Response of salinity gradient power generation to inflow mode and temperature difference by reverse electrodialysis.

Sustainable utilization has been becoming the core idea of concentrated seawater disposal, which makes the harvest of salinity gradient power based on reverse electrodialysis (RED) become one of the important ways. As the important factors affecting RED performance, different flow orientations along the membrane and solution temperature have been studied in the previous researches. However, there are still some details that need to be clarified. In this study, the inflow mode was further detailed investigated. The results showed that after eliminating the interference of bubbles in the counter-current, the co-current was still better than the counter-current; when the solution of HCC (high concentration compartment) and LCC (low concentration compartment) was circulated for 3 h, the concentration of concentrated seawater discharge liquid was reduced by 6.93%, which was conducive to reducing the negative impact on the marine ecological environment. Meanwhile, the response of salinity gradient power generation to temperature difference was that high temperature had a positive effect on power density, and the order was both the HCC and LCC (0.44 W m-2) > LCC (0.42 W m-2) > HCC (0.39 W m-2). Although the RED performance was more sensitive to the temperature rise of LCC, the positive temperature difference between HCC and LCC is a more practical advantage because the temperature of concentrated seawater in HCC is usually high. These new observations could provide supports for the industrial development of RED in generating electricity economically and reducing the negative environmental impact of concentrated seawater.

Effective treatment of levofloxacin wastewater by an electro-Fenton process with hydrothermal-activated graphite felt as cathode.

The performance of the cathode significantly affects the ability of the electro-Fenton (EF) process to degrade chemicals. In this study, a simple method to modify the graphite felt (GF) cathode was proposed, i.e. oxidizing GF by hydrothermal treatment in nitric acid. The surface physical and electrochemical properties of modified graphite felt were characterized by several techniques: scanning electron microscope (SEM), water contact angle, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy and linear scanning voltammetry (LSV). Compared with an unmodified GF (GF-0), the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity of a modified GF was significantly improved due to the introduction of more oxygen-containing functional groups (OGs). Furthermore, the results showed that GF was optimally modified after 9 h (GF-9) of treatment. As an example, the H2O2 generation by GF-9 was 2.26 times higher than that of GF-0. After optimizing the process parameters, which include the initial Fe2+ concentration and current density, the apparent degradation rate constant of levofloxacin (LEV) could reach as high as 0.40 min-1. Moreover, the total organic carbon (TOC) removal rate and mineralization current efficiency (MCE) of the modified cathode were much higher than that of the GF-0. Conclusively, GF-9 is a promising cathode for the future development in organic pollutant removal via EF.

Removal of ammonium from wastewater using calcium form clinoptilolite.

The paper concerns the removal of ammonium ions from aqueous solution using a modified clinoptilolite-Ca(2+)-formed clinoptilolite (CaY) prepared from natural clinoptilolite. The batch study results show that the pH has an effect on ammonium adsorption capacity as it can influence both the character of the exchanging ions and the clinoptilolite itself; the CaY has a high selectivity to NH(4)(+) and the exchange decreases with increasing temperature; ammonium ion uptake onto CaY was suitably described by the Langmuir model. The column results indicated that the effluent of simulated wastewater treated with CaY could meet the integrated wastewater discharge standard of China, and CaY can be circulated through regenerating by Ca(OH)(2).