Assessment of industrial wastewater for potentially toxic elements, human health (dermal) risks, and pollution sources: A case study of Gadoon Amazai industrial estate, Swabi, Pakistan

Muhammad, Nisar; Nafees, Mohammad; Ge, Liya; Khan, Muhammad Haya; Bilal, Muhammad; Chan, Wei Ping; Lisak, Grzegorz

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126450

Cited by 50 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The GoP has also set specific ranges for the National Environment Quality Standards (NEQs) for the physicochemical characteristics of wastewater before discharge, i.e., pH (6.6-8.5), total suspended solids (TSS) (<500 mg/L), total dissolved solids (TDS) (1000 mg/L), chemical oxygen demand (COD) (150-400 mg/L), biological oxygen demand (BOD5) (80-250 mg/L), turbidity (5 NTU), As (0.05 mg/L), Cd (0.01 mg/L), Cr (0.05 mg/L), Pb (0.05 mg/L) and Ni (0.02 mg/L) [12]. Nonetheless, the discharge of untreated hospital wastewater that shows physicochemical characteristics beyond the range limits has been reported, due to poor enforcement of these laws [4,[13][14][15]. Hospital wastewater is particularly harmful if discharged untreated due to the spread of pharmaceutical pollutants [16,17] and heavy metals [9,16] in the aquatic environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These pharmaceutical pollutants and heavy metals are recalcitrant in nature [18][19][20]. Heavy metals, such as Arsenic (As), Chromium (Cr), Lead (Pb), Nickel (Ni) and Cadmium (Cd) have the tendency to accumulate in water bodies [15,19]. Due to acute freshwater shortage, local farmers are utilising raw hospital wastewater for crop irrigation [20,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to acute freshwater shortage, local farmers are utilising raw hospital wastewater for crop irrigation [20,21]. This results in the accumulation of toxic pollutants in crop plants [4,15,18,19] that are comprised of pharmaceutic compounds, heavy metals and other toxic contaminants [6,19,[22][23][24][25]. Subsequently, all these contaminants enter the food web [22][23][24][25][26] and harm aquatic [27,28] and land [26,27] animals, as well as human beings [26,27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Machine Learning Approach to Predict Quality Parameters for Bacterial Consortium-Treated Hospital Wastewater and Phytotoxicity Assessment on Radish, Cauliflower, Hot Pepper, Rice and Wheat Crops

Rashid

Mirza

Keating

et al. 2022

Water

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Raw hospital wastewater is a source of excessive heavy metals and pharmaceutical pollutants. In water-stressed countries such as Pakistan, the practice of unsafe reuse by local farmers for crop irrigation is of major concern. In our previous work, we developed a low-cost bacterial consortium wastewater treatment method. Here, in a two-part study, we first aimed to find what physico-chemical parameters were the most important for differentiating consortium-treated and untreated wastewater for its safe reuse. This was achieved using a Kruskal–Wallis test on a suite of physico-chemical measurements to find those parameters which were differentially abundant between consortium-treated and untreated wastewater. The differentially abundant parameters were then input to a Random Forest classifier. The classifier showed that ‘turbidity’ was the most influential parameter for predicting biotreatment. In the second part of our study, we wanted to know if the consortium-treated wastewater was safe for crop irrigation. We therefore carried out a plant growth experiment using a range of popular crop plants in Pakistan (Radish, Cauliflower, Hot pepper, Rice and Wheat), which were grown using irrigation from consortium-treated and untreated hospital wastewater at a range of dilutions (turbidity levels) and performed a phytotoxicity assessment. Our results showed an increasing trend in germination indices and a decreasing one in phytotoxicity indices in plants after irrigation with consortium-treated hospital wastewater (at each dilution/turbidity measure). The comparative study of growth between plants showed the following trend: Cauliflower > Radish > Wheat > Rice > Hot pepper. Cauliflower was the most adaptive plant (PI: −0.28, −0.13, −0.16, −0.06) for the treated hospital wastewater, while hot pepper was susceptible for reuse; hence, we conclude that bacterial consortium-treated hospital wastewater is safe for reuse for the irrigation of cauliflower, radish, wheat and rice. We further conclude that turbidity is the most influential parameter for predicting bio-treatment efficiency prior to water reuse. This method, therefore, could represent a low-cost, low-tech and safe means for farmers to grow crops in water stressed areas.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Machine Learning Approach to Predict Quality Parameters for Bacterial Consortium-Treated Hospital Wastewater and Phytotoxicity Assessment on Radish, Cauliflower, Hot Pepper, Rice and Wheat Crops

Rashid

Mirza

Keating

et al. 2022

Water

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“…At present, many chemical industries, such as battery manufacturing [ 1 ], lead mining [ 2 ] and the petrochemical industry [ 3 ], discharge a large amount of lead-containing wastewater in the production process. The Pb element in wastewater will not only contaminate the ecological environment, but also pose a major threat to human health [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Pb Adsorption-Saturated Attapulgite with Excellent Photocatalysis Properties through a Vulcanization Reaction and Its Application for MB Wastewater Degradation

Zhang¹,

Chen

Cheng³

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Attapulgite (AT) is a clay mineral with rich reserves in China, and it has good adsorption activity for Pb-containing wastewater. However, as a hazardous waste, the treatment of Pb adsorption-saturated attapulgite was quite difficult. In this work, through a simple vulcanization reaction, the waste Pb adsorption-saturated attapulgite (AT@Pb) was transformed into composite materials (AT@PbS) with good photocatalytic performance. After comprehensive material characterization (including XRD, TEM, XPS, and UV-Vis), the photocatalytic degradation performance and mechanism of AT@PbS for methylene blue (MB) were investigated. The results revealed that AT@PbS was a composite material of attapulgite nanorods (500–600 nm) and nanosquare PbS particles (80–100 nm). Additionally, AT@PbS displayed good visible light absorption, improved photo-electric properties, excellent photodegradation performance for MB, and recycling stability. Moreover, the energy band range of AT@PbS was about −0.043 V to 1.367 V. The photo-generated holes and their derived hydroxyl radicals were the main active species for MB degradation. This work not only provides a new approach to construct the composite photocatalyst, but also demonstrates the possibility of the comprehensive utilization of heavy metal adsorbents for wastewater degradation.

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“…The contamination of toxic metals negatively impacts all environmental constituents, specifically the aquatic ecosystems [16]. In Pakistan, industrial wastewater analyses reveled that total suspended solids (190%), Ni (16%), Cd (80%), and Pb (106%) were higher than the maximum permissible limits [17]. In addition, the hazard index and the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic dermal health risks of irrigation with industrial wastewater was substantially higher than fresh water.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heavy Metals and Microbes Accumulation in Soil and Food Crops Irrigated with Wastewater and the Potential Human Health Risk: A Metadata Analysis

Othman

Al-Assaf

Tadros

et al. 2021

Water

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Wastewater is actively used for irrigation of vegetable and forage crops in arid lands due to water scarcity and cost advantages. The objective of this review was to assess the effect of wastewater (mixture sources) reuse in irrigation on soil, crop (vegetable and forage crops), animal products, and human health. The metadata analysis of 95 studies revealed that the mean of toxic heavy metals including nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) in untreated wastewater were higher than the world standard limits in wastewater-irrigated regions. Although heavy metals in treated wastewater were within the standard limits in those areas, the concentration of those toxic elements (Pb, Cd, Ni, Cr, and As) exceeded the allowable limits in both soil and vegetables’ edible parts. In fact, the concentration of heavy metals in vegetables’ edible parts increased by 3–9 fold when compared with those irrigated with fresh water. Escherichia coli in wastewater-irrigated soil was about 2 × 106 (CFU g−1) and about 15 (CFU g−1) in vegetables’ edible parts (leaf, bulb, tuber and fruit) while the mean total coliforms was about 1.4 × 106 and 55 (CFU g−1) in soil and vegetables’ edible parts, respectively. For human health risk assessment, the estimated daily intake (EDI) and human health risk index (HRI) ranged from 0.01 to 8 (EDI and HRI > 1.0 associated with adverse health effects). Although the mean of EDI for heavy metals from wastewater-irrigated vegetables were less than 1, the HRI for Cd and Pb were above the limits for safe consumption. Overall, heavy metal levels in wastewater that used for irrigation of agricultural crops could be within the recommended levels by the world standards, but the long-term use of this reused water will contaminate soil and crops with several toxic heavy metals leading to potential carcinogenic risks to humans. Therefore, rigorous and frequent testing (wastewater, soil, and plant) is required in cultivated farms to prevent the translocation of heavy metals in the food chain.

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Assessment of industrial wastewater for potentially toxic elements, human health (dermal) risks, and pollution sources: A case study of Gadoon Amazai industrial estate, Swabi, Pakistan

Cited by 50 publications

References 60 publications

Machine Learning Approach to Predict Quality Parameters for Bacterial Consortium-Treated Hospital Wastewater and Phytotoxicity Assessment on Radish, Cauliflower, Hot Pepper, Rice and Wheat Crops

Machine Learning Approach to Predict Quality Parameters for Bacterial Consortium-Treated Hospital Wastewater and Phytotoxicity Assessment on Radish, Cauliflower, Hot Pepper, Rice and Wheat Crops

Making Pb Adsorption-Saturated Attapulgite with Excellent Photocatalysis Properties through a Vulcanization Reaction and Its Application for MB Wastewater Degradation

Heavy Metals and Microbes Accumulation in Soil and Food Crops Irrigated with Wastewater and the Potential Human Health Risk: A Metadata Analysis

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