Pollution Removal

The current challenge for environmental protection is pollution from the group of emerging pollutants (ECs). Emerging
contaminants are a group of highly toxic substances present in the environment at very low concentrations. These
contaminants often enter aquatic ecosystems from various sources, such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and industrial
chemicals. Due to their bioaccumulative properties, ECs can move through the food chain, eventually reaching human
bodies. Due to their bioaccumulative properties, ECs can move through the trophic chain, eventually reaching the
human body. The aim of the article was to indicate the need for further research on the toxicity of these pollutants,
their impact on the environment and human health, and to develop guidelines regulating their permissible
concentrations. The importance of developing effective methods for removing ECs from various environmental
components was also pointed out. Implementing these removal techniques, alongside regulations limiting the use of
these substances, is essential to protect water quality and public health.

In this work, alkali-activated fly ash-derived foams were produced at room temperature by direct foaming using aluminum powder. The 1 cm3 foams (cubes) were then evaluated as adsorbents to extract heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The foams’ selectivity towards lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper ions was evaluated in single, binary, and multicomponent ionic solutions. In the single ion assays, the foams showed much higher affinity towards lead, compared to the other heavy metals; at 10 ppm, the removal efficiency reached 91.9% for lead, 83.2% for cadmium, 74.6% for copper, and 64.6% for zinc. The greater selectivity for lead was also seen in the binary tests. The results showed that the presence of zinc is detrimental to cadmium and copper sorption, while for lead it mainly affects the sorption rate, but not the ultimate removal efficiency. In the multicomponent assays, the removal efficiency for all the heavy metals was lower than the values seen in the single ion tests. However, t...

The study was conducted to determine the species present for the phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and birds, generally from low trophic level until high trophic level, in the stormwater constructed wetlands, USM. The list of the species present will be used to relate the water quality and explain the current condition of species diversity, starting from December 2010 until May 2011. So the aim of this study was to see how the constructed wetland can provide new habitat for each different species and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Based on the result obtained, the number of species was high around the inlet Wetland (W1 and W2) for phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrate due to high abundance of plant, sufficient amount of nutrient concentration (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), light and dissolved oxygen, which can help to trigger its distribution. The benthic macroinvertebrate species found had gave some information on how the species respond to the recent water quality condition. The number of fish present in the wetland had provided source of foods for local and migratory birds. Due to this reason, diverse of bird species can be found around the wetland. The reason to used 5 different indicators (phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and bird) for this study was to see the pattern of diversity distribution for each trophic level and how it correlates to each other and to the constructed wetland ecosystem. At the end of this study, the data obtain from this paper can gave an idea on how to improve the stormwater constructed wetland design (in term of types of suitable plant species, soil composition and water level) which can contribute to the species conservation and help to keep the ecosystem healthy as natural. A long term study and monitoring in biodiversity of stormwater constructed wetland is required to justify the affect of population in the long period of time.

In this work, alkali-activated fly ash-derived foams were produced at room temperature by direct foaming using aluminum powder. The 1 cm3 foams (cubes) were then evaluated as adsorbents to extract heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The foams’ selectivity towards lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper ions was evaluated in single, binary, and multicomponent ionic solutions. In the single ion assays, the foams showed much higher affinity towards lead, compared to the other heavy metals; at 10 ppm, the removal efficiency reached 91.9% for lead, 83.2% for cadmium, 74.6% for copper, and 64.6% for zinc. The greater selectivity for lead was also seen in the binary tests. The results showed that the presence of zinc is detrimental to cadmium and copper sorption, while for lead it mainly affects the sorption rate, but not the ultimate removal efficiency. In the multicomponent assays, the removal efficiency for all the heavy metals was lower than the values seen in the single ion tests. However, t...

Free-surface constructed wetlands are known as a low-energy green technique to highly decrease a wide range of pollutants in wastewater and stormwater before discharge into natural water. In this study, two spatial analyses, principal factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis (HACA), were employed to interpret the effect of wetland on the water quality variables (WQVs) and to classify the wetland into groups with similar characteristics. Eleven WQVs were collected at the 17 sampling stations twice a month for 13 months. All sampling stations were classified by HACA into three clusters, with high, moderate, and low pollution areas. To improve the water quality, the performance of Cluster-III (micropool) is more significant than Cluster-I and Cluster-II. Implications of this study include potential savings of time and cost for long-term data monitoring purposes in the free-constructed wetland.

In this work, alkali-activated fly ash-derived foams were produced at room temperature by direct foaming using aluminum powder. The 1 cm 3 foams (cubes) were then evaluated as adsorbents to extract heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The foams' selectivity towards lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper ions was evaluated in single, binary, and multicomponent ionic solutions. In the single ion assays, the foams showed much higher affinity towards lead, compared to the other heavy metals; at 10 ppm, the removal efficiency reached 91.9% for lead, 83.2% for cadmium, 74.6% for copper, and 64.6% for zinc. The greater selectivity for lead was also seen in the binary tests. The results showed that the presence of zinc is detrimental to cadmium and copper sorption, while for lead it mainly affects the sorption rate, but not the ultimate removal efficiency. In the multicomponent assays, the removal efficiency for all the heavy metals was lower than the values seen in the single ion tests. However, the superior affinity for lead was preserved. This study decreases the existing knowledge gap regarding the potential of alkali-activated materials to act as heavy metals adsorbents under different scenarios.

Free-surface constructed wetlands are known as a low-energy green technique to highly decrease a wide range of pollutants in wastewater and stormwater before discharge into natural water. In this study, two spatial analyses, principal factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis (HACA), were employed to interpret the effect of wetland on the water quality variables (WQVs) and to classify the wetland into groups with similar characteristics. Eleven WQVs were collected at the 17 sampling stations twice a month for 13 months. All sampling stations were classified by HACA into three clusters, with high, moderate, and low pollution areas. To improve the water quality, the performance of Cluster-III (micropool) is more significant than Cluster-I and Cluster-II. Implications of this study include potential savings of time and cost for long-term data monitoring purposes in the free-constructed wetland.

Tropical wetlands have numerous natural functions, one of which is the filtration of wastewater for water quality improvement. The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance of constructed wetlands in Universiti Sains Malaysia for water quality treatment of stormwater runoff. A total of 17 sampling stations were selected from different sections of possessing different compositions, characteristics and plant species. Weekly physico-chemical and biological parameters were analysed during the one year period starting from December 2010 to December 2011. The results exhibited significant improvement of water quality as the concentration of nitrate, nitrite, ammoniacal-nitrogen, orthophosphate, TSS, BOD and COD decreased after the water passed through the macrophyte and micropool zones before being discharged to the wetland outlet. The concentration of nitrite was significantly reduced (80%); nitrate (61.56%), ammoniacal-nitrogen (51.49%), orthophosphate (60.98%), TSS (67.86%), BOD (27.7%) and COD (46.43%). The decrease in the concentrations of the above pollutants showed that the improvement of water quality was performed in the wetland. Most of the concentrations fall in Class IIA and IIB based on National Water Quality Standards for Malaysia and Department of Environment (DOE) Water Quality Index Classification. Biological measurement showed high diversity of species. Based on the results obtained, the macrophyte zone showed a high number of species and percentage distribution of phytoplankton and zooplankton, starting from the Wetland 1and 2 until the outlet wetland (14.6% -14.9% until 3.5%). While for fish distribution, Oreochromis niloticus was the dominant fish species from the others seven species found in the constructed wetland. Overall, the results from this study demonstrate that constructed wetlands significantly improve water quality of stormwater runoff, and that they are a good natural resource for the sustenance and maintenance of biodiversity.

This study employed three chemometric data mining techniques (factor analysis (FA), cluster analysis (CA), and discriminant analysis (DA)) to identify the latent structure of a water quality (WQ) dataset pertaining to Kinta River (Malaysia) and to classify eight WQ monitoring stations along the river into groups of similar WQ characteristics. FA identified the WQ parameters responsible for variations in Kinta River's WQ and accentuated the roles of weathering and surface runoff in determining the river's WQ. CA grouped the monitoring locations into a cluster of low levels of water pollution (the two uppermost monitoring stations) and another of relatively high levels of river pollution (the mid-, and down-stream stations). DA confirmed these clusters and produced a discriminant function which can predict the cluster membership of new and/or unknown samples. These chemometric techniques highlight the potential for reasonably reducing the number of WQVs and monitoring stations for long-term monitoring purposes.

The study was conducted to determine the species present for the phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and birds, generally from low trophic level until high trophic level, in the stormwater constructed wetlands, USM. The list of the species present will be used to relate the water quality and explain the current condition of species diversity, starting from December 2010 until May 2011. So the aim of this study was to see how the constructed wetland can provide new habitat for each different species and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Based on the result obtained, the number of species was high around the inlet Wetland (W1 and W2) for phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrate due to high abundance of plant, sufficient amount of nutrient concentration (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), light and dissolved oxygen, which can help to trigger its distribution. The benthic macroinvertebrate species found had gave some information on how the species respond to the recent water quality condition. The number of fish present in the wetland had provided source of foods for local and migratory birds. Due to this reason, diverse of bird species can be found around the wetland. The reason to used 5 different indicators (phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and bird) for this study was to see the pattern of diversity distribution for each trophic level and how it correlates to each other and to the constructed wetland ecosystem. At the end of this study, the data obtain from this paper can gave an idea on how to improve the stormwater constructed wetland design (in term of types of suitable plant species, soil composition and water level) which can contribute to the species conservation and help to keep the ecosystem healthy as natural. A long term study and monitoring in biodiversity of stormwater constructed wetland is required to justify the affect of population in the long period of time.

The study was conducted to determine the species present for the phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and birds, generally from low trophic level until high trophic level, in the stormwater constructed wetlands, USM. The list of the species present will be used to relate the water quality and explain the current condition of species diversity, starting from December 2010 until May 2011. So the aim of this study was to see how the constructed wetland can provide new habitat for each different species and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity.  Based on the result obtained, the number of species was high around the inlet Wetland (W1 and W2) for phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrate due to high abundance of plant, sufficient amount of nutrient concentration (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), light and dissolved oxygen, which can help to trigger its distribution. The benthic macroinvertebrate species found had gave some information on how the species respond to the recent water quality condition. The number of fish present in the wetland had provided source of foods for local and migratory birds. Due to this reason, diverse of bird species can be found around the wetland. The reason to used 5 different indicators (phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, fish and bird) for this study was to see the pattern of diversity distribution for each trophic level and how it correlates to each other and to the constructed wetland ecosystem. At the end of this study, the data obtain from this paper can gave an idea on how to improve the stormwater constructed wetland design (in term of types of suitable plant species, soil composition and water level) which can contribute to the species conservation and help to keep the ecosystem healthy as natural. A long term study and monitoring in biodiversity of stormwater constructed wetland is required to justify the affect of population in the long period of time.