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A Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System (DEWATS) provides an economically feasible and efficient wastewater treatment solution especially in developing countries. It has an enormous potential for developing a sustainable environmental sanitation system. In this study, the treatment efficiency of eight DEWATS plants was evaluated in the state of Maharashtra, India, for their performance in terms of selected physico-chemical parameters of the wastewater. Although the efficiency of some of the plants was lower than that reported in literature, the effluent quality of all the plants was within the permissible discharge limits of the Central Pollution Control Board for all the parameters. Comprehensive assessment of Plant I was carried in terms of its technical and socio-economic aspects. Moreover, LCA tool has been utilized to evaluate the environmental impacts of the operation stage of DEWATS. The midpoint, CML 2001 (April 2015) methodology was adopted, in which 11 impact categories were considered. From the life cycle impact assessment and interpretation, the main impacts are identified as releases of COD, P-PO43−, and N-NH4+ to water bodies and disposal of sludge. Due to negligible energy consumption, the operation stage was found to be less damaging to the environment. It was concluded that DEWATS can be a good alternative for treating wastewater with negligible energy and chemical consumption.

The concentration of ground level ozone is reported to be increasing in most of the developing and developed nations High ozone concentrations have been reported to be responsible for premature deaths damages to flora and fauna loss in crop yields and several other environmental impacts Thus it is important find the causes which lead to ozone formation But in most of the cases it is noticed that the research is directed towards only monitoring and reporting the trends of ground level ozone and its precursor pollutants A considerable number of studies have reported that ozone formation is a regional phenomenon and needs to be addressed locally as well as globally Considering the same the present study aims to find out the factors responsible for the formation of ground level ozone in one of the megacities India Mumbai

In the recent years, nanotechnology has emerged as a state-of-the-art and cutting edge technology with multifarious applications in a wide array of fields. It is a very broad area comprising of nanomaterials, nanotools, and nanodevices. Amongst nanomaterials, majority of the research has mainly focused on nanoparticles as they can be easily prepared and manipulated. Physical and chemical methods are conventionally used for the synthesis of nanoparticles; however, due to several limitations of these methods, research focus has recently shifted towards the development of clean and eco-friendly synthesis protocols. Magnetic nanoparticles constitute an important class of inorganic nanoparticles, which find applications in different areas by virtue of their several unique properties. Nevertheless, in comparison with biological synthesis protocols for noble metal nanoparticles, limited study has been carried out with respect to biological synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles. This review focuses on various studies outlining the novel routes for biosynthesis of these nanoparticles by plant resources along with outlining the future scope of work in this area.

Particulate matter (PM10) has emerged as the single most important pollutant across Indian cities, as its levels exceed the regulated standards at most places. PM10 was collected and analyzed at seven sites representing different land use patterns in Mumbai during 2007-08 for organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC). OC was further speciated for organic markers, which are useful for identifying sources. Average PAH concentration ranged from 47.84 ± 14.07 to 247.70 ± 163.19 ng/m^3. n-alkanes concentration varied from 157.20 ± 35.28 to 759.13 ± 451.65 ng/m^3. Hopanes and steranes showed the highest concentrations of 94.14 ± 28.66 and 32.64 ± 11.79 ng/m^3 and lowest concentrations of 7.81 ± 2.00 ng/m^3 and 2.83 ± 0.73 ng/m^3, respectively. The values for levoglucosan varied from 0.69 ± 0.46 to 3.23 ± 2.07 μg/m^3. The percentage contribution of the sum of the concentrations of these compounds to the total organic carbon varied from 1.7-5.1%. The sources contributing to particulate PAHs were identified using diagnostic ratios. Indicators like the Carbon Preference Index (CPI), Cmax and Plant Wax Number (%WNA) were used to identify the relative contributions to n-alkanes from anthropogenic and biogenic emissions. The source apportionment results and also the concentration trends for these molecular markers indicate that anthropogenic sources, especially vehicular exhaust, wood combustion and coal combustion, are mainly responsible for the organic fraction of particulate matter in Mumbai city. The sources identified qualitatively in this work can help in selecting the appropriate source profiles for estimating the quantitative contribution of these sources.