Although conventional biological treatment plants can remove basic pollutants, they are ineffective at removing recalcitrant pollutants. Membrane bioreactors contain promising technology and have the advantages of better effluent quality and lower sludge production compared to those of conventional biological treatment processes. In this study, the removal of pharmaceutical compounds by membrane bioreactors under different solid retention times (SRTs) was investigated. To study the effect of SRT on the removal of emerging pharmaceuticals, the levels of pharmaceuticals were measured over 96 days for the following retention times: 20, 30, and 40-day SRT. It was found that the 40-day SRT had the optimum performance in terms of the pharmaceuticals’ elimination. The removal efficiencies of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) for each selected SRT were higher than 96% at steady-state conditions. The highest degradation efficiency was observed for paracetamol. Paracetamol was the most removed compound followed by ranitidine, atenolol, bezafibrate, diclofenac, and carbamazepine. The microbial community at the phylum level was also analyzed to understand the biodegradability of pharmaceuticals. It was noticed that the Proteobacteria phylum increased from 46.8% to 60.0% after 96 days with the pharmaceuticals. The Actinobacteria class, which can metabolize paracetamol, carbamazepine, and atenolol, was also increased from 9.1% to 17.9% after adding pharmaceuticals. The by-products of diclofenac, bezafibrate, and carbamazepine were observed in the effluent samples.

Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have gained traction as alternative solutions for eliminating pollutants from pharmaceutical wastewater for reuse. In this research, the performance of two photo-catalysts (Commercial TiO₂ and synthesis N-doped TiO₂) were compared in terms of the degradation of amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin from an aqueous solution using a photo-catalytic batch system under solar irradiation. The influence of five operating factors is: pH (5–11), H₂O₂ concentrations (200–600) mg/L, catalyst concentrations (25–100 mg/L), Antibiotic concentration (25–100) mg/L and reaction time (30–120 min), on the oxidation of the listed above pollutants were investigated using the central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM). The catalyst of N-doping TiO₂ was synthesized by sol-gel method, using the urea (CH₄N₂O) as a nitrogen source. The resulting material was analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Additionally, it can be observed from the analysis of the characteristics of N-doped TiO₂ the homogenous dispersion of nitrogen molecules, small particle sizes, and energy-gap reduction, prompting a 6% increase in antibiotic degradation compared with Com. TiO₂. In the RSM analysis, the ideal conditions were found to be a pH of 5, H₂O₂ conc. of 400 mg/L, catalyst conc. of 50 mg, and antibiotics conc. of 25 mg/L for an antibiotics reduction rate of 89.31% (AMOX/Com. TiO₂/Solar), 90.2 (CFX/Com. TiO₂/Solar), 95.8% (AMOX/N-TiO₂/Solar) and 97.3% (CFX/N-TiO₂/Solar). Experimental results were in good agreement with predictions because the predicted R² matched well with the adjusted R².

Among the most significant sources of microplastics (MPs) for humans is indoor dust. However, very few researchers have studied the properties and abundance of MPs that existed in dust from different indoor environments. The current study investigated microplastic fallout in 90 locations (5...

Microplastics (MPs) are considered as recently identified pollutants in the tap water of Mosul city. Limited studies on the quantity and features of microplastics have been reported. Consequently, this study examined the number and characteristics of MPs in tap water from 16 districts in left...

The issue of street dust pollution is primarily related to levels of microplastic particles (MPs) and heavy metals, raising concerns about their potential risk to the environment. In this work, twenty street dust samples with three replicates were collected from different areas (residential,...