Iranian Journal of

Backgrounds and Objectives: Noise in large cities is considered by the World Health Organization to be the third most hazardous type of pollution. Buses are an interesting object of study in the theme of noise pollution. They are at the same time a source of urban environmental (traffic) noise and occupational noise exposure source for drivers. The object of this study is Occupational noise exposure evaluation in drivers of bus transportation of Tehran city.
Materials and Methods: Noise levels in 90 buses were sampled in three separate sub-sample including (1)30 Ikaroos buses (2)30 Man buses (3)30 Shahab buses, which were selected by simple random sampling. Noise exposure level was normalized to a nominal 8-h working day (LEX, 8h). Simultaneous Octave Frequency Analysis were measured and sound intensity level (SIL) for bus drivers were calculated. Results, which are obtained from separate buses were compared together and too with standard levels.
Results: the normalized noise exposure levels (LEX, 8h) in Ikaroos bus drivers(82dB A) were higher than that of in in Man bus drivers (77/6dB A) and this Values were higher than that of in Shahab bus drivers(75dB A).SIL values for Ikaroos bus drivers were higher than other that of other bus drivers. Results obtained of Frequency Analysis showed that age of buses in mid frequencies ws a meaningful on noise increase.
Conclusion: Results showed that type and age of buses were effective factors in drivers. noise exposure levels (LEX, 8h), which was consistent with previous studies in this field.

Background and Objective: Nickel (II) and cadmium (II) are important in environmental pollutant. Biosorption of heavy metals can be an effective process for the removal and recovery of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions because of the decrease in sludge problems, economical issues, high efficiency and compatibility with the environment.
Materials and Methods: power of wasted activated sludge have been contact with nickel (II) and cadmium (II) solutions in 0.25 and 0.75 milli molar invarious pHs and mixing pace, at 24-26 0C temperature on batch reactor system .After two hours (continuously 5-420 min in kinetic study) samples were analyzed with atomic absorption spectrophotometer.
Results:The kinetic study results show that equilibrium adsorption time for nickel (II) and cadmium
(II) reached within 2 hr, but the profile curve of cadmium (II) biosorption was smoother than nickel (II) biosorption. Both metals adsorption followed the Langmuir model and the maximum adsorption capacity (qmax) for nickel (II) and cadmium (II) was 0.195 and 0.37 milli mole per gram respectively. The increase in pH resulted in adsorption increase for both metals. For cadmium (II) at 0.25 and 0.75 mMinitial concentration there was no adsorption at pH 2 where as nickel (0.25 mM) adsorption was observed at the same pH. The optimum mixing rate for both metals was 200 rpm and this effect was more obviously in greater concentration.
Conclusion: Like othe biosorbents ,wasted activated sludge showed greater capacity for cadmium(II) biosorption than nickel (II). Cadmium (II) in modeling and biosorption characteristics study had more conformity than nickel (II).

Background and Objectives: Wet air oxidation (WAO) is One of the advanced oxidation process which reduce organic matter concentration from industrial wastewater, toxic and non biodegradable substances and, solid waste leachate,etc. In this study the efficiency of wet air oxidation method in leachate treatment generating from Esfahan Composting factory was Evaluated.
Material and Methods: The experiment was carried out by adding 1.5 Lit of pretreated leachate sample the steel reactor with the volume of 3L. The reactor then underwent10 bar pressure at different temperature (100, 200 and 300 °C) and various retention time (30, 60 and 90 min). Leachate sample in 18 stages from composting factory in Isfahan in the volume of 20 Lit was taken and the WAO method, was used for pre-treatments. Removal efficiency of COD, BOD, NH4-N, NO3 and TSS were examined.
Results: The results showed that the removal efficiency was more than 35% for COD, 38% for BOD, and 85% for TSS within one hour of reaction. The Maximum removal efficiency obtained in this study were 53.3% for NH4-N and 73.9 % forNO3-N.
Conclusion: the results indicate that the reaction temperatures are the most important factors affecting degradation of organic matter. COD and BOD5 removal efficiency by WAO process increased as the time of reaction went up. In addition, BOD5/COD ratios of the effluents, which are generally regarded as an important index of biodegradability of leachate sample, were determined and improved grately as it reached to 84%. TheWAO process presented in this paper is considered an efficient process for pretreatment of leachate, as the COD, BOD5 and NO3 reduction observed in leachate samples.

Backgrounds and Objectives: Wet air oxidation (WAO) is one of the advanced oxidation process which is mostly used to reduce organic matter concentration from industrial wastewater, toxic and non biodegradable substance and solid waste leachate.The objective of this paper is comparisons of three advance oxidation in organic matter removal in different conditions from Esfahan composing factory leachate
Material and Methods: The experiment was carried out by adding 1.5 Lit pretreated leachate sample to 3Lit autoclave reactor and adding 10 bar pressure at temperature of 100, 200 and 300 °C and pressure (10 bars) with retention time of 30, 60 and 90 min. leachate sample in 18 stages from composting factory in Isfahan in the volume of 20 lit was taken and the three methodsWAO, WPO, and a combination of WAO/GAC were used for pre-treatments. Pure oxygen and 30% hydrogen peroxide was used as oxidation agent.
Results: The result shows significant improvement on the removal rate of COD (7.8-33.3%), BOD5 (14.7-50.6%)by WAO process.The removal efficiency of 4.6-34% COD, 24-50% BOD, was observed in the reactor.Adding theGACto the reactor improved removal efficiency of all parameters.Combination Process (WAO/GAC) removed 48% of COD, 31-43.6% of BOD.Combination process demonstrated higher efficiency than two other previous methods as BOD5/COD ratio of 90% achieved.
Conclusion: The WAO process presented in this paper is efficient for pretreatment of leachate, And the modified WPO process remove organic materials and ammonia moreover WAO/GAC can be considered as an excellent alternative treatment for removing reluctant organic matter (COD, BOD5) and organic nitrogen compounds, which found in leachate.

Background and Objectives: Organophosphate pesticides are used most commonly for domestic, commercial, and agricultural purposes and have been found to be highly toxic. In essence, bioremediation has become one of the most important tools for removing these compounds in the environment, considering its higher efficiency when compared with the physicochemical methods.

Materials and Methods: The biodegradation efficiency of two bacterial strains (i.e. Serratia marcescens BNA1 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa BNA2) were assessed. In order to evaluate Malathion biodegradation, each sample was cultured on mineral salts medium containing Malathion as a sole carbon source. Malathion biodegradation efficiency of the strains was monitored in different culture media. The ability of bacterial isolates to degrade Malathion was studied using gas chromatography.

Results: Serratia marcescens BNA1 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa BNA2 were able to degrade Malathion. Biodegradation percentage in different treatments recorded were: BNA1+Ma (33.88%), BNA2+MA (26.45%), BNA1+BNA2+Ma (46/96%), BNA1+Ma+Tween (61.05%), BNA2+Ma+Tween (40.17%), and BNA1+BNA2+Ma+ Tween (67.79%).

Conclusion: It could be speculated that the best degradation efficiency can be yielded using mixture of strains plus a surfactant. The results of this study can be used in the bioremediation of Malathion contaminate soil after doing the pilot experiments.

Background and Objective: Predicting municipal solid waste generation has an important role in solid waste management. The aim of this study was to predict municipal solid waste generation in Isfahan through time series method and system dynamics modeling.

Materials and Methods: Verified data of solid waste generation was collected from Waste Management Organization and population information was collected from the National Statistics Center, Iran for the period 1996-2011. Next, the effect of   factors on solid waste generation such as population, urbanization, gross domestic product was investigated. Moreover, the relationship between each of these factors was identified using generalized estimating equation  model. Finally, the quantity of the solid waste generated in Isfahan city was predicted using system dynamics modeling by Vensim software and time series method by ARMA technique.

Results: It was found that population and gross domestic product have a significant relationship with the amount of solid waste with P value 0.026 and 0 respectively. The annual average of municipal solid waste generation would be 1501.4 ton/day in 2021 estimated by the time series method and 1436 ton/day estimated by the system dynamics modeling. In addition, average annual growth rate achieved was 3.44%.

Conclusion: According to the results obtained, population and gross domestic product have a significant effect on MSW generation. Municipal solid waste generation will increase in future. Increasing solid waste is not the same in different areas and methods. The prediction of the time series method by ARMA technique gives precise results compared with other methods.

Background and Objective: About 1.35×10⁵ tons of pistachio waste are produced in annually Iran that can result in environmental problems if managed improperly. . The purpose of this study was to investigate in-vessel composting of pistachio residuals with addition of cow manure and dewatered sludge as a recycling alternative.

Materials and Methods: Pistachios wastes were combined with weight ratio of 5.5:10 (dewatered sludge: pistachio waste) and weight ratio of 1:10 (Cow manure: pistachio waste) to achieve the carbon to nitrogen ratio of 25:1. The parameters measured were pH, EC, percentage of moisture, total and volatile solids, ash, organic carbon, temperature, and phenol. The 20^th edition of SPSS software was used for t-test statistical analysis and comparing the results with standards and Microsoft Excel 2007 was used for drawing the plots.

Results: During the 60-days process of in-vessel composting of pistachio residuals with addition of cow manure, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen reduced from 25:1 to 13:1, dewatered sludge from 25:1 to 14:1; phenol amount in cow maneuver decreased from 4980 to 254 ppm and in dewatered sewage sludge from 6100 to 254 ppm. The maximum temperature in cow manure and dewatered sewage sludge treatments in the composting process reached to 51.9 and 48.9 ˚C respectively.

Conclusion: Results showed that the produced compost with cow manure has a higher fertilizing value compared with the dewatered sewage sludge due to its better organic degradation.

Background and Objective: Solid waste management has always been one of the major challenges of large cities. Conversion of waste to energy in the form of biogas is known to be an appropriate solution. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of total solids (TS) content and alkaline pretreatment on biogas production from municipal solid waste (MSW).

Materials and Methods: Experiments were done in 1 L glass bottles at 37 °C with different TS contents  (5, 10, and 15%), each in 3 replications based on a completely randomized design. Comparison of means was used for interpretations of the result. The volume of the produced biogas, the amount of methane, and changes in pH were measured on a daily basis. In order for better mixing, the digesters were manually shaken for 30 seconds every day. TS, volatile solids (VS), carbon and nitrogen of the feedstock were determined according to APHA standard methods.

Results: The highest methane yield and VS reduction was observed in 5% TS. Therefore, this TS was chosen for alkaline pre-treatment. The results showed that pre-treatment with NaOH significantly improved biodegradability of MSW. In 25 days, the production of biogas was 30.38% higher than that of the untreated digester. The highest methane yield was 83.35 mL/g TS and 132 mL/g TS from the control and the pretreated digesters, respectively.

Conclusion: The results of the lab experiments showed that the TS of 5 % and the alkaline pre-treatment, significantly improved biodegradability of MSW and consequently increased biogas and methane yield.

Background and Objective: Optimum number of air quality monitoring stations in Mashhad is an essential task for management of the urban environment. However, real monitoring and accurate information on the status of air quality require proper spatial distribution of air quality monitoring stations in the city of Mashhad. The aim of the present study was to determine optimum site locations for air quality monitoring, including Downtown Pedestrain Exposure Station, Downtown Background Exposure Station, and Residential Population Exposure Station by three Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques.

Materials and Methods: In the precent study, sites for new air quality monitoring stations t in Mashhad were determined based on a proposed protocol in the United States. Accordingly, the criteria effective for site selection such as population density, distance from existing stations, vicinity to vegitation, vehicle density and other factors were used by applying Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Fuzzy set, and Probability Density Function (PDF).

Results: Location similarity of the sites proposed by decision making methods was evaluated to know its reliability. The compactness of distribution of the proposed sites were compared by applying spatial statistic methods auch as Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Standard. The results from ANN indicated that fuzzy set mapped the suggested sites was fully scattered within the entire city of Mashhad and was statistically significant at 99% confidence level. The PDF method also offered the same spatial pattern as fuzzy set. Overall results of this study indicated spatial optimization of suggested sites location for fuzzy set and PDF.

Conclusion: The overall results of the decision-making methods used in this study indicated that it is necessary to increase number of air quality monitoring stations at Northwest of Mashhad due to the urban growth in the city. The results also showd the possibility of using Probability Density Function (PDF) as a method of decision-making in GIS for locating and ranking of new air quality monitoring stations.