A study of organic compounds that caused a serious taste and odor episode of water supply in two residential areas in Catalonia (N.E. Spain) was carried out.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the last years, the human probable carcinogen 1,4-dioxane and alkyl-1,3-dioxanes and dioxolanes have been detected and identified as the cause of several pollution episodes in the Llobregat River (Catalonia, NE Spain) and its aquifer. It is an issue of major concern to study these compounds which are released to the environment by resin manufacturing plants' spills and wastewater discharges spread along rivers and reach drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) in order to protect the environment and public health. In this study four seasonal sampling campaigns were carried out over a year to determine the removal efficiency of the dioxanes and dioxolanes at each step of a DWTP including ozonation, granular activated carbon filters, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis step's treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn nuclear medicine radionuclides are administered to patients both for diagnosis or treatment. Subsequently, the excreta from patients, enriched in radionuclides, enter the sewerage networks and reach wastewater treatment plants (TPs). Characterization of inflow wastewaters, sewage effluents and sewage sludges in the seven different urban WWTPs in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (BMA) has been done and I, Tc, In, Ga and I concentrations were determined by gamma-spectroscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe overall liking for taste of water was correlated with the mineral composition of selected bottled and tap waters. Sixty-nine untrained volunteers assessed and rated twenty-five different commercial bottled and tap waters from. Water samples were physicochemical characterised by analysing conductivity, pH, total dissolved solids (TDS) and major anions and cations: HCO, SO, Cl, NO, Ca, Mg, Na, and K.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemometric analysis was performed on two sets of sensory data obtained from two separate studies. Twenty commercially-available bottled mineral water samples (from the first study) and twenty-five drinking tap and bottled water samples (from the second study) were blind tasted by trained panelists. The panelists expressed their overall liking of the water samples by rating from 0 (worst flavor) to 10 (best flavor).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA performance study of diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was applied for the monitoring of the labile fraction of metals Al, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn, in Sant Joan Despí Drinking Water Treatment Plant located in the South of Barcelona's Metropolitan Area (Spain). The DWTP monitoring protocol was optimized by working for 1 day of deployment (24 h) with the DGT device in contact with both treated and river water matrixes. Additionally, it was demonstrated that an increase in the deployment time of 1 week did not decrease the evaluated concentrations of the studied metals.
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