● Present a general concept called "salinity exchange". ● Salts transferred from seawater to treated wastewater until completely switch. ● Process demonstrated using a laboratory-scale ...electrodialysis system. ● High-quality desalinated water obtained at ~1 mL/min consuming < 1 kWh/m 3 energy.
Two-thirds of the world's population has limited access to potable water. As we continue to use up our freshwater resources, new and improved techniques for potable water production are warranted. Here, we present a general concept called "salinity exchange" that transfers salts from seawater or brackish water to treated wastewater until their salinity values approximately switch, thus producing wastewater with an increased salinity for discharge and desalinated seawater as the potable water source. We have demonstrated this process using electrodialysis. Salinity exchange has been successfully achieved between influents of different salinities under various operating conditions. Laboratory-scale salinity exchange electrodialysis (SEE) systems can produce high-quality desalinated water at ~1 mL/min with an energy consumption less than 1 kWh/m 3. SEE has also been operated using real water, and the challenges of its implementation at a larger scale are evaluated.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
In recent years, performance evaluation of sustainable operations has attracted a significant amount of research. The current paper seeks to evaluate sustainable manufacturing performance when wastes ...are recycled and re-used. For example, a typical sustainable process in iron and steel making involves in the first stage forging iron and steel products and in the second stage disposing the wastes. The sustainable manufacturing process then re-uses the recycled waste water in the first stage production. It is important that performance metrics include the operations related to recycling and re-use of the wastes. In a simplified view, such a sustainable operation is a two-stage process. Due to the ability of incorporating multiple performance metrics, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to develop our evaluation approach. While traditional DEA treats such two-stage manufacturing process as a black box by ignoring the internal conflicts and cooperation among multiple manufacturing stages, this paper proposes a modified two-stage network DEA model that deals with good and undesirable outputs from the sustainable manufacturing process. A Nash bargaining game between efficiencies of two-stages is proposed to produce unique and fair efficiency decomposition for the two-stage sustainable manufacturing process. The modified two-stage network DEA model is applied to wastewater recycling and reusing in a set of iron and steel makers in China. The results show that the proposed model is more effective than the black box DEA model in calculating efficiency of both two-stages and in identifying the sources of the inefficiency of overall sustainable manufacturing processes.
•Sustainable manufacturing processes are treated as two interconnected stages.•A new two-stage DEA model is developed for efficiency evaluation for sustainable manufacturing.•The model is applied to wastewater recycling and reusing in the main iron and steel makers in China.•High evaluation accuracy rates with overall efficiency and its decomposition validate this model.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Forest-water reuse systems infiltrate municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters through forest soils to shallow aquifers that ultimately discharge to surface waters. Their ability to ...mitigate regulated nutrients, metals, and organic chemicals is well known, but the fate of non-regulated chemicals in these systems is largely unstudied. This study quantified 33 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in soils, groundwaters, and surface waters in a 2000-hectare forest that receives ~1200mm/year of secondary-treated, municipal wastewater in addition to natural rainfall (~1300mm/year). This forest-water reuse system does contribute PPCPs to soils, groundwater, and surface waters. PPCPs were more abundant in soils versus underlying groundwater by an order of magnitude (5–10ng/g summed PPCPs in soil and 50–100ng/L in groundwater) and the more hydrophobic chemicals were predominant in soil over water. PPCP concentrations in surface waters were greater at the onset of significant storm events and during low-rainfall periods when total summed PPCPs were >80ng/L, higher than the annual average. With few exceptions, the margins of exposure for PPCPs in groundwater and surface waters were several orders of magnitude above values indicative of human health risk.
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•Forest-water reuse systems sustainably treat and manage wastewaters through land-application to natural forests.•Fate and effects of wastewater contaminants remain uninvestigated in these systems.•33 pharmaceuticals were quantified in wastewater, groundwater, surface water, and soil.•Land application of municipal wastewater contributes pharmaceuticals to the forest-water reuse system.•Pharmaceutical concentrations observed do not pose a significant risk to human health.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The use of treated municipal wastewater (TWW) represents a relevant opportunity for irrigation of agricultural crops in semi-arid regions to counter the increasing water scarcity. Pharmaceutically ...active compounds (PhACs) are often detected in treated wastewater, posing a risk to humans and the environment. PhACs can accumulate in soils and translocate into different plant tissues, reaching, in some cases, edible organs and entering the food chain.
This study evaluated the uptake and translocation processes of 10 PhACs by olive trees irrigated with TWW, investigating their accumulation in different plant organs. The experiment was conducted in southern Italy, in 2-year-old plants irrigated with three different types of water: freshwater (FW), TWW spiked with 10 PhACs at a concentration of 200 µg L
(1× TWW), and at a triple dose (3× TWW), from July to October 2021. The concentration of PhACs in soil and plant organs was assessed, collecting samples of root, stem, shoot, leaf, fruit, and kernel at 0 (T0), 50 (T1), and 107 (T2) days of irrigation. PhACs extraction from soil and plant organs was carried out using the QuEChERS method, and their concentrations were determined by high-resolution mass spectrometry coupled with liquid chromatography.
Results of uptake factors (UF) showed a different behavior between compounds according to their physicochemical properties, highlighting PhACs accumulation and translocation in different plant organs (also edible part) in 1× TWW and 3× TWW compared to FW. Two PhACs, carbamazepine and fluconazole, showed interactions with the soil-plant system, translocating also in the aerial part of the plant, with a translocation factor (TF) greater than 1, which indicates high root-to-leaf translocation.
Findings highlight that only few PhACs among the selected compounds can be uptaken by woody plants and accumulated in edible parts at low concentration. No effects of PhACs exposure on plant growth have been detected. Despite the attention to be paid to the few compounds that translocate into edible organs, these results are promising for adapting wastewater irrigation in crops. Increasing knowledge about PhACs behavior in woody plants can be important for developing optimized wastewater irrigation and soil management strategies to reduce PhACs accumulation and translocation in plants.
This paper describes and discusses an investigation into the treatment of paint manufacturing wastewater (water-based acrylic texture) by coagulation (aluminum sulfate) coupled to electrochemical ...methods (BDD electrode). Two proposals are put forward, based on the results. The first proposal considers the feasibility of reusing wastewater treated by the methods separately and in combination, while the second examines the possibility of its disposal into water bodies. To this end, parameters such as toxicity, turbidity, color, organic load, dissolved aluminum, alkalinity, hardness and odor are evaluated. In addition, the proposal for water reuse is strengthened by the quality of the water-based paints produced using the wastewater treated by the two methods (combined and separate), which was evaluated based on the typical parameters for the quality control of these products. Under optimized conditions, the use of the chemical coagulation (12 mL/L of Al2(SO4)3 dosage) treatment, alone, proved the feasibility of reusing the treated wastewater in the paint manufacturing process. However, the use of the electrochemical method (i = 10 mA/cm2 and t = 90 min) was required to render the treated wastewater suitable for discharge into water bodies.
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•Chemical coagulation meets the quality control requirements only for reuse proposal.•Electrochemical treatment wastewater is required for water discharge proposal.•The estimated cost of energy required to remove the organic load was 6.09 kWh/m3.•Water-based paints were successfully produced with recycled water from treatments.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Risk of cross-connection is becoming higher due to greater construction of potable-reclaimed water dual distribution systems. Cross-connection events can result in serious health concerns and reduce ...public confidence in reclaimed water. Thus, reliable, cost-effective and real-time online detection methods for early warning are required. The current study carried out pilot-scale experiments to simulate potable-reclaimed water pipe cross-connection events for different mixing ratios (from 30% to 1%) using machine learning methods based on multiple conventional water quality parameters. The parameters included residual chlorine, pH, turbidity, temperature, conductivity, oxidation-reduction potential and chemical oxygen demand. The results showed that correlated variation occurred among water quality parameters at the time of the cross-connection event. A single parameter-based method can be effective at high mixing ratios, but not at low mixing ratios. The direct supporting vector machine (SVM)-based method managed to overcome this drawback, but coped poorly with abnormal readings of water parameter sensors. In that respect, a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC)-SVM-based method was developed. It provided not only high detection performance under normal conditions, but also remained reliable when abnormal readings occurred. The detection accuracy and true positive rate of this method was still over 88%, and the false positive rate was below 12%, given a sudden variation of an individual water quality parameter. The receiver operating characteristic curves further confirmed the promising practical applicability of this PCC-SVM-based method for early detection of cross-connection events.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
(i) To undertake a comprehensive scoping review of the literature that addresses the research question ‘What is the current state of environmental sustainability in general dental practice?’ (ii) To ...provide an effective baseline of data that will consider general awareness, barriers and challenges for the implementation of sustainable practice.
The scoping review was conducted for all published literature in the English language that addresses this topic up to the 31st April 2021. The method of the PRISMA-ScR (PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews) was followed. 128 papers included in this scoping review consisted of: Commentary Letters, editorials, communication and opinion (n = 39); Research (n = 60); Literature reviews (n = 25); Reports Policy and legislation (n = 4). Each included record was analysed for emerging themes that were further classified according to their general relevance. The scoping review is considered over two manuscripts, with this first paper focusing on awareness of the problem and barriers or challenges to the implementation of sustainable care.
Eight diverse but closely interlinked themes that influence the sustainability of oral health provision were identified: Environmental impacts (CO2e, air and water); Reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink; Policy and guidelines; Biomedical waste management; Plastics (SUPs); Procurement; Research & Education; Materials. Barriers to implementation were identified as: Lack of professional and public awareness; carbon emissions arising from patient and staff commute; challenges associated with the recovery and recycling of biomedical waste with a focus on SUPs; lack of knowledge and education into sustainable healthcare provision and; the challenges from the manufacturing, use and disposal of dental materials.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Reverse osmosis (RO) has been increasingly applied for impaired water reuse in arid areas. However, enhancing RO recovery from scarce water resources is limited by energy demand for overcoming ...elevated brine osmotic pressure, and membrane scaling caused by concentrated poorly soluble salts. In this study, we present a hybrid ion exchange desalination process (HIX-Desal) as multifunctional RO pretreatment to enhance RO recovery by simultaneously desalinating feed water and removing multiple scale-forming ions (calcium, sulfate, and phosphate). The novelty of HIX-Desal is that carbon dioxide was the sole regenerant for a two-column train containing a hybrid anion exchanger (HAIX, with doped ferric oxide nanoparticles) and a shallow shell weak acid cation exchanger (SSWAC). We probed the desalination abilities of HIX-Desal at both lab and pilot scales using impaired water sources with varying total dissolved solids (TDS), where consistent desalination was achieved at 50–60% TDS reduction. Field tests demonstrated >80% removal of calcium, sulfate, and phosphate simultaneously. System configuration and SSWAC structure, i.e., intraparticle diffusion path length, were demonstrated to govern the HIX-Desal process during desalination and CO2 regeneration cycle. We envision this study to facilitate RO recovery enhancement and upcycling industrial carbon emission.
•Multifunctional RO pretreatment was achieved using ion exchange driven by CO2.•50% TDS reduction was achieved using impaired water in both lab and field tests.•Phosphate, sulfate, and calcium were simultaneously removed using two-column system.•Column sequence and resin structure were key for desalination and CO2 regeneration.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
N-nitrosamines and their precursors are significant concerns for water utilities exploiting wastewater-impacted water supplies, particularly those practicing potable reuse of wastewater. Previous ...efforts to identify specific precursors in municipal wastewater accounting for N-nitrosamine formation have met with limited success. As an alternative, we quantified the relative importance of greywater (i.e., shower, kitchen sink, bathroom washbasin, and laundry) and blackwater (i.e., urine and feces) streams in terms of their loadings of ambient specific and total N-nitrosamines and chloramine-reactive and ozone-reactive N-nitrosamine precursors to domestic sewage. Accounting for the volume fractions of individual greywater and blackwater streams, laundry water represented the most significant source of N-nitrosamines and their precursors, followed by shower water and urine. Laundry water was particularly important for ozone-reactive N-nitrosamine precursors, accounting for ∼99% of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) precursors and ∼69% of precursors for other uncharacterized N-nitrosamines. For the other greywater streams, consumer products contributed additional N-nitrosamines and precursors, but the remarkable uniformity across different products suggested the importance of common macroconstituents. The consumption of a standard dose of the antacid ranitidine substantially increased NDMA and its chloramine-reactive precursors in urine. Nevertheless, nearly 40% of the American population would need to consume ranitidine daily to match the NDMA loadings from laundry water.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM