npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-11-20DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00414-6
Chang Ying Shi, Gang Chen, Ludovic F. Dumée
{"title":"Perfluoroalkyl substances concentration from groundwater via direct contact membrane distillation","authors":"Chang Ying Shi, Gang Chen, Ludovic F. Dumée","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00414-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00414-6","url":null,"abstract":"A significant yet largely untapped reservoir of polluted water arises from groundwater, where the diffusion of PFAS has been shown to be alarmingly on the rise, driven by prolonged accumulation and restricted avenues for degradation. Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) was used to concentrate and remove perfluorooctanoic acid compounds from contaminated groundwater for the first time using commercially available poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes. The temporal membrane fouling propensity over the DCMD test was assessed by analysing the morphological and chemical structural changes of the pristine and used membranes. Over 120 h of test using 10 mg/L PFOA-contaminated model groundwater as feed, the PVDF membrane exhibited a lower extent of flux decline of 15% compared to that 43% obtained by PTFE membrane using feed temperature of 60 oC. This study provides a practical route to pre-concentrate the amphiphilic PFAS contaminants from groundwater.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00414-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142678549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-11-17DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00410-w
Sisi Pu, Hooralain Bushnaq, Catherine Munro, Yann Gibert, Radhey Sharma, Vandana Mishra, Ludovic F. Dumée
{"title":"Perspectives on transport pathways of microplastics across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region","authors":"Sisi Pu, Hooralain Bushnaq, Catherine Munro, Yann Gibert, Radhey Sharma, Vandana Mishra, Ludovic F. Dumée","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00410-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00410-w","url":null,"abstract":"This perspective will focus for the first time on the occurrence and potential transport pathways of MPs within the MENA region. The delivery mechanism of MPs and characteristics of ocean currents and air patterns are discussed in detail within the Arabian Gulf -Gulf of Oman complex, the Red Sea-Gulf of Aden complex, the southern Arabian margin, and non-MENA region to the south, as well as the Mediterranean Sea respectively. Significant variable dissemination and seasonal delivery across different locations in the MENA regions are revealed from this analysis. The review provides guidance for researchers and government authorities in conducting MPs research and proposing actionable measures to mitigate risks associated with chemical and biological contamination.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-23"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00410-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142645890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimization of valve switch control for contamination detection in water distribution network","authors":"Jeng-Shyang Pan, Hao Shu, Qingyong Yang, Yu-Chung Huang, Shu-Chuan Chu","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00407-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00407-5","url":null,"abstract":"As the urban population increases, the consumption of water resources is also increasing. Safely and effectively supplying water to cities has become an issue that urgently needs to be addressed. The purpose of this research is to substantially reduce the number of contaminants in water distribution networks (WDNs) by using valve control, ensuring that the water infrastructure is not impacted by the adverse effects of wastewater. In addition, an improved parallel binary gannet algorithm (IPBGOA) is proposed and combined with this approach to solve the optimization problem of WDN contamination efficiently. The proposed method is compared with the gannet optimization algorithm (GOA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), differential evolution (DE), the grey wolf optimization (GWO), and the genetic algorithm (GA) on synthetic benchmark networks in simulation experiments. The evidence from the study indicates that the algorithm proposed in this paper is significantly more efficient and reliable than the comparison methods.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00407-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142601331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-11-09DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00404-8
Enrica Fontananova, Elvira Pantuso, Laura Donato, Elisa Esposito, Rosanna Rizzi, Rocco Caliandro, Gianluca Di Profio
{"title":"Turning mine-tailing streams into sources of water and mineral salts in a membrane-sustained circular scenario","authors":"Enrica Fontananova, Elvira Pantuso, Laura Donato, Elisa Esposito, Rosanna Rizzi, Rocco Caliandro, Gianluca Di Profio","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00404-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00404-8","url":null,"abstract":"The discharge of wastewater from the mining industry has a critical ecological impact, potentially endangering both soil and marine ecosystems. Alternatively, recovering pure water and valuable materials from these hypersaline streams through a technologically efficient process, would help reduce the ecological impact of the waste, while providing a viable supply chain for raw materials such as magnesium, potassium and others, considered critical to the economy. In this context, this work aimed to simultaneously recover pure water and mineral salts from mine wastewater by membrane-assisted crystallization (MAC). A prior theoretical study based on thermodynamic parameters attempted to predict salts precipitation at different temperatures. MAC tests were then performed at specific thermal gradients and feed pretreatment conditions, achieving preferential precipitation of solids products of different composition containing large quantities of Ca or Mg/K minerals from the real mine tailing wastewater. The experiments also demonstrated the central impact of heterogeneous nucleation effects.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00404-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142597615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-10-25DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00403-9
Ishfaq Showket Mir, Ali Riaz, Julie Fréchette, Joy Sankar Roy, James Mcelhinney, Sisi Pu, Hari Kalathil Balakrishnan, Jesse Greener, Ludovic F. Dumée, Younès Messaddeq
{"title":"Bacterial cellulose-graphene oxide composite membranes with enhanced fouling resistance for bio-effluents management","authors":"Ishfaq Showket Mir, Ali Riaz, Julie Fréchette, Joy Sankar Roy, James Mcelhinney, Sisi Pu, Hari Kalathil Balakrishnan, Jesse Greener, Ludovic F. Dumée, Younès Messaddeq","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00403-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00403-9","url":null,"abstract":"Bacterial cellulose composites hold promise as renewable bioinspired materials for industrial and environmental applications. However, their use as free-standing water filtration membranes is hindered by low compressive strength, fouling, and poor contaminant selectivity. This study investigates the potential of bacterial cellulose-graphene oxide composites membranes for fouling resistance in pressure-driven filtration. Graphene oxide dispersed in poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-400) is incorporated as a reinforcing filler into 3D network of bacterial cellulose using an in-situ synthesis method. The effect of graphene oxide on in situ fermentation yield and the formation of percolated-network in the composites shows that the optimal membrane properties are reached at a graphene oxide loading of 2 mg/mL. The two-dimensional graphene oxide nanosheets uniformly dispersed into the matrix of bacterial cellulose nanofibers via hydrogen-bonded interactions demonstrated nearly twofold higher water flux (380 L m−2 h−1) with a molecular weight cut-off ranging between 100–200 KDa and a sixfold increase in wet compression strength than pristine BC. When exposed to synthetic organic foulants and bacterial rich feed solutions, the composite membranes showed more than 95% flux recovery. Additionally, the membranes achieved over 95% rejection of synthetic natural organic matter and bacterial rich solutions, showcasing their enhanced fouling resistance and selectivity.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00403-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142490466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-10-23DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00401-x
Md. Ahasan Habib, Serena Cocciolo, Md. Mir Abu Raihan, Prosun Bhattacharya, Anna Tompsett
{"title":"Training caretakers to clean community wells is a highly cost-effective way to reduce exposure to coliform bacteria","authors":"Md. Ahasan Habib, Serena Cocciolo, Md. Mir Abu Raihan, Prosun Bhattacharya, Anna Tompsett","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00401-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00401-x","url":null,"abstract":"Existing strategies for improving global access to safe drinking water have met only limited success. We consider an unglamorous and often neglected dimension of drinking water infrastructure provision: cleaning. We randomly assigned caretakers of community wells to participate in a training workshop about how to clean wells. Thirteen to seventeen months later, wells with caretakers assigned to receive training have negligible rates of contamination with Escherichia coli (13 months: 2%; 17 months: 4%), while control wells have substantial rates of E. coli contamination (13 months: 14%; 17 months: 19%). Rates of contamination with any coliform bacteria are almost halved (13 months: control 55%, treated 30%; 17 months: control 77%, treated 46%). We estimate the cost of preventing exposure to coliform bacteria in drinking water to be US$0.89 per person and that, if scaled up, each US$2376 spent on the intervention could avoid the death of a child.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00401-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142488881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-10-22DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00402-w
Xue Chen, Fuang Duan, Xi Yu, Yuyang Xie, Zhibin Wang, Shou-Qing Ni
{"title":"Uncovering pathway and mechanism of simultaneous thiocyanate detoxicity and nitrate removal through anammox and denitrification","authors":"Xue Chen, Fuang Duan, Xi Yu, Yuyang Xie, Zhibin Wang, Shou-Qing Ni","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00402-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00402-w","url":null,"abstract":"Thiocyanate (SCN−) exists in various industries and is detrimental to the ecosystem, necessitating cost-effective and environmentally benign treatment. In response to alleviate the bacterial toxicity of SCN−, this study developed a two-stage coupled system by tandem of anammox in reactor 1 (R1) and SCN−-driven autotrophic denitrification in reactor 2 (R2), achieving simultaneous removal of SCN− and nitrogen. The total nitrogen removal efficiency of the coupled system was 92.42 ± 1.98%, with nearly 100% of SCN− elimination. Thiobacillus was responsible for SCN− degradation. The deduced degradation pathway of SCN− was via the cyanate pathway before coupling, followed by the co-action of cyanate pathway and carbonyl sulfide pathway after coupling. Although scaling-up study is needed to validate its applicability in real-world applications, this study contributes to the advancement of sustainable and cost-effective wastewater treatment technologies, being an attractive path for low-carbon nitrogen removal and greenhouse gas emission-free technology.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00402-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142486622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-10-21DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00405-7
Shu Wang, Kaoming Zhang, Yu Miao, Zhu Wang
{"title":"Author Correction: The enhancement of anammox by graphene-based and iron-based nanomaterials in performance and mechanisms","authors":"Shu Wang, Kaoming Zhang, Yu Miao, Zhu Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00405-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00405-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-1"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00405-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142488184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
npj Clean WaterPub Date : 2024-10-10DOI: 10.1038/s41545-024-00400-y
Ramon Sala-Garrido, Manuel Mocholi-Arce, Alexandros Maziotis, Maria Molinos-Senante
{"title":"Assessing the influence of environmental variables on energy efficiency changes in the provision of drinking water services","authors":"Ramon Sala-Garrido, Manuel Mocholi-Arce, Alexandros Maziotis, Maria Molinos-Senante","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00400-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00400-y","url":null,"abstract":"Within the context of the water-energy nexus in drinking water provision, it is crucial to evaluate temporal shifts in energy efficiency. Utilizing the Stochastic Nonparametric Envelopment of Data (StoNED) approach, this research estimates longitudinal variations in the energy efficiency of drinking water services integrating multiple environmental variables. The analysis, conducted in England and Wales from 2008 to 2020, indicates that the source and quality of raw water, as well as population density, influenced the energy performance of water utilities. Quantitative findings evidenced marked disparity in energy efficiency among different companies, with an average efficiency of 0.617 and a range from 0.437 to 0.944. The dynamic assessment indicates an average annual enhancement of 1.1% in the sector, predominantly propelled by technical advancements (0.9%) rather than by improvements in efficiency (0.2%). This study emphasizes the critical need for bespoke policies and incentives to boost energy efficiency and support sustainable urban water management.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00400-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modelling scenarios for water supply and sanitation technologies in Jordan","authors":"Margarita Garfias Royo, Himanshu Parikh, Luiza Campos, Samer Talozi, Priti Parikh","doi":"10.1038/s41545-024-00398-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41545-024-00398-3","url":null,"abstract":"The influx of refugees, population growth and current agricultural practices have led to an increase in water demand in Jordan, placing pressure on existing water provision. Climate change further exacerbates declining water availability. Against this backdrop, the techno-economic feasibility of four water supply and sanitation alternatives for small and medium scale cities in Jordan were explored, using local unit costs and Al-Mafraq as a case study. City level piped network combined with household rooftop rainwater harvesting and surface runoff collection into local ponds and piped networks with treatment using the nature-based solution of root-zone for sanitation were demonstrated to provide the highest benefits in terms of cost, convenience and water conservation. Our work highlights the need to invest in long-term urban infrastructure networks to promote sustainable future growth of cities. This is vital to address severe water scarcity challenges that ultimately impact those at the urban fringes most.","PeriodicalId":19375,"journal":{"name":"npj Clean Water","volume":" ","pages":"1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-024-00398-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142405234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}