Journal of Environmental Health and Sustainable Development
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Jun 2021

The water safety plan is a systematic approach that aims to ensure the quality of water distributed to consumers. In 2004, the World Health Organization issued a statement implementing the water safety plan. The plan is underway in Iran. The purpose of this study is to review the studies conducted from 2004 to 2020.

Present article is a systematic review study to search for keywords in a combination of "water safety plan" (WSP), "Iran", "Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points", (HACCP) and "water" in international databases including: PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, as well as national databases include: Magiran and SID.

In the initial search, 671 articles were found that after screening based on the Prisma checklist, 15 articles were included in the study for further review. The results showed that in the implementation of WSP, the highest score is related to Qom city with 68.64% and the lowest value is related to Khoy city with 17.5%. Improvement and upgrade program, support program development, and review of WSP courses have received less attention. Low staff familiarity with WSP, insufficient team composition and lack of coordination between them in holding regular meetings can be the reason for poor implementation of WSP in Iran.

The full implementation of the water safety plan controls the risks in the water supply system and reduces costs, as well as improves and increases the quality of water distributed to consumers.

Fungal aerosols cause life-threatening infections in patients hospitalized in critical wards. Antiseptics and disinfectants have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against the living tissue and inert surfaces microorganisms; hence, they have an essential role in controlling and preventing nosocomial infections. This study aimed to evaluate in vitro antifungal activity of benzalkonium chloride (BAC), chlorhexidine digluconate (CHX), and sodium hypochlorite (SH) against isolated fungal aerosols from the hospital environment.

The susceptibility tests were performed on fungal aerosols isolated from various wards of Children’s Medical Center, based on broth microdilution antifungal susceptibility testing of filamentous fungi approved by Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) M38-A2 document. The isolates included Aspergillus (Aspergillus flavus (n = 14), Aspergillus niger complex (n = 12), Penicillium spp. (n = 14), and Cladosporium spp. (n = 14).

The geometric means (GM) of the Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MICs) of the biocides across all isolates were as follows: BAC, 3.56 µg/ml, CHX, 9.45 µg/ml, and SH, 810.35 µg/ml. The highest range of MICs was found for SH (50-12800 µg/ml), while the lowest range was for BAC (1-16 µg/ml) against all fungal isolates. Generally, BAC showed the highest in vitro activity among disinfectants tested. The lowest MIC50 and MIC90 values were 4 and 8 µg/ml for BAC, followed by 16 and 32 µg/ml for CHX, and 800 and 6400 µg/ml for SH, respectively.

The findings showed that BAC was an effective disinfectant, which can prevent resistant species and fungal pathogens and be used as an alternative to other disinfectants and antiseptics.

The application of disinfectant agents is a common way to fight against microorganisms. Although there are different types of disinfectant agents to fight COVID-19, many of them do not have the required quality and efficiency. The present work was aimed to evaluate the quality of the available disinfectant agents using gram-negative E. coli bacteria.

In the laboratory phase of the research, the gram-negative E. coli bacteria were used to evaluate the quality of disinfectants. According to the proposed laboratory method, microbial kit was prepared and used to evaluate the performance of disinfectants.

According to the obtained findings, 1.0 mL of the prepared microbial suspension in the test tube, as microbial kit, was used for the quality assessment of the selected disinfectants. In case of growth of microorganisms in optimum conditions, the quality of disinfectants was undesirable, and if microorganisms were not grown, the quality of disinfectants would be appropriate in terms of its effect on gram-negative bacteria.

E. coli can be used as a reliable indicator for assessing the quality of the disinfectant and antiseptic agents used against COVID-19.

Endocrine disruptive compounds as a class of organic contaminants in the aquatic environment received severe attention in the last decades. The release of bisphenol A (BPA) as a hazardous organic chemical into the environment has caused high health and environmental concerns. Therefore, its removal from aquatic environments is strongly recommended. The present study deals with BPA removal efficiency from an aqueous environment using the electrocoagulation process (ECP).

The effects of parameters including BPA concentration (1-10 mg L-1), current density (3-15 mA cm-2), pH (4-10), and reaction time (5-30 min) on the treatment process were investigated. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed for optimization of the ECP. The significance of the developed model was investigated by the obtained F-value and P-value.

The maximum BPA removal of 98.2% was attained at pH of 8.5, BPA concentration of 3.25 mg L-1, the current density of 12.0 mA cm-2, and reaction time of 23 min. The significance of the developed model was confirmed by the high F-value of 46.69 and the very low P-value of < 0.0001. Furthermore, the electrical energy consumption of the process was found to be 0.308 kWh m-3 in the optimum condition.

The obtained experimental results revealed that the co-precipitation and the adsorption process through the electrostatic interactions as the main removal mechanisms controlled the treatment process.

The aim of this study was to identify all activities to be sufficiently prepared for emergencies in the power plant industries using the method of the Federal Crisis Management Organization in the south Isfahan power plant.

In this research, a checklist tool of 117 questions in 9 sections based on the FEMA method has been used. Checklists were localized. To check the face and content validity of the checklists, the opinions of three technical experts were used, and to check the reliability of the research subjects, the test-retest test was used, and to measure the reliability of the checklists, Cronbachchr('39')s alpha coefficient was used with an emphasis on internal correlation. The obtained alpha coefficient was 0.76. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.

The results showed that the power plant preparedness for general emergencies is 77.5%, winter storms and extreme cold 80%, storm 73.33%, overheating 70%, chemical storage 88.57%, earthquake 65%, Fire and explosion is 87%, flood 63.33%, and lightning 92%. The highest level of preparedness with 92% was related to the lightning checklist and the lowest level of readiness with 63.33% was related to floods.

In general, despite the differences in the readiness of the power plant against various accidents, the average level of preparedness for all accidents is higher than average. However, a number of appropriate measures must be taken in each area and the level of preparedness must be increased in cases such as fires and explosions.

Soil remediation is one of the most important fields in environmental studies. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and humic acid (HA) on increasing the bio-degradation of diesel oil in soil polluted with (lead) Pb and cadmium (Cd).

Treatments included foliar application of IAA (0 (control) and 30 ppm) and soil application of HA (0 (control) and 200 mg/kg soil) in the soil contaminated with Cd (0 (control), 10 and 15 mg/kg soil), Pb (0 (control) and 1600 mg/kg soil), and diesel oil (0 (control), and 8% (W/W)). The sunflower was planted in all soil samples. The plants were harvested after 70 days and Pb and Cd concentrations of plants were measured using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy.

Foliar application of IAA at the rate of 30 mg/l significantly increased the Cd and Pb phytoremediation by 14.8% and 13.4%, respectively. For HA application, it was increased by 11.3% and 10.2%, respectively.  A significant increase was found in degradation percentage of diesel oil in soil by 12.6%, when the soil was treated with 200 mg HA/kg soil.

It can be concluded that application of organic amendments such as IAA or HA can be a suitable way for increasing plant growth and increasing plant phytoremediation efficiency, especially in the soil contaminated with diesel oil. However, the phytoremediation efficiency is dependent on the plant physiology and the type of soil pollution that should be considered.

Nanoporous silica has received growing interest for its unique application potential in pollutant removal. Therefore, the development of a simple technique is required to synthesize and functionalize the nanoporous materials for industrial application.

The synthesis of nanoporous silica was investigated by the template sol-gel method, and it functionalized as an adsorbent for adsorption of malachite green. The morphology and structure of the prepared and functionalized nanoporous silica were studied using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and nitrogen adsorption-desorption technique. Subsequently, the effective parameters such as solution pH, contact time, and initial concentration on the adsorption process were optimized by adsorption tests.

The results showed that high-order nanoporous silica had been produced with an average diameter of 20.12 nm and average pore volume of 1.04 cm3.g−1. It was found that the optimum parameters of pH, initial concentration and contact time for malachite green adsorption on nanoporous silica were 6.5, 10 mg.l-1, and 60 min, respectively. The experimental data confirmed the Freundlich model (R2 = 0.995) and the obtained kinetic data followed the pseudo-first-order equation. The maximum adsorption capacity calculated by Langmuir isotherm was found to be 116.3 mg.g-1.

The high adsorption capacity showed that the acid-functionalized nanoporous silica adsorbent can be used as an adequate adsorbent to remove malachite green from aquatic environments. The large surface area can be suggested that the silica nanoporous will have potential application prospects as the adsorbent.

Contamination of water with heavy metals has turned into a health concern, particularly in the developing countries. In this study, concentration of heavy metals and associated carcinogenic and non- carcinogenic risk was investigated in water samples collected from Gonbad-e Kavus, a high-risk area for cancer.

Samples were collected from Gorgan River, Golestan reservoir and wells around villages with high prevalence in 2018.Samples were analysed through inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. After determining the concentration of heavy metals in water samples from different sources, health risk assessment was carried out according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Arsenic in samples 6-9 was higher than 10 µg/L, calcium and magnesium in sample 5 was higher than 200 mg/L and 150 mg/L respectively, and sodium in all samples was higher than 50 mg/L.  According to the findings, these concentrations were higher than the maximum allowed limit in most water samples. Hazard quotient (HQ) in samples 8 and 9 were associated with arsenic and health risk in sample 1 was related to antimony. Furthermore, since all samples contained high amounts of lithium, water from this area better should not be consumed by children older than one year.

Given the high rate of arsenic contamination, consumption of water in the study area could be health threatening for all individuals and is not recommended for children. This highlights the need for taking immediate actions to review the water treatment process and ensure safety of the drinking water in this area.