Sustainable engineering of sewers and sewage treatment plants for scenarios with urine diversion.

Urine diversion (UD) has been studied for decades as a way to enable distributed sanitation and to recycle nutrients onto land to fuel circular economies. No study to date has attempted a quantitative technical and economic analysis of the downstream effects of UD on sewage transport and treatment. This work used the SeweX model to reveal for the first time that through UD, hydrogen sulfide concentration in sewer headspaces can be reduced, and consequently sewer corrosion can be reduced. For a long rising main of 5 km, sewer headspace H2S can be reduced from 280 ppm to 200 ppm by diverting 75% of the urine. The same scenario enables the reduction of sewer corrosion from 12 to 10 mm/yr. Modeling sewage treatment plants with BioWin showed that sewage treatment responds to UD with a sharp reduction of the anoxic volume and a decrease of energy requirement by up to 50% at 75% UD. An upgrade of bioreactors to increase capacity by 20% can be completely avoided if 7% of the catchment's urine is diverted. Reductions in upgrade expenditure by up to 75% can provide the economic incentive for the uptake of UD.

Influence of KRAS mutations on clinical outcome in patients with curatively resected stage III colon cancer treated with adjuvant chemotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: To profile and correlate KRAS mutations with outcome in stage III colon cancer (CC) patients who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy following curative resection surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this retrospective study, eligible patients were those with resected stage III CC who underwent 6-months adjuvant chemotherapy, either with fluoropyrimidine monotherapy (FP) or with oxaliplatin-based regimens (O-FP). Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed and computed using the Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank test. RESULTS: The study population included 148 patients (n=65 FP and n=83 O-FP). We identified KRAS mutations in 41/148 (27%) patients, of which 18 (44%) received FP and 23 (56%) O-FP. Five-year DFS and OS were significantly higher in patients with KRAS wild-type vs. mutant [DFS: 78 vs. 56%, HR: 0.47 (95% CI: 0.25; 0.87), p=0.01; OS: 73 vs. 68%, HR: 0.44 (95% CI: 0.21; 0.88), p=0.01]. In patients treated with FP, the 5-year DFS and OS was significantly improved in the KRAS wild-type vs. mutant group, respectively [DFS: 80 vs. 43%, HR: 2.88 (95% CI: 0.67; 3.76), p=0.014; OS: 85 vs. 68%, HR: 0.27 (95% CI: 0.10; 0.73), p=0.005]. Conversely, 5-year DFS and OS were not statistically different for patients with KRAS wild-type vs. mutations treated with O-FP, respectively [DFS: 78 vs. 65%, HR: 1.59 (95% CI: 0.67; 3.76), p=0.281; OS: 80 vs. 75%, HR: 0.73 (95% CI: 0.55; 2.12), p=0.57)]. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that curatively resected stage III CC patients exhibiting wild-type KRAS status might benefit from FP alone. Conversely, an oxaliplatin-containing regimen should be recommended in KRAS mutated patients.

Bioelectrochemical nitrogen removal as a polishing mechanism for domestic wastewater treated effluents.

Addition of an external carbon source is usually necessary to guarantee a sufficiently high C/N ratio and enable denitrification in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Alternatively, denitrification processes using autotrophic microorganisms have been proposed i.e., with the use of H2 as electron donor or with the use of cathodic denitrification in bioelectrochemical systems (BES), in which electrons are transferred directly to a denitrifying biofilm. The aim of this work was to investigate and demonstrate the feasibility of applying an easy-to-operate BES as a polishing mechanism for treated secondary clarified effluent from a municipal WWTP, containing low levels of organic matter, buffer capacity and low concentrations of remaining nitrate. In the proposed system, nitrogen removal rates (0.018-0.121 Kg N m-3 d-1) increased with the nitrogen loading rates, suggesting that biofilm kinetics were not rate limiting. The lowest energy consumption for denitrification was 12.7 kWh Kg N-1, equivalent to 0.021 kWh m-3 and could be further reduced by 14% by adding recirculation circuits within both the anode and cathode.

Effect of biomass concentration on methane oxidation activity using mature compost and graphite granules as substrata.

Reported methane oxidation activity (MOA) varies widely for common landfill cover materials. Variation is expected due to differences in surface area, the composition of the substratum and culturing conditions. MOA per methanotrophic cell has been calculated in the study of natural systems such as lake sediments to examine the inherent conditions for methanotrophic activity. In this study, biomass normalised MOA (i.e., MOA per methanotophic cell) was measured on stabilised compost, a commonly used cover in landfills, and on graphite granules, an inert substratum widely used in microbial electrosynthesis studies. After initially enriching methanotrophs on both substrata, biomass normalised MOA was quantified under excess oxygen and limiting methane conditions in 160ml serum vials on both substrata and blends of the substrata. Biomass concentration was measured using the bicinchoninic acid assay for microbial protein. The biomass normalised MOA was consistent across all compost-to-graphite granules blends, but varied with time, reflecting the growth phase of the microorganisms. The biomass normalised MOA ranged from 0.069±0.006µmol CH4/mg dry biomass/h during active growth, to 0.024±0.001µmol CH4/mg dry biomass/h for established biofilms regardless of the substrata employed, indicating the substrata were equally effective in terms of inherent composition. The correlation of MOA with biomass is consistent with studies on methanotrophic activity in natural systems, but biomass normalised MOA varies by over 5 orders of magnitude between studies. This is partially due to different methods being used to quantify biomass, such as pmoA gene quantification and the culture dependent Most Probable Number method, but also indicates that long term exposure of materials to a supply of methane in an aerobic environment, as can occur in natural systems, leads to the enrichment and adaptation of types suitable for those conditions.

A novel electrochemical process for the recovery and recycling of ferric chloride from precipitation sludge.

During wastewater treatment and drinking water production, significant amounts of ferric sludge (comprising ferric oxy-hydroxides and FePO4) are generated that require disposal. This practice has a major impact on the overall treatment cost as a result of both chemical addition and the disposal of the generated chemical sludge. Iron sulfide (FeS) precipitation via sulfide addition to ferric phosphate (FePO4) sludge has been proven as an effective process for phosphate recovery. In turn, iron and sulfide could potentially be recovered from the FeS sludge, and recycled back to the process. In this work, a novel process was investigated at lab scale for the recovery of soluble iron and sulfide from FeS sludge. Soluble iron is regenerated electrochemically at a graphite anode, while sulfide is recovered at the cathode of the same electrochemical cell. Up to 60 ± 18% soluble Fe and 46 ± 11% sulfide were recovered on graphite granules for up-stream reuse. Peak current densities of 9.5 ± 4.2 A m(-2) and minimum power requirements of 2.4 ± 0.5 kWh kg Fe(-1) were reached with real full strength FeS suspensions. Multiple consecutive runs of the electrochemical process were performed, leading to the successful demonstration of an integrated process, comprising FeS formation/separation and ferric/sulfide electrochemical regeneration.

Understanding colloidal FeSx formation from iron phosphate precipitation sludge for optimal phosphorus recovery.

The use of sulfide to form iron sulfide precipitates is an attractive option for separation and recovery of phosphorus and ferric iron from ferric phosphate sludge generated in wastewater treatment. The key factors affecting the simultaneous generation and separation of iron sulfide precipitates and phosphate solution from ferric phosphate sludge have so far not been thoroughly investigated. This study therefore focuses on the recovery of phosphorus from synthetic sludge by controlled sulfide addition under different operating conditions. The factors that affect the phosphorus recovery, as well as the optimal process conditions to achieve an effective solid-liquid separation, were investigated. The separation of the FeSx particles is a significant challenge due to the colloidal nature of the particles formed. Faster separation and higher phosphorus recovery was achieved when operating at pH 4 with dosing times of at least 1h. At this pH, phosphorus recovery of 70±6% was reached at the stoichiometric S/Fe molar ratio of 1.5, increasing to over 90% recovery at a S/Fe molar ratio of 2.5. Zeta potential results confirmed the colloidal nature of the iron sulfide precipitate, with the isoelectric point around pH 4, explaining the fast separation of the FeSx particles at this pH.