To seek new mosquito control agents while avoiding the environmental impacts and toxicity hazards of conventional pesticides, the essential oil of Dysphania ambrosioides was obtained by hydrodistillation and analysed using GC–FID and GC–MS. The compounds 1-methyl-4-(1-methylethyl)-2,3-dioxabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-5-ene (cis-ascaridole), 1-methyl-4-(1-methylethyl) benzene (р-cymene), and 1-isopropyl-4-methyl-1,3-cyclohexadiene (p-mentha-1,3-diene also known as α-terpinene) were identified as the major components. The EO and the major fractions showed remarkable mosquitocidal activity against third instar larvae and adults of Culex quinquefasciatus Say. The oil and fractions were assayed at 3.125, 6.25, 12.5, 25, and 50 μl/l. Mortality was time- and dose-dependent. At 24 h post-exposure at an assayed concentration of 50 μl/l, the larval and adult mortalities ranged between 80.11–100% and 91.22–100%, respectively. Strong larvicidal and adulticidal activities were recorded in the cases of the crude oil and cis-ascaridole. The LC₅₀ values after 24 h of treatment ranged between 6.2–20.1 μl/l and 5.1–13.9 μl/l against larvae and adults, respectively. The corrected percentage mortalities increased over time with the tested plant oil and the major fractions relative to the control. The time required to achieve 50% mortality (LT₅₀) decreased remarkably with all treatments. The tested EO and major fractions effectively inhibited larval acetylcholinesterase activity with IC₅₀ values ranging from 8.44 to 64.80 mM compared with 2.08 × 10⁻³ mM for the reference standard, methomy. The results indicate the potential of developing natural mosquitocides against C. quinquefasciatus based on the tested EO and its major fractions. Graphical abstract

Cyanide is highly toxic and must be destroyed or removed before discharge into the environment. This study examined the ability of commercial anion-exchange resins to remove residual cyanide complexes from industrial plating wastewater as a complement to conventional treatment. Cyanide removal experiments were conducted with various initial concentrations, reaction times, and temperatures, and the presence of co-existing anions. The maximum cyanide removal capacity (Qₘ) of the Bonlite BAMB140 resin is 31.82 mg/g and effectively removes cyanide from aqueous solution within 30 min. The cyanide removal by the resin is an endothermic process and is affected by the presence of anions in industrial plating wastewater. The relative competitiveness observed in this study was sulfate > nitrate > chloride. A mixture of 0.05 M NaCl and NaOH regenerates resin for continuous reuse for 5 cycles. The Bonlite BAMB140 resin was able to remove residual cyanide complexes from industrial plating wastewater, but the removal capacity of the resin was reduced by more than three times in batch (9.94 mg/g) and column (6349.12 mg/L) systems. Based on the results, the anion-exchange resins are expected to be used as a complementary technique to remove residual cyanide complexes in industrial plating wastewater after conventional treatment.

In this study, we have investigated the removal efficiency of two organic pollutants: methylene blue (MB) and Reactive Blue 19 (RB19) dyes by using a brown marine alga abundantly available on the Moroccan coastlines called Bifurcaria bifurcata (Bif-Bcata). During the experiments that were conducted in batch mode, we have studied the effect of some parameters such as pH, Bif-Bcata mass, contact time, and initial dye concentration in order to optimize the most suitable biosorption conditions. The biosorption tests on Bif-Bcata showed that the equilibrium is reached after 15 min for both dyes MB and RB19. The optimal pH values are 5.6 and 1.0 for MB and RB19, respectively. Kinetic studies revealed that the biosorption of both dyes follows the pseudo-second-order model. The biosorption isotherms demonstrated that the Langmuir model is the most appropriate to describe the biosorption equilibrium for both dyes MB and RB19 with maximum biosorption capacities reaching 2744.5 mg/g for MB and 88.7 mg/g for RB19. According to these results, it is clear that Bif-Bcata can be considered a promising biomaterial to be used as an effective biosorbent for the elimination of cationic and anionic dyes from textile effluents.

The 3-chloro-2 hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride was successfully introduced into the β-cyclodextrin-modified chitosan to create the multicomponent adsorbent O-HTACC-g-CD. The structure of sorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. The adsorption capacity of O-HTACC-g-CD toward phenol was investigated as a function of pH, temperature, contact time as well as adsorbent dosage. The Box-Behnken response surface methodology was employed to optimize the effects of experimental parameters including adsorbent dose, pH, and time on the adsorption of phenol at 298.15 K. The obtained optimal values for adsorbent dose, pH, and time were 0.06 g, 6, and 200 min, respectively. The obtained experimental data follows the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir model. The thermodynamic parameters such as free energy change, enthalpy change, and entropy change were calculated, revealing that adsorption of phenol on O-HTACC-g-CD is a spontaneous and exothermic process. The prepared O-HTACC-g-CD displayed high adsorption capacity (39.98 mg g⁻¹) and excellent removal rate (96%) for phenol from the aqueous solution at 288.15 K. The gained removal rates of chemical oxygen demand (CODCᵣ) were in the range of 60.6–61.2%. Considerable results of sorption could be attributed to the multicomponent structure of the adsorbent with more active sites including the cavities, amino, and carboxyl functional groups which provided better sites for the phenolic pollutant to adsorb on the adsorbent via Van der Waals force, hydrogen bond, and the inclusion effect. Therefore, the results obtained strongly suggest that O-HTACC-g-CD could be an effective adsorbent for the removal of phenol and CODcᵣ from drilling wastewater.

The purpose of this study was to monitor and model indicators of soil contamination, organic matter evolution and biochemical processes involved in a long-term phytoremediation process. Populus nigra L., Paulownia tomentosa Steud., Cytisus scoparius L. and natural vegetation were used in differently contaminated areas (high, medium and low levels of contamination). Parameters indicating contamination (total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and heavy metals) and agronomic (C, N and P) and functional (enzyme activities) soil recovery were monitored for 3.5 years. Three subareas with different levels of contamination (high, medium and low) were identified according to the Nemerow Index. A considerable decrease in TPH (52% on average) over time in the whole site was measured, while the metal reduction was only of about 22% at surface level. A stimulation in metabolic soil processes and improvement in the chemical quality of the soil was also observed throughout the experimental site. Statistical analysis modelling showed that the contaminant content decreased following a one-phase decay model, while the dramatic increase in enzyme activities could be represented by an exponential growth equation. On the basis of our data, it is possible to conclude that the initial contamination level affected neither the decontamination process nor the improvement in soil quality, which occurred similarly in the three different contaminated areas.

Groundwater is a primary source of living which also requires preservative measures for furture generations. Due to the lack of effective management technologies, the wastewater generated by rapid urbanization and industrialization is being disposed untreated, leading to groundwater contamination, caused by infiltration and accumulation. This problem has become more intense in major cities of India. The present work is based on determining the water quality using fuzzy index developed for the Perambalur district, Tamilnadu, India, from where 30 groundwater samples were collected from bore well as well as dug well sources. The research focusses mainly on chemical parameters like total hardness (T.H.), total dissolved solids (TDS.), potential hydrogen (pH), calcium (Ca²⁺), magnesium (Mg²⁺), potassium (K), sulphates (SO₄²⁻), total nitrates (NO₃ + NO₂), fluoride (F), bicarbonate (HCO₃), carbonate (CO₃²⁻) and chloride (Cl²⁻). These parameters were assessed for fuzzy water quality index (FWQI) model, and the index was designed concerning Mamdani fuzzy inference system. Five FIS models with different linguistic variables were developed based on triangular membership function with the implementation of 189 numbers of rules. Finally, fuzzy model was classified into five categories, such as excellent, good, poor, very poor and not-suitable. Based on the results obtained from this model, 6 samples were classified into excellent, 8 samples into good, 12 to poor, 3 to very poor and 1 to not-suitable. In connection with that, the results of proposed model were compared with the output obtained from the deterministic method.

Water treatment sludge (WTS) is abundantly produced in the world; the waste contributes to the environmental problems. Therefore, for WTS utilization, aluminum leaching was employed using hydrochloric acid in this study. Al leaching efficiency increased from 72% to 80% as hydrochloric acid concentration increased from 1 to 4 M. Decreasing the particle size and increasing the temperature increased Al leaching efficiency. The proposed kinetic model revealed that the rate-controlling step followed a series of two leaching mechanisms: initially controlled by product-layer diffusion and then by a chemically controlled reaction. For instance, at 70 °C, the initial stage is well fitted by product-layer diffusion (R² = 0.87) compared to R² = 0.60 for chemical reaction; while for the second stage, R² = 0.95 was observed via chemical reaction compared to R² = 0.74 for product-layer diffusion. The activation energies in these two stages were 9.58 kJ/mol and 10.73 kJ/mol, respectively. The proposed model was well validated by using data from literature and thus will be useful for other applications of leaching and extraction processes.

This work is scrutinizing the development of metallized biochar as a low-cost bio-sorbent for low temperature CO₂ capture with high adsorption capacity. Accordingly, single-step pyrolysis process was carried out in order to synthesize biochar from rambutan peel (RP) at different temperatures. The biochar product was then subjected to wet impregnation with several magnesium salts including magnesium nitrate, magnesium sulphate, magnesium chloride and magnesium acetate which then subsequently heat-treated with N₂. The impregnation of magnesium into the biochar structure improved the CO₂ capture performance in the sequence of magnesium nitrate > magnesium sulphate > magnesium chloride > magnesium acetate. There is an enhancement in CO₂ adsorption capacity of metallized biochar (76.80 mg g⁻¹) compare with pristine biochar (68.74 mg g⁻¹). It can be justified by the synergetic influences of physicochemical characteristics. Gas selectivity study verified the high affinity of biochar for CO₂ capture compared with other gases such as air, methane, and nitrogen. This investigation also revealed a stable performance of the metallized biochar in 25 cycles of CO₂ adsorption and desorption. Avrami kinetic model accurately predicted the dynamic CO₂ adsorption performance for pristine and metallized biochar.

Fluazinam is a widely used fungicide; most of the available information associated with its impact predominately on birds, invertebrates, mammals, and algae and scarce works studied its impact on crop plants. A two years-field experiments were conducted to study the response of pepper and eggplant to fluazinam at 0, 1, 2, and 3 times of the fluazinam-recommended dose (0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 mL/L). The results revealed that fluazinam did not cause toxic effect on the tested plants except for temporary decline of shoot weights and lengths after 3 days of fluazinam application. However, fluazinam improved the physiological status of leaves via promoting metabolites, antioxidants, better membrane integrity, and adjustment of the redox status of fluazinam-sprayed plants. The ultrastructure changes of fluazinam-treated leaves associated with increment of chloroplasts’ starch granules, giant nucleus, and elevated number of mitochondria. After 35 days of treatments, plant length of fungicide-treated plants was found to be higher than control and flowering time showed significant earliness. Furthermore, the yield traits were increased significantly in response to fluazinam. Our findings suggested that fluazinam-treated plants could initiate an early defense mechanism to mitigate the permanent growth retardation. This study could serve as a matrix for further studies to seek elucidation of plants’ response to other doses of fluazinam. Graphical abstract .

The water loss and soil erosion in the Pisha sandstone region in the middle reaches of the Yellow River are extremely severe, leading to extremely harmful effects on the ecological environment and safety of the lower reaches. In this paper, the effects of the slope angle (20, 30, and 40°), rainfall intensity (20, 50, and 80 mm/h), and vegetation coverage (10, 30, and 50%) on the erosion characteristics of the Pisha sandstone slopes are studied using indoor-simulated rainfall tests. The results show that the infiltration into the Pisha sandstone is only 10~15%. It is found that rainfall intensity has the most significant effect on runoff, which gradually increases with increasing rainfall intensity. Vegetation significantly affects runoff reduction when the rainfall intensity is low (approximately 20 mm/h), but this effect decreases with increasing rainfall intensity. Rainfall intensity has an extremely significant effect (P < 0.01) on the sediment yield, followed by vegetation coverage, and slope angle. When the vegetation coverage is approximately 50%, the reduction in sediment yield reaches approximately 70%. Additionally, the sediment reduction benefit is more significant than the runoff reduction benefit. The presence of the eroded gullies on slopes with vegetation is less compared to that on the bare slopes. Therefore, relatively high vegetation coverage (≥ 50%) is required for soil and water conservation in Pisha sandstone area. The findings will provide some reference for Pisha sandstone conservation.