Alberto Ferruccio Piccinni

A Rationale for Pollutograph Evaluation in Ungauged Areas, Using Daily Rainfall Patterns: Case Studies of the Apulian Region in Southern Italy

In the context of the implementation of sustainable water treatment technologies for soil pollution prevention, a methodology that try to overcome the lack of runoff quality data in Puglia (Southern Italy) is firstly tackled in this paper. It provides a tool to obtain total suspended solid (TSS) pollutographs in areas without availability of monitoring campaigns. The proposed procedure is based on the relationship between rainfall characteristics and pollutant wash-off. In particular, starting from the evaluation of the observed regional rainfall patterns by using a rainfall generator model, the storm water management model (SWMM) was applied on five case studies located in different climatic subareas. The quantity SWMM parameters were evaluated starting from the drainage network and catchments characteristics, while the quality parameters were obtained from results of a monitoring campaign conducted for quality model calibration and validation with reference to the pollutograph’s shape and the peak-time. The research yields a procedure useful to evaluate the first flush phenomenon in ungauged sites and, in particular, it provides interesting information for designing efficient and sustainable drainage systems for first flush treatment and diffuse pollution treatment.

Sustainable bio-hydrothermal sequencing treatment for asbestos-cement wastes

In this paper, the treatment of asbestos-cement waste (ACW) has been attempted by a dark fermentation (DF) pre-treatment followed by hydrothermal and anaerobic digestion (AD) treatments. During DF, glucose, employed as a biodegradable substrate, was mainly converted to H2-rich biogas and organic acids (OAs). The latter caused the dissolution of the cement matrix and the partial structural collapse of chrysotile (white asbestos). To complete the chrysotile degradation, hydrothermal treatment of the DF effluents was performed under varying operating conditions (temperature, acid type, and load). After the addition of 5.0u2009g/L sulfuric acid, a temperature decrease, from 80u2009°C to 40u2009°C, slowed down the treatment. Similarly, at 100u2009°C, a decrease of sulfuric, lactic or malic acid load from 5.0u2009g/L to 1.0u2009g/L slowed down the process, regardless of acid type. The acid type did not affect the hydrothermal treatment but influenced the AD of the hydrothermal effluents. Indeed, when malic acid was used, the AD of the hydrothermally treated effluents resulted in the highest production of methane. At the end of the AD treatment, some magnesium ions derived from ACW dissolution participated in the crystallization of struvite, an ecofriendly phosphorous-based fertilizer.