Mostafa Leili

Bio: Mostafa Leili is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Chemical oxygen demand & Sequencing batch reactor. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 4 citations.

Optimization of acetaminophen removal from high load synthetic pharmaceutical wastewater by experimental and ANOVA analysis

Abstract: The growth of industries and population is accompanied by the introduction of emerging chemical pollutants such as pharmaceutical compounds into natural water sources. The purification of these pollutants is essential to protect the environment and promote community health. The present study aims to investigate the removal of acetaminophen (ACT), one of the most widely used pharmaceutical compounds, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) through a completely environmentally friendly biological method, namely cyclic biological reactor (CBR). This process is performed using high-load synthetic pharmaceutical wastewater on a laboratory scale. During the study the effect of cycle time, hydraulic retention time (HRT), ACT and COD concentration, and temperature on reactor performance are inspected. Finally, the performances of two CBR and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) are compared. Financial analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and nonlinear regression are applied to study the influence of cycle time and concentration of ACT and COD on CBR performance. Two cubic models have been developed for the effect of cycle and concentration on ACT and COD removal efficiencies using design expert software. The models are utilized to calculate the optimum operating conditions. At 18-h cycle and 500 mg/L ACT and 7600 mg/L COD concentrations, the models show 98 % and 95 % removal efficiencies for ACT and COD, respectively. Results showed that CBR is an economically proper process to treat various types of wastewaters thanks to its low-space occupation, easy operation, low-energy consumption, and, high efficiency. It can also be used to upgrade old treatment plants in the future.

Pharmaceutical wastewater as Emerging Contaminants (EC): Treatment technologies, impact on environment and human health

Abstract: A wide range of unregulated chemicals of synthetic origin or derived from natural sources, which may be a contender for future regulations are called Emerging Contaminants (ECs). The concentration of ECs ranges from ng/L to μg/L, which is comparatively smaller as compared to other pollutants present in water and wastewater. Even though the environmental concentration is low, ECs still possess a great threat to the humans and ecosystem. These compounds are being widely studied due to their potential health effects, pervasive nature, and difficult degradation through conventional techniques. Pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs) or pharmaceutical contaminants (PCs) are one of the major groups of ECs which can cause inimical effect on living organisms even at very lower concentration. These contaminants don't degrade easily and persistent for longer periods in the environment due to their stable structure. With the increase in demand of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs), there has been a sharp increase of these pollutants in water bodies. This is mainly due to the inefficiency of conventional wastewater treatment plants in treatment and removal of these PhACs. The proper identification of pharmaceutical groups and development of removal techniques is crucial in the recent times. This review represents a comprehensive summary on PCs, various groups of PCs and an overview of approaches and treatment systems available for their removal. Efficient and effective treatment methods can be useful for completely eradicating these compounds and making the water bodies safe for use. So, the investment of capital and time on research on PCs and their removal techniques can be beneficial for the future.

Optimization of AC/TiO2/CeO2 composite formulation for petroleum refinery wastewater treatment via simultaneous adsorption-photocatalytic process using D-optimal mixture experimental design

Abstract: This study aims to optimize the formulation of activated carbon/titanium oxide/cerium oxide (AC/TiO2/CeO2) composite for petroleum refinery wastewater (PRW) treatment via simultaneous adsorption and photocatalytic process. D -optimal mixture experimental design was applied to predict the optimal formulation of the composite. The experimental data were assessed to generate empirical models for analyzing the effects of components fraction on individual responses. The fitted models were statistically examined (through the standard error of design), considerably validated (via analysis of variance (ANOVA) and model adequacy indicators), and experimentally verified (by estimating errors, root-mean square error (RMSE), and standard error of prediction (SEP) between the predicted and actual values). Finally, the optimized formulation was accepted to have 36.85% total dissolved solid (TDS) removal, 49.23% chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, treated PRW with pH = 7.22 and electrical conductivity (EC) = 2937.11 µS/cm, 53.76% phenol removal, and 52.86% NH3-N removal, by applying 53.43%-wt of AC, 21.96%-wt of TiO2, and 24.61%-wt of CeO2 with reasonably high desirability score of 0.8874. Based on the characterization results, it can be concluded that the optimized AC/TiO2/CeO2 composite was successfully synthesized. From the diffuse reflectance spectrometry (DRS), the estimated bandgap energy of the synthesized AC/TiO2/CeO2 composite was successfully reduced through the use of CeO2. Our findings show the efficiency, reliability, and feasibility of the D -optimal mixture experimental design from modeling, predicting, and optimizing the formulation of AC/TiO2/CeO2 composite. Overall, our findings prove that the optimized AC/TiO2/CeO2 composite is a prominent and effective material for PRW treatment.

A comprehensive study on opium pharmaceutical wastewater treatment in laboratory and semi-industrial scales

Abstract: The wastewater of an opium pharmaceutical industry was successfully treated using a combined process of electrocoagulation/flotation (ECF), peroxone (H2O2/O3) and adsorption filter of granular activated carbon (GAC) in a three-step operation (ECF → H2O2/O3 → GAC), in a lab and semi-industrial scales. The effect of the operating parameters such as initial pH, current density, residence time, injection dose of H2O2, the ratio of H2O2/O3 and time of adsorption process was optimized in both scales. On the lab-scale, the removal efficiency of COD, Color, TDS, TSS, electrical power consumption, electrode consumption, and operating costs have been studied. In the ECF process, the maximum removal efficiencies of COD, color, TDS and TSS were 64%, 60%, 61% and 50%, respectively. The optimum pH, ozonation time, hydrogen peroxide concentration and the ratio of H2O2/O3 in the peroxone process are 8, 45 min, 900 mg/l, 0.3 H2O2/O3, respectively. After ECF and peroxone processes, the maximum removal efficiencies of COD and color increased up to 84% and 62% and after the adsorption process, the maximum removal efficiencies of COD, Color, TDS, and TSS increased up to 99.2%, 99.0, 99.0 and 99.1%, respectively. The performance of each reactor in the semi-industrial scale was also evaluated. After the treatment operation in the ECF → H2O2/O3 → GAC semi-industrial pilot reactor, the COD removal efficiency, Color, TDS and TSS of opium wastewater reached 96%, 99%, 99% and 99%, respectively. The excellent performance, as well as the low operating cost, confirmed that this integrated system is highly applicable for the advanced treatment of opium pharmaceutical industry wastewater.