Huda Yousif Sharef

Currently, the co-removal of heavy metals and anionic dyes from industrial wastewater is quite difficult due to the stability of both pollutants and their combined co-existence.

Exposure of humans to toxic chemicals can lead to significant health risks. This study evaluates the physicochemical parameters in the leachates of two local yogurt containers purchased from Erbil City, Iraq, comprising white plastic (WPC) and aluminum containers (ALC). Acetic acid, distilled water, ethanol, lactic acid, sodium carbonate, and sodium chloride at varying concentrations were examined as effective simulants for assessing leaching from the two containers (1.0 cm2 container/1.0 mL simulant). Leaching experiments were conducted under three different conditions, including Refrigerated/First Condition (1stC, 4±1°C for 72 hours), Ambient/Second Condition (2ndC, 25±2°C for 24 hours), and Elevated/Third Condition (3rdC, 60±2°C for 2 hours). After leaching, many tests, such as the change in physical state, pH measurement, estimation of leached oxidizable materials, UV absorbing materials (UV-AMs), weight loss (WL), and heavy metals (HMs) level, were examined for the obtained leachates. The observations showed that there was a significant change in the ALC specimens’ surface. Most of the analyzed HMs were found in levels below the permissible limits (1000 μg/L), except the content of lead was found above this limit in the ALC leachates using 5% sodium carbonate. The results showed that the maximum migration level of oxidizable matters and UV-AMs was observed in the leachates of ALC (3rdC, 5% sodium carbonate) and WPC (1stC and 2ndC, lactic acid), respectively. The WL was additionally recorded at a high level in many kinds of local yogurts. Results exceeded many international guidelines and clearly confirm that the continuous use of the ALC and WPC may contribute significantly to the daily intake of toxic chemicals and can pose a significant health hazard.

Contaminant removal from sewage is a serious difficulty on the subject of water contamination. Adsorption is a direct and efficient technique for eliminating contaminants that involves the use of solid materials known as adsorbents. Mineral, organic, or biological adsorbent materials can be utilized. At the industrial scale, activated carbon is the favored traditional material. Activated carbon is widely used to remove contaminants from wastewater streams and to absorb them from groundwater, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, which are all sources of potable water. However, because of its expensive cost, activated carbon is not widely used. Several ways of utilizing non-conventional adsorbents have been investigated over the last three decades to generate cheaper and more effective adsorbents to remove contaminants at trace levels. This article provides an overview of liquid-solid adsorption techniques for pollution removal that use low-cost polymer adsorbents. The paper discusses the fundamentals of adsorption and provides a classification for adsorbent materials as well as numerous low-cost biological macromolecule adsorbents, includes cellulose, starch, chitin, chitosan, lignin, and their heavy metal removal capability.

The present study is to characterize the groundwater and leachate in the Kaniqrzhala landfill in Erbil City. Groundwater samples were collected from six wells and a leachate sample in order to evaluate the possible effect of leachate percolation into groundwater and assess the potential contamination. Several physicochemical parameters were analyzed to evaluate the groundwater and leachate characterizations, including (turbidity, pH, EC, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, total alkalinity (TA), Cl⁻, SO₄²⁻, PO₄³⁻, NH₃⁺, NO₃⁻, Na⁺, K⁺) and heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Fe, Pb, Cr, and Cd). In addition, the evaluation of the water quality index (WQI) and leachate pollution index (LPI) were determined. All groundwater samples were determined to be below the permitted limits set by WHO guidelines, excluding EC, TDS, PO₄³⁻, and NO₃⁻, showing moderately high concentrations and leachate sample concentrations above allowed limits. The WQI values ranged from 74.833 to 88.463, meaning that all groundwater samples were deemed "good" and fit for drinking and other uses. The LPI value is high (23.938), indicating a high contamination potential in the leachate. The results showed Hypericum triquetrifolium Turra, Tribulus terrestris, and Caper spinosa plant leaves have varying capacities to adsorb heavy metal ions from leachate.

A new aldehyde 2,2’-[propane-1,3-diylbis(oxy)] dibenzaldehyde was synthesized from refluxing 2-hydroxy acetophenone and 2-hydroxy 1,3-dichloropropanean in an alcoholic medium. The compositions and properties of the new aldehyde compound were characterized by elemental analysis, FTIR, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies. The extracted chitosan was made to react with a new aldehyde to form a Schiff base by a suitable method. The effects of initial concentration of metal ions, exposure time, imine weight, and pH on the adsorption of Cu(II), Cr(III), and Zn(II) metal ions were examined. An adsorption batch experiment was conducted. The adsorption process followed a second-order reaction and Langmuir model with qe 25 mg/g, 121 mg/g, and 26.31 mg/g for Cu(II), Zn(II), and Cr(III) respectively. The Gibbs free energy showed a negative value and the adsorption/desorption tests provided a high value 5 times.

The new adsorbent was prepared by mixing cellulose with dicyclohexyl-18- crown-6 via microwave irradiation method and it was used to remove lead ions from aqueous solution. In contrast to the traditional way (in which grafted polymers are produced by using chemical-free radical producers), this method is rapid, reproducible, and gives a high quality product. Different physicochemical techniques such as FTIR, SEM, and XRD and TGA were used for the characterization of the produced adsorbent. Based on the ANOVA statistical value, the adsorption of Pb²⁺ ion onto grafted cellulose has been found to be significant, with very low probability (p) values (2+ ion removal from the analysis of variance. Pseudo-second-order and Langmuir equations were applied to the adsorption of Pb²⁺ ion and under the optimized conditions, the maximum absorption capacity in modified cellulose of Pb²⁺ was 58.3 mg/g. Various factors which affect metal ion adsorption, including temperature, power of hydrogen, shaking time, adsorbent quantity, and metal ions concentration were studied. More importantly, the adsorbent could be reused by using 0.1 M nitric acid. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT