Because of no negative opinion
to draft text makes strengthening the argument. Primarily for the implementation of standards by SMEs of
the country's internal legal system of standards is required to be transferred.

USA Status
In the United States there is no Standard or standard set developed for SMEs, Besides this Only the
Companies following to SEC(U.S. Securities and Exchange Board ) disclosure requirement of their financial
statements (Ġn EU ,all capital companies have to publish financial statements )shows the transposition of
standards to domestic law is as not easy as estimated .
From the perspective of the IASB in the U.S. in dealing with the process currently is uncertain how it
will operate.Ġn the process of convergence with USA (Process of USA counterpart is FASB) carried out no
plan to develop accounting standards for SMEs for now
5.2.The European Union Status
In full integration prosess to EU hhe most important public Works of financial integration practises
is due to accounting practises become compatible with EU countries and international scales.For this purpose
important Works is done within the EU. EU has a working mechanism to achieve the full integration of
accounting practises .

�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

While IFRS implementation issues, the EU opened in front of the application, in what direction will
be decided for SMEs become obvious in future times .
Need to accept that find applications of Ġnternational financial standards in EU have a significiant
effects for to be used standards widely in the world. The most tangible results of this implementation has
been seen in editing of Implementation of IFRS in listed companies.
Union to apply IFRS in the EU to enforce regulations in many counties, including Turkey, in many
countries on the implementation of IFRS set of regulations to be made easier.
In countries subject to regulations were released for companies that application of IFRS obligation is
not set in the EU. Ġn EU countries, it is essential that the 4 and 7 regulations implementing guidelines for
companies outside of this arrangement. IASB has published IFRS for SMEs is currently applying for EU
countries are not mentioned.Ġn other words, unless the EU adopted the Standard ,this practice will not be
mentioned in developed countries within the EU.Unless accepted standards of practice for SMEs in the EU 4.
and 7. guidelines will continue to apply.
5.3.Situation in Turkey
The Dynamics of IFRS practice in Turkey is Turkey‘s EU accession process.To some extent as a
result of this process but largely to the initiative of the authorities concerned since 2005 International
Financial Reporting Standards in Turkey with full compliance with IFRS has found applications. Viewed
from this angle, the Companies in Turkey, in terms of public AccountAbility IFRS is not a problem for the
Implementation of the set. Real challenge for Turkey is how to implement of accounting standards in
companies that not obliged to give public accounts (mainly SMEs). Ġt is obvious that The TCC proposal
being discussed in Parliament (Bill) and recorded the important progress in this process. .In other words
implementing the provisions of the draft IFRS for SMEs that are missing parts will be completed.
Bill 88 / (1). The article "real persons and corporations to trade books, the amount while both the
individual and consolidated financial statements do editing, just to follow and implement Turkey Accounting
Standards Board published by Turkey, Accounting Standards , the conceptual framework in accounting
principles and their integral part and the comments of them‖ provision, introduced.

Figure 2: Board of Education in Turkey according to the draft Framework for the Implementation of IFRS
According to the provisions of the bill, companies will have to apply TFRS keep their accounting
records until financial reporting .Ġt is clear that the big companies would not be issues for implementation of
this provision . However ,there could be problems in the SME size companies is foreseen.
For the same article 3. of in the paragraph “Turkey Accounting standards boards be placed in special
and exceptional standards for businesses and industries in different criteria as state regulations allowed in
different ways by International Financial Reporting Standards ; those who implement them, status in
question, are explained in footnotes of financial statements” provision is included.
The draft of these regulations is defined an "exception" for implementation in SMEs TFRS set.This
provision is based on for different scale enterprises in case of implementation of specific standards to allow
development of specific standards by TASB. Naturally these standarts will have to be developed in full
compliance with IFRS. In other words this regulations is reference to developed by the IASB standard of
IFRS for SMEs .Because in this case this matter was clearly expressed. IFRS for SMEs developed in Turkey

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�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

for the implementation of SME companies, TASB Turkey by the International Financial Reporting Standards
as required to publish. This circumstance is a necessary condition for perspective to TASB activities..
TFRS set and how to implement TFRS standards for SMEs in companies is organized in Turkish
Commercial Code and law on Application of the 13/2 (a). Accordingly this article, “Turkey Accounting
Standards board may publish Turkey Accounting Standards in line with IFRS for small sized capital
companies and all sizes of companies,individual companies,real person transactions or industries.This case
referred companies and businesses are applied mentioned specific standards.However,companies and
businesses can apply rather than spesific standards withTurkey Accounting Standards fully compatible with
IFRS” rule will be implemened by companies
Individual /
Consolidated
Financial
Statements

Individual /
Consolidated
Financial
Statements

Large Capital Stock
Companies

TFRS

SMEs

TFRS for SMEs

Individual
Companies

TFRS for SMEs

Real Persons

TFRS for SMEs

Figure 3: Scope of Application TFRS According to the draft TCC
Accordingly, the public accountability of corporations (publicly traded companies and banks and
insurance companies) naturally will be applied TFRS set , and the Small-scale capital firms and individual
companies with real people traders will be applied TFRS standards for SMEs. According to the same
provision also non SME sized (Large) capital firms will be applied TFRS set. Such an arrangement be made
for Small- Scale companies as the reasons set forth in the relevant articles of the relevant international
organization (the IASB) and prepared by the standard issues of SMEs in Turkish law, the legal infrastructure
is to be reflected.
How many companies will be involved in the regulation of the draft, are unknown. Revenue
Administration of the 2008 year-end number of taxpayers are taken into account, the total number of 635 042
SMEs with capital companies and how it is not possible to determine the class will be included. In addition,
there is no reliable data for this number is how much active in our hands.

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TYPE OF TAXPAĠRS

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Real People
Limited Company
Partnership
Joint-Stock Company
Others
Cooperative
Unlimited Company
Unincorporated Limited
Partnership
Limited Company with
Securities
Total

3.212.471
540.153
48.979
95.278
75.303
58.814
5.117
526

3.099.868
509.074
47.272
84.000
77.495
53.419
43.399
393

3.148.767
526.242
47.177
82.734
77.296
51.401
4.002
345

321.707
547.726
46.332
81.714
81.476
49.331
36.682
309

3.221.277
554.377
43.690
80.664
84.142
47.202
3.373
274

56

48

38

2

1

4.027.648

4.035.000

4.036.697
3.876.284
3.938.002
Table 4: Number of active taxpayers As species

The process of Implementation of standards in SME sized companies smooth the definition of SME
based on a key role. Accordingly, the bill's definition of SMEs should coincide with the IASB definition of
SME.
In the first section of standards Small and Medium Sized businesses definition explained.
Accordingly ,SMEs are defined as ―SMEs are Bussinesses without Public accountability obligations and
publish general purpose financial statements for external users‖. A company's public accountability
obligations that are Company's debt and equity instruments (stocks), domestic or foreign capital market or
over the counter market, including local and regional markets the public in an open market transactions, or
that such a market process to see these instruments exported in the process of being and existance . Assets,
with the title custodian be maintained on behalf of a large mass counterparts. (Banks, Investment Banks,
mutual funds, insurance companies, pension companies, pension funds, brokerage companies, factoring
companies, leasing companies and other financial institutions, etc.)
1523. draft of the article describes the capital stock companies according to the scale of companies.
Accordingly,
1. Companies that are not exceeded at least two of the following three criteria is considered to be small
capital stock companies:
 Be found with taken out loss from asset Balance sheet total of six million TL
 The last day of the accounting period (balance sheet day) of total sales in the previous twelve
months twelve million TL
 Fifty people yearly average number of employees.
2. Companies that exceeds at least two criteria of the first paragraph and at least two of the following three
criteria are not exceeded two will be considered medium-size capital companies :
 Be found with taken out loss from asset Balance sheet total of twenty million TL
 The last day of the accounting period (balance sheet day) of total sales in the previous twelve
months fifty million TL
 Two hundred and fifty-people yearly average number of employees.
3. Cabinet size can be increased up to ten times or ten or one to reduce.
4. In the second paragraph of the criteria for at least two of the largest companies in excess of capital is
considered capital firm.
A company that its Securities in Turkey securities exchange or traded securities in the list of the
countries declared each year from Capital Markets Board or traded to quotas have been or quotation for the
reference made in, have not exceeded this clause in the criteria shall be deemed to be even greater capital
company.
Projects in the SME definition, to the obligation of accountability to the public transmission to the
4. article of the indirect causes are no contradictions between the two definitions. Besides this, the bill is
clearly a wider scope of application. Ġt is clear that scope of application of the draft, is the larger than
definition. To the effect that for the implementation of standards,the obligation of non public accountability
condition in addition to publishing general-purpose financial statements for external users condition.

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Accordingly, although the SME scale of a company may not apply this standard if it does not publish general
purpose financial statements . This situation could be used as, a "way out" particularly for micro-enterprises.
Such a practice is in draft form that is not in question.
Implementation of standards in Turkey, an EU accession perspective of Turkey is the other
dynamic. Turkey's EU-led negotiations process with regard 12.30.2008 dated Official Gazette "Turkey's EU
Acquis Compliance Program" in the Corporate Law with reference the commitment of the standard
application process is another decisive factor. Accordingly the TASB have new tasks to publish a new
application to comply with the EU's Fourth Directive based on the General Communiqué Accounting System,
and to publish a new application in order to adapt EU‘s Seventh Directive. With this published papers for
companies that have no obligation to public accountability will have been new arrangements compatible with
EU's fourth and seventh directives.In clear terms according to these commitments the Accounting Practice
General Communique ' published by the Ministry of Finance that the companies have to follow according to
the EU's Fourth Directive to be revised and the consolidation in accordance with the EU Seventh Directive
will need to create a new notification. This process is obvious that the bill had predicted structure and the
TASB Board of Education 's Financial Reporting Standards in Turkey is against the development perspective.
Under Compliance program in the case of arrangements of old accounting system we will not be compatible
with the International Financial Reporting Standards.The implementation of accounting standards for SMEs
have three dimension such as TCC Bill, Turkey's EU accession process and the perspective of TASB.These
three dimension will be balanced or conflicts will be eliminated.But It should be stated that these conflicts are
pointed a temporary situation. And This temporary situation largely disappeared with description of EU‘s
position and TCC draft be enacted

6. Conclusions
Disclosure of financial information of companies that have a full and fair benefit to all parts in the
economy. This is the obligation of accountability to the public until the company is also true for the SMEsize companies. In this context, the IFRS for SMEs issued by IASB is assuming a very important function.
The financial reporting standards for, SMEs are released SMEs, financial reporting quality, comparability and
to recognize information apply the to generate opportunities to all over the world and brings SMEs a chance
to open foreign markets.
The standard application of the provisions that the simpler from the full set of IAS / IFRS 's, but
also largely based on issues similar to the IAS / IFRS CPCs, SMEs when they pass large business class makes
a full set of IAS / IFRS applications easier.
International Financial Reporting Standards for SMEs are seperated from full set, taken into
consideration of SME needs,simplified without leaving IAS and IFRS‘s underlying philosophy,and which
introduced in various country.For this reason SMEs in Turkey implement these standards without undue delay
so that SMEs can easily find finance sourcing and open foreign markets.
Financial reporting standards for SMEs effective application contains a number of potential
problems and to have a significant majority of SMEs in the economy makes implementation of standards
difficult. First of all for the implementation of the standard needs to be transferred to domestic law. In this
issue priorities and preferences of each country is different. In Turkey, the process is no exception.
Ġmplementation of standards in Turkey must be enacted in the event of the draft become law of the TCC.

References
Akdoğan, Nalan.(2010).‖KOBĠ Finansal Raporlama Standartlarına Genel BakıĢ ve Tam Set IAS/IFRS‘lerden Farklılığı‖,
http://www.tmsk.org.tr/ makaleler/Diger/N_Akdoğan.pdf
Aslan, Sinan.(2007).Küçük ve Orta Büyüklükteki ĠĢletmeler(KOBĠ) Ġçin Uluslararası Finansal Raporlama Standartları
(UFRS) Ġle Global Uyum Süreci, The University of Marmara Journal, C.XXIII, S.2,s.203-221.
Çelik, Orhan. (2006). Uluslararası Finansal Raporlama Standartlarının KOBĠ‘lerde Uygulanması: Temel Dinamikler ve
Potansiyel Sorunlar. Ankara: TESMER Publication No. 73.
Çelik, Orhan. (2010). ―Küçük Ve Orta Büyüklükteki ĠĢletmeler Ġçin Uluslar arası Finansal Raporlama Standardı: Genel
BakıĢ‖. http://www.tmsk.org.tr/ makaleler/Diger/OrhanÇelik.pdf

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�2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Development, June 8-9 2010, Sarajevo

Demir,Volkan.(2007).‖KOBĠ‘ler Ġçin UFRS‖nin Son Taslağı ve Değerlendirmeler, Journal of Financial Solutions
Year:17, p.80,p.43-58.
IFRS For SMEs, International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (SMEs),
Internatıonal Accountıng Standards Board (IASB), 2009.
Karakaya,Mevlüt.(2010).‖KOBĠ‘lerin Küresel Ekonomik Ġklime Uyumunda Uluslar arası Finansal Raporlama
Standartları‖. http://www.tmsk.org.tr/ makaleler/Diger/MEVLUT_KARAKAYA.pdf
Sayar,Zafer.(2008).‖Küçük ve Orta Büyüklükteki ĠĢletmelerin ÇağdaĢ Finansal Raporlama Dünyası: KOBĠ Muhasebe
Standartları‖.Ankara: TESMER Publication No:79.
Türkiye Muhasebe Standartları; TASB, 2010

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                <text>International Financial Reporting Standards for Smes and  The Applicatıon Process In Turkey</text>
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KÖRPİ, Mehmet
BUYURAN, Burcu</text>
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                <text>Today, 95% of the world and in our country's economic system occurs from  the Small and Medium-Large Enterprises (SMEs) constitute. Only the European Union,  more than 25,000,000 and in our country 1.000.000 companies is estimated in the SME  status. As shown the SMEs get a large share of sector ,the existence of their special  structure, has become inevitable. One of these special structure, is financial reporting.  Increasingly widespread use of International Financial Reporting Standards,the issue of  how to implement those standards to SMEs, has been brought up. And for this problem in  2009 "SMEs for IFRS''was published. by IFRS.  In this context, the basic aim of our study is to investigate and see the implemention  proses of ―IFRS for SMEs‖ which resolve the differences of national accounting systems  that applied in various countries of the world and will enable to comparison of financial  reports and to see how affects and what would bring to Turkey‘s economic system.</text>
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