Ciprofloxacin antibiotic removal from aqueous solutions by ZnO nanoparticles coated on ACA: modeling and optimization.

Antibiotics are one of the most widely used drug groups. The presence of antibiotics in urban water sources and sewage creates many environmental and medical risks for humans and other living organisms. In this study, the potential of zinc oxide (ZnO) coated on almond shell activated carbon (ACA-ZnO) in removing ciprofloxacin (CIP) from aqueous solutions was investigated. Almond shell was used to make activated carbon. Zinc oxide nanoparticles were prepared by the sol-gel method, and finally, ZnO nanoparticles were bonded to activated carbon. The effect of independent parameters pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, and initial CIP concentration on CIP removal efficiency using ACA-ZnO was investigated by response surface methodology. Optimal removal was obtained at pH = 5.4, CIP initial concentration = 7.4 mg/L, adsorbent dose = 0.82 g/L, and reaction time = 67.3 min. This study followed a quadratic model (R2 = 0.958). The best model of adsorption isotherm fits with the Freundlich model (R2 = 0.9972) and the maximum capacity was 251.42 mg/g adsorption kinetics, and pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R2 = 0.959). The results of this study showed that ACA-ZnO as an adsorbent is very efficient, without environmental side effect and cost-benefit.

Contribution of point and small-scaled sources to the PM10 emission using positive matrix factorization model.

BACKGROUND: The positive matrix factorization is a powerful environmental analysis technique which has been successfully utilized to assess air-born particulate matter source contribution. The new version of this model (PMF5) has two additional estimation error methods and some other useful advantages compared to the previous versions. In the present study, the capability of PMF5 for identification and contribution of small size particle source to the ambient particulate matter was evaluated. METHODS: The study area is surrounded by three industrial complexes and 2 locations of dumped tailing soils of mining activities and related manufactures. Ambient particulate matter were sampled at 2 sites in the urban area of Zanjan (Iran) and 196 collected samples were analyzed for 15 chemical elements. RESULTS: At downtown, the identified factors (and their contributions to particulate matter) were: soil particles (40.36%), fuel combustion and traffic (26.8%), tailing soils (lead and zinc) (21.32%), and nickel and industrial emission(5.7%). The identified factors at residential site of studied area (and their contributions to particulate matter) were general industrial emission (28.2%), tailing soils (lead and zinc) (39.2%), soil (25.8%), cadmium and general pollutants (6.7%). CONCLUSION: The results of modeled data by PMF 5 indicated that the applied model could identify the dumps of tailing soils as a separated factor. The other particulate matter sources in the studied area were traffic, fuel combustion, soil particles and industrial pollutants.