{"title":"Adsorption of Methylene Blue by Low-Cost Biochar Derived from Elephant Dung","authors":"Y. Suma, N. Pasukphun, N. Eaktasang","doi":"10.35762/aer.2021.43.3.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/aer.2021.43.3.3","url":null,"abstract":"Elephant dung biochar (ED350) prepared by controlled heating at 350 ºC was used to adsorb methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous solution. The effects of adsorption time, pH, adsorbent dosage, and initial MB concentration were examined. Kinetic, isotherm, and thermo-dynamic models were then further analyzed to determine the adsorption. The results show that ED350 was found to be efficient within 180 min. The optimum pH of MB adsorption was 11. The Langmuir isotherm model was found to be the most suitable fit for the adsorption equilibrium data, with ED350 having a homogeneous surface. The calculated equilibrium parameter (RL) values were greater than zero and less than one, indicating a favorable adsorption process and that ED350 was an efficient adsorbent for MB removal. The kinetics of MB adsorption onto ED350 obeys the pseudo-second-order model. The results of thermo-dynamic data consideration reveal that the adsorption process is spontaneous and exothermic in nature. This finding suggests that ED350 may prove to be an efficient low-cost adsorbent of MB from wastewater.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89190492","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":"Application of GIS and Multi-Criteria Statistical Techniques in Assessing Water Quality in the Coastal Province of Vietnamese Mekong Delta","authors":"N. Giao, Huynh Thi Hong Nhien","doi":"10.35762/aer.2021.43.3.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/aer.2021.43.3.2","url":null,"abstract":"The study was conducted to evaluate the quality and spatial distribution of surface water quality in Soc Trang, a coastal province using Geographic information system (GIS) and multivariate statistical analysis. Water monitoring data was collected from 19 sampling locations with 19 parameters were analyzed from February 2019 to August 2020. The results indicated that water quality was contaminated with organic matters, nutrients, coliforms and salinity. Water quality index (WQI=22–73) indicated that water quality was from poor to medium level. Cluster analysis (CA) classified 19 monitoring sites into 7 groups and 19 months into 3 seasons including rainy season, rainy season-early dry season, dry season-early rainy season. CA results showed that the location and frequency of water quality monitoring could be significantly reduced, saving up to 75% the monitoring costs. The maps of the polluted parameters (TSS, DO, BOD, COD, TOC, NH4+-N, NO2--N, Coliform, Fe, Cl-) illustrated that the areas located in the interior fields and near the sea had poorer water quality compared to the areas adjacent to the Hau River. The combination of multivariable statistics and GIS was very useful for spatial and temporal analysis of water quality monitoring data.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78843257","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":"Monitoring the Land Cover Changes in Mangrove Areas and Urbanization using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Normalized Difference Built-up Index in Krabi Estuary Wetland, Krabi Province, Thailand","authors":"K. Waiyasusri","doi":"10.35762/AER.2021.43.3.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/AER.2021.43.3.1","url":null,"abstract":"Krabi Estuary Wetland (KEW) is an outstanding wetland with an estuary environment. At present, the tourism industry has rapidly grown, resulting in the impact of land cover changes. This research aims to assess the changes that have occurred in the KEW from 1999 to 2020 using NDVI and NDBI for monitoring changes in mangrove areas and urbanization in Krabi Province, Thailand. Landsat satellite images in years 1999, 2009 and 2020 were classified by using a band ratio to create land cover maps. The results show that NDVI between 0.41–1.00 clearly shows the mangrove forest area, while NDBI between 0.01–0.40 shows urban and built-up land, and 0.41–1.00 appears as bare land. The NDVI overall accuracy assessment is 82.88%, 97.46% and 88.25% with Kappa values of 0.64, 0.92, and 0.85 for year 1999, 2009 and 2020, respectively. The NDBI overall accuracy assessment is 92.81%, 77.11% and 64% with Kappa values of 0.93, 0.77, and 0.63 for year 1999, 2009 and 2020, respectively. In addition, areas that are sensitive to land-cover change appear around the Chi rat River, Pak Nam Krabi River, and Yuan River, which are tourist areas close to the Krabi and Ao Nang communities. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the problem solving and find measures to prevent mangrove forest degradation in these 3 mangrove forest areas so that the mangrove forest areas will not decrease rapidly in the future. This research can be valuable for land-cover management in the KEW by policy and decision makers.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78000229","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}
F. Oyebanji, G. Ana, O. O. Tope-Ajayi, A. Sadiq, Y. Mijinyawa
{"title":"Air Quality Indexing, Mapping and Principal Components Analysis of Ambient Air Pollutants around Farm Settlements across Ogun State, Nigeria","authors":"F. Oyebanji, G. Ana, O. O. Tope-Ajayi, A. Sadiq, Y. Mijinyawa","doi":"10.35762/aer.2021.43.2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/aer.2021.43.2.7","url":null,"abstract":"The focus of this study was to portray the spatial pattern of air quality across seasons in the eight sampled farm settlements using air quality indexes and assess the clusters of monitored air pollutants. The concentrations of air pollutants were determined using in-situ portable gas detectors and particulate counter. The AQI for each criteria pollutants (CO, O3, TSP, PM10, SO2, and PM2.5) was calculated using AQI formulae of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and mapped using the Inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation method in the Geographic information systems (GIS) environment. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to group the parameters and estimate the interrelationships between the loadings of the parameters in each component. The AQI ranges of pollutants which deviated from the acceptable good status are CO (71.98 – 238 and 88.85 – 220.93), NO2 (10.14 – 107.07 and 10.84 – 72.88) and PM2.5 (12.90 – 70.85 and 12.56 – 54.02) for the dry and wet seasons, respectively. There were five and four PCs with eigenvalues > 1, accounting for 69.75% and 61.73% of the total variance during the wet and dry season, respectively. The parameters in each component are as follows; PC1 - TSP, PM10, PM2.5, Bacteria and fungi; PC2 - CO and Temperature; PC3 - relative humidity and O3; PC4 - CO2; PC5 - NO2 and SO2 for the wet season and PC1 - TSP, PM10, PM2.5, Bacteria and fungi; PC2 - NH3 and NO2; PC3 - CO2 and O3; PC4 - Temperature and relative humidity during the dry season. Biomass burning, engine exhausts and fine-particulate related activities are sources of air pollution and such may pose negative implication to human health and environment. Therefore, the use of alternative biomass disposal, regular servicing of processing engines and the wearing of protective wears against dust are recommended.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79517784","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}
W. Abibu, G. Bamigbade, A. O. Kolawole, T. Ajayi, A. Sakariyau
{"title":"Current Trends in Steroidal 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) Removal from the Environment: A Review","authors":"W. Abibu, G. Bamigbade, A. O. Kolawole, T. Ajayi, A. Sakariyau","doi":"10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.10","url":null,"abstract":"Emerging contaminants have posed major environmental and health challenges to human and aquatic lives. They include pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), persistent environmental pollutants and many more. EE2 is an example of an endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) increasingly gaining acceptance and used to augment the deficiencies of other reproductive hormones. EE2 constitutes environmental nuisance via discharge into aquatic bodies, thus, threatening aquatic lives and resulting in health defects in human. It is worthy of note that previous researchers have channeled their studies to identifying ways of expelling EE2 from the environment. However, they remain persistent in the environment. The current review examined biological, chemical, physical and nanotechnological approaches in expelling EE2 from the environment. All methods discussed have been efficient in EE2 removal. From the review, both independent and combinatorial approaches in EE2 removal has yielded efficient results.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88247645","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":"Treatment of Iron from Groundwater by Ozonation: Influence of Hardness as a Scavenger","authors":"Apiradee Sukmilin, R. Sangsirimongkolying","doi":"10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.8","url":null,"abstract":"This study assesses the efficiency of using ozone technology to treat iron from groundwater while hardness acts as a radical scavenger. Batch experiments were conducted to determine the effects of initial pH 6, 7 and 8, and hardness of 300, 400 and 500 mg L-1 and kinetic analysis. The optimum conditions were found to be initial pH of 8 and hardness of 300 mg L-1. The removal efficiency of iron by ozonation was 99.97%, which was higher than that of air without ozone applied (83.67%). However, the presence of hardness and tert-butanol (TBA) had a negative effect on the oxidation of iron from groundwater. By increasing the carbonate hardness concentration, the oxidation rate of iron by ozone was reduced. The results of kinetic analyses indicated that the reactions of ozonation to remove iron from groundwater followed a pseudo-first order kinetic model with a rate constant of 0.0881 min-1, while air without ozone applied (aeration) was 0.0051 min-1. This finding suggests the potential use of ozone to remove iron from groundwater. Iron concentration from groundwater samples treated by ozonation have met the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines (0.3 mg L-1).","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"111 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85913876","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":"Characteristics of Surface Water Quality and Diversity of Zoobenthos in Water Bodies, \u0000An Giang Province, Vietnam","authors":"N. Giao, Huynh Thi Hong Nhien, Truong Hoang Dan","doi":"10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35762/AER.2021.43.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"The use of zoobenthos to evaluate water quality has gained considerable interest due to its low cost and environmental friendliness. This study analyzed water and zoobenthos samples at 13 sites in the water bodies in An Giang province in the rainy season (on March) and dry season (on September) in 2018. The results showed that the surface water was contaminated by organic matters, suspended solids and coliforms. There was occurrence of 28 species of zoobenthos divided into five classes including Oligochaeta, Polychaeta, Insecta, Gastropoda, and Bivalvia in which Bivalvia was the most diverse class accounting for 75%. The densities of zoobenthos in the dry and wet season were from 30 divided into three clusters for the dry season and six clusters for the rainy season indicating seasonal variation of zoobenthos composition possibly due to variance of water and sediment characteristics. The results of Pearson correlation indicated that the composition of zoobenthos was strongly correlated with temperature, pH, N-NH4+ and N-NO3-. Using water quality index (WQI), Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’) and associated average score per taxon (ASPT) for water quality assessment revealed that water quality ranges from medium (from α to β- mesosaprobe) to heavy pollution (Polysaprobe). There was inconsistency between using physicochemicals and diversity index of zoobenthos for water quality identification leading to the use of zoobenthos for water indication could result in misadjustment of water quality. Further study should investigate the relationship between zoobenthos and water quality in different ecological areas to better indicate role of zoobenthos in quick diagnose water quality.","PeriodicalId":36747,"journal":{"name":"Applied Environmental Research","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87100867","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}