A systematic review of emerging human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak: focus on disinfection methods,environmental survival,and control and prevention strategies

Recently, an outbreak of a novel human coronavirus which is referred to as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO) was identified in Wuhan, China. To help combat the pandemic, a systematic review (SR) was performed to collect all available studies concerning inactivation methods, environmental survival, and control and prevention strategies. A comprehensive literature survey yielded 42 eligible studies which included in the SR. The results confirmed that the WHO recommended two alcohol-based hand rub formulations (ethanol 70–95% and 2-propanol 70–100%) had an efficient virucidal activity in less than 60 s by more and equal 4 log₁₀ (≥ 99.99) approximately and could be used for disinfection in public health and health-care facilities. The findings indicated that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 can survive under different environmental conditions between 4 and 72 h approximately. The results also demonstrate that temperature and relative humidity are important factors in the survival of SARS-CoV-2. The main strategies recommended by the WHO to avoid contracting SARS-CoV-2 are hand washing several times in the day and maintaining social distancing with others. It is important to note that the more studies require addressing, the more possible airborne transmission due to the survival of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols for 3 h approximately. We hope that the results of the present SR can help researchers, health decision-makers, policy-makers, and people for understanding and taking the proper behavior to control and prevent further spread of SARS-CoV-2.

     

Preliminary assessment of cement kiln dust in solidification and stabilization of mercury containing waste from a chlor-alkali unit

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - A low-level mercury containing hazardous waste with a mercury concentration of 22.0 ± 5.00 ppm generated at a...     

Optimizing stabilization of waste-activated sludge using Fered-Fenton process and artificial neural network modeling (KSOFM,MLP)

Sludge management is a fundamental activity in accordance with wastewater treatment aims. Sludge stabilization is always considered as a significant step of wastewater sludge handling. There has been a progressive development observed in the approach to the novel solutions in this regard. In this research, based on own initially experimental results in lab-scale regarding Fered-Fenton processes in view of organic loading (volatile-suspended solids, VSS) removal efficiency, a combination of both methods towards proper improving of excess biological sludge stabilization was investigated. Firstly, VSS removal efficiency has been experimentally studied in lab-scale under different operational conditions taking into consideration pH [Fe²⁺]/[H₂O₂], detention time [H₂O₂], and current density parameters. Therefore, the correlations of the same parameters have been determined by utilizing Kohonen self-organizing feature maps (KSOFM). In addition, multi-layer perceptron (MLP) has been employed afterwards for a comprehensive evaluation of investigating parameters correlation and prediction aims. The findings indicated that the best proportion of iron to hydrogen peroxide and the optimum pH were 0.58 and 3.1, respectively. Furthermore, maximum retention time about 6 h with a hydrogen peroxide concentration of 1,568 mg/l and a current density of 650–750 mA results to the optimum VSS removal (efficiency equals to 81 %). The performance of KSOFM and MLP models is found to be magnificent, with correlation ranging (R) from 0.873 to 0.998 for the process simulation and prediction. Finally, it can be concluded that the Fered-Fenton reactor is a suitable efficient process to reduce considerably sludge organic load and mathematical modeling tools as artificial neural networks are impressive methods of process simulation and prediction accordingly.     

Evaluation of a novel hollow fiber membrane technique for collection of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine in air

The purpose of this study was to develop a novel one-step method for the time-weighted average determination of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) in the air followed by spectrophotometric detection. For this reason, 0.1% hydrochloric acid as the absorbent was used in hollow fiber (HF) membrane for sampling of UDMH from an atmospheric standard chamber. Response surface methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD) was used to optimize the sampling parameters, such as flow rate and sampling time. Moreover, several analytical parameters including breakthrough (BT) volume, storage time, and carryover effect of the proposed HF were investigated. The results showed that optimal sampling rate was 9.90 mL/min. In order to validate the proposed method, it was compared with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) 3515 method, which showed good compatibility between the two methods. Intra- and inter-day repeatability values of the HF method were in the range 0.082–0.1 and 0.091–0.12, respectively, and the limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) were 0.002 and 0.006 ng/mL, respectively. The storage time of the proposed HF was 7 days at 2 °C. These results demonstrated that the one-step HF membrane offered a high sensitivity for sampling of UDMH in air.     

Simultaneous Cr (VI) reduction and diazinon oxidation with organometallic sludge formation under photolysis: kinetics,degradation pathways,and mechanism

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this study, simultaneous removal of an organic matter (diazinon, DIZ) and an inorganic substance (chromium, Cr) was used. Breaking down of organic...     

Photo–degradable and recyclable starch/Fe3O4/TiO2 nanocomposites: feasibility of an approach to reduce the recycling labor cost in plastic waste management

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this research, a biodegradable starch/Fe3O4/TiO2 bio-nanocomposites (SFT) were produced using different nano Fe3O4/TiO2 (FT) (3, 5, and 10 (wt% dry...     

Analysis of gross alpha, gross beta activities and beryllium-7 concentrations in surface air: their variations and statistical prediction model

Measurement of gross α, gross β activities and cosmogenic beryllium-7 (⁷Be) concentrations were made both daily and weekly during the years 2001–2004 from samples of atmospheric aerosols filtered from the air at Tehran Nuclear Research Center (35 41′ N) and Zahedan (28 29′ N). Weekly aerosol samples collected with the high-volume air samplers on cellulose filters were used to determine the ⁷Be contents of samples, using a semiconductor gamma spectrometer. Airborne dust samples were collected daily on fiber glass filters and used to determine the gross β and gross α activities with automatic beta analyzer and a ZnS(Ag) counter, respectively. In this work, the concentration and meteorological data were used to determine models for gross α, gross β and ⁷Be. The air concentrations of gross β and gross α activities and ⁷Be concentrations displayed lognormal distributions during the study period. Both β and ⁷Be have maximum activity concentrations during warm mid-year months.     

Evaluating two test methods used for characterizing leaching properties

A standard leaching test method (EN 12457-3) was compared with a modified pHstat-column leaching test method with respect to leaching information obtained for aggregates composed of different alkaline solid wastes. In addition to a different experimental set-up, the major dissimilarity between the two test methods was the chemical equilibrium condition, i.e., in the first test the system approaches equilibrium while in the second test the system is far from equilibrium conditions. The leaching trends of sodium, calcium, chloride, sulfate and cadmium were studied. Results showed that these two test methods were comparable in respect to the total amount sodium and sulfate leached. It was also concluded that the two test methods provide different information for the constituents for which dissolution reaction is highly dependent on pH and other experimental conditions, e.g., flow rate. It was found that a batch test can be used in order to investigate the total amount leached, while a modified column-pHstat test generates more detailed results on leaching trends of some constituents.