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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 August 2019) | Viewed by 16990

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Dr. Antoine Trzcinski

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering & Surveying, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia
Interests: anaerobic digestion; wastewater treatment; sludge treatment; water–energy nexus; biosolids; sustainable bioprocesses; AB process; biosorption; biorefineries
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to act as Guest Editor for this Special Issue on frontiers in environmental engineering. This issue is now welcoming innovative environmental processes to ensure a safe environment for future generations. These includes the following broad topics: Waste management, water and wastewater treatment, solid waste, innovation processes reducing the environmental footprint, hybrid solutions incorporating biological, physical and chemical processes, nitrogen and phosphorus removal, membrane processes, monitoring of pollutants using advanced analytical techniques, biofuels and platform chemical production, biorefineries, and pre-treatment of biomass. Manuscripts should contribute to advance the current knowledge in the field of environmental technology, by proposing alternative processes, increasing the efficiency or reducing the environmental impact of current processes.

Dr. Antoine Trzcinski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

anaerobic digestion
wastewater treatment
sludge treatment
water-energy nexus
biosolids
sustainable bioprocesses
physico-chemical treatment of water/wastewater
platform chemicals
biofuels
biorefineries
biomass

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 3533 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Optimization of Ammonia Stripping of Piggery Biogas Slurry by Response Surface Methodology

by Mengyuan Zou, Hongmin Dong, Zhiping Zhu and Yuanhang Zhan

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(20), 3819; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203819 - 10 Oct 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2556

Abstract

Ammonia stripping is a pretreatment method for piggery biogas slurry, and the effectiveness of the method is affected by many factors. Based on the results of single-factor experiments, response surface methodology is adopted to establish a quadratic polynomial mathematical model relating stripping time, pH value and gas flow rate to the average removal rate of ammonia nitrogen to explore the interactions among various influencing factors, obtain optimized combined parameters for ammonia stripping, and carry out experimental verification of the parameters. The results show that when hollow polyhedral packing is adopted under operating conditions including a stripping time of 90 min, pH value of 11, gas flow rate of 28 m³/h, gas–liquid ratio of 2000 and temperature of 30 °C, the average removal rate of ammonia nitrogen in biogas slurry can reach approximately 73%. The experimental value is only 4.2% different from the predicted value, which indicates that analysis on the interaction among factors influencing ammonia stripping of biogas slurry and parameter optimization of the regression model are accurate and effective. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Environmental Engineering)

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21 pages, 4843 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Mass Transfer Analysis of Competitive Binding of Pb, Cd, and Zn from Binary Systems onto a Fixed Zeolite Bed

by Ivona Nuić, Marina Trgo, Nediljka Vukojević Medvidović and Marin Ugrina

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(3), 426; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030426 - 01 Feb 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3257

Abstract

The low-cost natural zeolite clinoptilolite was successfully applied for the competitive removal of Pb, Cd, and Zn from binary (Pb + Zn) and (Cd + Zn) aqueous solutions at different Pb/Zn and Cd/Zn concentration ratios. The obtained efficiency was in the range of 79.0–85.0%, and was similar for both systems, indicating that no loss in capacity was observed for six successive sorption-desorption cycles. In both systems, after the breakthrough, competition between the ions occurs, leading to overshooting in the Zn’s initial concentration, indicating displacement of already-bound Zn with Pb and Cd from the feeding solutions. The Zn exceeded its initial concentration up to 2.3 times in the presence of Pb, and up to 1.2 times in the presence of Cd. The film diffusion was pronounced as the slowest step responsible for the overall process rate. The overall mass transfer coefficient (K_a) shows higher values for the (Cd + Zn) system compared to the (Pb + Zn) one due to reduced competition and ions migration. An SEM-EDS analysis confirmed a higher amount of bound Pb and Cd compared to Zn, and a mapping analysis revealed the equal distribution of all ions onto the zeolite surface. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Environmental Engineering)

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8 pages, 902 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Modelization of Nutrient Removal Processes at a Large WWTP Using a Modified ASM2d Model

by Jakub Drewnowski, Jacek Makinia, Lukasz Kopec and Francisco-Jesus Fernandez-Morales

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(12), 2817; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122817 - 11 Dec 2018

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2728

Abstract

The biodegradation of particulate substrates starts by a hydrolytic stage. Hydrolysis is a slow reaction and usually becomes the rate limiting step of the organic substrates biodegradation. The objective of this work was to evaluate a novel hydrolysis concept based on a modification of the activated sludge model (ASM2d) and to compare it with the original ASM2d model. The hydrolysis concept was developed in order to accurately predict the use of internal carbon sources in enhanced biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes at a full scale facility located in northern Poland. Both hydrolysis concepts were compared based on the accuracy of their predictions for the main processes taking place at a full-scale facility. From the comparison, it was observed that the modified ASM2d model presented similar predictions to those of the original ASM2d model on the behavior of chemical oxygen demand (COD), NH₄-N, NO₃-N, and PO₄-P. However, the modified model proposed in this work yield better predictions of the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) (up to 5.6 and 5.7%) as well as in the phosphate release and uptake rates. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Environmental Engineering)

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14 pages, 2756 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Factors Affecting the Start-Up of Iron-Manganese Co-Oxide Filters for Ammonium and Manganese Removal from Groundwater

by Ya Cheng, Tinglin Huang, Lijie Cheng and Junbin Wu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(9), 1822; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091822 - 23 Aug 2018

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3263

Abstract

The high concentration of ammonium (NH₄⁺-N) and manganese (Mn²⁺) in underground water poses a major problem for drinking water treatment plants. Effective catalytic oxidative removal of NH₄⁺-N and Mn²⁺ by iron-manganese co-oxide film (MeO_x) filters was first developed by our group in a previous study. In this study, several identical pilot-scale filters were employed to optimize the start-up process for simultaneous removal of NH₄⁺-N and Mn²⁺ from potable water supplies. Experiments were conducted to assess the influence of Mn²⁺ concentration, Fe²⁺ concentration, filtration rate and dosing time on the start-up period of the filter. Results demonstrated that the ability of the filter to remove completely 1.5 mg/L NH₄⁺-N could be achieved on the sixth day at the soonest and the removal of Mn²⁺ could reach 1 mg/L by the 18th day. Filter R3 feeding with 1 mg/L Fe²⁺, 2 mg/L Mn²⁺ and 3.5 mg/L MnO₄⁻ during the start-up period exhibited the optimum NH₄⁺-N and Mn²⁺ removal effect. Short dosing time was not conducive to attaining full NH₄⁺-N removal in filters, especially the activity of NO₂⁻-N conversion to NO₃⁻-N. The compositional analysis and element distribution analysis results demonstrated that there was an abundance of C, O, Mn, Mg, Fe, Ca and Si across the entire area of the surface of the filter media and the elemental distribution was homogeneous, which was different from the biofilter media. Knowledge-guided performance optimization of the active iron-manganese co-oxide could pave the way for its future technological use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Environmental Engineering)

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25 pages, 2971 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Contaminations of Soil and Two Capsicum annuum Generations Irrigated by Reused Urban Wastewater Treated by Different Reed Beds

by Suhad A. A. A. N. Almuktar, Suhail N. Abed and Miklas Scholz

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(8), 1776; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15081776 - 18 Aug 2018

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4045

Abstract

Background: In order to save potable water, this study aims to evaluate the contamination of soil and Capsicum annuum L. (chilli) watered with urban wastewater (sewage) pre-treated by various wetland systems. Methods: The appropriateness of wetland outflow for irrigation when applying reused wastewater with high contamination of minerals and pathogens was assessed. The impact of wastewaters pre-treated by various wetlands on soil and harvest was tested in terms of mineral and biological contamination risk. Results: The wetlands met the standards for irrigation water for most water quality variables. However, the thresholds for key water quality parameters were significantly (p < 0.05) exceeded. The highest values for total coliforms, ammonium-nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were 157,072 CFU/100 mL, 8.5 mg/L, 5.0 mg/L, and 7.0 mg/L, respectively. The harvest was moderately polluted only by zinc according to vegetable quality standards (threshold of 50 mg/kg). Zinc concentrations for Filters 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 were 35.8, 60.6, 65.1, 65.5 and 53.2 mg/kg, respectively. No bacterial contamination was detected. Conclusions: Treatment of domestic wastewater applying constructed wetlands and subsequent recycling of the treated wastewater for irrigation of crops is a good substitute to the traditional application of drinking water for irrigation purposes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Environmental Engineering)

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