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Groundwater is a primary natural water source in the absence of surface water bodies. Groundwater in urban environments experiences unprecedented stress from urban growth, population increase, and industrial activities. This study assessed groundwater quality in terms of arsenic and heavy metal contamination in three industrial areas (Shahdara, Jhilmil, and Patparganj), Delhi, India. The water quality was assessed over a 3-year time interval (i.e., 2015 and 2018). The groundwater constituents investigated were As, Fe, Cr, Cd, Ni, Zn, Mn, Cu, and Pb. Metal index and heavy metal pollution indexes were estimated to assess groundwater pollution. The health risk was evaluated in terms of non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk assessment. Patparganj industrial area saw increment in concentration for Cu 0.23 mg/L (2015)–0.85 mg/L (2018), Zn 0.51 mg/L (2015)–7.2 mg/L (2018), Fe 0.32 mg/L (2015)–0.9 mg/L (2018), Cr 0.21 mg/L (2015)–0.26 mg/L (2018), Mn 0.14 mg/L (2015)–0.25 mg/L (2018), Ni 0.04 mg/L (2015)–0.34 mg/L (2018), and As 0.01 mg/L (2015)–0.18 mg/L (2018). Cd and Pb concentrations were observed to decrease by 40–90 % and 85–99% for all the three industrial areas. Metal index and heavy metal index values were found to be >1 for all locations. The risk quotient value > 1 was observed for all locations in the year 2015 but was found to increase further to a range of RQ 10–62 in the year 2018, inferring increased non-carcinogenic risk to consumers. The carcinogenic risk was significant with respect to Fe (0.2–0.7), Zn (0.001–0.007), and As (0.002–0.003) for all locations in the year 2015. This study concludes that groundwater in the three industrial areas is highly polluted and is not fit for human consumption. Further studies are required to explore possible control measures and develop methods to mitigate groundwater pollution, sustainable management, and optimized use to conserve it for future generations.

In the last three decades, pharmaceuticals research has increased tremendously to offer safe and healthy life, though it emerged as a new threat to the environment. These pharmaceutical residues pose a threat to the public health, and ecological balance, particularly in surface water located in agricultural catchments are facing more serious challenges. If these pharmaceutical residues left untreated could contaminate soil, water and may lead to serious outbreaks. However, many conventional treatments are integrated into wastewater treatment plants (WWTP’s), but there is a lack of dedicated treatment in eliminating pharmaceutical residues. Thus, dedicated on-site treatment at source (such as Hospitals and pharmaceutical industries) is essentially needed before discharging effluent to sewers or water bodies. Furthermore, the potential impact of pharmaceutical compounds even in trace concentration is more severe than the other pollutants present in the environment. In contrast, very limited knowledge about how such compounds and their kinetics directly impacts the environment and long-term impacts on humans. Traces of antibiotic compounds in the aquatic environment lead to resistant bacterial strains, exhibit threat to organisms and human health, hence affecting treatment. The recent literature reported that the pharmaceutical residues enter the environment in trace level. But, in long terms, these pharmaceuticals, even in trace concentration, has a potential threat to human health and terrestrial ecosystem. In this review article, we summarize the pharmaceutical residues potential to cause disease outbreaks in community and eco-toxicological impacts on aquatic organisms. Herein, we have reviewed the literature (1996–2020) to draw worldwide attention on rising pharmaceutical residues in the environment and associated impacts, disease outbreaks and eco-hazards.

Hospital wastewater (HWW) is one of the largest sources of pharmaceutical release. The present paper proposes the sustainable and controllable hospital wastewater treatment method based on the phot...

Urmia Lake located in the north-west of Iran, is one of the largest hyper-saline lakes in the world. In this study, classification of groundwater of the eastern basin of Urmia Lake and the results ...

Purpose: This investigation aims to study the various approaches currently used to reduce the load on computer servers in order to better manage data on hospital wastewater treatment and solid waste generation. Design/methodology/approach: This manuscript investigates the taxonomies of deduplication procedures based on literature and other data sources, thereby presenting its classification and its challenges in detection. Findings: Based on the literature survey of deduplication techniques, the method of deduplication dispensed on cloud gadget devices has been found to be a promising research challenge. The gaps discussed include a reduction in storage space, bandwidth, type of disks used, and expenditure on energy usage and heat emissions when implementing these strategies. The art work on a scalable, robust, green and allocated approach to deduplication for a cloud gadget will remain of interest in destiny. Research limitations/implications: Considerable attention is focused on the deduplication due to efficient, extensive storage system. Practical implications: This research paper will be useful to identify deduplication techniques which are nowadays used in different hospital wastewater data collection systems and put significant proposals for further improvements in deduplication. Originality/value: This manuscript portrays a broader assessment of the available literature for data duplication along with the classification of different methods for the data storage used in the different level of storage of hospital wastewater data collection.

Laboratories, dialysis units, and other similar facilities are important sources of negative contribution to wastewater from healthcare facilities. They dispose of pharmaceutical residues as well as unsafe pollutants such as pharmaceutical remainders, hazardous chemical agents, pathogens, as well as radio-isotopes. Wastes from these departments may contain traces of pathogenic and cytotoxic microorganisms, as well as radioactive isotopes. This state of wastewater poses a chemical, physical and biological threat to the environment due to the significant amount of hazardous pollutants. It also poses a high risk to public health. Unfortunately, the juridical and legal system does not oblige them to take care of hospital effluents' safety before being discharged into the general sewer system or the environment. Since the risk associated with wastewater composition from medical institutions is enormous, leading us to ensure high-end preparation and treatment of such wastewater before it is discharged into the sewer. Many countries do not have strict standards and legal responsibility to discharge high-hazard pollutants like those found in wastewater from medical institutions. Consequently, it is time for concern since there are increasing amounts of such effluents, and there is currently no legislative regulation and high-quality treatment for emerging contaminants. Unfortunately, even many developed countries do not regulate pharmaceutical residues at the legislative level. For this reason, this review aims to highlight key points in current regulations, legislation, and guidelines for the control of hazardous pharmaceutical wastewater and emerging contaminants. This review also purposes to focus the practitioners’ attention to the development and strengthening of legislative norms regarding the medical institution’s effluent.

This study determined the performance of upgraded sewage treatment plant (STP) based on an anaerobic-aerobic system consisting Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor, Final Polishing Unit (FPU) and Down-flow Hanging Sponge (DHS) system, treating municipal wastewater located at Dhandhupura, Agra, Uttar Pradesh (India). The performance evaluation of STP were based on the removal efficiency of parameters like Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Volatile Suspended Solids (VSS). The results exhibits improved BOD, COD, TSS and VSS removal efficiency for UASB-DHS system (92.01%, 82.26%, 91.02%, 92.88%) as compared to UASB-FPU (81.67%, 74.35%, 83.72%, 83.41%) respectively. In addition, this study compares the UASB-DHS system with other post-treatment methods based on their treatment cost and removal efficiency. The technology ranking analysis showed that the UASB-DHS system scored the highest desirability value of 6.77 followed by MBR and ASP technology having a score of 5.17 and 5.11 respectively. The results demonstrated that the UASB-DHS system outperformed the existing UASB-FPU system and met the Indian standards for effluent discharge i.e. BOD less than 30 mg/l. Therefore, the treated sewage can be considered for cultivation, irrigation purpose and safely discharged into water bodies. Moreover, the cost analysis indicates that the UASB-DHS system requires less energy in operation, low expenses in sludge handling and comparatively small area required for post-treatment operation. Hence, this work proposed an economical and efficient approach for the treatment of municipal wastewater particularly for developing countries.

For long time water disinfection is being done to inactivate or control bacteria populations in the treated water and simple chlorination is the most common method to disinfect the water. Almost certainly for over a decade chlorination is being effectively utilized for controlling of water borne contamination. An assortment of disinfection by-products (DBPs) are formed like trihalomethanes (THMs), haloacetic acids (HAAs) and halogenated acetonitriles (HANs) etc., when the naturally occurring natural organic matters (NOMs) present in raw water reacts with chlorine that may have adverse health impacts on humans. These compounds fall apart the water quality and there are epidemiological confirmations of close connection between its emergence and unfavourable results especially the malignant growths of fundamental organs in individuals. Concerns related with the prospective health hazards of DBPs provoked a few industrialized nations to build up various guidelines. Due to lack of data more research is required to understand its adverse health effects on human beings which are being restrained by funds required for researches. DPBs dermal and inhalation exposure routes have greater risk as compared to ingestion route. The DBPs can be controlled by methods like coagulation with polymer, alum, lime or iron, sulphates, adsorption on activated carbons, ion exchange or membrane process and to more effectively reduce the precursor i.e. NOMs. In this paper we have discussed about the formation of disinfection by-products in treated municipal water during chlorination and how these DBPs were discovered. Moreover, we briefly compared the present status of their guidelines value or regulations in India with other regulating bodies and what are the category of cancer groups under which the different DBPs are categorized by WHO. A portion of the basic science related to DBPs formation is explained and the different exposure routes of DBPs in a human body are discussed. Fifty-two studies were reviewed about DBPs toxicity and epidemiology to understand the greatness of hazards caused by exposure of DBPs as shown by various researchers. Many innovations and methodologies can be used for controlling or removal of the DBPs.

Hospital effluents are the sources for complex high percentage of micropollutants and till date no specific treatment have been investigated for the removal of pollutants. These effluents and their complex characteristics pose resistance to unit operation which undergoes in hospital wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In other words such complex contaminants are unable to removed completely through conventional treatment processes. The pharmaceutical residues entering into the environment may pose a serious threat to the water resources around the world. In past few years environmental scientists are more concerned towards the effluent generated from medical care facilities, community health centers and hospitals. In this study, seven multi-specialty hospitals with non-identical pre-treatment were selected for 3-aspects i.e. conventional wastewater characteristics, high priority pharmaceuticals and microbial analyses. The present work is to evaluate efficacy of advanced wastewater treatment methods with regard to removal of these 3-aspects from hospital effluents before discharge into a sewage treatment plant (STP). Based on test results, two out of seven treatment technologies i.e. MBR and CW effectively reducing conventional parameters and pharmaceuticals from secondary and tertiary treatments except regeneration of microbes were observed in tertiary level by these two treatments. The result also suggests that, MBR exhibited 100% elimination of ibuprofen, carbamazepine, frusemide while CW indicated 100% elimination of ofloxacin. Furthermore, two combinations of advanced oxidation process viz. ozonation (O3) and peroxone process (O3–H2O2) were demonstrated to oxidize pharmaceuticals. The operational key factors for AOP involve pH, O3 supply, contact time, and H2O2 concentrations. Based on pharmaceuticals reduction efficiencies, the conventional O3 alone is more efficient as compared to combine O3–H2O2 treatment. Hence results confirmed that, MBR coupled with ozone process proved as an optimal technology among the seven technologies for the pre-treatment of hospital effluent.

The occurrence and fate of antibiotic in the environment is an uttermost concern due to development of resistant gene and lowering effect of antibiotic on diseases. In India itself, the problem is intense due to extensive & uncontrolled use of drugs at different medical facilities. They get mixed up with ground and surface water due to lack of proper treatment of hospital wastewater before discharging it. As it contains high concentration of antibiotics, drug residues along with certain heavy metals. The contamination due to this is not only limited to water but affects whole ecosystem severely. The concentration of these antibiotics depends upon various factors such as a characteristic of water and soil, irrational water source, cropping forms, seasonal variation of medicines. Many investigations on the toxicity of these antibiotics and their traces in aquatic environment pose serious threats. If we compare treatments with respect to different drugs then we observe that iodinated contrast media shows better removal efficiency in an MBR with UV about 66% of total load and 99% for all other drugs. It can be concluded from this study that use of about 23 mg/L of packed activate carbon with 1.08 g O3/g of DOC with 2400 J/m2 UV will be best for achieving high efficiency in drugs removal. In this paper, our main objective was to review the occurrences and fate of common drugs and antibiotics present in effluents from hospital wastewaters. These effluents get mixed up the others streams of water and are used in various purposes like irrigation and other domestic activities, thus making the situation more complex. The conventional adopted treatment techniques for these hospital effluents are also discussed in detail.

Recently pharmaceuticals are emerging as a major source of pollution for the environment. It has been well observed that the effluent discharge from hospitals has an eminent quantity of chemical waste as antibiotics, disinfectants and other treatments wastes. Pharmaceutical effluents are bioactive and their existence in the environment has been found harmful to both aquatic life and humans. In developing countries, untreated wastewaters are discharged to local water bodies by just following the local regulations. The current global challenges including high population growth rate and climate change have contributed to the widespread epidemics and emergence of diseases. Besides intractable and decaying antibiotic system, hospitals emit pathogenic waste during treatment process that can lead to situations where a total ban on hospital effluent are needed, for instance in multiple cases where discharge lead to strain on nature and quality of water. In case of pharmaceutical residues, it has been observed that only 18–32% of the pharmaceutical residues could be degraded by the secondary treatment of these seven technologies and it has been increased to 30–65% by tertiary treatment. As far as the pharmaceutical residues are concerned, it has been observed that MBR removes the residues with the efficiency of 28–100%, varying for each pharmaceutical. This paper reviews the existing treatment processes, their advantages and future perspective of this emerging area.

The Chlorophyceae are a large and important group of green algae. They include some of the most common species, as well as many members that are important both ecologically and scientifically. When abundant in the water, they can rapidly cover the surface of sand filters and drastically reduce the length of filter runs. Also, tastes and odors are caused by the release of certain compounds by both living algae and dead and decomposing algae. This study will provide basic information on the fundamentals of acoustic cavitation as a new technology for control of Chlorophyceae growth. This technology is an attractive means to improve water quality because of the simplicity of the system and no production of toxic by-products. The inactivation of Chlorophyceae is mainly due to cavitation. Cavitation is a primary mechanism of ultrasound waves that occurs when the gas vesicles are acted upon by sufficiently intense ultrasound waves of different frequencies. Waves collapse gas vacuoles and precipitate Chlorophyceae. Also damage is inflicted on the chlorophyll of Chlorophyceae. Experiments have been carried out using ultrasound reactor in a laboratory pilot plant, to investigate the effect of acoustic cavitation. The results show that increasing the short exposure to waves has a considerable effect on destruction of Chlorophyceae growth and results in the loss of buoyancy. At 42 kHz it is shown that 100% of the Chlorophyceae can be destroyed in 130 seconds.