Boosting nitrification by membrane-attached biofilm.

Nitrification is a key step for reliable biological nitrogen removal. In order to enhance nitrification in the activated sludge (AS) process, membrane-attached biofilm (MAB) was incorporated in a conventional activated sludge tank. Simultaneous organic carbon removal and nitrification of the MAB incorporated activated sludge (AS + MAB) process was investigated with continuous wastewater treatment. The effluent TOC concentration of AS and the AS + MAB processes were about 6.3 mg/L and 7.9 mg/L, respectively. The TOC removal efficiency of both AS and AS + MAB were above 95% during the wastewater treatment, indicating excellent organic carbon removal performance in both processes. Little nitrification occurred in the AS process. On the contrary, successful nitrification was obtained with the AS + MAB process with nitrification efficiency of about 90%. The volumetric and surface nitrification rates were about 0.14 g/Ld and 6.5 g/m2d, respectively. The results clearly demonstrated that nitrification in the conventional AS process was boosted by MAB. Furthermore, the microfaunal population in the AS + MAB process was different from that in the AS process. The high concentration of rotifers in the AS + MAB process was expected to decrease the generation of excess sludge in the process.     

Quantitative determination of aflatoxin B1 in chick liver

A method for the rapid and quantitative determination of aflatoxin B1 from small quantities of liver, around 1-2 g, is described. The extraction procedure involves acidification to pH 2 of the aqueous liver homogenates, extraction with chloroform: acetone and HPLC-fluorimetric detection after derivatization with trifluoroacetic acid. Quantitative recovery of aflatoxin B1 from chick liver was achieved and detection at levels of 0.2-1 ppb was proved feasible. The aflatoxin B1 concentration in chick liver after oral administration is also shown.     

High performance biofilm process for treating wastewater discharged from coal refining plants containing nitrogen, cyanide and thiocyanate.

Wastewater discharge from coal refining plants contains a number of biologically toxic compounds; 2000-2500 mg/l of COD of which 40% is composed of phenol, 100-400 mg/l of thiocyanate, 10-40 mg/l of cyanide, 100-250 mg/l of NH4+-N and 150-300 mg/l of total nitrogen. In order to treat this kind of high strength wastewater, we have developed a high performance biofilm process using fluidizing bio-carriers of the tube chip type. The fluidizing biofilm carriers are made of a composite of polyethylene and several inorganic materials, whose density is controlled at 0.97-0.98 g/ml. The fluidizing biofilm carriers show sound fluidization characteristics inside bioreactors. The wastewater is treated using three consecutive series reactors in oxic-anoxic-oxic arrangement. Each reactor is charged with the fluidizing biofilm carriers of 50 vol%. Furthermore, newly cultured active microorganisms for the thiocyanate biodegradation are added in the biofilm process. At total hydraulic retention time of 2.2 days, this process can achieve steady state removal efficiencies: COD, 99%; thiocyanate, 99%; NH4+-N, 99% and total nitrogen, 90%.     

Solution of Helmholtz equation by Trefftz method

The application of the Trefftz method for calculating wave forces on offshore structures is presented. Indirect and direct formulations using complete and non-singular systems of Trefftz functions for the Helmholtz equation are posed in this paper. An effective technique using different interpolation functions for the velocity potential and wave force are suggested to improve the computational accuracy of the wave force. The numerical examples show that the present method is highly efficient and accurate.     

Novel tiO2 nanocatalysts for wastewater purification: tapping energy from the sun.

Water treatment using TiO2 semiconductor as a durable heterogeneous photocatalyst has been the focus of environmentalists in recent years. Currently, we developed an inexpensive and highly efficient approach for synthesizing nitrogen-doped TiO2 with lower band-gap energy that can respond to visible light. Doping on the molecular scale led to an enhanced nitrogen concentration of up to 21.8%. Reflectance measurements showed the synthesized N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles are catalytically active with the absorbance that extends into the visible region up to 600 nm. The water purification potential of this new class of compound was evaluated by studying the photodegradation of Acid Orange 7 (AO7) and E. coli. Experiments were conducted to compare the photocatalytic activities of N-doped TiO2 nanocatalysts and commercially available Degussa P25 power under identical solar light exposure. N-doped TiO2 demonstrated superior photocatalytic activities in both chemical compound degradation and bactericidal reactions. The result of this study shows the potential of applying new generations of catalyst for wastewater purification and disinfection.