Recovery Strategies of Contaminated Marine Sediments: A Life Cycle Assessment

A Fenton-based approach at neutral and un-conditioned pH for recalcitrant COD removal in tannery wastewater: Experimental test and sludge characterization

The combination of raw animal skin manufacturing processes involves the use of large amounts of chemicals, resulting in the generation of complex and highly polluted tannery wastewater. In this context, the high concentration of chloride in tannery wastewater represents a crucial bottleneck. Indeed, sodium chloride, commonly used in tannery industry to prevent skin rot, increases the concentration of chlorides up to 50 %. At the same time, most of the advanced oxidation processes usually employed in tannery wastewater treatment to remove recalcitrant COD involve the use of conditioning agents, thus increasing the overall concentration of chlorides in the treated effluent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the electrochemical peroxidation process (ECP) efficiency in the treatment of tannery wastewater without changing pH, to improve Fenton technology by avoiding the use of chemicals. The influence of different electric currents on COD and color removal was investigated. The characterization of the produced sludge was conducted through FTIR, SEM and XRD analysis, exploring the morphology and composition of precipitate, depending on the applied current. Although an electrical current of 750 mA yields the highest COD and color removal efficiency (69.7 % and 97.8 %, respectively), 500 mA can be considered the best compromise because of energy consumptions. Iron oxides and hydroxides were generated during the ECP process, playing the role of coagulants through the absorption of organic and inorganic contaminants. The consumption of energy increased as a function of time and applied current; however, cost analysis showed that the electrodes contributed the most to the total cost of the process. In authors' knowledge, the application of ECP process as a tertiary treatment for the removal of recalcitrant COD in tannery wastewater represents a novelty in the literature and the results obtained can be considered as the basis for scaling up the process in future research.

Comparing the effects of Al-based coagulants in waste activated sludge anaerobic digestion: Methane yield, kinetics and sludge implications

Due to its effectiveness and ease of application, the process of flocculation and coagulation is often used for pollution removal in wastewater treatment. Most of these coagulants precipitate and accumulate in waste activated sludge (WAS), and could negatively affect sludge treatments, as observed for anaerobic digestion. Nowadays, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are widely discussed because of the current paradigm shift from linear to circular economy, and the treatments performed at the facility should be planned to avoid or reduce adverse effects on other processes. The aim of this study was to compare the impact of poly aluminum chloride (PAC) and aluminum sulfate (AS) on WAS anaerobic digestion, by feeding replicate serum reactors with different levels of coagulant (5, 10 and 20 mg Al/g TS). Reactors without the addition of any coagulants represented the control group. Results revealed that Al-based coagulants inhibited methane production, which decreased as the coagulant addition increased. The inhibition was much more severe in AS-conditioned reactors, showing average reductions in methane yield from 14.4 to 31.7%, compared to the control (167.76 ± 1.88 mL CH4/g VS). Analytical analysis, FTIR and SEM investigations revealed that the addition of coagulants affected the initial conditions of the anaerobic reactors, penalizing the solubilization, hydrolysis and acidogenesis phases. Furthermore, the massive formation of H2S in AS-conditioned reactors played a key role in the suppression of methane phase. On the other hand, the use of coagulant can promote the accumulation and recovery of nutrient in WAS, especially in terms of phosphorus. Our findings will expand research knowledge in this field and guide stakeholders in the choice of coagulants at full scale plant. Future research should focus on reducing the effect of coagulants on methane production by modifying or testing new types of flocculants.

Removal of heavy metals from dredging marine sediments via electrokinetic hexagonal system: A pilot study in Italy

Among the several treatment options, electrokinetic (EK) remediation is recognized as an effective technique for the removal of heavy metals from low-permeability porous matrices. However, most of the EK decontamination research reported was performed on linear configuration systems at a laboratory scale. In this study, a series of experiments were performed on a pilot-scale system where the electrodes were arranged in a hexagonal configuration, to assess the improvement of the EK process in the removal of inorganic contaminants from sediments dredged in the harbor of Piombino, Italy. HNO3 was used as acid conditioning and both pH effect and treatment duration time were investigated. Sediment characterization and metal fractionation were also presented, in order to understand how the bioavailability of metals affects the process efficiency. The increase in pH due to the buffering capacity of the sediment in the sections close to the cathode favored the precipitation and accumulation of metals. However, the results highlighted that longer treatment times, combined with an efficient pH reduction, can improve treatment performance, resulting in high removal efficiencies for all the target metals considered (a percentage removal greater than 50% was reached for Cd, Ni, Pb, Cu and Zn). Compared to different EK configuration systems, the hexagonal configuration arrangement applied in our study provides better results for the remediation of dredged marine sediment.

Fungi Can Be More Effective than Bacteria for the Bioremediation of Marine Sediments Highly Contaminated with Heavy Metals

The contamination of coastal marine sediments with heavy metals (HMs) is a widespread phenomenon that requires effective remediation actions. Bioremediation based on the use of bacteria is an economically and environmentally sustainable effective strategy for reducing HM contamination and/or toxicity in marine sediments. However, information on the efficiency of marine-derived fungi for HM decontamination of marine sediments is still largely lacking, despite evidence of the performance of terrestrial fungal strains on other contaminated matrixes (e.g., soils, freshwater sediments, industrial wastes). Here, we carried out for the first time an array of parallel laboratory experiments by using different combinations of chemical and microbial amendments (including acidophilic autotrophic and heterotrophic bacteria, as well as filamentous marine fungi) for the bioremediation of highly HM-contaminated sediments of the Portman Bay (NW Mediterranean Sea), an area largely affected by long-term historical discharges of mine tailings. Our results indicate that the bioleaching performance of metals from the sediment is based on the addition of fungi (Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma sp.), either alone or in combination with autotrophic bacteria, was higher when compared to other treatments. In particular, fungal addition allowed obtaining bioleaching yields for As eight times higher than those by chemical treatments and double compared with the addition of bacteria alone. Moreover, in our study, the fungal addition was the only treatment allowing effective bioleaching of otherwise not mobile fractions of Zn and Cd, thus overtaking bacterial treatments. We found that the lower the sediment pH reached by the experimental conditions, as in the case of fungal addition, the higher the solubilization yield of metals, suggesting that the specific metabolic features of A. niger and Trichoderma sp. enable lowering sediment pH and enhance HM bioleaching. Overall, our findings indicate that fungi can be more effective than acidophilic autotrophic and heterotrophic bacteria in HM bioleaching, and as such, their use can represent a promising and efficient strategy for the bioremediation of marine sediments highly contaminated with heavy metals.