Publications by authors named "Zehra S Can"

The development of biobased polymeric materials for wastewater purification has become a demand due to the growing need for water free of hazardous metal ions for safe purposes. The organic components of the OLLW including carbohydrates, phenolics, aromatic acids and others are cost-effective and sustainable choices for this application. This work focuses on a method for turning the organic components of liquid waste from the olive industry (OILW) into a foam-based value-added polymer that has several metal ion binding sites.

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Contamination in water is due to various environmental pollutants from natural and anthropogen activities. To remove toxic metals from contaminated water, we developed a novel adsorbent in foam form based on an olive industry waste material. The foam synthesis involved oxidation of cellulose extracted from the waste to dialdehyde, functionalization of the cellulose dialdehyde with an amino acid group, reacting the functionalized cellulose with hexamethylene diisocyanate and p-phenylene diisocyanate to produce the target polyurethanes Cell-F-HMDIC and Cell-F-PDIC, respectively.

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In this work, we present a process for converting olive industry solid waste (OISW) into a value-added material with ionic receptors for use in the removal of toxic metal ions from wastewater. This 3D polymer is a promising adsorbent for large-scale application, since it is a low-cost material made from agricultural waste and showed exceptional performance. The synthesis of the network polymer involved the carboxymethylation of OISW and curing of the carboxymethylated OISW at an elevated temperature to promote the formation of ester linkages between OISW's components.

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Surface water is one of the primary sources for drinking, irrigation, and industrial activities in Ergene River, Turkey. However, its quality has deteriorated due to the point and non-point pollution sources. Therefore, an appropriate assessment of surface water quality is very important.

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Wastewater (WW) carry considerable amount of chemicals that could have mutagenic or cytotoxic effect from hospital discharges to aquatic environment. Our objective was to determinate the possible mutagenic and toxic effects of hospital originated WWs and effectiveness of the wastewater treatment plants (WTP) functions. In the study the mutagenic and cytotoxic potential of three hospitals and influent/effluent of a treatment plant WW collected in Istanbul and was examined using AMES, XTT, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assays.

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In this study, the potential use of phosphonated Halomonas Levan (PhHL) as a natural and cost effective adsorbent for Bisphenol A (BPA), was systematically investigated via the study of the adsorption equilibrium, kinetics, and reuse potential as well as the interpretation of adsorption mechanism. The effects of pH and temperature on the adsorption were also evaluated. The maximum amount of BPA adsorbed on the unit weight of PhHL was determined as 104.

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Levan is a fructan type polysaccharide that has long been considered as an industrially important biopolymer however its limited availability is mainly due to the bottlenecks associated with its large-scale production. To overcome such bottlenecks in the commercialization of this very promising polysaccharide, co-production of levan with polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) by halophilic Halomonas smyrnensis cultures has been proposed in this study for the first time. After in silico and in vitro assessment of PHA accumulation, fermentation profiles for levan and PHA concentrations were obtained in the presence of sucrose and glucose and the PHA granules observed by TEM were found to be poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) after detailed structural characterization by GC-MS, DSC, FTIR and NMR.

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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).

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The objective of this study was to predict the number of refrigerators containing CFC-11 blown isolation foam and the amount of CFC-11 banked in these refrigerators. By using a Weibull-based survival function, the number of CFC-11 containing and still-functioning refrigerators was estimated to be approximately 1.6 million in 2013 in Turkey.

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Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) are exogenous substances that cause adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, subsequent to the changes in endocrine function. Recent studies have shown that wastewater treatment plant effluents play an important role in the release of EDCs into aquatic environments. Therefore, in this study, influent and effluent samples from three different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Istanbul were analysed for the presence of the principal EDCs.

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