Iranian Journal of

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MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Background and Objectives: The increasing demand for drinking water has led scientists to the use of saline waters, but existing desalinating processes are very expensive. carbon aerogel is a type of organic aerogel that is suitable for desalination owing to its unique porous structure. Low potential of fouling and deposits, very low wastewater production, electrostatic regeneration of aerogels and, in turn, no need to acid consumption, and lower power consumption are some of this technology benefits.
Materials and Method: In this experimental- analytical study, the purpose was survey of saline and brackish water desalination using carbon aerogel technology and its comparison with electrolysis.The community studied was synthetic salt water samples, using of TDS and EC indicators. The minimum synthetic samples were 243. In this regard, after polymerization of Resorsinol and Formaldehyde compounds under ambient pressure conditions and then its pyrolysis, we fabricated plates of carbon aerogel.
Result: With manufacturing in the pilot-scale, the effect of different parameters, including input salt concentration, current, water flow, distance of between electrodes and pH, on NaCl sorption amount of carbon aerogel electrodes were studied. Generally, adsorption amount increased with increasing of current and NaCl concentration and decreased with increasing of distance electrodes, flow and pH. 
Results: Fabricating reactor at pilot-scale, we studied the effect of different parameters, including input salt concentration, current, water flow, intra-distance of electrodes, and pH on the NaCl sorption using carbon aerogel electrodes. Generally, adsorption capacity increased with increasing of current and NaCl concentration in the inlet flow, and it decreased with increasing intra-distance of electrodes, flow, and pH.
Conclusion: Under the most optimal conditions, our results showed that the NaCl adsorption rate on carbon aerogel electrodes was about 1.43×10^-4 M NaCl per g of carbon aerogels indicating its cost-effectiveness.

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Background and objectives: Formaldehyde is one of the compounds widely used in various industries hence, its discharge into the effluent is unavoidable. Exposure to formaldehyde has a significant health effects. To prevent these issues, treatment of wastewater containing formaldehyde is necessary. The purpose of this study was to determine the performance of aerobic sequencing batch reactor (SBR) in removing formaldehyde from wastewater. Methods: We used a SBR having a total volume of 6.15 liters and an effective volume of 4 liters. The formaldehyde and COD removal efficiency of SBR was evaluated by applying loading rate of 0.031 to 0.156 kgCOD/m3.h. Four cycles of 6, 8, 10, and 12 hours were considered to investigate retention time effect onto the reactor efficiency. Results: Acclimation of microorganism with formaldehyde was achieved after about 30 days. We found that a retention time lower than an hour is not enough for achieving an acceptable efficiency. The maximum removal efficiency (90.52% for COD and 95.32% for formaldehyde) was observed at organic loading rate of 0.031 kg COD/m3.h and 12 hour retention time. The removal efficiency decreased to 46.44% for COD and 69.12%, for formaldehyde with increasing the organic loading rate to 0.156 kg COD/m3.h. The maximum concentration of MLSS was measured 2863 mg / L at organic loading rate of 0.091 kg COD/m3.h. Conclusion: The results showed that SBR could be applied as a practical, effective, and reliable technology for treatment of wastewater containing formaldehyde.

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Background and objectives: Nowadays, landfilling is most common method in many countries owing to lower cost and adaptation to wide range of solid waste. Site selection of landfill requires evaluating several parameters such as municipal government requirements, environmental regulations and a large number of quantitative and qualitative criteria. The aim of current study was to compare AHP and TOPSIS in landfill site selection. For this purpose, two mentioned methods were applied to select suitable site in Karaj. Materials and methods: In present study, 4 candidate sites in south of Karaj were selected for landfill by overlaying data layers (digital maps) and query functions in Arc GIS 9.2. Prioritizations between alternatives were conducted by AHP and TOPSIS technique according to the criteria mentioned. Eventually, we compared and evaluated the AHP results and TOPSIS results with each other. Result: According to AHP, site prioritization was 3,2,4,1 respectively whereas, in the case of TOPSIS, it was ranked 4,3,2,1, respectively. These results showed that both methods are suitable to determine site priority. Conclusion: As in AHP, alternatives are compared with respect to goal and criteria, consequently it has better precision and higher accuracy and confidence compared with TOPSIS.

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Background and Objective: Phosphorus (P), as one of the agricultural, industrial and urban wastewater pollutants, plays an important role in eutrophication of surface waters. Use of cationic sorbents for removal of anions including phosphate from aqueous environments is a well-known and effective method. Meanwhile, layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are known as effective anion exchange sorbents. In this study, the efficiency of Mg-Al layered double hydroxide (Mg-Al-LDH) for P removal from aqueous solutions was investigated.

Methods and Materials: The Mg-Al layered double hydroxide (Mg-Al-LDH) was synthesized by co-precipitation method and used for removing of P from aqueous solutions. The kinetics and equilibrium studies of phosphate adsorption by Mg-Al-LDH were performed using a batch experiment at different contact times, initial phosphate concentrations, pH values, ionic strengths and doses of sorbent.

Results: The results of the kinetics experiments showed that sorption of P with LDH reached equilibrium after 30 min. The highest correlation coefficient was obtained for the pseudo-second order model, indicated that chemical sorption controlled the rate of phosphate sorption by LDH. The results showed that the sorption experiments data were in good agreement with Langmuir model and the maximum adsorption capacity predicted by this model was 37.83 mg P/g LDH.

Conclusion: The current study revealed that P adsorption by LDH was increased by increasing contact time and concentration of LDH, but decreased by increasing initial concentration of P, pH and ionic strength. The optimum conditions for phosphate anion adsorption by Mg-Al-LDH were determined as P initial concentration of 20 mg/L, contact time of 120 min, pH of 3.0, sorbent dose of 10 g/L and ionic strength of 0.03 mol/L.