The occurrence of Clostridium difficile in nine wastewater treatment plants in the Ticino Canton (southern Switzerland) was investigated. The samples were collected from raw sewage influents and from treated effluents. Forty-seven out of 55 characterized C. difficile strains belonged to 13 different reference PCR ribotypes (009, 010, 014, 015, 039, 052, 053, 066, 070, 078, 101, 106, and 117), w...

Here, we explore if microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology can replace activated sludge processes for secondary wastewater treatment. We will discuss the present limitations and problems of electric current generation when a complex wastewater is treated with a diverse and undefined community of microbes in large-scale systems. These challenges include low coulombic efficiencies, slow kinetic rat...

This paper reports the results obtained during an investigation aimed at transferring to the demonstrative scale an aerobic granular biomass system (SBBGR--Sequencing Batch Biofilter Granular Reactor) integrated with ozonation for the efficient treatment of tannery wastewater. The results show that the integrated process was able to achieve high removal efficiencies for COD, TSS, TKN, surfactan...

The Pseudomonas aeruginosa-containing wastewater released by hospitals is treated by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), generating sludge, which is used as a fertilizer, and effluent, which is discharged into rivers. We evaluated the risk of dissemination of antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa (AR-PA) from the hospital to the environment via the wastewater network. Over a 10-week period, we sa...

The Melet is one of Turkey's economically important rivers. Most of the petroleum plants are located at fairly nearby of the river This situation is considered as main source of heavy metal pollution in the river. The present study was designed to evaluate the protective role of Ginkgo biloba (GB) on cytotoxicity induced by petroleum wastewater in Vicia faba root tip cells. For this aim, we use...

A major challenge for the 21 st century will be the efficient use of all resources to minimize wastage. Lack of fresh water is becoming one of the largest and most universal of the resource problems that we face in the new century. This leads us to consider the options for turning wastewaters into useful resources, with recovery of the water for reuse. Therefore, wastewater has become an essent...

During the last two decades, and particularly during the last few years, the environmental sector has shown a largely growing interest in the treatment of different types of water and wastewater by electrocoagulation (EC). The aim of this work was to review studies, conducted mainly during 2008-2011, on the wide and versatile range of feasible EC applications employed in the purification of dif...

Municipal wastewater treatment plants consume much energy and manpower, are expensive to run, and generate sludge and treated wastewater whilst removing pollutants through specific treatment regimes. The sustainable development of the wastewater treatment industry is therefore challenging, and a comprehensive evaluation method is needed for assessing the sustainability of different wastewater t...

the increasing need for water in the arid areas of the world has resulted in the emergence of wastewater application for agriculture and landscape. using treated wastewater in agricultural irrigation can provide more adequate supply of high quality water for human consumption, but their heavy metal applications effect must be regulated to ensure no physiological problems for both the plant and ...

In this study, we evaluated the impact of treated wastewater effluent from two wastewater treatment plants on the physicochemical parameters and Salmonella spp. load of receiving rivers. Presumptive Salmonella spp. were obtained at all sampled points including the discharge points, with counts ranging from 0 to 4.14 log cfu/mL at both plants. Turbidity, chemical and biological oxygen demand wer...