Urban wastewater management is a critical component of sustainable water cycles, but traditional systems often struggle with inefficiencies such as high operational costs, resource wastage, and environmental pollution. This paper explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT technologies can optimize urban wastewater management by enabling real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and resource recovery. By integrating data from IoT sensors, water quality monitors, and treatment plants, cities can improve water quality, reduce operational costs, and recover valuable resources such as energy (...) and nutrients. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvements in treatment efficiency, resource recovery rates, and environmental impact, offering a sustainable blueprint for smart urban wastewater systems. (shrink)

Industrial sectors worldwide—including oil refineries, chemical plants, and pharmaceutical industries—generate vast quantities of wastewater contaminated with hazardous chemicals and excess nutrients. Conventional treatment methods, such as the conventional activated sludge (CAS) process, are widely used but have notable drawbacks. These systems are energy-intensive and often face challenges in efficiently removing nitrogen compounds and industrial toxins. In response to these limitations, Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactors (MABRs) have emerged as a promising, more sustainable alternative.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play a critical role in safeguarding public health and environmental quality. However, they are also notable sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Traditional methods for monitoring these emissions—such as point sampling and flux chambers—are often labor-intensive, spatially limited, and lack the temporal resolution needed to capture the dynamic nature of gas fluxes in real-time.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a powerful tool for public health surveillance, enabling researchers to monitor patterns of drug use, lifestyle behaviors, and disease prevalence by analyzing biomarkers excreted by human populations into wastewater. Yet, a critical question has remained largely unexplored: to what extent do these biomarkers adhere to suspended particulate matter (SPM) within wastewater, potentially causing underestimations when only the liquid fraction is analyzed?

Oxygenic photogranules (OPGs)—compact microbial aggregates primarily composed of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and associated bacteria—have emerged as promising, eco-friendly agents in wastewater treatment. These naturally formed granules are capable of simultaneously removing carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus while generating oxygen through photosynthesis, reducing the need for energy-intensive mechanical aeration. However, the extent to which their metabolic activity adapts to fluctuating environmental conditions, such as variations in light intensity or carbon availability, has remained largely unexplored.

Climate change, pollution, and deforestation have a negative impact on global mental health. There is an environmental justice dimension to this challenge as wealthy people and high-income countries are major contributors to climate change and pollution, while poor people and low-income countries are heavily affected by the consequences. Using state-of-the art data mining, we analyzed and visualized the global research landscape on mental health, climate change, pollution and deforestation over a 15-year period. Metadata of papers were exported from PubMed®, and (...) both relevance and relatedness of terms in different time frames were computed using VOSviewer. Co-occurrence graphs were used to visualize results. The development of exemplary terms over time was plotted separately. The number of research papers on mental health and environmental challenges is growing in a linear fashion. Major topics are climate change, chemical pollution, including psychiatric medication in wastewater, and neurobiological effects. Research on specific psychiatric syndromes and diseases, particularly on their ethical and social aspects is less prominent. There is a growing body of research literature on links between mental health, climate change, pollution, and deforestation. This research provides a graphic overview to mental healthcare professionals and political stakeholders. Social and ethical aspects of the climate change-mental health link have been neglected, and more research is needed. (shrink)

d organic compounds that pose serious risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health. This study investigates the application of biochar as an effective treatment medium for textile wastewater. Biochar, a carbon-rich material produced through pyrolysis of organic matter, offers high surface area, porosity, and adsorption properties. We evaluated the efficacy of biochar in removing dyes and heavy metals from simulated textile effluent under varying conditions of contact time, pH, and biochar dosage. Results indicated that biochar significantly reduced dye concentration (...) and metal ions, with optimal removal rates achieved at specific pH levels and higher biochar amounts. Mechanistic studies suggested that adsorption, electrostatic interactions, and ion exchange were the primary removal processes. This research highlights the potential of biochar not only as a sustainable solution for textile effluent treatment but also as a means to recycle organic waste, contributing to a circular economy. Further investigations into the regeneration and reuse of biochar in wastewater treatment are recommended to enhance its practical applicability. (shrink)

Dịch tễ học dựa trên nước thải (Wastewater-Based Epidemiology – WBE) đang nổi lên như một công cụ hiệu quả trong giám sát sức khỏe cộng đồng.

This paper deals with the acute toxicity of Sugar factory effluent on freshwater catfish, Mystus vittatus (Bloch), at different concentration and duration of exposure on the mortality and ethological alterations. The LC50 for 96 hours of sugar factory effluent for Mystus vittatus was 3.10% (v/v). The result also revealed that mortality rate depends upon concentrations of effluent and duration of exposure. The effluent exposed test fish showed alterations in behavioural responses. The behavioural alterations of Mystus vittatus during the present experiment (...) was found to depend on both duration of exposure and increase in concentration of the effluent and duration of exposure. The mortality rate was found to be directly proportional to the concentration of effluent. Thus, the present revealed that fish, Mystus vittatus are sensitive to distillery wastewater and can be used as biological indicators. (shrink)

Con người tự hào đứng đầu chuỗi thức ăn. Tự hào hơn nữa con người có trí khôn trác tuyệt để tạo ra cả hệ tiêu chuẩn và gọi việc ăn của mình là giàu tính “đạo đức” theo cách diễn đạt của Paul Valéry trong Tel Quel (1941).