Archives of Environmental Protection

The main goal of this work is to show the new approach to determining safety technological levels (SLs) in terms of water quality and its chemical stability, as well as issues of water corrosion properties in water distribution systems (WDSs), due to the fact that water supply pipes are prone to corrosion. In the paper the methodology of determining the risk associated with threat to technical infrastructure was considered. The concept was studied on the basis of real operational data from the water treatment plant. The probability of exceeding the individual parameters for WTPI is slightly larger than for WTPII, which means that this water treatment process may cause lack of chemical stability in the water supply network. Operators should anticipate in the process of designing water distribution system, using proper materials, as to ensure an adequate level of safety from the water source to the water recipient. It should be noted that it is necessary to adjust the material of internal installation of water supply networks to the parameters of the water. At present, there are no correlations between the designing step and water parameters. It was concluded that to protect the water supply infrastructure, which belongs to critical infrastructure, water company should put more emphasis on distribution of stable water that has not potentially corrosion properties. Some suggestions were made for the protection of WDS and to ensure safety of system functioning and long-term usability of water pipes.

The phenolic compounds are known as priority pollutants, even in low concentrations, as a result of their toxicity and non-biodegradability. For this reason, strict standards have been established for them. In addition, chlorophenols are placed in the 38th to 43th in highest priority order of toxic pollutants. As a consequence, contaminated water or wastewaters with phenolic compounds have to be treated before discharging into the receiving water. In this study, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) has been used in order to optimize the effect of main operational variables responsible for the higher 4-chlorophenol removal by Activated Carbon-Supported Nanoscale Zero Valent Iron (AC/NZVI). A Box-Behnken factorial Design (BBD) with three levels was applied to optimize the initial concentration, time, pH, and adsorbent dose. The characterization of adsorbents was conducted by using SEM-EDS and XRD analyses. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherm and kinetics of 4-chlorophenol on AC and AC/NZVI under various conditions were studied. The model anticipated 100% removal efficiency for AC/NZVI at the optimum concentration (5.48 mg 4-chlorophenol/L), pH (5.44), contact time (44.7 min) and dose (0.65g/L). Analysis of the response surface quadratic model signified that the experiments are accurate and the model is highly significant. Moreover, the synthetic adsorbent is highly efficient in removing of 4-chlorophenol.

This study investigates the estimated adsorption efficiency of artificial Nickel (II) ions with perlite in an aqueous solution using artificial neural networks, based on 140 experimental data sets. Prediction using artificial neural networks is performed by enhancing the adsorption efficiency with the use of Nickel (II) ions, with the initial concentrations ranging from 0.1 mg/L to 10 mg/L, the adsorbent dosage ranging from 0.1 mg to 2 mg, and the varying time of effect ranging from 5 to 30 mins. This study presents an artificial neural network that predicts the adsorption efficiency of Nickel (II) ions with perlite. The best algorithm is determined as a quasi-Newton back-propagation algorithm. The performance of the artificial neural network is determined by coefficient determination (R2), and its architecture is 3-12-1. The prediction shows that there is an outstanding relationship between the experimental data and the predicted values.

Phosphorus removal and recovery from domestic wastewater is urgent nowadays. A novel process of nutrients removal coupled with phosphorus recovery from domestic sewage was proposed and optimization of induced crystallization reaction was performed in this study. The results showed that 92.3% of phosphorus recovery via induced Hydroxyapatite crystallization was achieved at the optimum process parameters: reaction time of 80 min, seed crystal loads of 60 g/L, pH of 8.5, Ca/P mole ratio of 2.0 and 4.0 L/min aeration rate when the PO43--P concentration was 10 mg/L in the influent, displaying an excellent phosphorus recovery performance. Importantly, it was found that the effect of reaction temperature on induced Hydroxyapatite crystallization was slight, thus favoring practical application of phosphorus recovery method described in this study. From these results, the proposed method of induced HAP crystallization to recover phosphorus combined with nutrients removal can be an economical and effective technology, probably favoring the water pollution control and phosphate rock recycle.

The possibility of removing organic compounds from wastewater originating from the photochemical production of printed circuit boards by use of waste acidification and disposal of precipitated photopolymer in the first stage and the UV-Fenton method in a second stage has been presented. To optimize the process of advanced oxidation, the RSM (Response Surface Methodology) for three independent factors was applied, i.e. pH, the concentration of Fe(II) and H2O2 concentration. The use of optimized values of individual parameters in the process of wastewater treatment caused a decrease in the concentration of the organic compounds denoted as COD by approx. 87% in the first stage and approx. 98% after application of both processes. Precipitation and the decomposition of organic compounds was associated with a decrease of wastewater COD to below 100 mg O2/L whereas the initial value was 5550 mg O2/L. Decomposition of organic compounds and verification of the developed model of photopolymers removal was also carried out with use of alternative H2O2 sources i.e. CaO2, MgO2, and Na2CO3·1,5H2O2.

Sewage sludge (municipal, or industrial) treatment is still a problem in so far that it is not satisfactorily resolved in terms of cost and final disposal. Two common forms of sludge disposal are possible; the first being direct disposal on land (including agriculture) and the second being incineration (ash production), although neither of these methods are universally applied. Simplifying the issue, direct sludge disposal on land is seldom applied for sanitary and environmental reasons, while incineration is not popular for financial (high costs) reasons. Very often medium and large wastewater treatment plants apply anaerobic digestion for sludge hygiene principles, reducing the amount to be disposed and for biogas (energy) production. With the progress in sewage biological treatment aiming at nutrient removal, primary sludge has been omitted in the working processes and only surplus activated sludge requires handling. Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) is more difficult due to the presence of microorganisms, the decomposition of which requires a relatively long time for hydrolysis. In order to upgrade the hydrolysis effects, several different pre-treatment processes have already been developed and introduced. The additional pre-treatment processes applied are aimed at residual sludge bulk mass minimization, shortening of the anaerobic digestion process or higher biogas production, and therefore require additional energy. The water-energy-waste Nexus (treads of) of the benefits and operational difficulties, including energy costs are discussed in this paper. The intensity of pre-treatment processes to upgrade the microorganism’s hydrolysis has crucial implications. Here a low intensity pre-treatment process, alkalisation and hydrodynamic disintegration - hybrid process - were presented in order to achieve sufficient effects of WAS anaerobic digestion. A sludge digestion efficiency increase expressed as 45% biogas additional production and 52% of the total or volatile solids reduction has been confirmed.

The study was aimed at evaluating microbial contamination on the premises of the sewage treatment plant by determining the concentrations of selected groups of airborne microorganisms. Another objective was to determine the antibiotic sensitivity patterns of isolated strains of staphylococci. The research was conducted in a seasonal cycle, by the impaction method using Merck MAS-100 air sampler. Samples were collected at six sites, each representing a different stage of sewage treatment. The susceptibility of isolated staphylococci was assessed with the disc-diffusion method, following the recommendations of the EUCAST. The results indicate that the microbial population in the air of the investigated area was dominated by mold fungi, whose highest average concentration was recorded at site IV located near the final clarifier (7672 CFU•m-3). Heterotrophic bacteria and mannitol-positive staphylococci were the most numerous at locations where sewage undergoes primary treatment. In each subseuqent stage the number of microorganisms emitted into the air from the sewage was lower. Antibiograms show that more than 50% of Staphylococcus spp. exhibited resistance to penicillin and 20% to rifampicin. In addition, 90% of the analyzed strains were sensitive to other antibiotics. The fungal community included the following genera: Cladosporium, Fusarium, Alternaria, Penicillium, Aspergillus, Aureobasidium, and Acremonium.The highest air contamination with all studied groups of microorganisms was recorded at the locations where mechanical sewage treatment was performed. During the subsequent stages lower numbers of heterotrophic bacteria were emitted into the air. The air in the investigated sewage treatment plant did not contain multidrug-resistant staphylococci.

Monitoring of activated sludge flocs may provide important information for effective operation and control of wastewater treatment. The research objective is to demonstrate methodology for activated sludge image processing aimed to describe morphological characteristics of activated sludge flocs. The proposed software- -based method was presented and verified by analysis of several activated sludge samples. The results show high efficiency of image segmentation and floc recognition of more than 94% floc components. The analysis of a series of 50 pictures gives rapid and reliable results and can be performed in an automatic or semiautomatic mode. Given inherent heterogeneity of activated sludge flocs, multiple and repeated sample images capture (processing of 50 pictures at a time, repeated at least 4 times ) is recommended.

The experiment consisted in monitoring the count of moulds and three selected Trichoderma sp. isolates (T1 - Trichoderma atroviride, T2 - Trichoderma harzianum, T3 - Trichoderma harzianum) in vegetable (onion and tomato) waste composted with additives (straw, pig manure). Additionally, the aim of the study was to determine the type of interaction occurring between autochthonous fungi isolated from composts after the end of the thermophilic phase and Trichoderma sp. strains applied in the experiment. Number of microorganisms was determined by the plate method, next the identification was confirmed. The rating scale developed by Mańka was used to determine the type of interactions occurring between microorganisms. The greatest count of moulds in onion waste composts was noted in the object which had simultaneously been inoculated with two strains T1 - T. atroviride and T3 - T. harzianum. The greatest count of moulds was noted in the tomato waste composts inoculated with T2 - T. harzianum strain. Microscope identification revealed that Penicillum sp., Rhizopus sp., Alternaria sp. and Mucor sp. strains were predominant in onion waste composts. In tomato waste composts Penicillium was the predominant genus, followed by Rhizopus. The test of antagonism revealed the inhibitory effect of Trichoderma isolates on most autochthonous strains of moulds. Tomato waste composts proved to be better substrates for the growth and development of Trichoderma sp. isolates. The results of the study show that vegetable waste can be used in agriculture as carriers of antagonistic microorganisms.

The paper presents current reports on kinetics and mechanisms of reactions with mercury which take place in the exhaust gases, discharged from the processes of combustion of solid fuels (coals). The three main stages were considered. The first one, when thermal decomposition of Hg components takes place together with formation of elemental mercury (Hg0). The second one with homogeneous oxidation of Hg0 to Hg2+ by other active components of exhaust gases (e.g. HCl). The third one with heterogeneous reactions of gaseous mercury (the both - elemental and oxidised Hg) and solid particles of fl y ash, leading to generation of particulate-bound mercury (Hgp). Influence of exhaust components and their concentrations, temperature and retention time on the efficiency of mercury oxidation was determined. The issues concerning physical (gas-solid) and chemical speciation of mercury (fractionation Hg0-Hg2+) as well as factors which have influence on the mercury speciation in exhaust gases are discussed in detail.

Irrigation of cultivated plants can be a source of toxic lithium to plants. The data on the effect of lithium uptake on plants are scant, that is why a research was undertaken with the aim to determine maize ability to bioaccumulate lithium. The research was carried out under hydroponic conditions. The experimental design comprised 10 concentrations in solution differing with lithium concentrations in the aqueous solution (ranging from 0.0 to 256.0 mg Li ∙ dm-3 of the nutrient solution). The parameters based on which lithium bioretention by maize was determined were: the yield, lithium concentration in various plant parts, uptake and utilization of this element, tolerance index (TI) and translocation factor (TF), metal concentrations in the above-ground parts index (CI) and bioaccumulation factor (BAF). Depression in yielding of maize occurred only at the highest concentrations of lithium. Lithium concentration was the highest in the roots, lower in the stems and leaves, and the lowest in the inflorescences. The values of tolerance index and EC50 indicated that roots were the most resistant organs to lithium toxicity. The values of translocation factor were indicative of intensive export of lithium from the roots mostly to the stems. The higher uptake of lithium by the above-ground parts than by the roots, which primarily results from the higher yield of these parts of the plants, supports the idea of using maize for lithium phytoremediation.