Recent advances in the application of silica nanostructures for highly improved water treatment: a review

The demand for high-quality safe and clean water supply has revolutionized water treatment technologies and become a most focused subject of environmental science. Water contamination generally marks the presence of numerous toxic and harmful substances. These contaminants such as heavy metals, organic and inorganic pollutants, oil wastes, and chemical dyes are discharged from various industrial effluents and domestic wastes. Among several water treatment technologies, the utilization of silica nanostructures has received considerable attention due to their stability, sustainability, and cost-effective properties. As such, this review outlines the latest innovative approaches for synthesis and application of silica nanostructures in water treatment, apart from exploring the gaps that limit their large-scale industrial application. In addition, future challenges for improved water remediation and water quality technologies are keenly discussed.

     

Modeling of agricultural drought risk pattern using Markov chain and GIS in the western part of Bangladesh

The aim of the study is to assess the agricultural drought risk condition in the context of global climate change in the western part of Bangladesh that covers about 45% area of the country for the period of 1960–2011. Drought Index (DI) and Drought Hazard Index (DHI) have been calculated by Markov Chain analysis and that of Drought Vulnerability Index (DVI) from socioeconomic and physical indicators. The DI values show that the northern part in general is more drought-prone, having less crops prospect, whereas the southern part is less drought-prone with high crop potentiality. The probability of extreme drought occurrence increases in recent decades in some parts as a result the drought events become more frequent in the areas. The DHI ranges from 15 to 32, and northern part suffers from more extreme drought hazards than that of southern part. DVI also indicates that northern part is exposed to high to very high drought vulnerability as higher percentage of illiterate people are involved in agricultural practices and high percentage of irrigation to cultivable land, but southern part exposed to moderate to low vulnerability because of low values of vulnerability indicators. Finally, agricultural drought exists at high risk condition in northern part and low in southern parts and 21.63, 26.54 and 29.68% of the area poses very high, high and moderate risk, respectively. So, immediate adaptation measures are needed keeping in mind climate features like rainfall and temperature variability, drought risk and risk ranking to make viable adaptation measures.     

Autotrophic denitrification using hydrogen oxidizing bacteria in continuous flow biofilm reactor

Autotrophic denitrification was investigated in five bench‐scale upflow attached growth reactors using hydrogen oxidizing bacteria under anoxic conditions. The performance of sand, granular activated carbon (GAC), crushed pumice, crushed volcanic rock, and plastic media were evaluated as the support material. The reactors were inoculated with acclimated cultures obtained from domestic sewage treatment plant. A synthetic solution containing nitrate was used as the influent. The reactor performance was evaluated by measuring influent and effluent nitrate concentration. The design parameters demonstrated that the effectiveness of autotrophic denitrification is comparable to that of the heterotrophic process and may be utilized economically for drinking water treatment either as the main process or as a supplemental process for ion exchange regenerant treatment.     

Nano-structured dynamic Schiff base cues as robust self-healing polymers for biomedical and tissue engineering applications: a review

Polymer materials are vulnerable to damages, failures, and degradations, making them economically unreliable. Self-healing polymers, on the other hand, are multifunctional materials with superior properties of autonomic recovery from physical damages. These materials are suitable for biomedical and tissue engineering in terms of cost and durability. Schiff base linkages-based polymer materials are one of the robust techniques owing to their simple self-healing mechanism. These are dynamic reversible covalent bonds, easy to fabricate at mild conditions, and can self-reintegrate after network disruption at physiological conditions making them distinguished. Here we review self-healing polymer materials based on Schiff base bonds. We discuss the Schiff base bond formation between polymeric networks, which explains the self-healing phenomenon. These bonds have induced 100% recovery in optimal cases.

     

Chemical characterization and source apportionment of PM1 and PM2.5 in Tianjin, China: Impacts of biomass burning and primary biogenic sources

The submicron particulate matter (PM₁) and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) are very important due to their greater adverse impacts on the natural environment and human health. In this study, the daily PM₁ and PM_2.5 samples were collected during early summer 2018 at a sub-urban site in the urban-industrial port city of Tianjin, China. The collected samples were analyzed for the carbonaceous fractions, inorganic ions, elemental species, and specific marker sugar species. The chemical characterization of PM₁ and PM_2.5 was based on their concentrations, compositions, and characteristic ratios (PM₁/PM_2.5, AE/CE, NO₃^?/SO₄^2?, OC/EC, SOC/OC, OM/TCA, K+/EC, levoglucosan/K⁺, V/Cu, and V/Ni). The average concentrations of PM₁ and PM_2.5 were 32.4 µg/m³ and 53.3 µg/m³, and PM₁ constituted 63% of PM_2.5 on average. The source apportionment of PM₁ and PM_2.5 by positive matrix factorization (PMF) model indicated the main sources of secondary aerosols (25% and 34%), biomass burning (17% and 20%), traffic emission (20% and 14%), and coal combustion (17% and 14%). The biomass burning factor involved agricultural fertilization and waste incineration. The biomass burning and primary biogenic contributions were determined by specific marker sugar species. The anthropogenic sources (combustion, secondary particle formation, etc) contributed significantly to PM₁ and PM_2.5, and the natural sources were more evident in PM_2.5. This work significantly contributes to the chemical characterization and source apportionment of PM₁ and PM_2.5 in near-port cities influenced by the diverse sources.     

Simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of trace amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples after magnetic solid-phase extraction by using projection pursuit regression

Magnetic solid-phase extraction based on coated nano-magnets Fe₃O₄ was applied for the preconcentration of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs; anthracene, phenanthrene, fluorine, and pyrene) in environmental water samples prior to simultaneous spectrophotometric determination using multivariate calibration method. Magnetic nanoparticles, carrying target metals, were easily separated from the aqueous solution by applying an external magnetic field so, no filtration or centrifugation was necessary. After elution of the adsorbed PAHs, the concentration of PAHs was determined spectrophotometrically with the aid of a new and efficient multivariate spectral analysis base on principal component analysis-projection pursuit regression, without separation of analytes. The obtained results revealed that using projection pursuit regression as a flexible modeling approach improves the predictive quality of the developed models compared with partial least squares and least squares support vector machine methods. The method was used to determine four PAHs in environmental water samples.     

Simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of crystal violet and malachite green in water samples using partial least squares regression and central composite design after preconcentration by dispersive solid-phase extraction

In this paper, a simple, fast, and inexpensive method is introduced for the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of crystal violet (CV) and malachite green (MG) contents in aquatic samples using partial least squares regression (PLS) as a multivariate calibration technique after preconcentration by graphene oxide (GO). The method was based on the sorption and desorption of analytes onto GO and direct determination by ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometric techniques. GO was synthesized according to Hummers method. To characterize the shape and structure of GO, FT-IR, SEM, and XRD were used. The effective factors on the extraction efficiency such as pH, extraction time, and the amount of adsorbent were optimized using central composite design. The optimum values of these factors were 6, 15 min, and 12 mg, respectively. The maximum capacity of GO for the adsorption of CV and MG was 63.17 and 77.02 mg g^?1, respectively. Preconcentration factors and extraction recoveries were obtained and were 19.6, 98% for CV and 20, 100% for MG, respectively. LOD and linear dynamic ranges for CV and MG were 0.009, 0.03–0.3, 0.015, and 0.05–0.5 (μg mL^?1), respectively. The intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations were 1.99 and 0.58 for CV and 1.69 and 3.13 for MG at the concentration level of 50 ng mL^?1, respectively. Finally, the proposed DSPE/PLS method was successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of the trace amount of CV and MG in the real water samples.     

Toxicity evaluation of ZnO and TiO2 nanomaterials in hydroponic red bean (Vigna angularis) plant: Physiology, biochemistry and kinetic transport

The toxicity and kinetic uptake potential of zinc oxide(Zn O) and titanium dioxide(TiO_2)nanomaterials into the red bean(Vigna angularis) plant were investigated. The results obtained revealed that Zn O, due to its high dissolution and strong binding capacity, readily accumulated in the root tissues and significantly inhibited the physiological activity of the plant. However, TiO_2 had a positive effect on plant physiology, resulting in promoted growth. The results of biochemical experiments implied that Zn O, through the generation of oxidative stress, significantly reduced the chlorophyll content, carotenoids and activity of stress-controlling enzymes. On the contrary, no negative biochemical impact was observed in plants treated with TiO_2. For the kinetic uptake and transport study, we designed two exposure systems in which Zn O and TiO_2 were exposed to red bean seedlings individually or in a mixture approach. The results showed that in single metal oxide treatments, the uptake and transport increased with increasing exposure period from one week to three weeks.However, in the metal oxide co-exposure treatment, due to complexation and competition among the particles, the uptake and transport were remarkably decreased. This suggested that the kinetic transport pattern of the metal oxide mixtures varied compared to those of its individual constituents.