Assessing Environmental and Economic Sustainability: Valorizing Grape Stems for Animal Feed Production.

This study evaluated an innovative strategy for valorizing grape stems (GS) from the winery industry as an animal feed ingredient from both environmental life-cycle and economic perspectives. Two processes for GS-based feed ingredient production were compared: one using hydrolyzed GS and the other using nonhydrolyzed GS, alongside the conventional animal feed production process. Using primary pilot-scale data for GS-based feed ingredient production and secondary data for animal feed production, life-cycle assessments, and economic analyses were conducted.

Removal of pesticides from secondary treated urban wastewater by reverse osmosis.

The residues of pesticides that reach water resources from agricultural activities in several ways contaminate drinking water resources and threaten aquatic life. This study aimed to investigate the performance of three reverse osmosis (RO) membranes (BW30-LE, SW30-XLE, and GE-AD) in rejecting four different pesticides (tributyl phosphate, flutriafol, dicofol, and irgarol) from secondary treated urban wastewater and also to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the rejection of these pesticides. RO experiments were conducted using pesticide-spiked wastewater samples under 10 and 20 bar transmembrane pressures (TMP) and membrane performances were evaluated.

Coping with stress during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by Turkish people with Multiple Sclerosis: The relationship between perceived stress and quality of life.

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease and acute exacerbations are also a part of the clinical course. The presence of the disease and relapses cause stress in people with MS (pwMS). For this reason, stress coping strategies of the patients are important in reducing perceived stress.

Occurrence of micropollutants in the Yesilirmak River Basin, Turkey.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC) is the most visionary piece of European environmental legislation that aims to achieve good water status of both surface water and groundwater bodies. The Directive provides a fundamental basis for surface water monitoring activities in the European Member States. The objective of this study is to investigate the occurrence of micropollutants in the Yesilirmak River and to develop a cost-effective monitoring strategy based on spatiotemporal data.

Imidacloprid elimination by O and O/UV: kinetics study, matrix effect, and mechanism insight.

The removal of imidacloprid (IMI) from water by ozonation (O) and photo-ozonation (O/UV) was comparatively studied, paying particular attention to the kinetics, matrix effect, and mechanistic aspects of the processes. The IMI removal by O was considerably enhanced at alkaline pHs, leading to almost complete removal under 20 min with a pseudo-first-order rate constant of 0.2374 min at pH 8.

Factors affecting the occupational accident rates among nurses.

Objective: In this hospital-based study, we aimed to determine occupational accident perceptions and occupational accident reasons in sample of Turkish nurses.

Method: In the study, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, the Workload Scale and a Study Questionnaire Form including the employment characteristics of the nurses, their socio demographic characteristics, and the occupational accidents they encountered.

Results: 108 nurses (90 females, 18 males; mean age, 26.

A new screening index for pesticides leachability to groundwater.

Given the fact that pesticides exist in the aquatic environment at very low concentrations, it is clear that their analysis require expensive analytical techniques. Water authorities in Turkey are in need of assessing the likelihood of pesticide occurrence in groundwater in order to identify minimum number of pesticides that would be included in monitoring programs. To this purpose, the pesticides used in Turkey are ranked and those having higher leaching potentials are identified using pesticide screening leaching indexes.

Triclosan removal from surface water by ozonation - Kinetics and by-products formation.

Removal of triclosan from surface water by ozonation was investigated. The results showed that complete elimination of triclosan from a surface water bearing 1-5 mg/L triclosan via continuous ozonation at 5 mg/L, require an ozonation time of 20-30 min depending on pH. Triclosan oxidation followed pseudo-first order kinetics with an apparent reaction rate constant varying from 0.

Fate of triclosan in laboratory-scale activated sludge reactors - Effect of culture acclimation.

Triclosan (TCS); a widely used antimicrobial biocide, exists in several pharmaceutical and personal care products. Due to its wide usage, TCS is detected in wastewater at varying concentrations. Biological treatability of TCS and its effect on chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency were investigated running laboratory-scale pulse-fed sequencing batch reactors with acclimated and non-acclimated cultures.

Solid waste management scenarios for Cetinje in Montenegro.

This study presents the options for source-segregation and selective collection of recyclable waste fractions for Cetinje, Montenegro, with the aim of meeting the European Union 50% waste recycling target in 2023, and extending collection and disposal system that builds on the existing strengths of the city. To this end, three options were considered: (1) source separation and separate collection of dry recyclable materials and central sorting of residual waste; (2) source separation and collection of co-mingled dry recyclable materials, and central sorting in a clean material recovery facility of comingled recyclables and central sorting of residual waste; (3) collection of mixed waste (current situation) and subsequent central sorting. Scenarios 1 and 2 were found to meet the European Union 50% recycling target in 2023, provided that a fast implementation of the new separate collection schemes to fine sort the co-mingled collected recyclable materials is available.

Use of theoretical waste inventories in planning and monitoring of hazardous waste management systems.

Hazardous waste (HW) generation information is an absolute necessity for ensuring the proper planning, implementation, and monitoring of any waste management system. Unfortunately, environmental agencies in developing countries face difficulties in gathering data directly from the creators of such wastes. It is possible, however, to construct theoretical HW inventories using the waste generation factors (WGFs).

Challenges in development and implementation of health-risk-based soil quality guidelines: Turkey's experience.

Management of contaminated sites is a critical environmental issue around the world due to the human health risk involved for many sites and scarcity of funding. Moreover, clean-up costs of all contaminated sites to their background levels with existing engineering technologies may be financially infeasible and demand extended periods of operation time. Given these constraints, to achieve optimal utilization of available funds and prioritization of contaminated sites that need immediate attention, health-risk-based soil quality guidelines should be preferred over the traditional soil quality standards.

Adoption of European Union's IPPC Directive to a textile mill: analysis of water and energy consumption.

The present study was undertaken as part of the first application and evaluation of the BREF (Best Available Techniques; BAT Reference Document) Textile Document within the context of the European Union's Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive to a large scale textile mill in Turkey. The BAT requirements for the denim manufacturing textile mill were selected in cooperation with the factory management. Detailed mass balance calculations were conducted to evaluate the overall effect of the selected BAT options.

The growth behavior of Chlorella vulgaris in the presence of 4-chlorophenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol.

Toxicity of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) and 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) on the growth of Chlorella vulgaris was investigated in batch reactors. Results revealed that 4-CP did not adversely affect the growth of algae up to 20mg/L, however higher concentrations inhibited growth appreciably and no growth was detected at 100mg/L. 4-CP also caused some physiological changes in the algal cells as increasing initial 4-CP concentration caused a linear decrease in chlorophyll a (chl-a) content of the cell.

Biological treatment and nanofiltration of denim textile wastewater for reuse.

This study aims at coupling of activated sludge treatment with nanofiltration to improve denim textile wastewater quality to reuse criteria. In the activated sludge reactor, the COD removal efficiency was quite high as it was 91+/-2% and 84+/-4% on the basis of total and soluble feed COD, respectively. The color removal efficiency was 75+/-10%, and around 50-70% of removed color was adsorbed on biomass or precipitated within the reactor.

Modeling chlorophenols degradation in sequencing batch reactors with instantaneous feed-effect of 2,4-DCP presence on 4-CP degradation kinetics.

Two instantaneously fed sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), one receiving 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) (SBR4) only and one receiving mixture of 4-CP and 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) (SBRM), were operated with increasing chlorophenols concentrations in the feed. Complete degradation of chlorophenols and high-Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were observed throughout the reactors operation. Only a fraction of biomass (competent biomass) was thought to be responsible for the degradation of chlorophenols due to required unique metabolic pathways.

Occurrence of disinfection by-products in low DOC surface waters in Turkey.

A total of 29 surface waters from different regions of Turkey were sampled once a month during 2004. Filtered raw water samples were characterized, chlorinated and the concentrations of disinfection by-products (DBPs) were measured. All waters were low in DOC ranging from 0.

Biodegradation kinetics of 2,4-dichlorophenol by acclimated mixed cultures.

The biodegradation kinetics of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) by culture (Culture M) acclimated to mixture of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) and 2,4-DCP and the culture (Culture 4) acclimated to 4-CP only were investigated in aerobic batch reactors. Also, pure strains isolated from mixed cultures were searched for their ability towards the biodegradation of 2,4-DCP. Culture 4 was able to completely degrade 2,4-DCP up to 80 mg/L within 30 h and removal efficiency dropped to 21% upon increasing initial concentration to 108.

Effect of feeding time on the performance of a sequencing batch reactor treating a mixture of 4-CP and 2,4-DCP.

This paper investigated the biodegradation kinetics of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) and 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) separately in batch reactors and mixed in sequencing batch reactors (SBRs). Batch reactor experiments showed that both 4-CP and 2,4-DCP began to inhibit their own degradation at 53 and 25 mg l(-1), respectively, and that the Haldane equation gave a good fit to the experimental data because r(2) values were higher than 0.98.

Effect of biogenic substrate concentration on 4-chlorophenol degradation kinetics in sequencing batch reactors with instantaneous feed.

Two sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) instantaneously fed with 200 mg/l 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) were operated at different feed peptone concentrations to investigate the effect of biogenic substrate (peptone) concentrations on reactor performance, yield coefficient (Y) and 4-CP degradation kinetics. One of the reactors was operated at 10 days of sludge retention time (SRT) and the other was operated at 20 days of SRT. High chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies (90-95%) and complete 4-CP removals (detection limit was 0.

Importance of H(2)O(2)/Fe(2+) ratio in Fenton's treatment of a carpet dyeing wastewater.

The effectiveness of the Fenton's reagent (H(2)O(2)/Fe(2+)) in the treatment of carpet dyeing wastewater was investigated under different operational conditions, namely, H(2)O(2) and FeSO(4) concentrations, initial pH and temperature. Up to 95% COD removal efficiency was attained using 5.5 g/l FeSO(4) and 385 g/l H(2)O(2) at a pH of 3, temperature of 50 degrees C.

Use of Fenton oxidation to improve the biodegradability of a pharmaceutical wastewater.

The applicability of Fenton's oxidation to improve the biodegradability of a pharmaceutical wastewater to be treated biologically was investigated. The wastewater was originated from a factory producing a variety of pharmaceutical chemicals. Treatability studies were conducted under laboratory conditions with all chemicals (having COD varying from 900 to 7000 mg/L) produced in the factory in order to determine the operational conditions to utilize in the full-scale treatment plant.

Biodegradation of 4-chlorophenol by acclimated and unacclimated activated sludge--evaluation of biokinetic coefficients.

Unacclimated and acclimated activated sludges were examined for their ability to degrade 4-CP (4-chlorophenol) in the presence and absence of a readily growing substrate using aerobic batch reactors. The effects of 4-CP on the micro (specific growth rate), COD removal efficiency, Y (yield coefficient), and q (specific substrate utilization rate) were investigated. It was observed that the toxicity of 4-CP on the culture decreased remarkably after acclimation.

Effect of biogenic substrate concentration on the performance of sequencing batch reactor treating 4-CP and 2,4-DCP mixtures.

Effect of a biogenic substrate (peptone) concentration on the performance of sequencing batch reactor (SBR) treating 220 mg/l 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) and 110 mg/l 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) mixtures was investigated. In this context, peptone concentration was gradually decreased from 300 mg/l to null in which chlorophenols were fed to the reactor as sole carbon and energy sources. By this way, the effect of peptone concentration on observed yield coefficient (Y), biomass concentration, chlorophenols and COD removal performances were investigated.

Trihalomethanes and associated potential cancer risks in the water supply in Ankara, Turkey.

The occurrence of trihalomethanes (THMs) in the water supply in the Ankara, Turkey was investigated. Total THMs and total organic carbon measurements were carried seasonally in the samples collected form 22 different districts along with the samples taken from the Ivedik Water Treatment Plant serving 90% of the city. The average summer nonpurgeable organic carbon (NPOC) concentration in the raw water was 4.