The effluent quality improvement being discharged from wastewater treatment plants is essential to maintain an environment and healthy water resources. This study was carried out to evaluate the possibility of intermittent slow sand filtration as a promising tertiary treatment method for the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) effluent. Laboratory scale slow sand filter (SSF) of 1.5 UC and 0.1 m/h filtration rate, was used to study the process performance. It was found that SSF IS very efficient in oxidizing organic matter with COD removal efficiency up to 95%, also it is capable of removing considerable amounts of phosphate with 76% and turbidity with 87% removal efficiencies. Slow sand filter efficiently reduced the mass of suspended and dissolved material to a very high TSS and conductivity removal efficiency of about 99% for both of them. Therefore, it can be said that slow sand filtration would be a promising technology as a tertiary treatment of SBR reactor effluent, and economically achievable as a mean of upgrading wastewater effluents to meet more stringent water quality standards, where treated effluent can be reused for various recreational purposes i.e. gardening and irrigation, as well as for safe discharge.
The precipitation of calcite induced via microorganisms (MICP) is a technique that has been developed as an innovative sustainable ground improvement method utilizing ureolytic bacteria to soil strengthening and stabilization. Locally isolated Bacillus Sonorensis from Iraqi soil samples were found to have high abilities in producing urease. This study aims to use the MICP technique in improving the undrained shear strength of soft clay soil using two native urease producing bacteria that help in the precipitation of calcite to increase the cementation between soil particles. Three concentrations of each of the locally prepared Bacillus sonorensis are used in this study for cementation reagent (0.25M, 0.5M, and 1M) during
... Show MoreIn this study, the potential of adsorption of amoxicillin antibiotic (AMOX) from aqueous solutions using prepared activated carbon (AC) was studied. The used AC was prepared from an inexpensive and available precursor (sunflower seed hulls (SSH)) and activated by potassium hydroxide (KOH). The prepared AC was examined for its ability to remove AMOX from aqueous contaminated solutions and characterized with the aid of N2 -adsorption/desorption isotherm Brunauer–Emmett– Teller, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared. Zeta potential of the prepared activated carbon from sunflower seed hulls (SSHAC) were studied in relation to AMOX adsorption. The physical and chemical propert
... Show MoreThe kinetics of nickel removal from aqueous solutions using a bio-electrochemical reactor with a packed bed rotating cylinder cathode was investigated. The effects of applied voltage, initial nickel concentration, the rotation speed of the cathode, and pH on the reaction rate constant (k) were studied. The results showed that the cathodic deposition occurred under mass transfer control for all values of the applied voltage used in this research. Accordingly, the relationship between concentration and time can be represented by a first-order equation. The rate constant was found to be dependent on the applied voltage, initial nickel concentration, pH, and rotation speed. It was increased as the applied voltage increased and decreased as t
... Show MoreThis study focused on treating wastewater to remove phosphorus by adsorption onto naturaland local materials. Burned kaolin, porcelinite, bauxite and limestone were selected to be testedas adsorption materials.The adsorption isotherms were evaluated by batch experiments, studyingthe effects of pH, temperature and initial phosphorus concentration. The results showed that at pH6, temperature 20°C and 300 mg/l initial phosphorus concentration; the sorption capacity was0.61, 9, 10 and 13 mg/g at 10 h contact time, for burned kaolin, porcelanite, limestone and bauxiterespectively. As the pH increased from 2 to 10 the removal efficiency for the materials differs inbehaviour. The removal efficiency increased from 40 to 90 % for limestone, and dec
... Show MoreThe study's objective is to produce Nano Graphene Oxide (GO) before using it for batch adsorption to remove heavy metals (Cadmium Cd+2, Nickel Ni+2, and Vanadium V+5) ions from industrial wastewater. The temperature effect (20-50) °C and initial concentration effect (100-800) mg L-1 on the adsorption process were studied. A simulation aqueous solution of the ions was used to identify the adsorption isotherms, and after the experimental data was collected, the sorption process was studied kinetically and thermodynamically. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were used to fit the data. The results showed that Cd, Ni, and V ions on the GO adsorbing surface matched the Langmuir mo
... Show MoreThe degradation and mineralization of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) by advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) was investigated in this work, using both of UV/H2O2 and photo-Fenton UV/H2O2/Fe+3 systems.The reaction was influenced by the input concentration of H2O2, the amount of the iron catalyst, the type of iron salt, the pH and the concentration of 4-CP. A colored solution of benzoquinon can be observed through the first 5 minutes of irradiation time for UV/H2O2 system when low concentration (0.01mol/L) of H2O2 was used. The colored solution of benzoquinon could also be observed through the first 5 minutes for the UV/H2O2/Fe+3 system at high
concentration (100ppm) of 4-CP. The results have shown that adding Fe+3 to the UV/H2O2 system enhanced

