Assessment of water consumptions in small mediterranean islands' primary schools by means of a long-term online monitoring

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Characteristics and adsorption capacities of low-cost sorbents for wastewater treatment: A review

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Ricerca sperimentale per l’ottimizzazione del trattamento di inertizzazione di rifiuti speciali

Il presente documento riporta i risultati della “Ricerca sperimentale per l’ottimizzazione del trattamento di inertizzazione di rifiuti speciali” condotta nell’ambito della convenzione tra la società ITALCAVE S.p.A. di Taranto e il Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, del Territorio, Edile e Chimica (DICATECh) del Politecnico di Bari. Le attività sperimentali sono state svolte dal 27/02/2015 al 26/02/2018 ed hanno riguardato la verifica della fattibilità tecnica del processo di stabilizzazione/solidificazione (S/S) applicato a rifiuti speciali di potenziale interesse per la società ITALCAVE. A tal riguardo, le esigenze del territorio tarantino negli ultimi anni, in campo di bonifiche ambientali, hanno consentito di identificare, nel sedimento marino contaminato, quel rifiuto speciale contraddistinto da un maggior mercato. Il piano della sperimentazione ha previsto l’applicazione del trattamento S/S sia a campioni contaminati da sostanze inorganiche sia a campioni contaminati da sostanze organiche (IPA e PCB) e inorganiche. In linea con la specifica tecnica allegata alla convenzione di ricerca, sono stati testati differenti leganti quali il cemento Portland e l’ossido di calcio ventilato, usati sia singolarmente che in combinazione tra di loro. Inoltre, al fine di contenere eventuali interferenze al trattamento S/S, sono stati utilizzati diversi additivi quali il carbone attivo e l’Organoclay®. Gli additivi sono stati utilizzati in svariate combinazioni, sia insieme al cemento che all’ossido di calcio ventilato. Complessivamente, sono state condotte quattro sperimentazioni separate di cui le prime tre condotte a scala di laboratorio, e la quarta utilizzando l’impianto pilota STABSOL–P messo a disposizione dalla società Unicalce S.p.A. Dal punto di vista organizzativo, l’elaborato è strutturato in 5 capitoli. Nel primo, sono riportati i fondamenti teorici dei processi S/S, con particolare riferimenti alla chimica dei leganti utilizzati nelle sperimentazioni (cemento Portland e ossido di calcio ventilato). Inoltre, il capitolo contiene una review di letteratura sui trattamenti S/S applicati a sedimenti contaminati. Il secondo capitolo descrive il piano della sperimentazione, i cui materiali e metodi sono invece approfonditi nel capitolo 3. Di contro, il capitolo 4 sintetizza i risultati delle quattro sperimentazioni; la caratterizzazione chimico- fisica del sedimento tal quale e di quello trattato è stata utilizzata ai fini della verifica del soddisfacimento dei criteri di ammissibilità dei rifiuti in discarica (D.M 27/09/2010 e s.m.i.). Il quinto ed ultimo capitolo riporta le principali conclusioni dello studio, a loro volta suddivise per singola sperimentazione

Using mechano-chemical treated natural limestone reagents for flue gas desulfurization

Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) involves the removal of sulphur dioxide (SO2) contained in gases produced by the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, municipal solid waste and many industrial processes. In this context, the aim of our work was to investigate flue gas desulfurization using natural limestone reagents treated with mechano-chemical processes. In detail, we investigated the possibility of using high- energy (H/E) mills in the micronization phase of natural limestone instead of standard ones. Subsequently, the performance of micronized limestone into flue gas desulfurization was evaluated. Results highlighted how limestone obtained by H/E mills presented better performance than those from standard mill, with a greater amount of sulphates adsorbed during desulfurization tests. Furthermore, new investigations aimed at understanding the kinetics of the desulfurization process will be carried out in order to scale-up on industrial level

Industrial wastewater treatment

This contribution deals with the technologies usually adopted for the treatment of wastewaters produced in major industrial sectors. After an overview of conventional and nonconventional technologies, wastewaters produced in the food processing and textile industries were investigated. By means of numerous case studies, several aspects such as wastewater characteristics, treatment technologies, main process parameters, and performance in terms of pollutant removals were investigated in depth. Furthermore, the two approaches to the issue of industrial wastewater treatment named Start-of-pipe and End-of-pipe were presented and discussed using the results of the recent European Commission “AquaFit4Use” project

A WISE-friendly decision support system for the optimization of wastewater management in urban areas

To address the problem of monitoring in the context of water policy, the European Commission (EU) relies upon a web-portal called WiSE (Water Information System for Europe). Currently, WISE represents the baseline instrument adopted by the EU for monitoring advances in the fields of water policies. With the intention to develop WISE applications, the aim of this paper was to define and apply a decision support system (DSS) capable of monitoring the efficiency and investments of activated sludge-based WWTPs located in a large spatial area. The DSS developed in our work and applied to the North-East of Italy case study allowed to obtain the following outcomes useful to the decision-makers: (i) identification of critical wastewater treatment plants and their critical processes, (ii) selection of the most suitable upgrading actions, (iii) assessment of the investment costs to upgrade the critical plants previously identified and (iv) prioritize the critical plants taking into account some technical, environmental, economic and health aspects. Overcoming the Italian case study addressed, the obtained results highlighted the possibility to extend our DSS on an EU-level integrating the WiSE system currently in operation

Water and wastewater management in the treatment process of a Roman fullonica

The aim of this paper is to study the treatment process of a Roman fullery ( fullonica) with particular attention to the water and wastewater management system. Remains of several fullonicae have been documented at Pompeii and Herculaneum (Campania, Southern Italy), Ostia and Rome (Latium region, Central Italy), Florence (Tuscany, Central Italy), etc. The common academic perception of Roman fullonicae is significantly influenced by the fullonica of Stephanus (I 6, 7) in Pompeii, which is assumed to be a paradigmatic case study in this paper. The use of urine as an alkaline chemical agent in the soaping phase of the filling treatment process was overstated, with there also being no evidence of the fact that fullers collected their urine by means of vessels in front of their workshops, as usually reported. Thus, it is not clear how the Roman fullers collected and transported the urine they used in the fulleries. Finally, the rinsing phase can be considered a clear example of water reuse

Using an innovative criteria weighting tool for stakeholders involvement to rank MSW facility sites with the AHP

The main aim of this study was to verify the efficacy of using an innovative criteria weighting tool (the “priority scale”) for stakeholders involvement to rank a list of suitable municipal solid waste (MSW) facility sites with the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique known as analytic hierarchy process (AHP). One of the main objectives of the study was to verify the behaviour of the “priority scale” with both technical and non-technical decision-makers. All over the world, the siting of MSW treatment or disposal plants is a complex process involving politicians, technicians as well as citizens, where stakeholders who are not effectively involved strongly oppose (or even obstruct) the realization of new facilities. In this study, in order to pursue both the technical (select the best site) and social aims (all the stakeholders have to give their aware contribution), the use of the “priority scale” is suggested as a tool to easily collect non-contradictory criteria preferences by the various decision-makers. Every decision-maker filled in “priority scale”, which was subsequently uploaded in the AHP tool in order to indirectly calculate the individual priority of alternatives given by each stakeholder (not using group aggregation techniques). The proposed method was applied to the siting of a composting plant in an area suffering from a serious MSW emergency, which has lasted for over 15 years, in the Campania Region, in Southern Italy. The best site (the “first choice”) was taken as the one that appeared the most times at the first place of each decision-maker ranking list. The involved technical and non-technical decision-makers showed the same behaviour in (indirectly) selecting the best site as well as in terms of the most appraised criteria (“absence of areas of the highest value for natural habitats and species of plants and animals”). Moreover, they showed the same AHP inconsistency ratio as well as the same behaviour in comparison with a “balanced decision-maker” (who assigns identical weights to all the considered criteria). Therefore, the proposed criteria weighting tool could be widely as well as easily used for stakeholders involvement to rank MSW facility sites (or other kinds of alternatives) with the AHP or with other MCDM techniques, taking or not into consideration group aggregation methods