Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași

tensides (dispersing agents, emulsifiers, detergents and wetting agents); 15,000-20,000 tonnes carboxylic acids (especially acetic acid); 10,000-15,000 t binders; 5,000-10,000 t urea; 5,000-10,000 t ligands, and < 5,000 t auxiliaries (EWA, 2005). The environmental authorities have begun to target the textile industry to clean up the wastewater that is discharged. The principal quality indicators that regulators are looking for polluting effect or toxicity are the high salt content, high Total Solids (TS), high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), high Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), heavy metals, colour of the textile effluent (ADMI color value -American Dye Manufacturer Institute color value), and other potential hazardous or dangerous organic compounds included into each textile processing technological steps (Tables

Abstract In the last few years, concerns about the environmental fate and behavior of synthetic organic chemicals for hygienic use detected in waters have increased. Several of these compounds are used intensively, in large volumes, are persistent, bioactive and exhibit bioaccumulation and endocrine disrupting activity. Some pharmaceuticals, including analgesics, antibiotics, antiepilieptics, β‐blockers, blood‐lipid regulators and contraceptives also have the potential to determine various physiologic responses in aquatic organisms. Other compounds (natural hormones and several industrial and household chemicals) able to affect organisms in receiving waters are also endocrine disrupting agents. A lack of information still exists regarding the potential impact associated with the occurrence, fate and ecotoxicological effects of endocrine disruptors, including pharmaceuticals and personal care compounds in the environment since few compounds were inventoried or regulated worldwide. In some cases, there are no legal requirements to assess the impact of long‐term exposure to low concentration of these chemicals. This may be because important classes of these compounds have not been studied in detail up to now due to the non‐availability of suitable instrumental techniques or analytical standards for low concentration levels. Recently, the appearance of sophisticated tests for monitoring environmental contamination has revealed the presence of these types of contaminants at lower levels, down to nanograms per liter. This constitutes an important tool in the development of guidelines to monitor and/or update environmental compliance reports. The current survey aims to combine information from the literature on the environmental occurrence, fate and effects of personal care products and endocrine disrupting agents on the environment; as well as on the treatment options for their removal from wastewaters.

Emerging pollutants (EPs) are chemicals known to cause major impacts on the terrestrial, aquatic life and human health as a result of their chronic and acute toxicity. Although lots of studies on EPs behavior in the aquatic environment are currently available in literature, an urgent requirement exists to complete toxicological studies and develop and implement efficient and ecological methods for their removal. This paper raises some relevant problems related to water environment pollution with EPs, the risks they can generate for aquatic life and humans and opportunities to reduce the effects of pollution by EPs removal. Categories of emerging chemicals of concern in the environment, their sources, fate and impacts, with some examples are discussed. Organic UV filters are shortly presented as a relative new EPs category, with a focus on the need to develop extensive experimental studies on their environmental occurrence, fate and removal. Furthermore, sources for the aquatic environment resulting from discharging EPs directly into rivers from wastewater treatment plants are examined. The incidence of environmental and human health risks related to EPs is also considered. The removal of EPs from the environment as a solution to risk mitigation is addressed, with emphasis on several non-conventional processes involving biological removal of EPs. The paper provides a critical look at the current challenges posed by the presence of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment, with critical comments and recommendations for further research to reduce the impact of EPs on water and human health and improve the performance of developed methods for their removal.

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.

The unprecedented pressure posed by a growing population on water resources generates a significant shortage between the available resources and water demand, which together with water scarcity, floods, and droughts, can affect the world population and various other consumers. On the other hand, soil resources, which represent an essential and complex environmental ecosystem, as a support for the biological cycle, source of nutrients, and water for cultivated and wild plants, forestry, etc., are a provider of raw materials, and are increasingly degrading due to unsustainable use. Since both soil and water are vital resources and support for growth and life of plants, their preservation and sustainable management have become an urgent issue for policy makers, governmental factors, academia, and stakeholders. An important question to be answered is what the disturbing factors of soil–plants–water cycles are and how their negative influence can be reduced, since they affect the quality of life and human health. This work proposes an overview on new research into the links between soil and water, and the interactions among soil, water, and plants in a changing and threatened environment, which can determine human welfare. The analysis addresses the global context of water and soil resources, factors that affect their equilibrium and dynamics, especially toxic pollutants such as heavy metals and others, and their mutual relationship with plant growth.

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to engineering design optimization exploiting space mapping (SM). The algorithms employ input SM and a new generalization of implicit SM to minimize the misalignment between the coarse and fine models of the optimized object over a region of interest. Output SM ensures the matching of responses and first-order derivatives between the mapped coarse model and the fine model at the current iteration point in the optimization process. We provide theoretical results that show the importance of the explicit use of sensitivity information to the convergence properties of our family of algorithms. Our algorithm is demonstrated on the optimization of a microstrip bandpass filter, a bandpass filter with double-coupled resonators, and a seven-section impedance transformer. We describe the novel user-oriented software package SMF that implements the new family of SM optimization algorithms

The operating temperature of photovoltaic panels represents an important parameter that influences their conversion efficiency. High operating temperatures determine a decrease of maximum output power in the same conditions of solar radiation. The study presents a numerical approach of the reduction of temperature of the photovoltaic panels by using the air cooled heat sinks. The heat sink is conceived as a ribbed wall, realized of a high thermal conductivity material. The cooling efficiency is studied for different configurations of the heat sink, obtained by modifying the angle between the ribs and the base plate. The numerical model was realized using ANSYS-Fluent software for turbulent flow and the results are presented for the average temperature of the photovoltaic panel.

Abstract In recent years, numerous investigations have explored the use of biochar for the removal of organic and inorganic pollutants in single component systems. Biochar is a carbonaceous material produced from waste biomass, mainly by thermochemical conversion methods. This material was used as a biosorbent in various removal processes of pollutants, and its efficiency was strongly influenced by the characteristics of the biomass feedstock. This review integrates the recent works of literature to understand the biosorption behaviour of dyes onto biochar-based biosorbents. The factors influencing the biosorption process and the mechanisms describing the biosorption behaviours of the biochar have been broadly reviewed. Furthermore, the biosorption models can be used to comprehend the competence of the biochar as biosorbent for dye removal techniques. Graphical Abstract

Hydrogels, three-dimensional (3D) polymer networks, present unique properties, like biocompatibility, biodegradability, tunable mechanical properties, sensitivity to various stimuli, the capacity to encapsulate different therapeutic agents, and the ability of controlled release of the drugs. All these characteristics make hydrogels important candidates for diverse biomedical applications, one of them being drug delivery. The recent achievements of hydrogels as safe transport systems, with desired therapeutic effects and with minimum side effects, brought outstanding improvements in this area. Moreover, results from the utilization of hydrogels as target therapy strategies obtained in clinical trials are very encouraging for future applications. In this regard, the review summarizes the general concepts related to the types of hydrogel delivery systems, their properties, the main release mechanisms, and the administration pathways at different levels (oral, dermal, ocular, nasal, gastrointestinal tract, vaginal, and cancer therapy). After a general presentation, the review is focused on recent advances in the design, preparation and applications of innovative cellulose-based hydrogels in controlled drug delivery.

The textile wastewaters have a diverse composition depending both on the used raw materials and applied manufacturing technologies.These wastewaters may contain various pollutants such as organic compounds (e.g.residual dyes), suspended solids, metal ions etc.Most of dyes are synthetic compounds with aromatic molecular structures and non-biodegradable.The oxidative destruction via homogenous oxidation processes with hydrogen peroxide (simple chemical oxidation with H 2 O 2 or advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) as Fenton oxidation, ozonation, photo-oxidation and photo-Fenton oxidation etc.) are attractive alternatives to conventional treatments, easy to be applied and not so expensive.The use of H 2 O 2 in AOPs has the advantage that the decomposition products of organic pollutants are common harmless compounds.Moreover, H 2 O 2 decomposes itself in water and oxygen.This paper is a review of authors' researches regarding homogenous oxidation with hydrogen peroxide applied for different types of textile dyes in order to perform high textile dye removals considering some relevant factors: pH, agitation regime, temperature, H 2 O 2 concentration, textile dye concentration, oxidation time, ferrous or metallic ions concentration, etc.

An adaptive space vector modulation (SVM) approach to compensate the DC-link voltage ripple in a B4 inverter is proposed and examined in detail. The theory, design, and performance of this pulsewidth modulation (PWM) method are presented, and the method effectiveness is demonstrated by extensive simulations and experiments. High-quality output currents are guaranteed by this approach even with substantial DC-voltage variations that might be caused by an unbalanced AC supply system, the diode rectification of the line voltages, and circulation of one output phase current through the split capacitor bank. The application of this approach to induction machine drives is also discussed. It is concluded that the DC-voltage ripple effect on the B4 inverter output can be minimized by an adaptive SVM algorithm with the advantage of improving the response of the DC-link filter and the output quality of the inverter becoming high.

Studies show that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has an important impact on health in general. In response to environmental demands, homeostatic processes are often compromised, therefore determining an increase in the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)'s functions and a decrease in the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)'s functions. In modern societies, chronic stress associated with an unhealthy lifestyle contributes to ANS dysfunction. In this review, we provide a brief introduction to the ANS network, its connections to the HPA axis and its stress responses and give an overview of the critical implications of ANS in health and disease-focused specifically on the immune system, cardiovascular, oxidative stress and metabolic dysregulation. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), the SNS and more recently the PNS have been identified as regulating the immune system. The HPA axis and PNS have anti-inflammatory effects and the SNS has been shown to have both pro- and anti-inflammatory effects. The positive impact of physical exercise (PE) is well known and has been studied by many researchers, but its negative impact has been less studied. Depending on the type, duration and individual characteristics of the person doing the exercise (age, gender, disease status, etc.), PE can be considered a physiological stressor. The negative impact of PE seems to be connected with the oxidative stress induced by effort.

The hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol was performed in the presence of a Co/SBA-15 catalyst. High selectivity (96 %) at a conversion higher than 95 % is reported over this catalytic system. As the conversion of furfural to furfuryl alcohol occurs over metallic Co sites, the effect of reduction temperature, H2 pressure, and reaction temperature were studied. Optimum reaction conditions were: 150 °C, 1.5 h, 2.0 MPa of H2 . The catalyst was recyclable, and furfuryl alcohol was recovered with a purity higher than 90 %. The effect of the solvent concentration was also studied. With a minimum of 50 wt % of solvent, the selectivity to furfuryl alcohol and the conversion of furfural remained high (both over 80 %). Likewise, the activity of the catalyst is maintained even in pure furfural, which confirms the real potential of the proposed catalytic system. This catalyst was also used in the hydrogenation of levulinic acid to produce γ-valerolactone selectively.

Phthalate esters (PAEs) are known as esters of phthalic acid, which are commonly used as plasticizers in the plastic industry. Due to the lack of chemical bonding with the polymer matrix, these compounds are easily separated from plastic products and enter the environment. To investigate the growth of concentration of PAEs like DBP (Dibutyl phthalate), DEP (Diethyl phthalate), DMP (Dimethyl phthalate), DIBP (Diisobutyl phthalate), and TPMBP (tris(2-methylbutyl) phosphate) in different water sources, a study from January 01, 1976, to April 30, 2021, was implemented via a global systematic review plus meta-analysis in which, 109 articles comprising 4061 samples, 4 water types, and 27 countries were included. Between various types of water sources, river water and lake water were the most contaminated resources with PAEs. Among all studies of PAEs, DBP and DEP with the values >15,573 mg L−1 have the highest average concentration and TPMBP with the value 0.002885 mg L−1 has the lowest average concentration in water sources. The most contaminated water sources with PAEs were in Nigeria and the least contaminated was in China. Besides, Monte-Carlo simulation indicated that for DMP and DEP minimum values that are lower than the acceptable limit are generated. However, most of the population (>75 %) is at risk for both adults and child cases. For DIBP and DBP the situation is much worse, the simulations not providing at least one case where the R index is lower than the acceptable limit of 1E-06.

Recently, methods have been developed to analyse couplings in dynamic systems. In the field of medical analysis of complex cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory systems, there is growing interest in how insights may be gained into the interaction between regulatory mechanisms in healthy and diseased persons. The couplings within and between these systems can be linear or nonlinear. However, the complex mechanisms involved in cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory regulation very likely interact with each other in a nonlinear way. Recent advances in nonlinear dynamics and information theory have allowed the multivariate study of information transfer between time series. They therefore might be able to provide additional diagnostic and prognostic information in medicine and might, in particular, be able to complement traditional linear coupling analysis techniques. In this review, we describe the approaches (Granger causality, nonlinear prediction, entropy, symbolization, phase synchronization) most commonly applied to detect direct and indirect couplings between time series, especially focusing on nonlinear approaches. We will discuss their capacity to quantify direct and indirect couplings and the direction (driver-response relationship) of the considered interaction between different biological time series. We also give their basic theoretical background, their basic requirements for application, their main features and demonstrate their usefulness in different applications in the field of cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory coupling analyses.

In this study, ground glass powder and crushed waste glass were used to replace coarse and fine aggregates. Within the scope of the study, fine aggregate (FA) and coarse aggregate (CA) were changed separately with proportions of 10%, 20%, 40%, and 50%. According to the mechanical test, including compression, splitting tensile, and flexural tests, the waste glass powder creates a better pozzolanic effect and increases the strength, while the glass particles tend to decrease the strength when they are swapped with aggregates. As observed in the splitting tensile test, noteworthy progress in the tensile strength of the concrete was achieved by 14%, while the waste glass used as a fractional replacement for the fine aggregate. In samples where glass particles were swapped with CA, the tensile strength tended to decrease. It was noticed that with the adding of waste glass at 10%, 20%, 40%, and 50% of FA swapped, the increase in flexural strength was 3.2%, 6.3%, 11.1%, and 4.8%, respectively, in amount to the reference one (6.3 MPa). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis consequences also confirm the strength consequences obtained from the experimental study. While it is seen that glass powder provides better bonding with cement with its pozzolanic effect and this has a positive effect on strength consequences, it is seen that voids are formed in the samples where large glass pieces are swapped with aggregate and this affects the strength negatively. Furthermore, simple equations using existing data in the literature and the consequences obtained from the current study were also developed to predict mechanical properties of the concrete with recycled glass for practical applications. Based on findings obtained from our study, 20% replacement for FA and CA with waste glass is recommended.

We present a computational framework for automatic synthesis of decentralized communication and control strategies for a robotic team from global specifications, which are given as temporal and logic statements about visiting regions of interest in a partitioned environment. We consider a purely discrete scenario, where the robots move among the vertices of a graph. However, by employing recent results on invariance and facet reachability for dynamical systems in environments with polyhedral partitions, the framework from this paper can be directly implemented for robots with continuous dynamics. While allowing for a rich specification language and guaranteeing the correctness of the solution, our approach is conservative in the sense that we might not find a solution, even if one exists. The overall amount of required computation is large. However, most of it is performed offline before the deployment. Illustrative simulations and experimental results are included.

The impact of heavy metal presence in soil on cereal crops is a growing concern, posing significant challenges to global food security and environmental sustainability. Cereal crops, vital sources of nutrition, face the risk of contamination with toxic heavy metals released into the environment through human activities. This paper explores key aspects requiring thorough investigation to foster innovation and understand intricate interactions between heavy metals and cereals. Visible symptoms and physiological changes resulting from heavy metal contamination, such as chlorosis and stunted growth, demand further research to devise targeted mitigation strategies and sustainable agricultural practices. Root barrier formation, mycorrhizal symbiosis, and metal-binding proteins emerge as critical defence mechanisms for combating heavy metal stress, offering opportunities for developing metal-tolerant cereal varieties. Research on metal bioavailability and food safety implications in cereal grains is vital to safeguard human health. This paper reveals that multidisciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge technologies are essential for promoting innovation beyond the state of the art in elucidating and mitigating the impacts of heavy metals on cereal crops. Genetic and breeding approaches show promise in developing metal-tolerant cereal varieties, while agronomic practices and soil amendments can reduce metal bioavailability and toxicity. Unravelling the complex mechanisms underlying heavy metal uptake and tolerance is essential for sustainable cereal agriculture and worldwide food sustainability. Embracing the challenges of heavy metal pollution through proactive research and collaboration can secure a resilient future for cereal crops amid evolving environmental conditions.

Commercial epoxy resin loaded with phosphorus flame retardant led to composites exhibiting remarkable improved flame retardancy and thermal stability.

NiO and NiO-CuO polycrystalline rodlike nanoparticles were confined and stabilized within the channels of ordered mesoporous SBA-15 silica by a simple and viable approach consisting in incipient wetness impregnation of the calcined support with aqueous solutions of metal nitrates followed by a mild drying step at 25 °C and calcination. As revealed by low- and high-angle XRD, N2 adsorption/desorption, HRTEM/EDXS and H2 TPR analyses, the morphostructural properties of NiO-CuO nanoparticles can be controlled by adjusting their chemical composition, creating the prerequisites to obtain high performance bimetallic catalysts. Experimental evidence by in situ XRD monitoring during the thermoprogrammed reduction indicates that the confined NiO-CuO nanoparticles evolve into thermostable and well-dispersed Ni-Cu heterostructures. The strong Cu-Ni and Ni-support interactions demonstrated by TPR and XPS were put forward to explain the formation of these new bimetallic structures. The optimal Ni-Cu/SBA-15 catalyst (i.e., Cu/(Cu+Ni) atomic ratio of 0.2) proved a greatly enhanced reducibility and H2 chemisorption capacity, and an improved activity in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde, as compared with the monometallic Ni/SBA-15 or Cu/SBA-15 counterparts, which can be associated with the synergism between nickel and copper and high dispersion of active components on the SBA-15 host. The unique structure and controllable properties of both oxidic and metallic forms of Ni-Cu/SBA-15 materials make them very attractive for both fundamental research and practical catalytic applications.