BACKGROUND High salinity (1-10% w/v) of tannery wastewater makes it difficult to be treated by conventional biological treatment. Salt tolerant microbes can adapt to these saline conditions and degrade the organics in saline wastewater. RESULTS Four salt tolerant bacterial strains isolated from marine and tannery saline wastewater samples were identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus fl...

Interactions between iron and sulfide in domestic wastewater from a gravity sewer were investigated with particular emphasis on redox cycling of iron and iron sulfide formation. The concentration ranges of iron and total sulfide in the experiments were 0.4-5.4mgFeL(-1) and 0-5.1mgSL(-1), respectively. During anaerobic conditions, iron reduction kinetics were investigated and reduction rates amo...

The aim of the current study was to investigate the potential of an aquatic plant, the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) devoid rhizospheric bacteria, to reduce naphthalene (a polyaromatic hydrocarbon) present in wastewater and wetlands. The capability of sterile water hyacinth plants to remove naphthalene from water and wastewater was studied in batch systems. Water hyacinths enhance the r...

The use of chlorine bleaching in study and pulp industry has resulted in chlorinated phenol contaminated wastewater from that industry. A new wastewater treatment process, sonophotodegradation of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) in a heterogeneous aqueous system was investigated and reported in this study. TCP was degraded with ultrasonic or ultraviolet irradiation or a combination of both, in the p...

The ultimate biodegradation of the commercial products nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE9), octylphenol ethoxylates (OPE9), and their biodegradation intermediates, NPE1.5, OPE1.5, NP, and OP, was measured using conventional methods. The extent of biodegradation was also determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of metabolite...

Processing and managing radioactive waste is a great challenge worldwide as it is extremely difficult and costly; the radioactive species, cations or anions, leaked into the environment are a serious threat to the health of present and future generations. We report layered potassium niobate (K4Nb6O17) nanolamina as adsorbent to remove toxic Sr(2+), Ba(2+) and Cs(+) cations from wastewater. The ...

The removal of heavy metals, especially from wastewater, has attracted significant interest because of their toxicity, tendency to bioaccumulate, and the threat they pose to human life and the environment. Many low-cost sorbents have been investigated for their biosorption capacity toward heavy metals. However, there are no reports available on the removal of Pb(II) from aqueous solution by of ...

The quantitative analysis of human urinary metabolites as biomarkers in wastewater streams has been used to estimate the rates of illicit drug use in the wider community. The primary underlying assumption in such studies is that a sample of wastewater is equivalent to a cumulative sample of urine. Drug metabolism in humans is predominantly enzymatically mediated, but these processes are not exc...