This work reports a study of the proton-binding capacity of biopolymers obtained from different materials supplied by a municipal biowaste treatment plant located in Northern Italy. One material was the anaerobic fermentation digestate of the urban wastes organic humid fraction. The others were the compost of home and public gardening residues and the compost of the mix of the above residues, d...

Micropowder (20-250 µm) made from ground dry waste sludge from a municipal sewage treatment plant was added in a sequencing batch reactor (R2), which was fed by synthetic wastewater with acetate as carbon source. Compared with the traditional SBR (R1), aerobic sludge granulation time was shortened 15 days in R2. Furthermore, filamentous bacteria in bulking sludge were controlled to accelerate a...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are very hazardous compounds and, owing to their lipophilicity, they can easily cross biological membranes and accumulate inside organisms, causing damage to the genetic material. The scientific interest in PAHs is related to their demonstrated or supposed genotoxicity (cancer-causing characteristics of B[alpha]Py and dB[alpha, h] first suspected in the 1...

The occurrence and concentration of the fuel additive methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE) were measured in dry weather runoff, municipal wastewater and industrial effluents, and coastal receiving waters in southern California. Combined, refineries and sewage treatment plants release approximately 214 kg day(-1) of MTBE into the marine environment, with Santa Monica Bay receiving most (98%) of this d...

Hydrogen peroxide was produced by direct current electrolysis using two electrodes only, a carbon felt cathode and a dimensional stabilised anode (titanium coated with RuO2), without adding any chemical. The required oxygen was supplied by water oxidation and by transfer from the atmosphere. The intensity should be maintained under a maximum value to avoid peroxide reduction. High peroxide prod...

Working at thermophilic conditions instead of mesophilic, and also the addition of a co-substrate, are both the ways to intend to improve the anaerobic digestion of the source-collected organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (SC-OFMSW). Addition of sewage treatment plant fat, oil and grease wastes (STP-FOGW), that are nowadays sent to landfill, would represent an opportunity to recover a wa...

To understand wastewater quality transformations in the sewer system, a full-scale study focused on the characteristics of the influent wastewater in a middle-sized wastewater-treatment plant receiving only municipal sewage. The objective was to identify conditions in which prefermentation prior to the biological nutrient removal (BNR) process would be useful. Prefermentation aims at increasing...

Introduction Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a class of flame retardants that were added to thousands of consumer products, such as thermoplastics, electronic equipment, and textiles (Hale et al., 2001).Research has revealed that municipal sewage could be a significant source of PBDEs contamination that is ubiquitous throughout the environment (North, 2004; Song et al., 2006). The Pe...