1,720,973 research outputs found
Wastewater-based epidemiology approach: The learning lessons from COVID-19 pandemic and the development of novel guidelines for future pandemics
No full textWastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) provides a comprehensive real-time framework of population attitude and health status. This approach is attracting the interest of medical community and health authorities to monitor the prevalence of a virus (such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2) among a community. Indeed, WBE is currently fine-tuning as environmental surveillance tool for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. After a bibliometric analysis conducted to discover the research trends in WBE field, this work aimed to side-by-side compare the conventional method based on clinical testing with WBE approach. Furthermore, novel guidelines were developed to apply the WBE approach to a pandemic. The growing interest on WBE approach for COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrated by looking at the sharp increase in scientific papers published in the last years and at the ongoing studies on viral quantification methods and analytical procedures. The side-by-side comparison highlighted the ability of WBE to identify the hot-spot areas faster than the conventional approach, reducing the costs (e.g., rational use of available resources) and the gatherings at medical centers. Contrary to clinical testing, WBE has the surveillance capacity for preventing the virus resurgence, including asymptomatic contribution, and ensuring the preservation of medical staff health by avoiding the exposure to the virus infection during clinical testing. As extensively reported, the time in collecting epidemiological data is crucial for establishing the prevention and mitigation measures that are essential for curbing a pandemic. The developed guidelines can help to build a WBE system useful to control any future pandemic
Wastewater and reuse
No full textThe paper presents the collection of manuscripts included in this special issue and highlights the main problems faced in the reuse projects worldwide and the main projects of reuse developed in the last years
Fluorescence sensor enabled control of contaminants of emerging concern in reclaimed wastewater using ozone-based treatment processes
No full textOnline control of UV and UV/H2O2 processes targeted for the removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) by a fluorescence sensor
No full textReal-time wastewater quality monitoring by fluorescence sensors: Validation for COD and CEC monitoring and implication for carbon footprint reduction
No full textComparison of the effects of chloramine and chlorine on the aromaticity of dissolved organic matter and yields of disinfection by-products
No full textThe effects of granular activated carbon heating rate and moisture content on defluorination of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances during microwave regeneration
No full textMicrowave (MW) regeneration of PFAS-laden granular activated carbon (GAC) offers rapid and more uniform control of the particle temperature, shorter regeneration time, compact process equipment, energy savings, and potential for on-site use at water treatment plants. This study investigated the effects of GAC heating rates (100, 200, 300, 400, 533, and 653 °C/min) and moisture contents (1–5 %, 35–40 %, and 65–70 %) on defluorination of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) during microwave regeneration of PFAS-laden GACs. Heating of GAC at the rate of 653 °C/min to > 950 °C in <2 min and holding the temperature at this level for an additional 3 min, played the key role in the MW regeneration of PFAS-laden GAC. The higher moisture content of GAC (65–70 %) slightly increased the fluoride recoveries in the range of 5–12 %. Under the optimal conditions (653 °C/min, 65–70 % moisture), fluoride recovery ranged from 91–99 % for PFOA, PFOS, PFBA, and PFBS-laden GACs. Braunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and pore volume distribution analyses confirmed that MW regeneration did not alter the physical characteristics of GAC regardless of heating rate. The results documented here highlight the unique nature of MW treatment in terms of fast heating of the GAC particles to very high temperatures resulting in over 90 % PFAS defluorination
Use of fluorescence for real-time monitoring of contaminants of emerging concern in (waste)water: Perspectives for sensors implementation and process control
No full textThe need to remove ubiquitously occurring contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) from water/wastewater represents a global challenge both in terms of developing efficient technologies and decreasing high energy demands of the water sector. In this context, online monitoring of the occurrence of CEC and their removal in (waste)water facilities play an important role in optimization of treatment processes. Fluorescence spectroscopy is a viable tool for ‘indirect’ CEC monitoring that is based on the correlations between CEC concentrations and those of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Among a wide range of fluorescence indexes have been proposed as surrogate parameters for water treatment applications, those measured at specific pairs of excitation/emission (ex/em) wavelengths can be implemented in commercially available or customized field-deployable fluorescence sensors thus enabling real-time and/or on-site CEC monitoring. This review examined results of the prior studies of ex/em pair options and selects those of them that are most useful for CEC monitoring in natural water environments, lab-/pilot-scale (waste)water treatment processes and ultimately in practical field applications. The approach of fluorescence-based monitoring is convenient for process control and optimization of CEC removal while concurrently saving energy and material demands of engineered (waste)water systems. This review also calls for further research of applications of fluorescence spectroscopy in (waste)water treatment and, more specifically, it provides a detailed workflow developed to select, test, and validate pairs of ex/em coordinates suitable for CEC monitoring in various types of (waste)water treatment processes
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
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