This study examines the impact of multiple operational parameters on the degradation efficiency of the reactive blue 19 (RB19) dye during non-thermal plasma treatment. Electrical conductivity was examined simultaneously with other parameters, an aspect rarely addressed in previous plasma-based studies. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to determine the optimal conditions for dye degradation, encompassing dye concentration, applied voltage, pH, electrical conductivity, and solution volume. The results showed that a dye concentration of 30 mg/L, an applied voltage of 50 kV, a pH of 4, a conductivity of 0.045 mS/cm, and a solution volume of 10 mL achieved the highest degradation efficiency of approximately 100%. Kinetic analysis verified that RB19 degradation adheres to a second-order kinetic model, with notable interactions observed among the operational parameters. The energy efficiency for RB19 dye degradation decreases with increasing cold plasma treatment time; at a constant voltage of 50 kV, it decreases by 47% as treatment time increases from 3 to 6 min. Testing tert-butanol (TBA) and p-benzoquinone (BQ) scavengers to evaluate the effectiveness of OH• and O2•- radicals, it was concluded that the hydroxyl radical has a greater effect on the degradation of RB19. COD and TOC reductions of 50% and 29%, respectively, during the plasma oxidation process indicate that, beyond RB19 dye removal, partial mineralization of organic content was achieved.

This study examines the potential of light-transmitting concrete to reduce energy consumption in building construction. A series of tests, including compressive strength and light transmittance assessments, were conducted, alongside modeling a residential building using building information modeling software. Light-transmitting concrete samples were prepared using single-mode optical fibers, plastic optical fibers, and waste-tempered glass. The results demonstrated that light-transmitting concrete with 1% volumetric single-mode optical fibers achieved a 28-day compressive strength of 39.2 MPa and 2% light transmission. Light-transmitting concrete containing 5% volumetric plastic optical fibers also showed 5.88% light transmission and a 28-day compressive strength of 44.89 MPa. The sample incorporating 14% by weight of broken tempered glass exhibited a compressive strength of 51.1 MPa with 1.15% light transmission. A two-story residential building (1200 m2) in Tehran was analyzed in the modeling phase, integrating light-transmitting concrete blocks in a residential building, while solar panels are considered only as a complementary reference for contextual energy and economic evaluation. Energy analysis and return on investment calculations revealed that the optimal setup involved a combination of light-transmitting concrete, conventional concrete, with an estimated return on investment period of 5.22 years. Finally, an economic analysis is performed to demonstrate how integrating a photovoltaic system can offset the higher initial cost of LTC blocks, reducing the payback period to a feasible range.

The seismic resilience of water distribution networks (WDNs) as the most critical urban infrastructure is a major aspect of crisis management. Developing accurate computational models to evaluate the seismic behavior of WDNs and enhance seismic resilience remains a major research challenge. This paper introduces a novel model to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of WDNs through an artificial neural network (ANN) approach. To generate initial data to develop the seismic damage prediction model, extensive numerical modeling was performed using commercially available software to extract the strain behavior of buried pipes under seismic loading. A total of 720 numerical simulations were performed. The numerical model was validated using an experimental model. The results showed that the numerical model had an error smaller than 10% in evaluating the strain behavior of buried pipes, suggesting satisfactory model performance. This paper used a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (LMA) because it has shown good performance in regression applications. The sensitivity of the proposed model to the number of hidden layers was analyzed, and the MLP with 15 hidden layers was found to be optimal in predicting the strain of the buried pipe under seismic loading, with a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.301 and a correlation coefficient R=0.969. The proposed seismic damage prediction model was executed on the WDN of Tehran, Iran, based on the initial data set under five seismic loading scenarios, calculating the numbers of breaks and leaks. The seismic resilience of the WDN was evaluated using damage, minimum water demand, and restoration time indices. Several strategies were proposed to enhance the seismic resilience of WDNs. The developed seismic resilience assessment model in this study has the capability to be applied and implemented across other WDNs.

The presence of antibiotic residues in water bodies has become a serious environmental concern due to their persistence and ability to cause bacterial resistance. Traditional water treatment methods are often ineffective at completely degrading these pollutants, highlighting the need to investigate more effective remediation methods. In this study, the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin, a widely used fluoroquinolone antibiotic, was investigated using a novel heterogeneous composite of g-C3N4, CeO2, and Fe3O4 under simulated sunlight irradiation. The composite was synthesized and thoroughly characterized using SEM, EDX, TEM, XRD, BET, PL, RIS, and FT-IR analysis to validate its structural and morphological properties. The effects of key operational parameters, including composite concentration, CeO2 weight percentage, pH, and H2O2 concentration, on photocatalytic performance were investigated. Among all the synthesized composites, the sample with a 0.75:0.75:1 wt ratio (designated as F0.75C0.75 G) displayed the highest photocatalytic activity, achieving a ciprofloxacin removal efficiency of 97.5 % within 180 min. The ternary composite outperformed individual components (g-C3N4, CeO2) and binary composites (g-C3N4/CeO2) due to enhanced charge separation and extended light absorption. In addition, recyclability tests confirmed that the composite maintained high degradation efficiency even after five cycles, highlighting its stability. The treated solution demonstrated excellent biocompatibility, as evidenced by improved lentil seed germination. These findings presents a cost-effective and sustainable approach for the degradation of pharmaceutical pollutants in water resources, offering a promising solution for environmental remediation.

The population has increased in recent decades, and as a result, the increase in urban wastewater has led to many environmental problems. In this study, the environmental impacts of the Southern Tehran treatment plant were assessed via life cycle assessment (LCA) (SimaPro 9.4.0.2). The information needed for the LCA to be input to the system from the studied treatment plant for 12 months during the year 2022 was gathered from the database and analyzed using the Recepie method. The results of the final effects group showed that in both scenarios, damage to human health, the ecosystem and resource destruction were the most sensitive. A comparison of the final effects of the first and second scenarios revealed that reusing wastewater for irrigation on the Varamin Plain was a more environmentally friendly method, and discharging treated wastewater into receiving water was the worst. Although the use of treated wastewater and digested sludge for agricultural land may save a significant amount of water, it has significant adverse effects on carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic toxicity in humans due to the presence of heavy metals and has a negative effect on global warming.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the economics and optimize the electrocoagulation process for the treatment of a real wastewater sample from oil refining with an initial COD of 406 mg/L using scrap aluminum as perforated electrodes (anode and cathode) and solar energy received by the solar panel to provide the electricity required for the process. Electrolysis time (0 to 60 min), current density (6.98 to 34.9 A/m2), and electrode spacing (1 to 5 cm) were investigated using the response surface methodology, while central square design was used to determine the optimal experimental conditions. The experimental results indicate the significance of slectrode spacing, in addition to current density, which is directly dependent on the number and size of holes created on the electrode. Economic evaluations indicate the possibility of using scrap aluminum as a replacement for regular aluminum, which led to savings in operating costs. Finally, the optimal conditions for conducting experiments were obtained with an electrolysis time of 48 min, a current density of 92.27 A/m2, and an electrode distance of 2 cm. Under these conditions, the COD and TDS removal percentages were 70 and 15.3%, respectively, which is relatively in line with the predictions of the designed model (68.7 and 15.1 percent, respectively). According to the calculations made in this study, and considering the costs required to provide solar energy with the current energy price in Iran (Tehran), the use of solar energy to provide the energy needed for the electrocoagulation process on a small scale is not recommended. One of the main reasons for the inefficiency of solar energy use on a smaller scale is the low cost of industrial electricity in the country.

As emerging organic agricultural pollutants, carbamate pesticides can react with other contaminants in aquatic environments to produce new toxic compounds threatening aquatic life and ecosystems. This study introduces a novel, nonhazardous, and greener method to synthesize a cross-linked ZnO/αFe2O3 nano-photocatalyst to treat carbamate pesticides via ball milling. ZnO/αFe2O3 was characterized through various methods, including XRD, EDX, XRF, DRS, BET, FE-SEM, PL, and FTIR analyses. Using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM), the ability of ZnO/αFe2O3 nano-photocatalyst to remove carbamate from synthesized wastewater was assessed. The BET result indicated a decrease in the diameter of the nanocomposite size after the synthesis. At the same time, the BET surface area and total pores increased from 4.9871 m2.g−1 and 0.02806 cm3.g−1 to 6.8524 m2.g−1 and 0.069497 cm3.g−1, respectively. In addition, the band-gap energy decreased from 3.179 eV for ZnO to 1.907 eV for ZnO/αFe2O3 and eventually reached 1.878 eV for heat-treated ZnO/αFe2O3 nanocomposite. The catalyst concentrations used in the experiments were 0.5, 1, and 1.5 g/L. The solution pH was set to 5, 8, and 11, and three different residence times of 1, 2, and 3 h were used. The model’s results indicated a strong agreement between the experimental and predicted data (R2 = 0.99). When the nanocomposite’s concentration, pH, and retention time were set at 1 g/L ZnO/αFe2O3, 8.51, and 3 h respectively, the optimized conditions predicted a removal efficiency of 89

The rapid growth of industrialization has led to the uncontrolled pollution of the environment, and rapid action is needed. This study synthesized Ag/TiO2/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nano photocatalyst for promising light-derived photocatalytic removal of heavy metal ions. The design of experiment (DOE) was used to study the effect of important factors (pH, reaction time, and photocatalyst dosage) to maximize the final performance of the photocatalyst. In the optimized condition, the Ag/TiO2/PVA nano-photocatalyst removed more than 94% of Cr6+ in 180 min, and the efficiency was more than 70% for Cu2+, Zn2+, and Ni2+ metal ions. The adsorption of the heavy metal ions on the photocatalyst was described well with the Langmuir isotherm, while the pseudo-second-order linear kinetic model fitted with the experimental data. The nano-photocatalyst's stability was confirmed after maintaining its performance for five successive runs. The enhanced photocatalytic activity for the heavy metal ions removal can be attributed to the presence of metallic silver nanoparticles (electron transfer and plasmonic fields mechanisms) and PVA, which delayed the recombination of electron–hole. The synthesized ternary Ag/TiO2/PVA nano-photocatalyst showed promising performance for the elimination of heavy metal ions and can be used for environmental remediation purposes.

Thin film nanocomposite (TFN) reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes have attracted considerable attention for industrial applications in recent years. Among recent nanomaterials used in the fabrication of TFN membranes, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have gained significant interest due to their unique structure (e.g., tubular shape, mechanical strength, porosity, etc.). Here, the effects of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with different functional groups as one of the well proven nanchannel structures and their interaction with two typical monomers, MPD and PIP, were thoroughly investigated. All fabricated membranes were analysed using SEM, FTIR, AFM and contact angle analyzer. Pressure variation significantly affected the performance of membranes over 24hours of testing. The membranes incorporated with polypyrrole (PPy) modified MWCNTs showed promising results with nearly 37% and 99% water flux improvement for the TFN-RO and NF membranes, respectively, compared to the bare (unmodified) TFC RO/NF membranes. Specifically, the water flux of the RO OX-MWCNTs-PPy membrane increased from 18.9 to 25.5L.m-2.h-1, while the NF OX-MWCNTs-PPy membrane's water flux rose from 45.2 to 90.1L.m-2.h-1. The salt rejection of RO and NF remained relatively high, with over 90% salt rejection against NaCl and Na2SO4 for RO and NF membranes. The NF OX-MWCNTs-PPy membrane exhibited a 98.2% rejection rate for Na2SO4, and the RO OX-MWCNTs-PPy membrane showed around a 98.8% rejection rate for NaCl. The TFN membranes showed less fouling tendency compared to the TFC membranes. In general, the integration of MWCNTs with various functional groups significantly enhanced the water flux and salt rejection properties of these membranes. Specifically, the modified membranes showed considerable improvements in water flux and maintained high salt rejection rates. Additionally, the interaction between MWCNTs and PIP monomers in TFN-NF membranes exhibited a stronger affinity compared to MPD monomers in TFN-RO membranes, indicating a more promising performance for NF applications. The findings suggest that TFN-NF membranes incorporating MWCNTs hold great promise for future industrial use, offering enhanced performance and reduced fouling rates.

The present study aimed to produce specimens made from steel fibers/metakaolin (SFs/MK) composite concrete that would achieve superior strength characteristics and controlled cracking behavior under aggressive media (i. e. sodium sulfate and sodium chloride). The composite of SF and concrete is full of porosity, creating weak zone in the specimens. Therefore, the use of clay materials is required to reduce the porosity. In this context, the general physical and chemical properties of clay, including structure and the percentage of alumina and quartz, play a significant role in forming composites with suitable mechanical properties. The changes in weight of SFs, effects of the aging period in terms of strength, and effect of aggressive solution are investigated and compared with SF reinforced concrete. The findings from N2 adsorption-desorption, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and compressive strength tests indicate that MK with disordered stacking and higher percentage of alumina, and lower quartz content provides better bonding in the concrete composite. According to the experiments conducted in this study, a 15.0 % MK and 2.0 % SF replacement of cement increased the sulfate and chloride resistance due to porosity, and water absorption values, respectively.

This study assessed the vulnerability of groundwater resources to the failure of the urban fuel distribution network under an earthquake. A case study of the Tehran, Iran, gas distribution network and the Tehran-Karaj Plain aquifer was conducted. To assess the seismic vulnerability of buried fuel pipelines in Tehran based on the fuel distribution network components, three possible earthquake scenarios were studied. To assess damage to the pipeline, a comprehensive model was developed using machine learning (ML). This model can assess and predict damage to a fuel pipeline and its type (i.e., leakage or full breakage). Moreover, aquifer contamination was assessed using the DRASTIC model. It was found that the ML-based pipeline seismic vulnerability assessment model had good performance in predicting seismic damage to the fuel distribution network, with a RMS error (RMSE) and a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.004 and 0.99, respectively. The results showed that the presented model had an acceptable efficiency in assessing the probability of seismic vulnerability of the buried pipeline and analyzing the pollution of the aquifer based on different earthquake scenarios. The developed groundwater seismic vulnerability assessment model can be used for further analysis in future research. Earthquakes are one of the most important natural disasters, and have caused widespread financial, human, and environmental losses in different regions of the world, especially in seismic areas. The existence of faults and the possible deterioration of buried pipes makes earthquake crisis and its serious damage to humans and the environment more severe. One of the most important threats in this situation is the contamination of underground water with hydrocarbon substances due to leakage from the fuel transmission network. In this research, to evaluate the pollution of the aquifer due to the damage to the fuel transmission network, we developed a model using the machine learning method to analyze the vulnerability of the buried pipeline. The DRASTIC model also was used to evaluate aquifer pollution. To evaluate the presented model, the fuel transmission network and aquifer of Tehran, Iran, were studied. The results indicated acceptable performance of the proposed model for assessing the seismic vulnerability of groundwater. The presented model can be used for other areas.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for the analysis of all environmental impacts associated with a product or system. The objective of our study was to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of Anaerobic-Anoxic-Oxic (A2O) and Extended Aeration Activated Sludge (EAAS) systems of the activated sludge treatment plant for urban wastewater treatments (in Tehran) using the LCA method, as well as to compare the differences of Simapro and Gabi software results. The LCA was carried out using Simapro 9.3.0.2 software, including CML-IA baseline, BEES+, and IMPACT 2002 + assessment methods. Also, the results obtained from the CML method of SimaPro software were compared and validated with the results obtained from the GaBi 9.21.68 software. The results indicated that using the SimaPro software, including CML, and BEES + methods, the Ekbatan Wastewater Treatment (A2O system) has the 6

In this study, a non-thermal dielectric barrier discharge-Fenton/photo-Fenton process was investigated to remove phenol from synthetic wastewater. The changes and optimal values of influencing parameters, including treatment time, iron concentration, phenol initial concentration, and pH, were investigated based on the central composite design (CCD) method. The presence of 0.4 mmol/L of iron in the phenol solution with a concentration of 100 mg/L increased the removal efficiency and pseudo-first-order kinetic constant compared to dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma (DBDP) alone from 0.0824 min−1 and 56.8% to 0.2078 min−1 and 86.83%, respectively. The phenol removal efficiency was reduced to 52.9%, 45.6% and 31.8% by adding tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) with concentrations of 50, 100, and 200 mg/l, respectively. After 12 min of DBDP irradiation, the pH of the sample decreased from 5.95 to 3.42, and the temperature of the sample increased from 19.3 to 37.2 degrees Celsius. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the sample containing 100 mg/L phenol under plasma-Fenton/photo-Fenton irradiation decreased from 241 mg/L to 161 mg/L. Phenol removal efficiency after 10 min of treatment in the presence of 0.4 mmol/L of iron with the reactor volume of 50 mL was 87%, but the efficiency decreased to 76%, 47%, and 9% by increasing the volume to 100, 200, and 400 mL, respectively. Reducing the power led to a decrease in the removal efficiency from 56.8% for 100 W power to 10.8% for 40 W. The energy efficiency for 50% removal by DBDP and plasma-Fenton/photo-Fenton systems was 5.86×10−3 kWh/mg and 1.27×10−3 kWh/mg, respectively.

The current study aimed to investigate the performance of porous concrete (PC) with varying percentages of fly ash and slag in order to enhance the quality of municipal storm water and wastewater. Firstly, the study examined the impact of incorporating different proportions (10

The building construction sector is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gases (GHG), especially CO 2 emissions, and final energy consumption among all industries. Industrial production of building materials such as steel and cement and the use of traditional construction methods exacerbate these environmental issues. In Iran, most of the buildings are still traditionally built, which consume a lot of energy and emit a lot of pollutants into the air. This research aims to investigate the impact of two distinct construction methods, namely the cast in situ (CIS) concrete system and the industrialized building system (IBS), on GHG emissions and embodied energy consumption within the context of Tehran City. Notably, this study represents the first attempt to explore the relationship between air pollution in Iran's metropolises and construction methods. IBS, which originated in Malaysia, is considered as an alternative method, while CIS represents the conventional approach. To achieve this goal, by means of a scientific approach based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) tool, the life cycle of each of the selected construction methods in the stages of preparation of materials and the main construction process was meticulously modeled in the software called GaBi. The results showed that the IBS method, during the initial phase of material preparation, exhibited embodied energy and global warming potential (GWP) values of 3089.23 MJ and 145.63 kg CO 2 -eq, respectively. Significantly, these values demonstrated a reduction of 38.2 and 18.43 percent in comparison with those associated with the CIS technique. During the construction phase, the aforesaid parameters of the IBS method were evaluated to be 27.15% and 3.08% lower than those of the CIS method and were determined to be 812.33 MJ and 58.6 kg CO 2 -eq, respectively. By comparing IBS and CIS methods, it was concluded that the use of the IBS method yields superior outcomes with regard to GWP and embodied energy and the long-term advantages of industrialization can significantly justify its high costs.

In this research, the existence of Ce-ZnO and g-C3N4 was confirmed by XRD, FTIR, SEM, and TEM tests, and EDAX analysis approved the synthesized nanocomposite components as well. Also, BET analysis specified the g-C3N4/Ce-ZnO surface area = 181.08 m2/g and pore size = 35.858 nm, and the bandgap = 2.59 eV was determined by DRS test. The central composite design method optimized the components of nanoparticles, Zinc Nitrate = 280.2 mg, Cerium Nitrate = 17.5 mg, and g-C3N4 = 232.4 mg. The wastewater COD decreased 88 %, and 52 % under sunlight simulated irradiation and direct sunlight irradiation, respectively, by g-C3N4/Ce-ZnO at optimum conditions.

In this study, the hybrid process of the heterogeneous catalyst of CuO/O-gC3N4/dielectric barrier discharge is utilized to destruct aqueous dye solution. To recognize the property of the synthesized catalyst, a range of optical, morphological, electrochemical, and textural experiments were conducted. The experimental lab phase is comparatively completed between sole dielecteric barrier discharge reactor and combined with catalyst process for tartrazine aqueous dye removal. The variations of initial pH, pollutant concentration, catalyst concentration and flow regime were investigated. The research findings represent the best result for both processes obtained at a pH = 3, catalyst dosage of 800 mg/L, intensity power of 13.5 kV, and initial dye concentration of 10 mg/L. The addition of nanocomposite into the dielectric barrier discharge reactor strengthens the charge flux and increase radical generation within plasma medium for the degradation improvement. The radical scavenger investigation of process mechanism introduces OH as the key degradation radical for the dielectric barrier discharge reactor alone and combined with catalyst that are effectively involved through the entire processes, respectively.

Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are an available solution for the rapid growth of the water pollution problem. In the present study, the process of UV-LED/WO3 and plasma was comparatively studied to remove reactive blue 19. The photocatalyst process efficiency was analyzed by statistical Taguchi model. The effect of experimental variables of contact time, pH, catalyst dosage, and pollutant dosage was investigated and found that the model is able to explain the process due to the high value of R > 95%, and the optimum condition was at 10 mg/L of dye concentration, 1g/L of catalyst, and 180 min of detention time in which over 75% of degradation was achieved. Based on the model, the more reaction time would increase the reactor performance, while further excessive increase of catalyst dosage over 1 g/L would deteriorate the performance. Obviously, the least amount of pollutant is the most favorable for the treatment reactor. Using plasma process for dye degradation was the next step of the research. Accordingly, the removal rate achieved over 90% of 10 mg/L of initial industrial dye in durational time of 4 min, input voltage 13.5 kV, and pH = 2. The results showed the higher oxidizing capacity of plasma than the conventional photocatalyst process.

The aim of this study was to treat reactive blue 19 (RB 19) in solution by electrocoagulation (EC) process, using aluminum cathodes modified by zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs). Cyclic voltammetry methodology (CVM) was used to investigate the effect of coating aluminum electrodes with ZnO-NPs. The response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to evaluate and optimize the variables and the response, which was dye removal efficiency. The economic and energy analyses confirmed that this process was a promising method for pretreatment and treatment of industrial textile wastewater.

Plasma is a subgroup of advanced oxidation technology (AOP) that has received considerable attention. It is currently being used to degrade persistent pollutants and inactivate organisms in environmental bodies. The objective of the present study is to decolorize tatrtrazine aqueous dye solution using cold atmospheric plasma technology. The main parameters selected for the study were initial dye concentration (4-20 mg/L), pH of the solution (2.2-9), input AC voltage (70-110), treatment time (10-30 minutes), and the electrode distance, which was kept at 8 mm throughout the experiment. The primary parameters investigated through the optimization tool of response surface methodology (RSM) software were color concentration, solution pH (2.2-9.4), power supply voltage (70-110 V), and detention time (10-30 minutes). The experimental reactor had a capacity of 15 ml. The color removal study of the plasma process showed that the optimal condition occurred at an initial concentration of 14 mg/L, voltage of 86 V, pH = 4.1, and plasma irradiation time of 18.7 minutes, resulting in a color removal percentage of 99.78%. According to half-life and efficiency yield calculations, the process was suitable for application in water pollution decontamination, with the lowest half-life achieved at the optimum condition (1.18) and the highest efficiency yield (108.3 mg/Kwh). The results extracted from the quadratic model illustrate the direct effect of retention time and initial voltage and the inverse effect of pH and initial concentration of industrial dye on the removal efficiency. The contact time had the major influence on efficiency via its coefficient in the model equation, while among interactive parameters, pH and contact time had the most interactive influence on the process. The reaction rate could also be described by the first-order kinetic model with an R2 value of over 95%.