A review on activated carbon: process, application and prospects

Activated carbon (AC) is used in different states of applications after its discovery as a strong and reliable adsorbent. An overview on AC is presented together with revisiting the sources of AC generation; methods used to generate AC comprising of pyrolysis activation; physical activation; chemical activation and steam pyrolysis. The important factors affecting the AC production, the possible applications of AC and their future prospects are also discussed. AC is applied in water, wastewater and leachate treatments in many countries, especially to polish the color, remove the odor and some heavy metals. It is cheap and available, and can be produced from agricultural waste materials, e.g. rice husk, palm oil shell and coconut shell. The AC’s fine and porous structure and an extremely large particle surface area (>1000 m2/g) results in making it possessed powerful adsorptive properties. Therefore, the adsorption process using AC is found to be a potentially viable method of removing pollutants from aqueous solutions

Recent advances on palm oil mill effluent (POME) pretreatment and anaerobic reactor for sustainable biogas production

Palm oil is one of the leading agricultural crops in the world, as it dominates 34% of the global vegetable oil market, with approximately 64.6*103 million kgs of production in 2017. However, along with its breakthrough, the generation of palm oil mill effluent (POME) as uncontrolled waste has become a serious matter and requires proper management to reduce its negative effects on the environment. Subsequently, the high organic content of POME makes it possible to convert waste into value-added products, such as biogas. A ratio of 0.5 for biological oxygen demand to chemical oxygen demand (BOD/COD) indicates a high possibility for biological treatment. Recently, the utilisation of POME as a cheap source for biogas production has gained an extraordinary amount of attention, and intensive research has been conducted on the upstream to downstream process. Finding the most suitable and efficient pretreatment technique and reactor configuration are vital parameters for the treatment and conversion of POME to biogas. This review describes existing pretreatment processes for POME and recommends recently manufactured high-rate anaerobic reactors as the most suitable and efficient pretreatment technique for maximising the extraction of biogas from POME

Optimizing the performance of a paper mill effluent treatment

The paper making industry is characterized by high rate of water consumption and hence high rate of wastewater generation. The purpose of this research was to assess and optimize the existing complete mix activate sludge treatment plant that is used to treat the high strength paper mill effluent with the highest possible efficiency at a reasonable cost. The collected paper mill wastewater is equalized in an equalization tank before being pumped to the treatment plant. The treatment plant includes chemical treatment unit, complete mix activated sludge and granular media filtration unit. The results showed that effluent of a chemical treatment unit was found to be relatively similar to the laboratory simulated plain sedimentation unit. It can be concluded that addition of chemical coagulant can be eliminated with an overall saving of chemical addition costs. The complete mixing activated sludge achieved good removal of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Furthermore, the results showed that the plant is operated under low BOD:P ratio. The treatment efficiency of the plant can be improved by increasing the phosphorous dose to the plant to have BOD:P ratio of 100:0.5 to 100:1. It was found that 50% of the treated effluent is recycled to the manufacturing process, however this percentage can be increased through proper plant optimization and control of nutrient addition to the activated sludge unit

Interferon-induced transmembrane protein 3 in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Abstract Objective The study aimed to investigate the over expression of IFITM3 in hepatocellular carcinoma Egyptian patients. Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) continues to be a serious disease burden. Interferon Induced Transmembrane protein 3 (IFITM3) is a protein that encoded in humans by the IFITM3 gene. It plays a critical role in the immune system’s defense, responsible for a large portion of the antiviral activity. In this study, we showed that IFITM3 rs 12252-CC was over expressed in HCC patients compared to control group with HCV infection. Method DNA sequencing was applied for detection of IFITM3 rs 12252-CC and IFITM3 protein level was measured by ELISA to 50 patients with HCC with cirrhosis and 50 with Hepatitis C virus infection. Results The obtained results of this study indicated that IFITM3 rs 12252-CC was significantly elevated in HCC group, the codominant model of CC genotype of IFITM3 gene had high association with risk of hepatocellular carcinoma with odd ratio (OR) = 2.70, p = 0.041. Conclusion IFITM3 play an important role in progression of hepatocellular carcinoma. Results revealed that IFITM3 rs 12252-CC among Hepatocellular carcinoma patients would allow diagnosis and starting intervention

Optimizing the Performance of a Paper Mill Effluent Treatment

ABSTRACT The paper making industry is characterized by high rate of water consumption and hence high rate of wastewater generation