Microplastics in Sewage Sludge: A Known but Underrated Pathway in Wastewater Treatment Plants

Interest in the presence of microplastics (MPs) in wastewater has grown significantly in recent years. In fact, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) represent the last barrier before the discharge of MPs into an aquatic ecosystem. The research has highlighted how MPs are in part effectively removed from the waters and accumulated inside the sewage sludge (SeS) produced by the WWTP, being a cause for concern, especially in the case of agricultural reuse. This work aims to analyze the existing literature on the (i) methodical procedure for MPs analysis (thermal, spectroscopic, optical analyses), (ii) qualitative and quantitative presence of MPs in SeS, (iii) effect on sludge properties, and (iv) the possible accumulation in amended soils. Based on the results already obtained in the literature, this work aims to provide critical insights to stimulate interest in the topic and direct future research on aspects that should be deepened. In particular, it emerges that there is a clear need for standardization of the collection methods and the analytical techniques for identifying and quantifying MPs, since their physico-chemical characterization and the study on aging and on the response towards acid or basic pre-treatments are fundamental for the understanding of microplastics ecotoxicological potential

Assessment of the Impact of a New Industrial Discharge on an Urban Wastewater Treatment Plant: Proposal for an Experimental Protocol

Assessing the compatibility of industrial discharges with the biological process of a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) may represent a critical task. Indeed, either focusing only on chemical characterization or ecotoxicity tests designed to assess the impact on surface waters may lead to questionable or misleading conclusions. The feasibility of an industrial connection to the sewer should better take into account the features of the downstream WWTP, in particular by studying the potential effects on the biomass of that specific plant. With this aim, a multi-step experimental protocol applicable by water utilities has been proposed: (step 1) calculation of the flow rate/load ratio between industrial discharge (ID) and urban wastewater (WW); (step 2) analysis of the modified operating conditions of the biological stage; (step 3) experimental assessment of the impact of the ID on the WWTP biomass by means of respirometric tests. An application of this protocol is presented in this work as a case study, namely a new ID (average flowrate 200 m3 d−1) coming from an aqueous waste treatment plant (AWTP) to be connected to the public sewer. The integrated evaluation of results showed that no negative impacts could be expected on the downstream urban activated sludge WWTP (treating a flow rate of around 45,000 m3 d−1)

Review of rheological behaviour of sewage sludge and its importance in the management of wastewater treatment plants

Abstract The process operation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is based on the proper set up of several physical, chemical and biological parameters. Often, issues and problems arising in the process are strictly linked to the rheological behaviour of sewage sludge (SeS). Therefore, rheological measurements, which recently have captured a growing interest, represent an important aspect to consider in the design and operation of WWTPs, especially in the sludge-handling processes. The knowledge of rheological behaviour of SeS represents a crucial step to better understand its flow behaviour and therefore optimize the performance of the processes, minimizing the costs. The SeS are non-Newtonian fluids and, to date, Bingham and Ostwald models are the most applied. This work presents an overview of scientific literature about the rheological properties of SeS and discusses the importance of its knowledge for the management of WWTPs

A Virtual Reality Etruscan Museum Exhibition–Preliminary Results Of The Participants’ Experience

The current global health emergency has posed the need to reflect upon how to guarantee high standard of quality in 100% virtual exhibition. In this case study, we present one of the possible solutions to design a VR museum exhibition for educational purposes. The Centre for Museum Studies designed “The E-Trouria App”, a VR exhibition which is aimed at providing participants with personalised learning path based on an Etruscan museum collection in Rome. The App was designed by combining different pedagogical methods such as Digital Storytelling and Reflective Questioning. The goals of the research were to understand visitors' evaluation of their experience. 20 postgraduate students (F = 17; M = 3; Average age = 36 years) in Museum Education took part in the pre-pilot experimentation. Participants expressed very positive evaluation on the visit and their features (narratives, soundtrack and multimodality). Participants were emotionally engaged during the visit and the most reported emotions were “pleasure” and “wondering”. Future research steps are illustrated

Removal of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances by Adsorption on Innovative Adsorbent Materials

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) constitute a group of organofluorine chemical synthetic compounds widely used in industries and manufacturing due to their hydrophobic properties. However, PFAS have been found to cause negative human health outcomes. Therefore, a strong interest in the possible removal of these compounds from wastewater (WW) has been shown. This work aims to present a systematic analysis of the scientific literature related to the innovative and alternative adsorbent materials that can be used for treating PFAS-contaminated WW. Moreover, the adsorption processes are considered, focusing the attention on virgin adsorbent materials and biochar as adsorbents. Virgin adsorbent materials comprise conventional adsorbent materials, functional clays, metal-organic frameworks, and functionalized organic polymers. Biochar includes materials obtained from agricultural or food residues and from sewage sludge. The review shows that conventional treatment units using virgin adsorbent materials are characterized by high adsorption capacity, but also high costs. In addition, the refunctionalization of adsorbent materials is difficult to obtain. On the contrary, biochar, which is a residual product of other production processes, appears to be a cost-effective solution

Applications of Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) and characteristics of its microbial community: a review of bibliometric trend and recent findings

Interest of research on up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors is growing. The meta-analysis of bibliometric data highlighted the growing interest in four diverse topics: (i) energy recovery production; (ii) combination with other treatments; (iii) the study of processes for the removal of specific pollutants and, (iv) characterization of microbial community and granular sludge composition. In particular, the papers pub-lished in the first 6 months of 2021 on this process have been selected and critically re-viewed to highlight and discuss the results, the gaps in the literature and possible ideas for future research. Although the state of research on UASB is to be considered advanced, there are still several points that will be developed in future research such as the consoli-dation of the results obtained on a semi-industrial or real scale, the use of real matrices in-stead of synthetic ones and a more in-depth study of the effect of substances such as anti-biotics on the microbiota and microbiome of UASB granular biomass. To date, few, and conflicting data about environmental footprint of UASB are available and therefore other studies on this topic are strongly suggested

Between Myth and Cure: Group Experience in Narrative Medicine with Neurological Patients

This research considers the observation of certain parameters within groups formed by patients affected by multiple sclerosis. A music/art therapist and a psychologist/psychotherapist at a neuro-rehabilitation structure in Venice led the groups. Our goal is to assess how the perception of the history of disease can change in patients by using myth and expressive-narrative workshops as a means of trans-formation. The following instruments were administered at the beginning, during, and at the end of the treatment: SCL–90–R, TAS–20, FAT.A.S.–G, and CGQ. Re-sults show a change in patients? perceptions of themselves, both with respect to their disease and to other people. Therefore, myths and their narration appear to be a possible resource that can promote mental transformation processes in an institu-tional neuro-rehabilitative context

A mini review of recent findings in Cellulose-, Polymer- and Graphene-based membranes for Fluoride removal from drinking water

Effective fluoride removal from water is a persistent global concern both for drinking water and wastewater treatment. According to World Health Organization (WHO) standards the maximum contaminant level in drinking water cannot be higher than 1.5 mg F 12 L-1 since affects the skeletal and nervous systems of humans. Various technologies have been developed to decrease fluoride concentration from waters, such as adsorption, coagulation, precipitation and membrane separa-tion. Membrane technology found to be a very effective technology, significantly reducing fluo-ride to desired standards levels; however, has received less attention than other technologies because it is apparent as a costly process. This review aims to discuss the recent studies using modified membranes for fluoride removal. Emphasis is given on cellulose, polymer and gra-phene based membranes and is further discussing the modification of membranes with several metals that have been developed in the last years. It was observed that the main focus of the to-tal publications, has been on the use of polymer based membranes. Most of the membranes ap-plied for defluoridation exhibit greater efficiency at pH values close to that of drinking water (i.e., 6\u20138).and maximum treatment capacity was obtained with the use of a cellulose modified membrane Fe-Al-Mn@chitosan with a permeate flux of 2000 L m-2 h-1, following the carbon based amyloid fibril nano-ZrO2 composites (CAF-Zr) 1750 L m-2. A technical-economic comparison study of NF and RO is also referred, concluding that NF membrane is slightly less expensive

Unveiling Novel Therapeutic Targets for CAR Therapy in Multiple Myeloma through Single-Cell RNA Sequencing

Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a hematological malignancy characterized by the clonal proliferation of plasma cells. Among the different therapeutic options in this setting, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells recently showed unprecedent achievements in term of progression free survival. However, despite advancements in current therapies, the disease's heterogeneity remains a major challenge and all patients unavoidably relapse, rendering innovative approaches to identify precise therapeutic targets eagerly awaited. Along this line, the revolution of single-cell (sc) technologies brings new opportunities to identify precise therapeutic targets, including abundant and unique surface proteins for CAR therapy. In this study, by analyzing individual cancer cells at sc level, we aim to identify novel surface targets, facilitating the development of novel personalized cellular therapies as well as treatment sequences. To this end, we used samples collected from 9 publicly available single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets (GEO accession numbers: GSE176131, GSE189460, GSE223060, GSE210079, GSE145977, GSE124310, GSE161801, GSE163278, GSE161722) obtained from 156 patients affected by monoclonal gammopathies (19 monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), 10 smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM), 78 MM and 25 relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM)) and 24 normal bone marrows (NBM), to conduct an unbiased search for genes showing specific expression in plasma cells (PCs), regardless of disease status. We found 15 genes showing differential expression in PCs (adj.pval<0.01 and logFC>1) and coding for surface proteins: TNFRSF17(BCMA), SDC1 (CD138), FCRL5 (GPRC5D), TNFRSF13B (TACI), CD38, SLAMF7 (CS1), CD59, FCGR2B, FGFR3, SLC44A1 (CTL1), CD320, FCRL2, IL15RA, INSR and SLAMF1. As expected, most of these molecules already represent critical therapeutic targets. After completing our initial analysis, we compared PCs transcriptomes from MM/RRMM patients with NBM, MGUS, and SMM samples. Among previously identified genes, CD320 only was significantly overexpressed in MM PCs. Next, we investigated associations between cytogenetic-related cell subclusters and previously identified surface markers. Interestingly, we found a significant association between the expression levels of TACI/CD59 and the overexpression of CCND2 and MAF, both associated with the presence of t(14:16). Next, we decided to focus on the first five genes (according to expression ranking) that do not currently have an active clinical development program in advanced phases, namely: TNFRSF13B, CD59, FCGR2B, SLC44A1, and CD320 (Fig. 1 A, values dichotomized based on their median) to uncover their (potential) impact/association with patient's outcome. In our analysis of different available expression profiling datasets (GSE4204, GSE2658, GSE57317, GSE4581, GSE4452, GSE9782, the CoMMpass study NCT01454297) involving around 2000 MM patients, we observed TNFRSF13B, CD59, and FCGR2B expression correlated with improved outcome while CD320 and SLC44A1 expression associated with worse outcome (Fig. 1 B). In conclusion, we integrated results from both scRNAseq and bulk-RNAseq/microarray data to identify new targets genes to be used in the context of personalized medicine. Interestingly, CD320 emerges as a potential candidate biomarker useful for monitoring disease evolution and predicting worse outcomes. Additionally, this approach led us to identify a series of potential new targets for MM patients, depicting a new scenario where each patient could be “screened” to identify the best molecule to be targeted. While further investigation is necessary to assess off-target toxicity and confirm clinical relevance, our analyses significantly streamline the search for tumor markers with a method potentially applicable to different malignancies, bringing us closer to identifying the best candidates for effective CAR therapy

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening