This study investigated the individual and interactive effects of three factors - temperature, inoculum/substrate ratio (ISR) and inoculum typology - on the anaerobic digestion of corn ethanol distillery wastewater. Biochemical methane potential assays planned with factorial design with two independent quantitative variables on three levels (ISR: 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1; temperature: 30°C, 33.5°C, 37°C) and one independent qualitative variable (inoculum type: suspended, granular, mixed) have been performed. Response Surface Methodology has been used to study the effect of the factors with the aim of maximizing the specific methane yields (YCH4) obtainable with this substrate. The results show that all three investigated factors influence in a significant matter the YCH4, the ISR having the strongest effect on it. The temperature has significant influence on the YCH4 only in combination with high ISR values. The optimal conditions for the maximum YCH4 (551 mL CH4 g−1 VSadded) have been found at 37°C operating temperature, ISR=3:1 and using granular inoculum. These conditions gave rise to a 4-fold increase of YCH4 with respect to the worst combination of factors (YCH4=129 mL g−1 VSadded for the suspended inoculum type, at 30°C and ISR=1:1). The results improve the knowledge on the digestion of this substrate, providing information for successful process up-scaling.
In the present study, jamun seed waste has been explored for the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution. The multi-variant sorption optimization was achieved by the factorial design approach. 99.91% of Pb(II) ions was removed from aqueous solution. The results predicted by the model were in good agreement with the experimental results (the values of R2 and R2adj. were found to be 99.89% and 99.95%, respectively). Langmuir and D-R isotherm studies were carried out to find adsorbent’s capacities (183.9 ± 0.31 mg/g and 184.5 ± 0.16 mg/g respectively), sorption free energy 13.17 ± 0.16 and RL values in the range of 0.05-0.77, suggested the favorable chemical and/or ion exchange nature of the sorption process. The FT-IR study was carried out for unloaded and Pb(II) ions loaded jamun seed, indicated, Pb(II) ions associated with nitrogen and oxygen of jamun seed containing moieties during the adsorption process. The proposed method was successfully validated and applied for the treatment of Pb(II) ions contaminating drinking water.
The photooxidative destruction of C. I. Basic Red 46 (BR46) by UV/S2O82- process is presented. Central Composite Design (CCD) was employed to optimize the effects of operational parameters on the photooxidative destruction efficiency. The variables investigated were the initial dye and S2O82- concentrations, reaction time and distance of the solution from UV lamp. The predicted values of the photodestruction efficiency were found to be in good agreement with the experimental values (R2 = 0.9810, Adjusted R2 = 0.9643). The results of the optimization predicted by the model showed that the maximum decolorization efficiency (>98%) was achieved at the optimum conditions of the reaction time 10 min, initial dye concentration 10 mg/l, initial peroxydisulfate concentration 1.5 mmol/l and distance of UV lamp from the solution 6 cm. The figure-of-merit electrical energy per order (EEo) was employed to estimate the electrical energy consumption and related treatment costs.