Research Publications (Water and Wastewater Technology)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/841
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Item Digitalization of phosphorous removal process in biological wastewater treatment systems : challenges, and way forward(Elsevier BV, 2024-05-10) Sheik, Abdul Gaffar; Krishna, Suresh Babu Naidu; Patnaik, Reeza; Ambati, Seshagiri Rao; Bux, Faizal; Kumari, Sheena K.Phosphorus in wastewater poses a significant environmental threat, leading to water pollution and eutrophication. However, it plays a crucial role in the water-energy-resource recovery-environment (WERE) nexus. Recovering Phosphorus from wastewater can close the phosphorus loop, supporting circular economy principles by reusing it as fertilizer or in industrial applications. Despite the recognized importance of phosphorus recovery, there is a lack of analysis of the cyber-physical framework concerning the WERE nexus. Advanced methods like automatic control, optimal process technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and life cycle assessment (LCA) have emerged to enhance wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) operations focusing on improving effluent quality, energy efficiency, resource recovery, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Providing insights into implementing modeling and simulation platforms, control, and optimization systems for Phosphorus recovery in WERE (P-WERE) in WWTPs is extremely important in WWTPs. This review highlights the valuable applications of AI algorithms, such as machine learning, deep learning, and explainable AI, for predicting phosphorus (P) dynamics in WWTPs. It emphasizes the importance of using AI to analyze microbial communities and optimize WWTPs for different various objectives. Additionally, it discusses the benefits of integrating mechanistic and data-driven models into plant-wide frameworks, which can enhance GHG simulation and enable simultaneous nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) removal. The review underscores the significance of prioritizing recovery actions to redirect Phosphorus from effluent to reusable products for future considerations.Item Characterization of brewery wastewater composition(WASET, 2015) Enitan, Abimbola Motunrayo; Adeyemo, Josiah; Kumari, Sheena K.; Swalaha, Feroz Mahomed; Bux, FaizalIndustries produce millions of cubic meters of effluent every year and the wastewater produced may be released into the surrounding water bodies, treated on-site or at municipal treatment plants. The determination of organic matter in the wastewater generated is very important to avoid any negative effect on the aquatic ecosystem. The scope of the present work is to assess the physicochemical composition of the wastewater produced from one of the brewery industry in South Africa. This is to estimate the environmental impact of its discharge into the receiving water bodies or the municipal treatment plant. The parameters monitored for the quantitative analysis of brewery wastewater include biological oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids, volatile suspended solids, ammonia, total oxidized nitrogen, nitrate, nitrite, phosphorus and alkalinity content. In average, the COD concentration of the brewery effluent was 5340.97 mg/l with average pH values of 4.0 to 6.7. The BOD5 and the solids content of the wastewater from the brewery industry were high. This means that the effluent is very rich in organic content and its discharge into the water bodies or the municipal treatment plant could cause environmental pollution or damage the treatment plant. In addition, there were variations in the wastewater composition throughout the monitoring period. This might be as a result of different activities that take place during the production process, as well as the effects of peak period of beer production on the water usage.Item Polyhydroxyalkanoates production from fermented paperboard mill wastewater using acetate-enriched bacteria(Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2017) Farghaly, Ahmed Mustafa; Enitan, Abimbola Motunrayo; Kumari, Sheena K.; Bux, Faizal; Tawfik, AhmedThe aim of the study was to investigate the use of dark fermented paperboard mill wastewater (PMW) containing volatile fatty acids for polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production. Six sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were initially fed with synthetic feed containing acetate and operated at different organic loading rates (OLRs) of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 gCOD l-1 day-1 for PHA-storing bacteria enrichment. The maximum PHA content and yield (YPHA/S) were 67.44 ± 5.88 % and 0.45 ± 0.39 C-mol C-mol-1 at OLR of 1.5 gCOD l-1 day-1, respectively. The synthetic feed was replaced by dark fermented PMW effluent rich in acetate, butyrate, propionate, and lactate at the accumulation stage resulting in a PHA content and yield of 58.57 ± 4.02 % and 0.46 ± 0.09 C-mol C-mol-1, respectively. The maximum specific PHA production rate max ) amounted to 0.29 ± 0.1 C-mol C-mol-1 X-1 h-1.(qPHA Illumina MiSeq sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene showed that Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes increased from 37.4 to 77.6 % and from 2.49 to 17.66 % at enrich-ment and accumulation stages, respectively. Actinobacteria (15.44 %), Chloroflexi (8.15 %), Planctomycetes (7.46 %), and Acidobacteria (6.0 %) were detected at the enrichment SBRs.Item Pathways of 3-biofules (hydrogen, ethanol and methane) production from petrochemical industry wastewater via anaerobic packed bed baffled reactor inoculated with mixed culture bacteria(Elsevier, 2016) Elreedy, Ahmed; Tawfik, Ahmed; Enitan, Abimbola Motunrayo; Kumari, Sheena K.; Bux, FaizalSimultaneous production of 3-biofuels (hydrogen, ethanol and methane) as by-products of the biodegra-dation of petrochemical wastewater containing MEG via anaerobic packed bed baffled reactor (AnPBBR), was extensively investigated. A four-chambered reactor supported by polyurethane sheets, was operated at a constant hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 36 h and different organic loading rates (OLRs) of 0.67, 1, 2 and 4 gCOD/L/d. The maximum specific H2 and CH4 production rates of 438.07 ± 43.02 and 237.80 ± 21.67 ml/L/d were respectively achieved at OLR of 4 gCOD/L/d. The residual bio-ethanol signif-icantly increased from 57.15 ± 2.31 to 240.19 ± 34.69 mg/L at increasing the OLR from 0.67 to 4 gCOD/L/d, respectively. The maximum MEG biodegradability of 98% was attained at the lowest OLR. Compartment-wise profiles revealed that the maximum H2 and ethanol production were achieved at HRT of 9 h (1st compartment), while the CH4 production was peaked at HRTs of 27 and 36 h (last two compartments). Kinetic studies using Stover–Kincannon and completely stirred tank reactor (CSTR) in series models were successfully applied to the AnPBBR overall and compartment-to-compartment performance, respectively. The economic evaluation strongly revealed the potentials of using AnPBBR for simultaneous treatment and bio-energy production from petrochemical wastewater as compared to the classical anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR). Microbial analysis using Illumina MiSeq sequencing showed a diversity of bacterial com-munity in AnPBBR. Proteobacteria (36.62%), Firmicutes (20.85%) and Bacteroidetes (3.44%) were the most dominant phyla.