Improvement in the removal of micropollutants at Porto Marghera industrial wastewaters treatment plant by MBR technology.

This paper deals with the case of one of the most important industrial application of membrane technology in the world: the upgrading of the main industrial wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of the petrochemical site of Porto Marghera, Northern Italy, completed on December 2005 and tested on September 2006. It describes the principal interventions of the plant upgrading and it discusses the removal obtained during the test periods for conventional pollutants as well as for micropollutants. The plant upgrading consisted of a series of improvements of the existing industrial WWTP, in order to increase the removal efficiency of the total suspended solids and the associate removal of ten micropollutant compounds, the so called forbidden substances. The most important intervention was the conversion of the existing activated sludge section into a membrane biological reactor, in order to guarantee adherence to the severe limits imposed by the special law issued to protect the Venice Lagoon, with particular reference to the mentioned 10 forbidden compounds. The experimental results and the numerous test-runs conducted confirmed the respect of the legal limits for the pollutants in the final effluent as well of the required removal rates for the different parameters. Therefore, the upgraded treatment plant was declared agreeing with the approved design

Occurrence, Distribution, and Ecological Risk of Fluoroquinolones in Rivers and Wastewaters

The use of fluoroquinolones for the treatment of infections in humans and animals has increased in Argentina, and they can be found in large amounts in water bodies. The present study investigated the occurrence and associated ecological risk of 5 fluoroquinolones in rivers and farm wastewaters of San Luis, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Entre Ríos, and Buenos Aires provinces of Argentina by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to fast-scanning fluorescence detection and ultra–high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry detection. The maximum concentrations of ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, ofloxacin, enoxacin, and difloxacin found in wastewater were 1.14, 11.9, 1.78, 22.1, and 14.2 μg L–1, respectively. In the case of river samples, only enrofloxacin was found, at a concentration of 0.97 μg L–1. The individual risk of aquatic organisms associated with water pollution due to fluoroquinolones was higher in bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, plants, and anurans than in crustaceae and fish, with, in some cases, risk quotients >1. The proportion of samples classified as high risk was 87.5% for ofloxacin, 63.5% for enrofloxacin, 57.1% for ciprofloxacin, and 25% for enoxacin. Our results suggest that the prevalence of fluoroquinolones in water could be potentially risky for the aquatic ecosystem, and harmful to biodiversity.Fil: Teglia, Carla Mariela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Laboratorio de Desarrollo Analítico y Quimiometría; ArgentinaFil: Perez, Florencia Antonella. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Laboratorio de Desarrollo Analítico y Quimiometría; ArgentinaFil: Michlig, Nicolás. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería Química. Programa de Investigación y Análisis de Residuos y Contaminantes Químicos; ArgentinaFil: Repetti, María Rosa. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería Química. Programa de Investigación y Análisis de Residuos y Contaminantes Químicos; ArgentinaFil: Goicoechea, Hector Casimiro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Laboratorio de Desarrollo Analítico y Quimiometría; ArgentinaFil: Culzoni, Maria Julia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Laboratorio de Desarrollo Analítico y Quimiometría; Argentin

Ibuprofen results in alterations of human fetal testis development

International audienceAmong pregnant women ibuprofen is one of the most frequently used pharmaceutical compounds with up to 28% reporting use. Regardless of this, it remains unknown whether ibuprofen could act as an endocrine disruptor as reported for fellow analgesics paracetamol and aspirin. To investigate this, we exposed human fetal testes (7-17 gestational weeks (GW)) to ibuprofen using ex vivo culture and xenograft systems. Ibuprofen suppressed testosterone and Leydig cell hormone INSL3 during culture of 8-9 GW fetal testes with concomitant reduction in expression of the steroidogenic enzymes CYP11A1, CYP17A1 and HSD17B3, and of INSL3. Testosterone was not suppressed in testes from fetuses younger than 8 GW, older than 10-12 GW, or in second trimester xenografted testes (14-17 GW). Ex vivo, ibuprofen also affected Sertoli cell by suppressing AMH production and mRNA expression of AMH, SOX9, DHH, and COL2A1. While PGE2 production was suppressed by ibuprofen, PGD2 production was not. Germ cell transcripts POU5F1, TFAP2C, LIN28A, ALPP and KIT were also reduced by ibuprofen. We conclude that, at concentrations relevant to human exposure and within a particular narrow 'early window' of sensitivity within first trimester, ibuprofen causes direct endocrine disturbances in the human fetal testis and alteration of the germ cell biology

Biological removal of ammonia in water treatment plants: the case of the plant in Castel S. Pietro (BO)

This paper presents the case of a water work which treats groundwater containing high quantity of ammonia, iron, manganese. In particular it discusses the choices and the reasons which led to the current water plant configuration, then it analyzes how the plant works, presents the removal efficiencies for the main pollutants and provides investment and operational costs

Industria e Bilancio Ambientale

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Riverbank filtration for drinking water supply in the Po Valley (Italy)

The research deals with a 2-year study carried out at the water work of Ferrara (Po Valley, Italy), aiming to enhance the quantity of water withdrawn for drinking purposes by means of river bank filtration (RBK) from the Po River. The current drinking water plant (27 106 m3/year) is fed with the surface water of Po River (for the 80 %) and with the groundwater withdrawn by alluvional wells (for the remaining 20 %). Treatments consist of grit removal, lagooning, coagulation-flocculation-sedimentation, ozonation, sand filtration (only for surface water), activated carbon, disinfection by chlorine (for the mixture of treated surface water and groundwater). Withdrawn surface water requires all these treatments as Ferrara water work is placed at the end (50 km far from the discharge into the Adriatic Sea) of the long course of the river (652 km), downstream the discharges of developed urban and industrial areas of the Northern Italy as well as wide rural ones of the Po Valley. Recent investigations on the surface water of Po River and in some of its affluents have documented the occurrence of a great number of persistent organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, as well as heavy metals, questioning if adopted water treatments are adequate to guarantee a good and safety quality of the drinking water produced from surface water. The debate has increased after the oil spill in an affluent of Po River occurred in February 2010 that required a continuous (expensive) monitoring of the quality of the surface water of the Po river in many points along its course for many weeks after the accident to evaluate the possibility to withdraw it for drinking purposes. Finally, the frequent drought events happened in the last 10 years in the Po Valley have induced a severe control of the water amount withdrawn for the different needs and in some circumstances, the direct withdrawal from surface water was difficult due to the lowering of the Po level

Recupero ematologico dopo chirurgia ortopedica di elezione

recupero del valore di emoglobina dopo interventi ortopedic