Assessment of High Salinity Wastewater Treatment with Dewatered Alum Sludge-Aerobic Membrane Reactor

The discharge of wastewater containing both high salinity and high organic content without prior treatment is detrimental to aquatic life and water hygiene. In order to integrate the advantages of membrane treatment and biological treatment, and exert the phosphorus removal efficiency of dewatered alum sludge, in this study, an aerobic membrane reactor based on dehydrated alum sludge was used to treat mustard tuber wastewater with salinity of 6.8-7.3 % under the conditions of 30 °C, 20 kPa trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 3300-3900 mg/L. Three replicate reactors were applied to assess the operational performance under different organic loading rate (OLR). The results showed that all reactors were effective in removing COD, ammonia nitrogen (NH4 +-N) and soluble phosphate (SP) under the conditions of 30 °C and 20 kPa of TMP. Meanwhile, the effluent concentration of COD, NH4 +-N and SP all increased while OLR was changed from 1.0 to 3.0 kg COD/m3/day, and the effluent COD and NH4 +-N concentration except for SP could reach the B-level of Chinese “Wastewater quality standards for discharge to municipal sewers” when OLR was less than 3.0 kg COD/m3/day. This indicates that dewatered alum sludge-based aerobic membrane reactor is a promising bio-measure for treating high salinity wastewater.

Modelling of Expansion Changes of Vilnius City Area and Impacts on Landscape Patterns Using an Artificial Neural Network

The present study aimed to analyse changes in the land cover of Vilnius city and its surrounding areas and propose a scenario for their future changes using an Artificial Neural Network. The land cover dynamics modelling was based on a multilayer perceptron neural network. Landscape metrics at a class and landscape level were evaluated to determine the amount of changes in the land uses. As the results showed, the Built-up area class increased, while the forest (Semi forest and Dense forest) classes decreased during the period from 1999 to 2019. The predicted scenario showed a considerable increase of about 60 % in the Built-up area until 2039. The vegetation plant areas consist about 47 % of all the area in 2019, but it will be 36 % in 2039, if this trend (urban expansion) continues in the further. The findings further indicated the major urban expansion in the vegetation areas. However, Built-up area would expand over Semi forest land and Dense forest land, with a large part of them changed into built- up areas.

Source Identification and Ecological Risk of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soils and Groundwater

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed from anthropogenic activities, i.e. industrial emissions, incomplete combustion of petroleum, coal and other fossil fuels and other industrial and domestic activities. Research areas of this study are four representative locations in the industrial complex, in the city of Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main objective of the paper is to determine the ecological risk and to assess probable sources of PAHs contamination in soil and groundwater. The results of this study reflect the effects of coal combustion (pyrogenic origin), petrogenic and biomass origin and may provide basic data for the remediation of PAHs in the location. The ecological risk in soil (at depths of 30, 100, 200, 300 and 400 cm) and groundwater is determined. The mean values of ecological risk in soil and groundwater decreased with soil depth. Values of RQ(NCs) for groundwater were found at high ecological risk, for Ant, Chr, DahA, Acy, Pyr, BaA, Phe, Flo, Nap, Ace and Fluo, with values 28.57, 20.59, 300.00, 242.86, 185.71, 1700.0, 76.67, 53.33, 15.83, 100.00 and 57.14, respectively. ∑16PAH indicated high ecological risk for most PAHs, which decreased with soil depth. The value of RQ(NCs) for ΣPAHs in groundwater indicates high ecological risk (ΣPAHs ≥ 800 and RQ(MPCs) ≥ 1). This is the first study on the ecological risk of PAHs in soil and groundwater in industrial soils in Banja Luka and provides baseline information for further studies and additional investigations of this industrial complex.

Effects of Essential Oils on in Vitro Growth of Fungi Cladobotryum dendroides and Mycogone perniciosa Infecting Button Mushroom

The aim of the studies was to investigate the effect of camel grass, lavender, patchouli, peppermint and tea tree essential oils, and their mixtures on the in vitro growth of pathogenic fungi Cladobotryum dendroides and Mycogone perniciosa, occurring in the cultivation of button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus). The mycelial growth of the tested pathogens was evaluated on PDA medium. Essential oils were added in three doses: 0.25; 0.5 and 1 mg·cm–3 of PDA medium. Camel grass and peppermint essential oils applied at the highest dose inhibited completely the in vitro growth of C. dendroides mycelium. Lavender oil used at the amount of 1 mg·cm–3 reduced the growth of the pathogen by 90 %. In the case of M. perniciosa the complete inhibition of the pathogen’s growth was observed after the addition of camel grass oil to PDA medium, irrespective of a dose, and lavender oil at the doses of 0.5 and 1 mg·cm–3. The efficacy of the tested mixtures against M. perniciosa was high. Generally, all mixtures of essential oils, irrespective of a dose, completely controlled the growth of the pathogen. The complete inhibition of the growth of C. dendroides was observed only on the medium with the addition of the mixture of camel grass and peppermint oils at the highest dose. The conducted research showed that natural essential oils due to their antifungal properties could be useful in the Integrated Disease Management for the protection of button mushroom against diseases. They could be an effective alternative to synthetic chemical fungicides.

The Activation Energies and Optimum Temperatures of Olive Oil Hydrolysis By Lipase Porcine Pancreas

Lipase activity is a perfect indicator for the monitoring of processes of bioremediation of degraded soils. Lipase is also used in the processes of oil hydrolysis in wastewater treatment. To be able to predict and model processes with used lipase in environmental operations, knowledge of the kinetic parameters of the process are required. The paper presents the determined values of activation energies and optimum temperatures for porcine pancreas lipase. The parameters were estimated based on the literature of the activity curves vs. temperature for hydrolysis of olive oil by lipase. It was noticed that concentration of gum arabic added as an emulsifier during lipase activity measurements influences on the obtained values of determined parameters. A mathematical model describing the effect of temperature on porcine pancreas lipase activity was used. Based on the comparison analysis, the optimum temperature Topt were obtained in the range from 313.30 ±0.56 to 319.62 ±0.96 K, activation energies Ea were from 51 ±10 to 82.6 ±9.9 kJ/mol, and values of deactivation energies Ed were in the range from 122.7 ±4.0 to 150.9 ±5.8 kJ/mol.

Human Health Effects of Heavy Metal Pollution in the Cross-Border Area of Romania and Serbia: A Review

This review illustrates the state of air, water and soil pollution with heavy metals resulting from mining activities in the cross-border area of Romania and the Republic of Serbia. It also emphasizes the possible human health effects that certain heavy metals can cause. The heavy metals that were identified as polluting the air, water, and/or soil in the area of interest are: As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn. Acute or chronic exposure to these heavy metals may cause numerous human health effects as they affect numerous organs and tissues (gastrointestinal tract, liver, lungs, kidneys, bladder, central nervous system, reproductive system, etc.). The review shows that the pollution produced by both abandoned and active mines cannot be neglected and underlines the necessity of changes in the current mining practices so that mining operations will assure better protection for the environment and human health.

Evaluation of Total Organic Carbon Quantity and Emissions of CO2 from Soil Into the Atmosphere Near Street

Soil as an ecosystem is actively involved into climate formation process. Therefore, it is important to assess such soil quality indicators as total organic carbon (TOC) and CO2 emissions. Soil organic matter is considered to be its indicator of quality, which is one of the most important components of biosphere consistency and stability. Soil respiration shows carbon emission from soil into the atmosphere. This is a great indicator, illustrating soil biological activity. Impact of soil temperature, air humidity, time of day was evaluated on CO2 emission from the soil. The highest CO2 emission is observed in afternoon hours, up to 0.201 g CO2∙m–2·h–1.

Tetracycline Removal from Water by Adsorption on Geomaterial, Activated Carbon and Clay Adsorbents

The use of antibiotics for breeding and for humans increased considerably in recent years, as a dietary supplement to enhance animal growth. This frequent use leads to the detection of residues in water and wastewater. Thus, the emergence of new strains of bacteria resistant to these antibiotics and, can lead to incurable diseases of livestock, and can lead to a possible transmission of these strains to humans. The purpose of this work is to develop new materials based on treated Maghnia clay, activated carbon, cement, and PVA polymer, named geomaterials. These materials were intended for the containment of hazardous wastes in landfills. The removal of tetracycline from aqueous solution was tested by adsorption onto synthesised geomaterials and their mineral constituents. Adsorption kinetics revealed that tetracycline was rapidly retained by GM and ATMa. This was confirmed by the relatively short equilibrium time of 30 min. The pseudo-second-order and intraparticle models well fitted the adsorption kinetic of the TC-adsorbent studied systems. It was noticed that the adsorption kinetic passes through several mechanisms, was demonstrated by the multi-linearity on the plot of qt against the square root of t. The adsorption capacity (Qa ) of TC onto GM is pH-dependent. Indeed, Qa reaches a maximum value (Qa = 12.58 mg ∙ g–1 at a very acidic pH of 2, then the adsorbed amount decreases to reach a minimum value at pH of 8, and for basic pHsQa increases up to 10 mg ∙ g–1.

Assessment of Biological Degradability of the Waste Produced by Food Industry

Organic waste from production processes is unutilised potential for the production of energy from renewable sources. The submitted paper studies the conditions of anaerobic degradation of selected waste from food industry (diary and distillery) when biogas is produced. Both types of organic waste have low pH values. Ash form municipal incineration as a material for the treatment of pH of waste was used. Except for the pH increase during anaerobic degradation, ash also serves as a source of macroelements for inoculum microorganisms. Kinetics of anaerobic biological digestion of organic material based on the change of pressure and biogas production depending on the ash addition (change of pH) of input samples was observed. Beside these tests, degradability of the waste was assessed by limiting biologically degradable ratio, BR and specific speed of degradability, q. pH values were adjusted with different amounts of ash (0.5; 1.8; 2.7 g/g of dry matter of organic material). Results of the research confirmed that the addition of optimum amount of ash has a positive effect on anaerobic degradation of organic materials.

Adsorption Performance of Dyes Over Zeolite for Textile Wastewater Treatment

Removal of textile dyes from wastewater have recently attracted much attention, due to the toxicity, difficult visibility, and thereby the negative consequences on the aqueous environment. Therefore, there have been diverse promising new techniques such as adsorption for dyes removal from industrial wastewater. Compared to the highly cost treatment techniques, removal of dyes using the adsorption process is relatively simple and requires less cost. Synthetic zeolite was used in this research as a high capacity nano-adsorbent for the removal of reactive dyes from coloured wastewater. The impact of main parameters: dose of adsorbent (0.0025 to 0.02 g), pollutant concentration (25 to 200 mg/L), contact time (10 to 120 minutes), degree of agitation (25 and 300 rpm), and solution pH (2 to 8) on adsorption performance of the synthesised zeolite was investigated. The optimum values of these parameters to remove dyes efficiently at 90 % removal were 0.02 g, 200 mg/L, 80 min, 300 rpm, and 6-7 respectively. Also, two models were evaluated, the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Langmuir isotherm was more efficient for representing the data than the Freundlich. The results of the Langmuir isotherm gave KL = 0.08 L/mg, qm = 6.02 mg/g, and R 2 = 0.98, which fitted to the adsorption data of zeolite. Reactive dye adsorption by synthetic zeolite is a vital tool in identifying the fate of dye removal from industrial wastewater treatment plants.