1,720,987 research outputs found
Sludge reduction by an anaerobic side-stream reactor process: A full-scale application
No full textIn the present paper, a new process, whose acronym is UTN (University of Trento) system, is proposed and tested at full scale for reducing the amount of sludge of the wastewater treatment plant. The UTN system allows sludge reduction in conventional activated sludge (CAS) due to the cell lysis, the sludge decay and, above all, to the selection of slow growing microorganism. In this study, the first full-scale UTN system was tested by retrofitting an existing wastewater treatment plant located in Marmirolo (Lombardia, Italy) having a treatment capacity of 6,000 population equivalent (PE). Performances of the UTN system were evaluated in terms of sludge reduction, together with organic carbon and nutrients removal efficiencies. Results obtained over 10 month of monitoring period, divided in period I (7 months) and period II (3 months), characterized by different operative conditions, have reported a specific sludge production of 0.37 and 0.23 kg TSS per kg of COD removed, respectively; which is 50% and 69% lower than that observed in the reference period when the plant worked under conventional activated sludge process. Furthermore, results revealed that the UTN system allows a high removal of wastewater typical pollutants, without causing negative effects on the effluent quality, always ensuring compliance with the regulatory discharge limits
A swirling jet-induced cavitation to increase activated sludge solubilisation and aerobic sludge biodegradability
No full textIn this work, a modified swirling jet induced hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) has been used for the pre-treatment of excess sludge. In order to both improve the HC treatment efficiencies and reduce the energy consumption, the effectiveness of the HC reactor on sludge disintegration and on aerobic biodegradability has been investigated at different operating conditions and parameters, such as temperature, inlet pressure, sludge total solid (TS) content and reactor geometry. The inlet pressure was related to the flow velocity and pressure drop. The best results in terms of sludge solubilisation were achieved after 2 h of HC treatment, treating a 50.0 gTS L−1 and using the three heads Ecowirl system, at 35.0 °C and 4.0 bar. Chemical and respirometric tests proved that sludge solubilisation and aerobic biodegradability can be efficiently enhanced through HC pre-treatment technique. At the optimum operating conditions, the specific supplied energy has been varied from 3276 to 12,780 kJ kg TS−1 in the HC treatment, by increasing the treatment time from 2 to 8 h, respectively. Low endogenous decay rates (bH) were measured on the excess sludge at low specific supplied energy, revealing that only an alteration in floc structure was responsible for the sludge solubilisation. On the contrary, higher bH values were measured at higher specific supplied energy, indicating that the sludge solubilisation was related to a decreasing biomass viability, as consequence of dead cells and/or disrupted cells (cell lysis)
Process Waters from Hydrothermal Carbonization of Sludge: Characteristics and Possible Valorization Pathways
Full text linkHydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is an innovative process capable of converting wet biodegradable residues into value-added materials, such as hydrochar. HTC has been studied for decades, however, a lack of detailed information on the production and composition of the process water has been highlighted by several authors. In this paper the state of the art of the knowledge on this by-product is analyzed, with attention to HTC applied to municipal and agro-industrial anaerobic digestion digestate. The chemical and physical characteristics of the process water obtained at different HTC conditions are compared along with pH, color, organic matter, nutrients, heavy metals and toxic compounds. The possibility of recovering nutrients and other valorization pathways is analyzed and technical feasibility constraints are reported. Finally, the paper describes the main companies which are investing actively in proposing HTC technology towards improving an effective process water valorization
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
State of the Art of Autologous Platelet Concentrates in Dentistry: A Narrative Review
No full textAim of the study Over the past 10 years, PRP and PRF have been widely used in dentistry, due to their growth factors and regenerative potentials and have expanded their use in many procedures with results that are now clinically and statistically significant. The initially described procedures included oral surgery, in general, from simple to complex extractions of included third molars. Today their use goes from periodontics to hard and soft tissue regenerative surgery, through oral wound healing up to implant therapy. The aim of this review is to evaluate the state of the art of autologous platelet concentrates in different branches of dentistry. Materials and methods A literature research was conducted through major scientific database without any restriction. Because of the large number of articles included and the wide range of methods and results among the studies found, itwas not possible to report the results in the form of a systematic review or meta-analysis. Therefore, a narrative review was conducted. Results We obtained 2236 results, of which 1621 were published in the last 10 years. After the screening of titles and abstracts, non- topic entries were excluded, 323 reviews and systematic reviews were included, of which 320 passed the English language filter. Conclusions This review highlights the present state of the art of the use of autologous platelet concentrates in dentistry. According to several recent studies, there is an effective benefit in several clinical outcomes described in using prp or prf in different procedures, while in others further clinical studies are needed
Investigating the Enhancement in Biogas Production by Hydrothermal Carbonization of Organic Solid Waste and Digestate in an Inter-Stage Treatment Configuration
Full text linkIn recent years, sewage sludge (SS) and bio-waste management have attracted increasing environmental attention. In this study, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) technology is investigated in the framework of a co-treatment of sewage sludge digestate (SSD) and an organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OW). The proposed configuration integrates HTC with anaerobic digestion (AD) in an inter-stage configuration (AD1 + HTC + AD2). The effects of different percentages of OW added to SSD in the HTC treatment are evaluated in terms of characteristics and methane yield of the produced HTC liquor (HTCL) and HTC slurry (i.e., the mixture hydrochar-HTCL), as well as dewaterability of the HTC slurry. Results show that, with the increase in the percentage of OW in the OW-SSD mixture fed to the HTC process, production of biogas and biomethane of both HTC slurry and HTCL increases. The highest biogas production is achieved when a mixture consisting of half SSD and half OW is used, reaching 160 ± 10 and 240 ± 15 mL biogas g−1 CODadded, respectively, for HTCL and HTC slurry. Furthermore, sludge dewaterability is significantly improved by the combined AD1-HTC-AD2 process. Finally, an energy assessment allows estimating that the co-treatment of OW with SSD in HTC can cover up to 100% of the energy consumption of the system
Methodology for a preliminary assessment of water use sustainability in industries at sub-basin level
Full text linkThe sustainability of industrial production, especially for highly water-demanding processes, is strictly related to water resource availability and to the dynamic interactions between natural and anthropogenic requirements over the spatial and temporal scales. The increase in industrial water demand raises the need to assess the related environmental sustainability, facing the occurrence of global and local water stress issues. The identification of reliable methodologies, based on simple indices and able to consider the impact on local water basins, may play a basilar role in water sustainability diagnosis and decision-making processes for water management and land use planning. The present work focalized on the definition of a methodology based on the calculation of indicators and indices in the view of providing a synthetic, simple, and site-specific assessment tool for industrial water cycle sustainability. The methodology was built starting from geo-referenced data on water availability and sectorial uses derived for Italian sub-basins. According to the data monthly time scale, the proposed indices allowed for an industrial water-related impacts assessment, able to take into account the seasonal variability of local resources. Three industrial factories, located in northern (SB1, SB2) and central (SB3) Italian sub-basins, were selected as case studies (CS1, CS2, CS3) to validate the methodology. The companies were directly involved and asked to provide some input data. The methodology is based on the calculation of three synthetic indexes: the Withdrawal and Consumption water Stress Index (WCSI) allowed for deriving a synthetic water stress level assessment at the sub-basin scale, also considering the spatial and temporal variations; the industrial water use sustainability assessment was achieved by calculating the Overall Factory-to-Basin Impact (OFBI) and the Internal Water Reuse (IWR) indices, which allowed a preliminary evaluation of the factories' impacts on the sub-basin water status, considering the related water uses and the overall pressures on the reference territorial context. The WCSI values highlighted significant differences between the northern sub-basins, characterised by limited water stress (WCSISB1 = 0.221; WCSISB2 = 0.047), and the central ones, more subjected to high stress (WCSISB3 = 0.413). The case studies CS1 and CS3 showed to exert a more significant impact on the local water resource (OFBICS1 = 0.18%; OFBICS2 = 0.192%) with respect to CS2 (OFBI = 0.002%), whereas the IWR index revealed the different company's attitude in implementing water reuse practices (IWRCS1 = 40%; IWRCS1 = 27%; IWRCS1 = 99%). The proposed methodology and the indices may also contribute to assessing the effectiveness of river basin management actions to pursue sustainable development goals
Effects of hydrodynamic cavitation, low-level thermal and low-level alkaline pre-treatments on sludge solubilisation
No full textWAS is a polluting and hazardous waste generated in WWTPs that must be treated to prevent pollution and human health risks. Anaerobic digestion is the most used process for sludge stabilization. However, it must be improved in terms of both speed and extend of degradation. With the purpose of reducing the energy and chemical consumption linked to sludge treatment, in this study, different anaerobic digestion pre-treatments such as low-level mechanical (hydrodynamic cavitation, 2 bar), low-level thermal (50 °C) and low-level alkaline (NaOH, KOH and Ca(OH)2, pH 10) methods, and a combination thereof, were tested as strategies to improve sludge solubilisation. When the pre-treatments were used alone, the alkaline pre-treatment showed the highest sludge solubilisation. Among the alkaline reagents tested, NaOH and KOH led to higher DDPCOD (41.6 and 39.4%), while only 8.4% was achieved by using Ca(OH)2. However, the low-level hydrodynamic cavitation assisted thermo-alkaline pre-treatment was the most efficient in terms of both sludge solubilisation (DDPCOD = 53.0%) and energy efficiency (EE = 64.5 mgΔSCOD kJ−1). The synergetic effects of the combined pre-treatment were also confirmed by the highest release of EPS. Furthermore, cytometric analyses showed that the main mechanism involved in sludge solubilisation for the investigated pre-treatments was flocs disintegration rather than cell lysis
Decolourization of Rhodamine B: A swirling jet-induced cavitation combined with NaOCl
No full textA hydrodynamic cavitation reactor (Ecowirl) based on swirling jet-induced cavitation has been used in order to allow the degradation of a waste dye aqueous solution (Rhodamine B, RhB). Cavitation generated by Ecowirl reactor was directly compared with cavitation generated by using multiple hole orifice plates. The effects of operating conditions and parameters such as pressure, pH of dye solution, initial concentration of RhB and geometry of the cavitating devices on the degradation rate of RhB were discussed. In similar operative conditions, higher extents of degradation (ED) were obtained using Ecowirl reactor rather than orifice plate. An increase in the ED from 8.6% to 14.7% was observed moving from hole orifice plates to Ecowirl reactor. Intensification in ED of RhB by using hydrodynamic cavitation in presence of NaOCl as additive has been studied. It was found that the decolourization was most efficient for the combination of hydrodynamic cavitation and chemical oxidation as compared to chemical oxidation and hydrodynamic cavitation alone. The value of ED of 83.4% was reached in 37 min using Ecowirl combined with NaOCl (4.0 mg L-1) as compared to the 100 min needed by only mixing NaOCl at the same concentration. At last, the energetic consumptions of the cavitation devices have been evaluated. Increasing the ED and reducing the treatment time, Ecowirl reactor resulted to be more energy efficient as compared to hole orifice plates, Venturi and other swirling jet-induced cavitation devices, as reported in literature
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