Issue 3

BTEX, also known as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene, is a common gasoline oxygenate. The contamination of groundwater and surface water with BTEX and its primary breakdown product has drawn a lot of attention. However, surface-modified zeolite's sorption mechanisms and affinity for BTEX can be employed to potentially remove these toxins from water. Tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) was utilized to alter the morphology of the adsorbent. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that zeolites have a greater capability for removing emerging chemicals. Some of the emerging compounds' relatively large dimensions limit their natural ability to lower values. Gas chromatography was used to determine the BTEX concentration decrease range. The Yoon-Nelson and Adams-Bohart model's use of mathematical modelling to determine the efficacy of the column's adsorption. The model with the highest R2 values for characterizing equilibrium isotherm data describes equilibrium adsorption data. To gain an understanding of the shape, pore structure, and active sites, the characterisation is concentrated on quantitative analysis using XRD, qualitative analysis using FTIR, and optical study using SEM.

In terms of sustainable land use management, it is extremely important to reveal the land conditions and the changes that occur on the land in certain periods. In this study, using CORINE data for Düzce province, land use status and transitions between land-use classes over 28 years were investigated. In addition, changes in carbon storage in above-ground biomass were determined for each land-use and land transition using Landsat satellite images for the years 1990 and 2018. 28 years, artificial surfaces increased from 3,852 hectares to 9,058 hectares. While agricultural areas increased by 11.5% to 114,650 hectares, forest and semi-natural areas decreased by 14% to 122,955 hectares. 96.7% of the increase in agricultural areas was land converted from forest areas. While the amount of carbon stored in the forest and semi-natural areas increased by 27.9%, it increased by 30.5% in agricultural areas. With land transitions, 17.8% of the total carbon (14,407 tons) was transferred from one land use to another. In terms of annual land-use change rate between 1990 and 2018, the highest rate of land-use change was in the post-earthquake 2000-2006 period. The information in this study will make important contributions to policymakers in land management and planning.

The dumping of solid waste in uncontrolled landfills can cause significant impacts on the environment and human health. The open dumps cause the formation of leachate which contaminated the groundwater; use of these groundwater reported danger to the human health. The goal of groundwater protection is necessary to control the release and migration of pollutants from the leachate in the subsurface. In this paper, the above-mentioned problems were dealt with the case study of Ariyamangalam open dumping site, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu. The dump site receives 71% of organic waste. The groundwater flow and leachate transport model was developed using Visual MODFLOW and MT3DMS (Version 4.3), to study the leachate transport in the subsurface and to predict the plume behavior under different scenarios. The conceptual model of the system was derived from the information on geology, geo physical and geo hydrology of the study area. The total dissolved solids (TDS) were taken as a parameter, to study the extent of contaminant plume for the next nine years (2014-2022). From the groundwater flow model, it was found that the increase in water level by 2.5 m above MSL from December 2010 (70.9 m above MSL) to December 2022 (73.4 m above MSL) around the study area. From the leachate transport model, the predicted TDS plume movement was identified towards the west and south east directions of the open dumping area. As a conclusion, the developed groundwater flow and leachate transport model can be effectively used for studying the leachate migration from the open dumping site into subsurface system.

Waste generated as a result of the leather processing industry can be in the form of solid, liquid and gas waste. Waste generated from the textile industry made from clothing H2S and TSS which if not treated properly, will be very dangerous for health and the environment. One of the efforts to overcome this problem, is offered in the form of a simple, inexpensive and efficient H2S and TSS waste treatment technology, namely by using a combination of bio-desulfurization and trickling filtration methods as a means of treating liquid waste in the leather-based textile industry, especially for parameters, H2S and TSS. Bio-desulfurization is a sulfur removal process by utilizing the metabolism of microorganisms, namely by converting hydrogen sulfide into elementary sulfur, and trickling wastewater filtration is a treatment process by spreading wastewater into a pile or media bed consisting of Coconut Shell Charcoal to reduce H2S and TSS content in leather-based clothing industry wastewater. The results of the study for H2S parameters in wastewater treated in bio desulfurization reactor and trickling filter with Coconut Shell Charcoal filtering media, the biggest decrease was in filter media with a thickness of 60 cm with a contact time of 30 minutes of 4.43 mg/lt or 88.84%. Likewise, the largest decrease in TSS parameter content was found in a 60 cm filter media thickness with a contact time of 30 minutes of 47.67 mg/lt or 82.54%.

Diesel engines cause major pollutants such as hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). These emissions affect environmental systems and lead to global warming and climatic change effects. These pollutants also affect humans and lead to health problems like lung cancer, breathing problems, and headaches, etc. Hence, some necessary action has to be taken to minimise these pollutants. There are several steps available to control these emissions. The coating of the piston using catalytic material is an effective method and novel approach of reducing emissions in diesel engines with alternate fuel operated diesel engines. The copper-chromium-zirconium alloy (CuCr1Zr) is known for its good thermal conductivity and good catalyst material, and the piston is coated bycopper-chromium-zirconium alloy with 250µm thickness. Tamanu oil was blended with diesel fuel in a 20% (B20) to 40% (B40) ratio and used as an alternate fuel for the coated engine. The results showed a significant reduction in emissions and improvements in performance. In this research, the Taguchi with grey relational analysis (GRA) optimization technique is also used to study the effect of engine operating parameters on the emission level such as load and fuel for copper-chromium-zirconium alloy-coated diesel engine. Based on experimental results found that fuel is the most influential factor for CO and HCexhaust gas emissions reductions for coated type diesel engines.

This research describes the bacteriological and physicochemical impact of two types of irrigation water on soil and turfgrass quality during 2018 and 2019. Wastewater treated by an activated sludge process coupled with UV disinfection UV-TW was compared to fresh water FW. The first cycle (2018) was devoted to monitoring soil and turfgrass irrigated by FW, and the second cycle (2019) for UV-TW. Our results showed that the mean concentration of fecal indicators of treated wastewater UV-TW is about 2.17, 1.74, 1.77, and 1.52 log10 CFU/100ml for total coliforms, fecal coliforms, E. coli and cecal enterococci, respectively. The physicochemical characteristics showed no significant difference between soil irrigated with UV-TW and soil irrigated with FW except for pH and electrical conductivity. No significant difference was recorded comparing the fecal contamination of soil and turfgrass between the two irrigation cycles, except for fecal coliforms. Overall, the outputs of this work reported that the irrigation with UV-TW presents advantages not only on the quality of the soil and the vegetation, but also on the management of water scarcity. Thus, a highly controlled process of treatment and irrigation must be conducted to assure a safe hydric resource and to avoid any potential risk to human health.

The pollution and toxicological effects of microplastics in soil have gradually attracted widespread attention, but studies on the ecological effects of microplastics on soil microorganisms and their mechanisms are still very scarce. To explore the physiological response of ectomycorrhizal fungi (Lactarius delicious, Ld) to microplastic stress, Ld was used as the test strain, and 80 nm and 4 μm monodisperse polystyrene microspheres (PS-MPs) were selected. The solid plate method and the liquid culture method were used to study the effect of PS-MPs with two particle sizes on the growth, nutrient content, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, organic acid secretion and other indicators of the strain Ld. The results showed that with increasing PS-MPs concentration, the biomass of strain Ld decreased gradually. When the strain Ld was exposed to high concentrations of PS-MPs (200-300 mg L-1), PS-MPs with particle size of 4 μm showed stronger inhibition of biomass than PS-MPs with particle size of 80 nm. After exposure to the PS-MPs environment of two sizes, the concentration of PS-MPs increased (0-300 mg L-1), and the contents of phosphorus (P), potassium (K), H2O2 and superoxide anion radical (O2·-) in Ld mycelia increased significantly (p < 0.05). This showed that the antioxidant substances in Ld could not remove excess ROS, but could reduce the stress of microplastics by increasing the absorption of P and K from the environment, which was beneficial to its own metabolic activities. In addition, the strain Ld could secrete oxalic acid, acetic acid and succinic acid into the culture medium, which the amount of oxalic acid secreted was the highest. We speculated that strain Ld responded to the stress of microplastics by secreting a large amount of organic acids. Therefore, the mechanism of the influence of microplastics on ectomycorrhizal fungi may involve oxidative stress, and the mycelia responded to the toxicity of microplastics by secreting more organic acids and increasing the absorption of P and K. The results of this study will provide a scientific basis for the study of the acute toxicity of microplastics to ectomycorrhizal fungi.

The current study work's contribution relates to the removal of xylene using an adsorbent with modified surfaces made from a naturally occurring substance called avocado seed. With the aid of a muffle furnace heated to 600⁰c, this was converted to become activated carbon. Activated carbon is modified on the surface using titanium di oxide (Tio2). This surface modification demonstrated significant performance in the designated surface area of 67.35 m2 g-1. The varied levels of xylene concentration drop at three distinct temperatures 30, 60, and 90⁰C were visible. Applying the Thomas and Adams-Bohart to describe equilibrium adsorption data resulted in the model having the highest R2 values for describing equilibrium isotherm data. SEM patterns captured the degree of the surface modification with increased porosity; however, XRD and FTIR analyses of the surface modified adsorbent did not reveal any structural distortion. This thorough analysis resulted in the efficient removal of 93% of xylene by cost-effective adsorbent

Fly ash, solid waste from coal-fired power plant, had been utilized as raw material for porous geopolymer by alkaline activation and addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) blowing agent. Porous geopolymer had higher surface area and total pore volume compared to fly ash and geopolymer without blowing agent, namely 45.511 m2 g-1 and 0.05131 cc g-1, respectively. Porous geopolymer was applied as adsorbent for anionic dyes Eriochrome Black T (EBT) and cationic dyes Methyl Violet (MV) from aqueous solutions. In this paper, factors affecting adsorption process such as adsorbent dosage, pH, time, and initial concentration were studied, in addition to adsorption kinetics and isotherm studies. Adsorbent dosage, time, and initial concentration factors had the same effect on the adsorption process for both EBT and MV dyes. The optimum removal efficiency was obtained at adsorbent dosage of 2 g L-1 and adsorption time of 90 minutes. The increase of the initial concentration of dyes would decrease the removal efficiency. For pH factor, adsorption of EBT dyes was better at pH of 2, while adsorption of MV dyes was better at pH of 10. Both adsorption of EBT and MV dyes by porous geopolymer followed pseudo-second-order kinetics model and Langmuir isotherm model with maximum adsorption capacity of 45.454 mg g-1 and 49.261 mg g-1, respectively.