Waste water from laboratories

T. Korenaga and H. Ikatsu, Flow Injection Analysis of Chemical Oxygen Demand in Waste Waters from Laboratories [in Japanese]. Bunseki Kagaku, 29 (1980) 497. 

DEHP is a widely used chemical that enters the environment predominantly through disposal of industrial and municipal wastes in landfills and, to a much lesser extent, volatilization into air (from industrial and end uses of DEHP), carried in waste water from industrial sources of DEHP, and within effluent from municipal waste water treatment plants. It tends to sorb strongly to soils and sediments and to bioconcentrate in aquatic organisms. Biodegradation is expected to occur under aerobic conditions. Sorption, bioaccumulation, and biodegradation are likely to be competing processes, with the dominant fate being determined by local environmental conditions. When DEHP is present in the environment, it is usually at very low levels. It is very difficult to determine these low levels accurately since DEHP is a ubiquitous laboratory contaminant, and laboratory contamination may cause false positives to be reported in the literature. 

Sioi M, Bolosis A, Kostopoulou E, Poulios I. Photocatalytic treatment of colored waste-water from medical laboratories Photocatalytic oxidation of hematoxylin. J Photochem Photobiol A Chem 2006 184 18-25. 

Dillert et al. have treated biologically pre-treated industrial waste waters from factories in Wolfsburg (Germany) and Taubate (Brazil) of the Volkswagen AG in laboratory and bench-scale experiments [260,261]. The results of the experiments, which have been performed using the DSSR, were so... 

Waste water from radiochemical laboratories which may contain radioactive substances, e.g. by mistake, must be checked for radioactivity. If the condition is such that the activity should not be higher than the acceptable limit for drinking water (e.g. 1 Bq/1), very sensitive methods are necessary to detect these low concentrations. For comparison, 1 Bq/1 is the activity of 20 mg of natural K per litre, river water contains about 1 Bq/1, water from natural springs up to several kBq/1, and rainwater sampled after test explosions of nuclear weapons also contained up to 1 kBq/1. The safest method for determination of concentrations of the order of 1 Bq/1 is evaporation of about 11 and measurement of the residue by means of a large-area flow counter. This method makes it possible to detect several mBq of a or emitters. 

Sinks Provision of sinks in each laboratory is one of the essential requirements. For a laboratory of ordinary size generally four sinks of 15" " 12" " 8" or 20" 15" 10" are sufficient. These sinks be fitted on side walls. These sinks are in addition to the one provided with the demonstration table. Waste water from these sinks is carried to the drains with the helps of the lead pipes fitted with the sinks. In laboratories kitchen type sinks are preferred to wash basis type. Fig gives a sketch of sinks and drainage for water. 

The waste water from a radio-chemical laboratory should as a matter of principle be collected separately from other waste water, and, as far as... 

In a few institutions, however, waste water from chemical laboratories is collected and treated in campus facilities and recycled for irrigation. Where national regulatory authority exists for working with radioisotopes, government agencies typically collect and dispose of radioactive waste from laboratories. Most developing countries do not have similar arrangements for disposal of other hazardous chemicals. 

A third source of aquatic plutonium is liquid effluent discharged from laboratory operations into ponds and streams. An example of this is a former waste pond at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pond 3513, that received liquid wastes with low concentrations of transuranic elements before it was retired. This impoundment has water quality similar to high pH natural ponds. 

The most widespread biological application of three-phase fluidization at a commercial scale is in wastewater treatment. Several large scale applications exist for fermentation processes, as well, and, recently, applications in cell culture have been developed. Each of these areas have particular features that make three-phase fluidization particularly well-suited for them Wastewater Treatment. As can be seen in Tables 14a to 14d, numerous examples of the application of three-phase fluidization to waste-water treatment exist. Laboratory studies in the 1970 s were followed by large scale commercial units in the early 1980 s, with aerobic applications preceding anaerobic systems (Heijnen et al., 1989). The technique is well accepted as a viable tool for wastewater treatment for municipal sewage, food process waste streams, and other industrial effluents. Though pure cultures known to degrade a particular waste component are occasionally used (Sreekrishnan et al., 1991 Austermann-Haun et al., 1994 Lazarova et al., 1994), most applications use a mixed culture enriched from a similar waste stream or treatment facility or no inoculation at all (Sanz and Fdez-Polanco, 1990). 

Steve Kruse of the City of Lincoln, Nebraska, Waste-water Treatment Plant Laboratory examines a faulty detector module taken from the flow injection analysis system in use in the laboratory. 

PCDD/F and other chlorinated hydrocarbons observed as micropollutants in incineration plants are products of incomplete combustion like other products such as carbon monoxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and soot. The thermodynamically stable oxidation products of any organic material formed by more than 99% are carbon dioxide, water, and HCl. Traces of PCDD/F are formed in the combustion of any organic material in the presence of small amounts of inorganic and organic chlorine present in the fuel municipal waste contains about 0.8% of chlorine. PCDD/F formation has been called the inherent property of fire. Many investigations have shown that PCDD/Fs are not formed in the hot zones of flames of incinerators at about 1000°C, but in the postcombustion zone in a temperature range between 300 and 400°C. Fly ash particles play an important role in that they act as catalysts for the heterogeneous formation of PCDD/Fs on the surface of this matrix. Two different theories have been deduced from laboratory experiments for the formation pathways of PCCD/F ... 

ICP-MS is well suited for the multi-element determination of trace impurities in different types of water samples, such as drinking water, rain, sea, river, groundwater and also waste water samples (and in addition, highest purity water as required for microelectronics) due to its excellent detection limits from the pg m I 1 to Ig m I 1 concentration range. This powerful and sensitive mass spectrometric technique is applied in routine measurement programs for characterization of water quality and determination of pollution in many laboratories worldwide. 

Recall Problem 3.1. You are the boss of an analytical laboratory and, this time, you check the numbers from the analysis of chlorobenzene in water samples of very different origins, namely (a) moderately contaminated groundwater, (b) seawater ([salt]tot 0.5 M), (c) water from a brine ([salt]tot = 5.0 M), and (d) leachate of a hazardous-waste site containing 40% (v v) methanol. For all samples, your laboratory reports the same chlorobenzene concentration of 10 ng IT1. Again the sample flasks were unfortunately not completely filled. This time, the 1 L flasks were filled with 400 mL liquid, and stored at 25°C before analysis. What were the original concentrations (in /J,g-L l) of chlorobenzene in the four samples ... 

Isolation of Residue Organics from Waters via XAD Chromatography. Residue organics were isolated from the water samples via XAD chromatographic procedures developed in our laboratory. Drinking water and ground water samples were processed via the XAD procedure described in publications (3, 9, JO, 21, 22) and detailed in the Interim Protocol developed for the USEPA (5). Waste water samples were processed via a modification of the XAD procedure (4). 

The XAD-4 quaternary resin used in these studies was prepared by the Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. This resin had been used in studies by the Ames group for the adsorption and selective separation of acidic material in waste waters. For this study, the resin was chosen for its effectiveness in concentrating anionic material from solution. At the same time, it was thought that sufficient sites would be available to effectively adsorb neutral organic compounds from water. The resin was basically an XAD-4 macroreticular cross-linked polystyrene into which a trimethylamine group was introduced. The resin was stored in the chloride form but was converted to the hydroxide form before use in the resin sorption experiments. 

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