Photodegradation applied to the treatment of phenol and derived substances catalyzed by TiO2/BiPO4 and biological toxicity analysis.

For this work, a phenol solution model was treated by an advanced oxidation process (AOPs), using the heterogeneous catalyst TiO2/BiPO4 and hydrogen peroxide combined with UVA for 240 min. An annular reactor containing a UVA lamp (80 W) was employed. A central composite rotacional design was developed employing a TiO2/BiPO4 concentration of 87 mg L-1 and a hydrogen peroxide concentration of 1800 mg L-1, being evaluated by the degradation percentage and phenol mineralization percentage as responses; 94.30 and 67.00 % were obtained for the phenol degradation and total organic carbon (TOC) conversion, respectively. The lumped kinetic model (LKM) was applied and a satisfactory profile of the residual fractions of the organic compounds present in the liquid phase as a time function with a determination coefficient (R 2 = 0.9945). The toxicity tests employing microbiological species indicated that the organisms tested for the evaluation of the toxic compounds present in the contaminated samples presented a practical low cost test, rapid execution, and high sensibility as an indicator of the presence of toxic substances in liquid effluents.

Adsorption of azo dyes using peanut hull and orange peel: a comparative study.

This work proposes the use of agro-industrial wastes, specifically peanut hull (HP) and orange peel (OP), as adsorbents for dyes, such as Remazol Golden Yellow RNL-150% (RYG), Gray Reactive BF-2R (RG) and Reactive Turquoise Q-G125 (RT). Characterization by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller indicates that the adsorbents are mesoporous, with pHzpc values of 5.0 for HP and 4.0 for OP. Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy identified carbonyl and sulphonic groups. The initial pH of the best-adsorbing solution of the three colours was 2.0. Increasing the concentration of the adsorbent promoted an increase in the percentage of removal until saturation of the adsorbent. In a factorial design, the largest value of q was obtained with 0.25 g of the adsorbent, with a particle size of < 0.4 mm and a stirring speed of 300 rpm. Such conditions were used in kinetic studies and studies of adsorption equilibrium. The evolution kinetics were rapid in the first few minutes, and after 180 min the system reached equilibrium. The kinetic model that best fit the experimental data to a 95% confidence level for the F test was the pseudo-second-order model for RYG/HP, RG/OP and RT/OP. There was no significant difference between the kinetic models as evaluated by the F test for RYG/OP, RG/HP and RT/HP. The experimental results indicated favourable dye adsorption characteristics for the adsorbents studied. The results of the F test showed that for RYG and RG, there was no significant difference between the two evaluated models. This study suggests that HP and OP are viable alternatives for the treatment of effluents containing RYG, RG and RT dyes.

Potassium permanganate oxidation of phenanthrene and pyrene in contaminated soils.

Potassium permanganate, widely used in water treatment, has shown its applicability to reduce PAH contamination in groundwater and soils. The first stage to design a treatment at the site scale is the feasibility study at the bench scale, generally performed by means of batch experiments. The aim of the present contribution was to investigate the influence of two factors on PAH degradation in spiked soils, following the method of factorial designs. These factors were the weight ratio KMnO(4)/PAH and the reaction time. Three factorial designs were performed and batch experiments were run to study the degradation of phenanthrene and pyrene on soils spiked at different concentrations, between 700 and 2100 mg kg(-1). We showed that treatment with potassium permanganate significantly reduced PAH concentration, but pyrene was more recalcitrant than phenanthrene. Both variables had negative main effects and a positive two-factor interaction effect: increasing the weight ratio or the reaction time enhanced PAH degradation but the reduction produced by the two factors was lower than the sum of the individual contributions. The comparison of these results with results that we published previously under comparable conditions showed that Fenton's reagent was more efficient than potassium permanganate.

Extraction and recovery of chromium from electroplating sludge.

This work reports a study of the extraction and recovery of chromium from the wastes (class I dangerous) generated by a galvanic manufacturer. Commercial HCl at room temperature was employed, and the conditions of the extraction process were optimized according to a sequential experimental design, which also included the acid concentration and contact time as variables. The best extraction conditions (80% v/v; 30 min; 97.6% Cr) for the chromic sludge were chosen in order to make the recovery process economically feasible. After each extraction, the residue was submitted to leaching essays, to assess environmental risks. It was found that sludge could be characterized as no longer dangerous. In the recovery study, a simple and low-cost technique was evaluated for selectivity based on an oxidation step with hydrogen peroxide. A 2(3) factorial design to assess the influence of oxidation time (min), temperature ( degrees C) and peroxide amount (mol/L) was employed. The best conditions, yielding a chromium recovery of about 92%, were a time of 60 min, a temperature of 60 degrees C and 2.1 mol/L peroxide. Additional essays revealed that the same result could be obtained with more economic conditions (40 min, 1.4 mol/L peroxide and 60 degrees C). This technique proved not only effective in comparison with existing alternatives, but also low costing.

A flow-batch internal standard procedure for iron determination in hydrated ethanol fuel by flame atomic absorption spectrometry.

A flow-batch manifold coupled to a flame atomic absorption spectrometer was evaluated to assess the iron content by the internal standard method in hydrated ethanol used as fuel in automotive industry. For this assessment official methods require calibration procedures with matrix matching, making it difficult to obtain accurate results for samples adulterated by the addition of water. Nickel was selected as the internal standard since it is usually absent in samples and because it requires similar conditions of atomization. After procedure optimization, which requires about 4.25mL of sample and standard per measurement, it was possible to get linear analytical response for iron concentrations between 0.12 and 1.40mgL(-1) and a detection limit of 0.04mgL(-1). Eighteen samples were collected randomly from fuel stations in Pernambuco (Brazil) and iron concentration was determined using the proposed procedure. Comparison of results obtained (0.20-1.50mgL(-1)) showed a mean standard error of 3.9%, with 3.8% and 2.3% calculated for the mean variation coefficients of the proposed method and the reference procedure, respectively. For adulterated samples (0.12-0.64mgL(-1)), the mean standard error was 4.8% when compared with the standard addition method. These results allowed concluding that the proposed procedure is adequate to accomplish the determination of iron in ethanol fuel in a large scale basis with a sampling rate of about 10h(-1).

Sequential injection analysis of chloride and nitrate in waters with improved accuracy using potentiometric detection.

Accurate simultaneous analysis of different anionic species using ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) can be achieved even for non-specific sensors by resorting to an ordinary least squares multiple regression in the vicinity of the predicted concentrations. In this work the potentialities of this approach are evidenced by the determination of nitrate and chloride in synthetic and real water samples in which chloride concentration was significantly higher than nitrate. An AgCl/Ag(2)S electrode based on a homogeneous crystalline membrane together with a PVC electrode based on tert-octylammonium bromide dissolved in dibutylphthalate were used as potentiometric detectors for chloride and nitrate, respectively. For the implementation of the procedure, an automatic system based on sequential injection analysis was used. The results obtained by the standard addition method were biased for low concentrations of nitrate and were dependant on the relative proportion of NO(3)(-)/Cl(-). The results obtained by the proposed methodology for chloride determination were slightly better when compared to those obtained by the standard addition method. In relation to nitrate determination, the proposed methodology yielded values with a relative root mean square error of prediction (RRMSEP) of 2.8%, while for standard addition calibration, mean error values were approximately 12.1%.

Flow-injection amperometric determination of dopamine in pharmaceuticals using a polyphenol oxidase biosensor obtained from soursop pulp.

The amperometric determination of dopamine (Do) in pharmaceuticals formulations by flow injection analysis (FIA) is proposed. An enzymatically modified carbon paste electrode constituted by 25% (w/w) of polyphenol oxidase obtained from Annona muricata L. tissue, 30% (w/w) of graphite, 30% (w/w) of silicone and 15% (w/w) of 7,7,8,8 tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ), was used as flow-through detector. The flow amperometric detection was carried out at a potential of 0.10 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) when an injected sample volume of 250 microl was inserted on a 0.3 M phosphate buffer carrier solution (pH 7.8) flowing at 2.5 ml/min. The developed biosensor showed good stability and reproducibility, enabling up to 500 determinations in 60 days, without considerable loss of enzymatic activity. The FIA system presented a linear response to Do concentrations in the interval from 2 x 10(-2) to 2 x 10(-4) M, with relative standard deviations lower than 1.5%. The kinetic parameter K(M) for the soluble and immobilized enzyme was 1.45 x 10(-2) and 1.91 x 10(-2) M, respectively. In the analyses of different commercially pharmaceutical formulations a relative deviation lower than about 3.4% was obtained.