No abstract

This paper presents a fluoride health risk characterization approach to identify the hyper-sensitive population of adverse effect like tooth decay, dental fluorosis and skeletal fluorosis. In this context, a sampling campaign has been done over 100 Tunisian water consumption points (tap). Laboratory analysis results show that the quality of drinking water is affected by high fluoride concentration level exceeding 2 mg•L −1. Over these samples, 7% of them present non-compliant with the Tunisian national standard (NT09.14) and the international guidelines (World Health Organization recommendations, WHO). The overtake cases are located essentially in southern Tunisian areas, i.e. Medenine, Gabes, Gafsa and Tataouine. One can highlight that groundwater, in these southern Tunisian areas, are naturally rich of fluoride. This is because of the aquifers geological and fossil nature. However, commonly northern and central Tunisian areas are characterized by low fluoride concentration level below 0.1 mg•L −1. These undertaken cases don't meet the water quality requirement defined by WHO.

The thin layers of birnessite (Mn7O13•5H2O) are exposed to reactive species gliding arc plasma in humid air, which induces the treatment of the thin layers surface. Plasma treatment thin layer of birnessite was used for the degradation of Cochineal Red. The experimental results showed that 95% of the CR solution was completely decolorized by thin layer of birnessite treated by plasma compared to 80% of the same solution after interaction of thin layer of birnessite untreated. The decay kinetics always follows a pseudo-first order reaction. The application of the humid air plasma for the surface treatment of thin layers of birnessite improves the efficiency of treatment for Cochineal Red degradation.