Soleyman Sahebi

Abatement of Cr (VI) from wastewater using a new adsorbent, cantaloupe peel: Taguchi L 16 orthogonal array optimization

Taguchi orthogonal design was applied for multivariate optimization of Cr (VI) abatement by cantaloupe peel powder (CPP), as a novel adsorbent, from industrial wastewater in a batch mode. Effective factors in the adsorption process, such as temperature, CPP dose, Cr (VI) concentration, wastewater pH, and contact time, were considered using an L16 orthogonal array design. The best conditions for adsorbing of Cr (VI) were determined by the Taguchi method and desirability approach as pH of 2, chromium concentration of 100mg/L, contact time of 5min, CPP dosage of 0.5 g/L, and wastewater temperature of 25 °C. Analysis of variance results indicated that the pH was the most important variable influencing the chromium removal percentage, and its contribution value was obtained 45.01%. The Langmuir model proved best fit for the experimental data and maximum adsorption capacity of Cr (VI) onto CPP was obtained 166.25mg/g. The final part of the study includes an examination of the CPP through an analysis of the removal of chromium from real industrial wastewater. It can be concluded that the CPP presents a promising and efficient alternative for eliminating of Cr (VI) from industrial wastewaters.

Removal of a cationic dye from wastewater during purification by Phoenix dactylifera

AbstractThe activated carbon prepared from Phoenix dactylifera fruit stones was tested for the removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solutions. Batch studies were carried out to evaluate the impacts of initial solution pH (2–12), chemically activated carbon (CAC) concentration (0.25–5 g/L), MB concentration (50–400 mg/L), and contact time (20–430 min) on the adsorption of MB onto CAC. Results showed that the adsorption of MB was favorable at neutral pH. The results demonstrated that the Langmuir isotherm model best represented the equilibrium data with a maximum MB adsorption capacity of 478.32 mg/g. Pseudo-second-order kinetic model was found to adequately describe the adsorption process. The calculated thermodynamic parameters showed that adsorption process was spontaneous endothermic and physisorption was possible under examined conditions. In the final part of the study, the efficacy of CAC was examined by analyzing the removal of dye from industrial wastewater.

Fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis for irrigation of tomatoes

AbstractFertilizer-drawn forward osmosis is a low-energy desalination concept particularly developed for the irrigation use of desalinated water. It has an advantage of not requiring regeneration of the draw solution (DS), thus, it can be used directly for the purpose of irrigation without any additional treatment. The current study was aimed to evaluate the real application of forward osmosis (FO) targeting irrigation of tomato crops based from their fertilizer requirements. Fertilizer-DSs were prepared to drive seawater desalination using commercially available fertilizers such as NH4NO3, NH4Cl, KNO3, KCl, NH4H2PO4, and urea. DSs were prepared to represent varying nitrogen:phosphorous:potassium (N:P:K) ratios used in assorted tomato growth stages. The FO performance evaluated in terms of the flux and reverse solute flux (RSF) showed significant variations in outcome. The resultant flux for different DSs was influenced by the particular fertilizer present in DS mixture and its concentration. This flux va...

Influence of the process parameters on hollow fiber-forward osmosis membrane performances

AbstractContinued efforts are made in improving the performance of the low-cost forward osmosis (FO) membrane process which utilizes naturally available osmotic pressure of the draw solution (DS) as the driving force. Selection of a suitable DS and development of a better performing membrane remained the main research focus. In this study, the performance of a hollow fiber forward osmosis (HFFO) membrane was evaluated with respect to various operating conditions such as different cross-flow directions, membrane orientation, solution properties, and solution flow rates (Reynolds number). The study observed that operating parameters significantly affect the performance of the FO process. FO comparatively showed better performance at counter-current orientation. NaCl, KCl, and NH4Cl were evaluated as DS carrying common anion. Properties of the anionic part of the DS were found important for flux outcome, whereas reverse solute flux (RSF) was largely influenced by the properties of DS cationic part. FO was op...

Efficient Degradation of a Biorecalcitrant Pollutant from Wastewater Using a Fluidized Catalyst-Bed Reactor

This study investigated the treatment of an azo dye, as a biorecalcitrant model, from industrial wastewater by using Cu/Mg/Al-chitosan in a fluidized catalyst-bed reactor. A number of variables were used to study the impact they had on the oxidation process involving azo dye. The maximum degradation of the azo dye was achieved at 7 g Cu/Mg/Al-chitosan. The chloride and sulfate ions had a synergistic effect on azo dye removal. The oxidation of the azo dye under the selected conditions was of pseudo-first-order. Textile wastewater could effectively be treated using a low concentration of about 7 g of Cu/Mg/Al-chitosan in a short hydraulic retention time of 10 min. The use of Cu/Mg/Al-chitosan demonstrated a promising method to eliminate the azo dye from the wastewater.

Fabricating robust thin film composite membranes reinforced on woven mesh backing fabric support for pressure assisted and forward osmosis: A dataset

The data presented in this paper are produced as part of the original research article entitled “Thin-film composite membrane on a compacted woven backing fabric for pressure assisted osmosis” (Sahebi et al., 2017). This article describes how to fabricate a defect free membrane for forward osmosis (FO) and pressure assisted osmosis (PAO) on the woven mesh backing fabric support. Casting polymer on backing fabric support may limit the interfacial polyemirization due to wrinkled membrane surface. This paper presents data obtained from two different backing fabrics used as support for fabrication of thin film composite FO membrane. Backing fabric support were woven polyester mesh with different opening size. The data include the characterization of the intrinsic properties of the membrane samples, SEM and their performance under FO process. The structural parameters (S value) of the substrate were computed from thickness and porosity of the substrates. Thin film composite (TFC) membrane achieved a water flux of 8.1 L m2 h−1 in FO process and 37 L m2 h−1 using 0.5 M NaCl as draw solution (DS) and deionised (DI) water as the feed solution (FS) when applied hydraulic pressure was 10 bar.