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In developing countries, one of the most severe modern-day dilemmas is the management of industrial wastewater. In these countries, industrial wastewater effluents are directly discharged into the natural drain, a sewer system, an internal septic tank or a nearby field. Some of these industrial wastewater effluents are inadequately treated or untreated before being discharged. In recent years, in developing countries, urbanization and industrial activities have led to environmental deterioration. This paper was designed to review the health and environmental impacts of inadequately treated or untreated industrial wastewater effluents in Pakistan. The quality of industrial wastewater effluents is responsible for the degradation of the receiving water bodies. This is due to the reason that inadequately treated or untreated industrial wastewater effluents may cause eutrophication in the receiving water bodies and also form a favorable condition for toxin-producing waterborne pathogens. In order to comply with the wastewater guidelines and legislations, there is a need for proper treatment before discharge. In order to minimize the risk to the environment and public health, there is a need for proper treatment processes for industrial wastewater effluents. To achieve unpolluted discharge of industrial wastewater into the receiving water bodies, regular monitoring, proper and suitable treatment, careful planning and appropriate legislation are recommended.

Electrocoagulation (EC) is one of the emerging technologies in groundwater and wastewater treatment as it combines the benefits of coagulation, sedimentation, flotation, and electrochemical oxidation processes. Extensive research efforts implementing EC technology have been executed over the last decade to treat chemical oxygen demand (COD)-rich industrial wastewaters with the aim to protect freshwater streams (e.g., rivers, lakes) from pollution. A comprehensive review of the available recent literature utilizing EC to treat wastewater with high COD levels is presented. In addition, recommendations are provided for future studies to improve the EC technology and broaden its range of application. This review paper introduces some technologies which are often adopted for industrial wastewater treatment. Then, the EC process is compared with those techniques as a treatment for COD-rich wastewater. The EC process is considered as the most privileged technology by different research groups owing to its ability to deal with abundant volumes of wastewater. After, the application of EC as a single and combined treatment for COD-rich wastewaters is thoroughly reviewed. Finally, this review attempts to highlight the potentials and limitations of EC. Related to the EC process in batch operation mode, the best operational conditions are found at 10 V and 60 min of voltage and reaction time, respectively. These last values guarantee high COD removal efficiencies of > 90%. This review also concludes that considerably large operation costs of the EC process appears to be the serious drawback and renders it as an unfeasible approach for handling of COD rich wastewaters. In the end, this review has attempted to highlights the potential and limitation of EC and suggests that vast notably research in the field of continuous flow EC system is essential to introduce this technology as a convincing wastewater technology.

Landfilling is one of the most common waste management methods employed in all countries alike, irrespective of their developmental status. The most commonly used types of landfills are (a) municipal solid waste landfill, (b) industrial waste landfill, and (c) hazardous waste landfill. There is, also, an emerging landfill type called “green waste landfill” that is, occasionally, being used. Most landfills, including those discussed in this review article, are controlled and engineered establishments, wherein the waste ought to abide with certain regulations regarding their quality and quantity. However, illegal and uncontrolled “landfills” (mostly known as open dumpsites) are, unfortunately, prevalent in many developing countries. Due to the widespread use of landfilling, even as of today, it is imperative to examine any environmental- and/or health-related issues that have emerged. The present study seeks to determine the environmental pollution and health effects associated with waste landfilling by adopting a desk review design. It is revealed that landfilling is associated with various environmental pollution problems, namely, (a) underground water pollution due to the leaching of organic, inorganic, and various other substances of concern (SoC) contained in the waste, (b) air pollution due to suspension of particles, (c) odor pollution from the deposition of municipal solid waste (MSW), and (d) even marine pollution from any potential run-offs. Furthermore, health impacts may occur through the pollution of the underground water and the emissions of gases, leading to carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects of the exposed population living in their vicinity. Graphical abstract

Water is an indispensable resource for human activity and the environment. Industrial activities generate vast quantities of wastewater that may be heavily polluted or contain toxic contaminants, posing environmental and public health challenges. Different industries generate wastewater with widely varying characteristics, such as the quantity generated, concentration, and pollutant type. It is essential to understand these characteristics to select available treatment techniques for implementation in wastewater treatment facilities to promote sustainable water usage. This review article provides an overview of wastewaters generated by various industries and commonly applied treatment techniques. The characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of physical, chemical, and biological treatment methods are presented.

The development of a cost-effective and ecologically beneficial method for removing toxic dye molecules from wastewater is urgently needed for environmental and health reasons. Here, four Fe 3 O 4 /PS nanocomposites with different Fe 3 O 4 percentages were fabricated through the mechanochemical technique. This study provided a new monolithic adsorbent from abundant materials via a facile synthetic procedure, which can greatly reduce the problems of the tedious separation of adsorbents from treated waste. The adsorbent is composed of pistachio shell/Fe 3 O 4 composite, which has been used as a highly effective and sustainable adsorbent to eliminate methylene blue (MB) dye under ambient conditions. Diverse characterization analyses, including SEM, EDX, and FTIR techniques, were utilized to investigate the morphology and structure of the synthesized composite. The formed Fe 3 O 4 particles have an average diameter of 274 nm and an average area of 0.11 μm 2 . The batch adsorption methodology was employed, wherein several parameters, such as adsorbent dose, pH, initial dye concentration, adsorption temperature, and contact time, were adjusted to examine their effectiveness and adsorption capacity in removing the MB dye. Furthermore, the adsorption behavior was evaluated by studying the linear and non-linear adsorption isotherms. The maximum MB removal efficiency of 95% was achieved with the optimized parameters of MB dye concentration (2.5 mg/L), adsorbent dose (15 mg), contact time (15 min), and adsorption temperature (25 °C). The selectivity of the developed adsorbent was examined towards 25 mg/L of MB cationic dye and anionic dye (methylene orange), which demonstrated higher removal efficiency for the cationic dye (46.93%) compared to the anionic dye (12.46%). Moreover, the pistachio shell/Fe 3 O 4 adsorbent demonstrated excellent capability to remove MB dye from industrial wastewater samples. Overall, this approach presents a new, sustainable, and effective strategy for mitigating the harmful effects of MB, with potential applications in treated industrial wastewater samples.

The Congo Red dye was removed from a simulated textile wastewater solution using fly ash from a local power plant. The characterisation of fly ash was studied in detail by SEM, EDX, XRD, FTIR, BET surface area and TGA techniques. The influence of four parameters (contact time, initial concentration, adsorbent dose, and temperature) was analysed, the results showing that the adsorption capacity depends on these parameters. Thermodynamic and regeneration investigations as well are presented. The fit to pseudo-second-order kinetics models suggests that the removal process is a chemical adsorption. The Langmuir model fitted the experimental data, with a maximum adsorption capacity of 22.12 mg/g. The research is a preliminary case study that highlights that fly ash posed a very good potential as a material for Congo Red dye removal.

Electrochemically converting nitrate ions, a widely distributed nitrogen source in industrial wastewater and polluted groundwater, into ammonia represents a sustainable route for both wastewater treatment and ammonia generation. However, it is currently hindered by low catalytic activities, especially under low nitrate concentrations. Here we report a high-performance Ru-dispersed Cu nanowire catalyst that delivers an industrial-relevant nitrate reduction current of 1 A cm–2 while maintaining a high NH3 Faradaic efficiency of 93%. More importantly, this high nitrate-reduction catalytic activity enables over a 99% nitrate conversion into ammonia, from an industrial wastewater level of 2,000 ppm to a drinkable water level <50 ppm, while still maintaining an over 90% Faradaic efficiency. Coupling the nitrate reduction effluent stream with an air stripping process, we successfully obtained high purity solid NH4Cl and liquid NH3 solution products, which suggests a practical approach to convert wastewater nitrate into valuable ammonia products. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the highly dispersed Ru atoms provide active nitrate reduction sites and the surrounding Cu sites can suppress the main side reaction, the hydrogen evolution reaction.Nitrate, a common pollutant in wastewater and groundwater, has been efficiently converted into valuable ammonia products via an electrochemical method using Ru-dispersed Cu nanowire as the catalyst.

The presence of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has caused serious problems for drinking water supplies especially at intake locations close to PFAS manufacturing facilities, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and sites where PFAS-containing firefighting foam was regularly used. Although monitoring is increasing, knowledge on PFAS occurrences particularly in municipal and industrial effluents is still relatively low. Even though the production of C8-based PFAS has been phased out, they are still being detected at many WWTPs. Emerging PFAS such as GenX and F-53B are also beginning to be reported in aquatic environments. This paper presents a broad review and discussion on the occurrence of PFAS in municipal and industrial wastewater which appear to be their main sources. Carbon adsorption and ion exchange are currently used treatment technologies for PFAS removal. However, these methods have been reported to be ineffective for the removal of short-chain PFAS. Several pioneering treatment technologies, such as electrooxidation, ultrasound, and plasma have been reported for PFAS degradation. Nevertheless, in-depth research should be performed for the applicability of emerging technologies for real-world applications. This paper examines different technologies and helps to understand the research needs to improve the development of treatment processes for PFAS in wastewater streams.

The industrial revolution has marked a strong impact on financial upgradation of several countries, and increase in the industrial establishment globally has direct impact on environment because of the release of unwanted product in air and inside the water bodies. The use of dyes has increased tremendously in various industries ranging from food, leather, textile, paper, cosmetic, pharmaceuticals, etc. The problem has emerged due to disposing of the dyes in the open environment, and mostly it is disposed along with the industrial wastes into the water bodies, which becomes harmful for animals, aquatic life and human health. This review highlights the role of the nanoparticles particularly biosynthesized nanoparticles for eliminating the dyes from the industrial wastewater. There are several methods for the synthesis of nanoparticle including physical, chemical and green synthesis of nanoparticles commonly known as biological method. Among all, the biological method is considered as the rapid, easy, eco-friendly and is being performed at mild conditions. The uses of nanoparticles for removal of dyes from water minimize the hazardous impact and thus considered to be the best approach as far as water quality and safety of environment is concerned.

Wastewater from the food industry is considered harmful to human health and aquatic life, as well as polluting water and soil. This research is centered around finding an affordable and easy physicochemical method for dealing with waste generated by the food industry. To accomplish this goal, a new bio-based flocculant called 4-benzyl-4-(2-oleamidoethylamino-2-oxoethyl) morpholin-4-ium chloride was created using sustainable sources, specifically crude olive pomace oil. Its chemical structure was confirmed using various spectroscopic techniques such as FTIR, 1 H-NMR, mass spectra, and 13 C-NMR. This new bio-based cationic flocculant was combined with alum to act as a coagulant in the waste treatment process. Also, a study was conducted to determine the optimal conditions for the coagulation-flocculation process parameters, namely, pH and alum dosage, on COD and removal efficiency. The results showed that the optimal conditions for flocculation were achieved at pH 5.8, with 680 mg/L alum and 10 mg/L of commercial flocculant dose compared to only 5 mg/L of a new bio-based cationic flocculant. A comparison was made between the new bio-cationic flocculant and a commercial CTAB one for treating wastewater in the food industry. The study found that the new bio-based cationic flocculant was more effective in reducing the chemical oxygen demand, achieving a reduction of 61.3% compared to 54.6% for using a commercial cationic flocculant. Furthermore, using a new bio-based cationic flocculant costs only 0.49 $/g, which is less than the present cationic flocculant, which costs 0.93 $/g. The adoption of this new flocculant provides a sustainable alternative to existing industrial wastewater treatment processes