A pilot-scale active aeration reactor was studied for composting food wastes in an open-top container aerated with negative pressure by vacuum. A biological filter bed was used to remove NH(3) from the emission. In addition to monitoring system parameters, the compost stability and fertilizer content were also examined to ensure ...

Rapid economic growth, increasing population and change in living standards contribute to increasing the generation rate of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Denizli city, like other Turkish cities. The improper and poor MSW management system (old system) in Denizli caused environmental problems originating from the uncontrolled release of methane and ...

Chromium in the effluent is a major concern for tanning industry. Chemical precipitation methods are commonly employed for the removal of chromium but this leads to formation of chrome-bearing solid waste, plus it is uneconomical when the concentration of chromium in the effluent is low. Ion exchange and membrane separation ...

Recycling of packaging wastes may be compatible with incineration within integrated waste management systems. To study this, a mathematical model is presented to calculate the fraction composition of residual municipal solid waste (MSW) only as a function of the MSW fraction composition at source and recycling fractions of the different ...

The aim of this paper was to analyze the biomethanization process of food waste (FW) from a university campus restaurant in six reactors with three different total solid percentages (20%, 25% and 30% TS) and two different inoculum percentages (20-30% of mesophilic sludge). The experimental procedure was programmed to select ...

A pilot-scale two-step biofilter system was evaluated in treating food waste composting emission for 220 days. Wood chips were packed at the bottom section while mixture of rock wool and earthworm compost (6% w/v) was packed at the top section. Inlet ammonia concentration was found to be dominant and intermittent. ...

Concentrations of Ra in liquid and solid wastes generated from 15 softeners treating domestic well waters from New Jersey Coastal Plain aquifers (where combined Ra ((226)Ra plus (228)Ra) concentrations commonly exceed 0.185 Bq L(-1)) were determined. Softeners, when maintained, reduced combined Ra about 10-fold (<0.024 Bq L(-1)). Combined Ra exceeded ...

The management of food garbage is of great importance because of its high energy consumption, potential environmental hazards and public health risks. In Taiwan, through the competent authorities at all levels and the citizens' participation in sorting household wastes, many recycling efforts have recently been implemented to further utilize it ...

Parabens are commonly used as preservatives due to anti-bactericidal and anti-fungicidal properties and they are ubiquitously present in personal care products, pharmaceuticals, food, industrial and domestic commodities. They are suspected of causing endocrine disrupting effects to aquatic organisms and adverse effects in humans and, thus, it is highly relevant to ...

The fate of antibiotic residues in the manure of treated animals is of considerable concern because of the potential development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment. The objective of this study was to determine the fate of chlortetracycline (CTC) during the anaerobic digestion of manure from medicated calves. Five beef ...

Electrocoagulation with aluminum electrodes was used to treat the vegetable oil refinery wastewater (VORW) in a batch reactor. The effects of operating parameters such as pH, current density, PAC (poly aluminum chloride) dosage and Na(2)SO(4) dosage on the removal of organics and COD removal efficiency have been investigated. It has ...

Agro-food industrial processes produce a large amount of residues, most of which are organic. One of the possible solutions for the treatment of these residues is anaerobic digestion in bioreactors. A novel 18-L bioreactor for treating waste water was designed based on pneumatic agitation and semispherical baffles. Flow patterns were ...

Sugar beet press pulp (SBP) accumulates as a by-product in sugar factories and it is generally silaged or dried to be used as animal food. Rising energy prices and the opening of the European Union sugar market has put pressure on the manufacturers to find alternatives for energy supply. The ...

The hybrid anaerobic solid-liquid (HASL) system is a modified two-phase anaerobic digester for food waste treatment. To enhance the performance of anaerobic digestion in the HASL system, thermal pre-treatment (heating at 150 degrees C for 1 h) and freezing/thawing (freezing for 24 h at-20 degrees C and then thawing for ...

Source segregated food waste was collected from domestic properties and its composition determined together with the average weight produced per household, which was 2.91 kg per week. The waste was fed over a trial period lasting 58 weeks to an identical pair of 1.5 m(3) anaerobic digesters, one at a ...

Packed microcosms, consisting of 0.6 L-flask filled with tire chips (TC, a non-cost-recyclable non-biodegradable material) or ceramic cubes, were employed in the wet batch mesophilic anaerobic codigestion of a mechanically sorted organic fraction of a municipal solid waste with cattle manure. Two different waste mixtures were digested within four successive ...

The performance of aerobic submerged packed bed reactors was studied for the treatment of domestic wastewater using different kinds of packing materials with high specific areas (760-1,200 m(2)/m(3)). The tested materials were ceramic spheres, crushed tezontle, grains of high density polyethylene (HDPE), of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and of polypropylene ...

Source-separated food wastes collected from a university campus catering facility were processed in bench-scale anaerobic digesters. The feedstock contained a varied mix of fruits, vegetables, meats and fried foods. Two modes of digestion were compared. The first was hydraulic flush (HF) mode, in which liquids were flushed through the reactor ...

This study investigated the effect of additional moisture and/or alkalinity on the rate of anaerobic digestion in samples of material obtained from pit latrines. In modified serum bottle tests it was shown that poor gas production rates were observed from all experiments with material collected at the lower part of ...

A different lines of evidence approach for investigation of biodegradation processes at a chloroethene contaminated site showed well corresponding results of pollutant profiles, redox zonation, characterisation of autochthonic microflora and microcosm studies. In particular microcosm studies allowed identification of the predominating degradation pathways. Perchloroethene and trichloroethene are reductively chlorinated to ...

Demolition wastes are generally disposed of in unlined landfills for inert waste. However, demolition wastes are not just inert wastes. Indeed, a small fraction of demolition waste contains components that are hazardous to human health and the environment, e.g., lead-based paint, mercury-contained in fluorescent lamps, treated wood, and asbestos. The ...

Waste incineration in a small incinerator is a simple and convenient way of treating waste discharged from small areas or from large facilities and buildings such as business centers, marketplaces, factories, and military units. Despite their ostensible advantages, however, many small incinerators frequently suffer from serious problems, e.g., unsystematic waste ...

This paper describes the solidification and stabilization of electroplating sludge treated with a high-performance binder made from portland type-I cement, municipal solid waste incineration fly ash, and lighting phosphor powder (called as cement-fly ash-phosphor binder, CFP). The highest 28-day unconfined compressive strength of the CFP-treated paste was 816 kg/cm(2) at ...

Four commercially available membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems were operated at the pilot scale, to investigate performance during the reclamation of municipal wastewater. The MBR performance was evaluated under a variety of operating conditions, including two types of feed wastewater (raw and advanced primary effluent), hydraulic retention times (HRTs) ranging from ...

The urban solid waste of the city of Indaiatuba (pop. 175 000), located in the state of São Paulo, was characterized, focusing on the recycling potential. For this purpose, collected waste was subdivided into 27 items, classified by mass and volume. About 90% of this waste was found to be ...

This work reports on the development of a graphite-polystyrene composite electrode of planar configuration, containing silver(II) oxide and copper(II) oxide catalysts (AgO-CuO), for the measurement of electrochemical oxygen demand (EOD). Optimisation studies of the composite composition as well as conditions for its processing on planar substrates and generation of an ...

When exploring the correlation between municipal solid waste management and green house gas emission, the volume and physical composition of the waste matter must be taken into account. Due to differences in local environments and lifestyles the quantity and composition of waste often vary. This leads to differences in waste ...

With increasing use of municipal solid waste landfills for waste disposal, the leachate generated has become a serious environmental concern. Therefore, it is important to set up simple and accurate methods for monitoring leachate toxicity. In the present study, the physiological and genetic toxicity of the leachate, generated from Xingou ...

In this study, a volumetric scale-up of this system was designed and built on a field pilot-scale (total digester volume 10 m(3)), with the results from the field pilot-scale experiments compared with those from the bench-scale (total digester volume 0.4 m(3)) process prior to scale-up. The reduction rate of total ...

A pilot program concerning source separation of household waste was launched in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang province, China. Detailed investigations on the composition and properties of household waste in the experimental communities revealed that high water content and high percentage of food waste are the main limiting factors in ...

The individual effects and interactive effects of substrate concentration, ratio of inoculum to substrate, Ca(2+) concentration on the methane yield from the effluent of bio-hydrogen fermentation of food waste were investigated in this study. A central composite design (CCD) and response methodology (RSM) were employed in designing the experiments, in ...

Maturing compost heaps normally attaining temperatures ranging from 55 to 65 degrees C is generally regarded to conform to recommended biological risks and sanitation standards for composts stipulated by either EU or US-EPA. Composted products derived from animal sources are further required by EU biohazard safety regulatory legislation that such ...

Composting may be a viable on-farm option for disposal of cattle carcasses. This study investigated greenhouse gas emissions during co-composting of calf mortalities with manure. Windrows were constructed that contained manure + straw (control compost [CK]) or manure + straw + calf mortalities (CM) using two technologies: a tractor-mounted front-end ...

Emission and dispersal of microorganisms and odours from composting facilities were studied in a 3-year project at nine different composting facilities in Germany. Measurements were carried out under so-called 'normal-case', i.e. typical local climate conditions and working activities within the facilities, and 'real worst-case' conditions ('drainage flow' conditions) being characterized ...

The adsorption of dissolved organic matter (DOM) on granular-activated carbon (GAC) as a pretreatment to reverse osmosis (RO) desalination of membrane bioreactor (MBR) effluents was studied in lab- and pilot-scale columns. The pattern and efficiency of DOM adsorption and fate of the hydrophobic (HPO), transphilic (TPI) and hydrophilic (HPI) fractions ...

The increase in waste disposal and energy costs has provided an incentive to convert carbohydrate-rich food waste streams into fuel. For example, dining halls and restaurants discard foods that require tipping fees for removal. An effective use of food waste may be the enzymatic hydrolysis of the waste to simple ...

As opposed to mesophilic, thermophilic anaerobic digestion of food waste can increase the biogas output of reactors. To facilitate the transition of anaerobic digesters, this paper investigated the impact of adapting mesophilic sludge to thermophilic conditions. A 5L bench scale reactor was seeded with mesophilic granular sludge obtained from an ...

Solid waste management (SWM) is a multidimensional challenge faced by urban authorities, especially in developing countries like Bangladesh. We investigated per capita waste generation by residents, its composition, and the households' attitudes towards waste management at Rahman Nagar Residential Area, Chittagong, Bangladesh. The study involved a structured questionnaire and encompassed ...

The hybrid anaerobic solid-liquid (HASL) system, which is a modified two-phase anaerobic digester, is to be used in an industrial scale operation to minimize disposal of food waste at incineration plants in Singapore. The aim of the present research was to evaluate freezing/thawing of food waste as a pre-treatment for ...

Radioactive lightning rods were manufactured in Brazil until 1989, when the licenses for using radioactive sources in these products were lifted by the national nuclear authority. Since then, these rods have been replaced by the Franklin type and collected as radioactive waste. However, only 20% of the estimated total number ...

The flow of nutrients through the digestive tract of Gryllus bimaculatus is regulated by the proventriculus, which effectively triturates the partially digested food coming from the crop and shoves the mushy nutrient mass into the space between the paired caeca. The many folds at the base of the caeca form ...

The leachable contents of elements of environmental concern considered in the Council Decision 2003/33/EC on waste disposal were determined in flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) gypsum. To this end, leaching tests were performed following the standard EN-12457-4 which specifies the determination of the dry mass of the material at 105 degrees ...

During the last decade, there have been remarkable changes in food waste management in Korea following a ban on direct landfilling. To evaluate the environmental impacts of food waste management systems, we examined individual treatment systems with the LCA approach -- landfill, incineration, composting, and feed manufacturing -- and estimated ...

This study compares the removal of a mixture of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and all three xylene isomers (BTEX) in mesophilic and thermophilic (50 degrees C) bioreactors. In the mesophilic reactor fungi became dominant after long-term operation, while bacteria dominated in the thermophilic unit. Microbial acclimation was achieved by exposing the ...

Understanding the process of mass transfer from source zones of aquifers contaminated with organic chemicals in the form of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) is of importance in site management and remediation. A series of intermediate-scale tank experiments was conducted to examine the influence of aquifer heterogeneity on DNAPL mass ...

A rapid sand filter and granular activated carbon filter-adsorber (GAC FA) were compared in terms of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and disinfection by-products (DBPs) removal. A water treatment plant (WTP) that had a high ammonia concentration and DOC in raw water, which, in turn, led to a high concentration of ...

Because of its large population and rapidly growing economy, China is confronting a serious energy shortage and daunting environmental problems. An increased use of fuels derived from biomass could relieve some demand for nonrenewable sources of energy while providing environmental benefits in terms of cleaner air and reduced emissions of ...

We investigated differences in delta(15)N of seston and icefishes from seven freshwater ecosystems with different trophic states in China. An increase of seston delta(15)N values was accompanied by an increase of total nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations. Significantly positive correlations were observed between delta(15)N of icefishes and delta(15)N of seston, total ...

Hydrogen production by the dark fermentation of food wastes is an economic and environmentally friendly technology to produce the clean energy source as well as to treat the problematic wastes. However, the long-term operations of the continuous anaerobic reactor for fermentative hydrogen production were frequently unstable. In this study, the ...

Nowadays, every chemical treatment must be developed taking into account its global impact on the environment. With this objective a life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used as a tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of three environmentally friendly processes for the removal of Diuron and Linuron herbicides ...