Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-05DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.12.001
Hengsai Huan , Guoquan Zhou , Zhenglei Wu , Jiangbin Li , Pengfei Xia , Qian Wang , Fengmin Li
{"title":"Resource utilization of wastewater generated during the etching process in electrode foil production: An engineering case study","authors":"Hengsai Huan , Guoquan Zhou , Zhenglei Wu , Jiangbin Li , Pengfei Xia , Qian Wang , Fengmin Li","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The etching process in electrode foil production generates vast quantities of low-concentration acidic rinse water and high-concentration waste acid, posing severe environmental risks. This study presents an integrated engineering solution combining precipitation, ultrafiltration with ceramic membranes (UF), two-stage reverse osmosis (RO), resin softening, and advanced oxidation to achieve near-zero wastewater discharge. The system treats 1960 m<sup>3</sup>/d rinse water and 300 m<sup>3</sup>/d waste acid, achieving >95 % water recovery with effluent quality (TDS ≤200 mg/L, pH 6–9) meeting industrial reuse standards. Crucially, waste streams are valorized: RO concentrate, and waste acid are converted into 40,000 tons/year of high-purity coagulants (solid aluminum sulfate and sodium aluminum sulfate), compliant with GB/T 31060-2014 Class I standards. Economically, daily operational costs (1.224 million CNY) are offset by revenues from water reuse and coagulant sales (1.923 million CNY/day), yielding ∼20.97 million CNY/year net profit. This circular approach demonstrates scalable resource recovery simultaneously reclaiming water, acid, salts, and aluminum while addressing water scarcity and pollution in electrode foil manufacturing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 473-479"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147703025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.05.002
Abdul Waheed, Umair Baig
{"title":"Fabrication of a photocatalytic self-cleaning all-inorganic membrane by depositing GO/TiO2 nanocomposite active layer on alumina substrate for sustainable separation of emulsified oil from water","authors":"Abdul Waheed, Umair Baig","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.05.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.05.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent discovery and potential inclusion of important membrane-fabrication polymers, such as polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF), among microplastics/micropollutants have spurred the development of new and efficient membranes for wastewater treatment. The objective of the current work was to develop an all-inorganic membrane as a sustainable solution for the treatment of wastewater, such as oily wastewater. A photocatalytic self-cleaning inorganic membrane was developed by initially synthesizing the GO/TiO<sub>2</sub> (TiO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles decorated graphene oxide nanosheets) photocatalytic nanocomposite by ultrasonication-assisted synthesis. The GO/TiO<sub>2</sub> nanocomposite was deposited as an active layer on a ceramic alumina support by a simple drop-casting approach, followed by thermal annealing, yielding a self-cleaning photocatalytic inorganic membrane. The GO/TiO<sub>2</sub> coated alumina membrane possessed special wettability of being superhydrophilic in air and superoleophobic underwater, owing to a water contact angle of 0° in air and an oil contact angle of ∼160° underwater. This feature preferentially allowed water to permeate through the membrane, and oil was retained, resulting in excellent separation of emulsified oil from water. The GO/TiO<sub>2</sub>-coated alumina membrane exhibited a permeate flux of 1183 L m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup> at a transmembrane pressure of 4 bar when distilled water was used as the feed. The permeate flux decreased when crude oil was used in a water emulsion, to 676.1 L m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup> at 4 bar, indicating the formation of a fouling layer on the membrane surface. However, the photocatalytic self-cleaning potential of the GO/TiO<sub>2</sub> nanocomposite active layer effectively removed the fouling layer and restored the membrane's permeability to a greater extent. The GO/TiO<sub>2</sub> coated alumina membrane regained a normalized flux of ∼0.88 upon photocatalytic self-cleaning. It is also important to note that the GO/TiO<sub>2</sub>-coated alumina membrane retained a separation efficiency of nearly 99% before and after cleaning, indicating that the membrane structure remained intact and could be reused for subsequent cycles. Therefore, the strategy of fabricating inorganic membranes with photocatalytic self-cleaning properties is highly promising for applications in treating complex feeds such as stabilized/emulsified oil from water.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 651-666"},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148951191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.10.003
Kaikui Cai , Jincheng Li , Qingsong Jiang , Lian Hu , Jiaxing Fu , Man Zhang , Yifan Li , Yue Qin , Yong Liu
{"title":"Enhancing hydrological modeling in large basin with intensive human water use through hierarchical parameterization and bias-integrated calibration","authors":"Kaikui Cai , Jincheng Li , Qingsong Jiang , Lian Hu , Jiaxing Fu , Man Zhang , Yifan Li , Yue Qin , Yong Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.10.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.10.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Human management of water resources has profoundly altered the water cycle, creating complex and difficult-to-simulate human-water interactions. Traditional hydrological models, which have commonly focused solely on natural processes, struggle to accurately represent these changes especially in large basins with intensive human water use, highlighting an urgent need for more effective modeling methods to improve this challenge. This study proposed a hierarchical parameterization and bias-integrated calibration method to enhance modeling in those basins, and identified the optimal configuration through a comparative analysis of calibration scenarios based on the hydrological modeling of the Pearl River Basin (PRB) using the Community Water Model (CWatM). The key findings include: (a) Hierarchical calibration significantly improved simulation performance compared to non-regionalized methods, with average modified Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE) and NSE (Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency) values increasing by over 0.5, and the third level of Water Resource Zones (WRZ3) was identified as the optimal calibration scale. (b) Integrating irrigation simulation bias into a single-objective function enabled the simultaneous optimization of both streamflow and irrigation simulations, which reduced irrigation bias from 327 % to 51 % with only a minor decrease in streamflow accuracy (KGE from 0.81 to 0.75), and the effective irrigation weighting coefficient was found to align with the basin's overall irrigation-to-total-runoff ratio. (c) The CWatM was confirmed as suitable for regional applications, although its performance is sensitive to meteorological and inflow boundary data, and it's important to customize the model's parameters to accurately reflect specific regional characteristics. The reproducible technical pathway presented in this paper could facilitate more precise hydrological modeling in similar basins.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 219-233"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146022570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-06-09DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.06.004
Zi-Rong Chen, Hai Liu
{"title":"Evaluation methods for bacterial inactivation and impairment by nanowire-assisted electroporation","authors":"Zi-Rong Chen, Hai Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.06.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.06.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As compared with the conventional electroporation by using plate electrodes with voltages of thousands of volts, nanowire-assisted electroporation (NW-EP) under low-voltage supply has been well demonstrated to be a green and efficient disinfection method via the formation of locally enhanced electric field near nanowire tips. These finite strong electric fields inactivated bacterial cells by inducing unrecoverable damages on rigid cell wall, and creating reversible and irreversible pores on flexible membrane. However, due to their random exposure by nonuniform and nanosized strong electric field over nanowire tips, both reversible and irreversible membrane pores on bacterial cells were formed during NW-EP disinfection. Herein, we employed a membrane-impermeable propidium iodide (PI) dye to stain NW-EP influent and effluent for distinguishing cell damages with PI-detectable reversible and irreversible membrane pores. Meanwhile, considering the inaccessible reversible membrane pores with sizes smaller than PI molecules, selective plates with NaCl addition were prepared to induce high osmotic pressure for inhibiting the growth and reproduction of bacterial cells with damaged cell wall and intact cell membrane, namely reversible membrane damages. These methods well revealed the mechanisms of cell inactivation and impairment by NW-EP. It can provide fundamental information for designing synergistic strategy of NW-EP with other oxidizing disinfectants, which potentially enhance disinfection performance via promoting the oxidant diffusion into cells for inactivation of bacterial cells and elimination of intracellular hazardous substrates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 1-6"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144749704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alginate-aided encapsulation: A novel and facile approach to strengthen the resilience of aerobic granular sludge under ethylene glycol-induced C/N stress","authors":"Seyed Hesam-Aldin Samaei , Parnian Mojahednia , Jianfei Chen , Cole Steiner , Leslie J. Robbins , Jinkai Xue","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.02.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.02.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>C/N imbalanced and toxic wastewaters destabilize biological treatment processes by disrupting microbial structure and function. Ethylene glycol (EG), commonly encountered in de-icing-related effluents, represents a relevant model stressor for examining such instability. This study redefines aerobic granular sludge (AGS) recovery pathways under EG-induced C/N imbalance through alginate-aided microbial encapsulation. Under progressively increasing EG concentrations (120–2000 mg/L), AGS maintained COD removal exceeding 90 % and nearly complete simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND) at concentrations up to 800 mg/L, but granule destabilization and biomass washout occurred beyond 1200 mg/L. Alginate-aided encapsulation actively confined microbial fragments within a transient protective hydrogel scaffold, transforming spontaneous fragmentation into a guided reaggregation process that restored structural cohesion and metabolic stability. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging confirmed structural restabilization, consistent with restored secretion of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), whereas microsensor-based oxygen profiling revealed improved diffusivity within encapsulated biomass. Although conventional nitrifiers, <em>Nitrosomonas</em> and <em>Nitrospira</em>, became undetectable post-encapsulation, stress-tolerant genera, including <em>Comamonas</em> and <em>Pseudomonas,</em> sustained nitrogen transformation with >85% total nitrogen removal, while <em>Pedobacter</em> potentially facilitated EPS-mediated reassembly. Together, this work establishes alginate-aided encapsulation as a facile, retrofittable intervention that converts passive AGS recovery into a controllable bioprocess, strengthening structural resilience and treatment stability under organic loading stress.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 403-416"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147600165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-19DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.001
Nian Ma , Yongxin Xu
{"title":"The multiplier effect and systemic patterns of urban reclaimed water utilization","authors":"Nian Ma , Yongxin Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The multiplier effect describes how an initial change in a variable leads to a larger overall impact through interconnected processes. The utilization of reclaimed water offers a promising solution to water scarcity while preserving fresh water for diverse applications. Integrating reclaimed water into urban water systems alters both the balance and composition of water resources and affects system efficiency. However, there is currently no unified method for evaluating the efficiency of reclaimed water utilization (RWU). This paper introduces the concept of the multiplier effect to establish a comprehensive evaluation framework. The mechanism of the multiplier effect is dissected, an accounting methodology for the reclaimed water utilization multiplier (RWUM) developed. We also further identify various RWU patterns and their impacts on the multiplier estimation. By examining case studies in Singapore and Chongqing, the paper explores how to increase the RWUM with the multiplier accounting. We found that the multiplier effect enhances the optimal utilization of available water resources, thereby improving both the effectiveness and efficiency of urban water systems. Improving each component's performance increases RWUM and boosts overall water system efficiency. Selecting an appropriate systemic pattern significantly enhances the efficiency of reclaimed water use. Increasing reclaimed water use rates, refining its application patterns, and improving urban water cycle operations significantly boost RWU efficiency and urban water system performance. The methodology for RWUM evaluation provides a comprehensive and standardized framework for assessing the utilization efficiency of urban reclaimed water, yielding comparable results. This framework can guide the planning and management of urban reclaimed water systems and is applicable to various global water systems for cities alike.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 348-357"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147537691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-22DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.003
Xuhao Liu , Xiaoya Gao , Bingheng Liang , Qingcun Gu , Teng Guo , Jiatian Wang , Xingxin Yang
{"title":"Efficient degradation of sulfamethoxazole using unactivated and biochar-activated peroxymonosulfate: Mechanisms and performance comparison","authors":"Xuhao Liu , Xiaoya Gao , Bingheng Liang , Qingcun Gu , Teng Guo , Jiatian Wang , Xingxin Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Peroxymonosulfate (PMS)-based advanced oxidation processes are widely used in environmental purification. But the intrinsic oxidizing properties of unactivated PMS are often overlooked in pollutant degradation. This study comparatively investigated sulfamethoxazole (SMX) degradation in both unactivated PMS and biochar (KS800)-activated PMS systems. Biochar-activated PMS exhibited SMX concentration-dependent degradation (1–10 mg/L), which was not obvious in unactivated PMS. Biochar activation significantly reduced the required PMS dosage from 4 to 0.5 mM for effective SMX degradation (<5 mg/L). The KS800/PMS system maintained consistent performance across varying pH conditions but experienced mild inhibition in complex water matrices. In contrast, the performance of unactivated PMS remained unaffected by either condition. Mechanistic studies revealed that SMX degradation by KS800/PMS proceeded via multiple pathways involving singlet oxygen (<sup>1</sup>O<sub>2</sub>), free radicals, and electron transfer. While, degradation by unactivated PMS was primarily driven by direct oxidation with a minor contribution from <sup>1</sup>O<sub>2</sub>. Intermediate analysis demonstrated that KS800/PMS produced smaller molecular fragments with lower chronic/acute toxicity, whereas unactivated PMS formed a limited number of larger products with reduced toxicity to <em>Daphnia</em>. This work provides the first systematic comparison between activated and unactivated PMS systems for SMX degradation, highlighting the previously underestimated potential of unactivated PMS in emerging contaminant removal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 326-337"},"PeriodicalIF":8.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147537694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-04-27DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.04.001
Francesco Granata, Fabio Di Nunno, Jiang Sun, Huan Li, Senlin Zhu
{"title":"Redefining inland water temperature forecasting with advanced neural architectures","authors":"Francesco Granata, Fabio Di Nunno, Jiang Sun, Huan Li, Senlin Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.04.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2026.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Water temperature is a key driver of ecological and biogeochemical processes in inland waters, and the reliable forecasting of this variable is essential for effective environmental management. This study evaluates a hybrid Kolmogorov–Arnold Network (KAN) and a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) model for forecasting river water temperature (RWT) and lake surface water temperature (LSWT) in the Pannonian Ecoregion (Hungary). The models were trained using air temperature and historical water temperature and tested across forecasting horizons from 1 to 7 days. Their performance was compared against two widely used empirical benchmarks, air2stream and air2water. Both deep learning models substantially outperform the benchmark approaches for 1-day-ahead forecasts and retain strong predictive skill across longer horizons. Although accuracy decreases with lead time, both architectures preserve high correlation and low bias up to 7 days ahead. Across both mean conditions and temperature extremes, the hybrid KAN and Bi-LSTM exhibit closely aligned performance, with the hybrid KAN providing comparable accuracy at a fraction of the computational cost. These results demonstrate that hybrid spline-based and recurrent neural networks provide an effective and efficient framework for inland water temperature forecasting, supporting both short-term operational applications and multi-day environmental monitoring.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"7 ","pages":"Pages 600-616"},"PeriodicalIF":7.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148640459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2025-03-14DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.03.004
Rui Miao , Yongxia Liu , Minghui Zhang , Jialin Wan , Zhangwei He , Baoshan Xing , Danxi Huang , Lei Wang
{"title":"Enhanced volatile fatty acids production from anaerobic fermentation of grease trap waste by Fenton pretreatment","authors":"Rui Miao , Yongxia Liu , Minghui Zhang , Jialin Wan , Zhangwei He , Baoshan Xing , Danxi Huang , Lei Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.03.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.03.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To achieve the efficient reclamation of organic resources in grease trap waste (GTW), a Fenton pretreatment for GTW was proposed in this work to convert the organic resources in GTW to soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), followed by SCOD was then degraded into volatile fatty acids (VFAs) via anaerobic fermentation. The effects of the reaction conditions, H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> and Fe<sup>2+</sup> dosages during Fenton pretreatment on the properties of GTW were investigated, and the yield and composition of VFAs were evaluated. The results showed that the grease and organic matter in GTW were mostly present as oil droplets and solid particles; thus, the system needed to be stirred vigorously after adding H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> to ensure full contact of H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> with the grease and organic molecules. Then, Fe<sup>2+</sup> was added to initiate the Fenton reaction to change the properties of GTW. When the dosages of H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> and Fe<sup>2+</sup> were 2% and 300 mg/L, respectively, the SCOD of GTW after Fenton pretreatment increased by 256%, the viscosity decreased by 99%, and the oil content decreased from 37% to 3%. These results indicated that Fenton pretreatment provided better organic matter and mass transfer conditions for anaerobic fermentation. The VFAs yield in the stable operation stage reached 19,059–21,999 mg/L.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"6 ","pages":"Pages 278-284"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143863745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water CyclePub Date : 2025-01-01Epub Date: 2025-05-14DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.05.003
Juan Ferro-Falla , Lewis S. Rowles , Farith Diaz Arriaga , Jaime Plazas-Tuttle
{"title":"Examining green and chemical methods for zero-valent iron nanoparticle synthesis in heavy metal adsorption","authors":"Juan Ferro-Falla , Lewis S. Rowles , Farith Diaz Arriaga , Jaime Plazas-Tuttle","doi":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.05.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.watcyc.2025.05.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasing concern over heavy metal contamination in water has necessitated the development of sustainable and efficient treatment methods. This study compares two synthesis approaches for zero-valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) for cadmium, chromium, and arsenic removal: chemical reduction using sodium borohydride and green synthesis utilizing cocoa husk extracts combined with hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). Chemically synthesized nZVI exhibited high initial removal efficiencies (>98%), though desorption effects occurred over time due to particle aging. In contrast, green-synthesized nZVI, stabilized by a carbon matrix, maintained consistent removal efficiencies above 98% for 120 h under acidic conditions, showcasing superior stability and reactivity. Characterization through SEM, EDS, and XRD confirmed the dual mechanisms of metal removal: reduction and adsorption facilitated by the Fe(0) core and oxide layers. While experimental conditions were optimized for each synthesis method, the findings highlight the promise of green-synthesized nZVI as a sustainable alternative for heavy metal remediation. Future studies should explore adsorption isotherms and long-term applications to further validate the scalability and efficacy of these materials.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34143,"journal":{"name":"Water Cycle","volume":"6 ","pages":"Pages 473-484"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144312863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}