[en] Highlights: → Hypersaline oily wastewater was treated in a membrane bioreactor. → The effects of salinity and organic loading rate were evaluated. → The system was modeled by neural network and optimized by genetic algorithm. → The model prediction agrees well with experimental values. → The model can be used to obtain effluent characteristics less than discharge limits. - Abstract: A membrane sequencing batch reactor (MSBR) treating hypersaline oily wastewater was modeled by artificial neural network (ANN). The MSBR operated at different total dissolved solids (TDSs) (35,000; 50,000; 100,000; 150,000; 200,000; 250,000 mg/L), various organic loading rates (OLRs) (0.281, 0.563, 1.124, 2.248, and 3.372 kg COD/(m³ day)) and cyclic time (12, 24, and 48 h). A feed-forward neural network trained by batch back propagation algorithm was employed to model the MSBR. A set of 193 operational data from the wastewater treatment with the MSBR was used to train the network. The training, validating and testing procedures for the effluent COD, total organic carbon (TOC) and oil and grease (O and G) concentrations were successful and a good correlation was observed between the measured and predicted values. The results showed that at OLR of 2.44 kg COD/(m³ day), TDS of 78,000 mg/L and reaction time (RT) of 40 h, the average removal rate of COD was 98%. In these conditions, the average effluent COD concentration was less than 100 mg/L and met the discharge limits.

[en] Textile wastewater contains organics and color dyes which need to be treated before discharging into receiving water bodies. Sequencing batch reactor (SBR) is proved promising against textile wastewater due to its high organic and nutrient removal efficiencies. In this study the influence of variable hydraulic retention time (HRT) on the performance of SBR in treating combined textile and domestic wastewater was evaluated. Six SBRs were operated in parallel at 12 and 8 hrs HRTs respectively, three for synthetic and three for real textile plus domestic wastewater. SBRs were operated at constant temperature 25 +- 1 degree C and pH 7 +- 1 to avoid seasonal effects. The biological oxygen demand (BOD) removal efficiency was consistent at 73% while, total suspended solids (TSS) removal efficiency increased from 52 to 63% in SBRs with decrease in HRT from 12 to 8 hrs. The organic loading rate (OLR) increased from 0.45 to 0.68 Kg/m3/d, SVI decreased from 94 to 84 mL/g and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency increased in real waste water (RWW) SBRs from 59 to 63% with decrease in HRT from 12 to 8 hrs. Low COD removal at 12 hr HRT can be attributed to poor settling characteristics of sludge due to possible filamentous growth at low F/M (0.03) and greater SRT (28 days) as compared to 8 hr HRT condition, where F/M was 0.05 and SRT of 20 days. (author)

[en] Municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWWTP) effluents usually contain microcontaminants as herbicides, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals that are not suitable for conventional biological treatment due to their recalcitrant character.

[en] Mining and metallurgy effluents are considered complex matrixes due to the presence of certain compounds of difficult treatment, such as certain metals, refractory organic matter or trace compounds. Even though there are conventional treatments, they often entail high costs (both in OPEX and CAPEX), and therefore their implementation is often non-viable for industries. Moreover, the increase in volume of these type of effluents over the last years, has led to the need of more efficient and sustainable processes. The final treated stream may be adequate for water discharge or reuse in the industrial process, which may contribute to keep a good ecological status and to circular economy respectively.

[en] The consumption of psychoactive pharmaceuticals has increased worldwide, and wastewater treatment plants are not able to eliminate them from the effluent. An extensive review was carried out to assess the environmental risk (ERA model) based on secondary data about potential impacts on non-target organisms of seven psychoactive drugs consumed worldwide (alprazolam, bromazepam, citalopram, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam, and oxazepam). Risk quotients (RQs) were calculated according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on ERA of Medicinal Products For Human Use based on (i) the predicted and measured environmental concentrations (PEC and MEC, respectively) of the psychoactive drug in surface water, groundwater, and wastewater effluent and (ii) the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) derived from ecotoxicological assays or ECOSAR software. Furthermore, this study reviews and discusses non-standardized ecotoxicity assays, such as sublethal and behavioral effects on different organisms. In total, 903 MEC entries of psychoactive drugs and 162 data on ecotoxicological assays were gathered from the literature survey addressing behavioral effects (115), acute/chronic effects (35), and sublethal effects (12). Citalopram and diazepam were the only substances that are likely to pose an environmental risk (RQ > 1) to surface waters. Even though there is considerable amount of data on behavioral effects of psychoactive drugs to aquatic species, results are currently not integrated into the EMA risk assessment framework. The large amount of data on psychoactive drug concentrations and effects on non-target organisms collected, interpreted, and discussed in the present study should be used as a baseline for future improvement of ERA strategies.

[en] A semi-batch bubble column was used to evaluate the effect of ozonation on the removal of acid yellow 17 dye from water. Results indicate that ozonation is very effective at removing acid yellow 17 dye from synthetic textile wastewater. The ozone consumed to apparent dye removal ratio ranged from 2 to 15,000 mg ozone per mg of dye decolorized and was dependent on both ozonation time and apparent dye concentration. The biodegradability of the dye wastewater was evaluated by monitoring changes in 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅) with respect to chemical oxygen demand (COD). Results indicate that the wastewater biodegradability increased with an increase in ozonation time. Film theory was used to kinetically model the gas-liquid reactions occurring in the reactor. Modeling results indicated that during the first 10-15 min of ozonation, the system could be characterized by a fast, pseudo-first-order regime. With continued ozonation, system kinetics transitioned through a moderate then to a slow regime. Successful modeling of this period required use of a kinetic equation corresponding to a more inclusive condition. Model results are presented

[en] In an industrial plant, the level of maintenance provided to individual equipment is directly related to the availability that is expected from it. Thus, it is hoped that the most critical equipments will not fail or, at least, that any failure will be rapidly detected and corrected in the minimum time possible. Since resources are limited, it is necessary to determine how they should be distributed, so that no important equipment remains neglected while more resources are concentrated on the most critical items. Therefore, it is necessary to classify equipment in an objective way according to its importance. The method of multicriterion classification of critical equipments (MCCE), which is described in the present work, allows systematic and detailed quantification of the criticality of all equipment, that is to say, it provides an evaluation of the importance that its correct operation has for the plant. To provide this information, the consequences for a company of any failure in the equipment concerned are analysed. Finally, a real case example of an urban wastewater treatment plant is described, in which the MCCE method is applied

[en] The use of pesticides in agricultural practices is nowadays still necessary to ensure crop protection and thus a sustained food production. These substances, therefore, play an essential role in our society. However, pesticides are designed to dissuade, incapacitate or kill living organisms, and although as time goes by these are more selective and less persistent, the employment of these kind of chemicals always poses risks to humans and other non-target living organisms, especially if the environment becomes contaminated with them. A case in point is the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides in water compartments.

[en] Water contamination comes in many forms and types, so it is imperative to develop new technologies and processes that remove different pollutants with high effectiveness while being harmless to humans and ecologically sustainable. Water regeneration allows societies to reuse hydric resources, but the wastewaters must have been conveniently purified in Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) or other similar facilities before being suitable to even regenerate. Also, water reuse is legally limited to certain specific purposes, such as irrigation or industrial processes.

[en] In a circular economy context, agrofood industries have to seek more efficient ways for water and resources management. However, for an efficient management of water and wastewater, different aspects, all of them interrelated, must be taken into account: water-energy nexus, economical costs, potential resource recovery or social and environmental impacts among others. This makes that’s electing the optimum solution for water management in an industry is not a straightforward task. Industrial operators face two main challenges trying to obtain these solutions in their industries. First, to obtain reliable information about water consumptions and qualities at different points of the water network and second, to identify the best solution for water management considering at the same time water quality, energy, costs and possibility of resources recovery. In an industry 4.0 context and considering these two aspects, it´s clear that new tools for acquiring relevant information of the studied water network and simulation tools for decision support for the exploration of different alternatives are presented as very useful tools for finding efficient solutions.