Municipal Wastewater Treatment Using Moringa oleifera Seed and Press Cake Powder: A Comparative Analysis

Moringa oleifera (MO), also known as drumstick tree, has gained worldwide attention among researchers and policy makers, for showing its remarkable potential in environmental management. Recently, MO seed or press cake (a by-product of oil extraction industry) powder has also emerged as an alternative and promising coagulant for environmental remediation. In this view, attempts have been made in this study to evaluate the efficacy of MO seed and press cake powder (MSP & PCP) for the treatment of municipal wastewater. Both MSP and PCP are characterized by using swelling ratio, scanning and transmission electron microscopy analysis. The effect of various operational parameters such as coagulation–flocculation pH (2–10), coagulant dosage (0.1–1 g L⁻¹), and sedimentation time (0–180 min), etc., is investigated to understand the potential of MSP and PCP. At optimized operational conditions, sedimentation kinetics is also performed suggesting that the treatment process is being governed by the second-order kinetic model. The chemical and biological oxygen demand removals at optimized conditions are observed as follows: ≈38 and ≈73% for MSP and ≈47 and ≈85% for PCP. Overall, the results of the present study elucidated that PCP can be employed as a promising alternative of MSP for municipal wastewater with improved treatment efficiencies.     

Natural sediment at a dam and its inorganic materials as adsorbents of praseodymium(Pr(Ⅲ))

The sediment deposited behind a dam(DS) and its inorganic materials(IM-DS) were characterized and used for the removal of praseodymium(Pr) from aqueous solutions. Quartz, albite, and kaolinite were found in the sediment by X-ray diffraction. Kinetic data fit well to a pseudo second-order model, the equilibrium time for DS and IM-DS was 2 h and 3 min, respectively, and the adsorption capacity was higher for Pr/DS(q_e= 4.91 mg/g) than for Pr/IM-DS(q_e= 3.01 mg/g) in these condi...     

湖光岩玛珥湖春季浮游植物对溶解态氮的吸收

利用15N稳定同位素示踪技术,采用现场挂瓶培养的方法测定了湖光岩玛珥湖浮游植物群落对铵态氮、硝态氮和尿素态氮的吸收速率,研究了湖光岩玛珥湖浮游植物群落氮吸收及其吸收动力学特征.结果表明:湖光岩玛珥湖共检测到浮游植物7门54种(包括变种和变型),主要为蓝藻门、硅藻门和绿藻门种类,分别占浮游植物总量的44.68%、26.70%和19.21%,其中水华微囊藻(Microcystis flos-aquae)与铜绿微囊藻(Microcystis aeruginosa)为绝对优势种,优势度分别为0.39与0.28.湖光岩玛珥湖浮游植物群落对铵态氮的绝对吸收速率最高,分别是对硝态氮、尿素态氮绝对吸收速率的5.8和4.2倍,占3种溶解态氮总吸收量的73.3%.铵态氮、硝态氮和尿素态氮的相对优先指数分别为2.907、0.190和1.192,说明浮游植物群落优先吸收铵态氮,其次为尿素态氮,最后为硝态氮.铵态氮、硝态氮和尿素态氮的周转时间分别为3.72、57.03和9.07 h.湖光岩玛珥湖浮游植物对溶解态氮的吸收可用Michaelis-Menten酶动力学方程描述,最大比吸收速率表现为铵态氮尿素态氮硝态氮,亲和力表现为硝态氮铵态氮尿素态氮.湖光岩玛珥湖浮游植物群落对铵态氮具有较高的吸收潜力,并且对硝态氮具有一定的亲和力,具备利用硝态氮的能力.     

Adsorption characteristics of copper ion on nanoporous silica

Adsorption by nanoporous media is critically involved in many fundamental geological and geochemical processes including chemical weathering,element migration and enrichment,environmental pollution,etc.Yet,the adsorption behavior of metal ions on nanoporous materials has not been systematically investigated.In this study,MCM-41 material with a monodisperse pore size(4.4 nm)and a large BET specific surface area(839 m^2/g)was hydrothermally prepared and used as a model silica adsorbent to study the adsorption characteristics of Cu^2+as a representative metal ion.The Cu^2+adsorption capacity was found to increase with increasing suspension pH in the range from 3 to 5 and to decrease in the presence of NaNO3.At 25℃,pH=5,and a solid-to-liquid ratio of 5 g/L,the adsorption capacity was determined to be 0.29 mg/g,which can be converted to a dimensionless partition coefficient of 45,indicating a strong enriching effect of nanoporous silica.The adsorption isotherm and kinetic data were fitted to several commonly used thermodynamic,kinetic,and diffusion models.The adsorption mechanism was also studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy,X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy.The results suggest that Cu2+ion adsorption is an entropy-driven endothermal process,possibly involving both outer-sphere and inner-sphere complexes.     

Untersuchungen zur adsorptiven Abtrennung von leichtflüchtigen chlorierten Kohlenwasserstoffen (LCKW) aus huminstoffhaltigen Wässern mit neuartigen Adsorberpolymeren und Aktivkohlen. Teil II:: Dynamik der Adsorption

Investigations of the Adsorptive Separation of Volatile Chlorinated Hydrocarbons (VCHC) from Water with Humic Substance by Novel Polymeric Adsorbents and Activated Carbons. Part II: Dynamics of Adsorption In this publication, the dynamics of adsorption of different volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons (VCHC) (1,2-dichloroethane, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethene) and a humic substance from water as well as of these VCHC from water with humic substance onto novel polymeric ad-[QJ][HR] sorbents (WOFATIT EP 63, DOWEX XUS 43493, MACRONET MN 100 and MN 200) was studied in comparison to activated carbons (NORIT ROW 0.8 SUPRA, PRECOLITH BKK 3, HYDRAFFIN CG). The obtained breakthrough curves and the following predicted characteristic values reveal that the polymeric adsorbents do not remove or remove the humic substance only with low adsorption capacity in contrast to the activated carbons. At the adsorption of the VCHC from water with humic substance it was determined that the influence of the humic substance on the adsorption capacity is substantially less on polymeric adsorbents than on activated carbons.     

Assessment of the impact of pore-scale mass-transfer restrictions on microbially-induced stable-isotope fractionation

Stable-isotope fractionation has become an established method for the assessment of contaminant biodegradation in groundwater. At the pore scale however, mass-transfer processes can limit the bioavailability of chemical species and therefore affect the observed fractionation. This can challenge the application of stable-isotope analysis in practice. A linear-exchange model provides a computational link between the microbially-induced isotope fractionation, determined under ideal conditions, and the fractionation observed under conditions of limited bioavailability. This simplifying conceptual approach allows for accurately estimating the mass-transfer limited degradation rates but its applicability for stable-isotope fractionation at the pore scale has not been evaluated yet. In this study, we perform high-resolution numerical simulations of microbial degradation and stable-isotope fractionation of a chemical species in a pore-scale model. The numerical results are compared to theoretical predictions derived from the linear-exchange model. Our results show an overall good agreement between numerical simulations and theoretical predictions, which confirms the applicability of the theoretical approach and of the value for the mass-transfer coefficient previously derived from the geometry of the pore space. In addition we provide a quantitative link between the value of the observable fractionation factor and the effective bioavailability of a biodegradable contaminant.