In Malaysia, most colored wastewater from dyeing factories is discharged to the environment causing serious problems. In this paper the influence of several reacting conditions, i.e. H2O2, pH, Ultraviolet (UV) intensity and dye concentration, on the performance of the immobilized system is discussed. The pH of the solution was varied from 3 to 11 while H2O2 concentration tested was from 10(-4) M to 5 x 10(-2) M. UV was tested at 365 nm and 254 nm, while dye concentration ranged from 2.5 x 10(-4) M to 10(-3) M. The influence of the reacting conditions was assessed based on absorbance. Using an OG concentration of 10(-3) M, the degradation increases from 17.8% to 49.7%. Optimum concentration of H2O2 was found to be 5 x 10(-3) M for degradation. Increasing the intensity of the UV light via shorter light wavelength also improves the performance of the system. Increasing the concentration of the dye reduces the overall performance of the system. Using the dye concentration of 2.5 x 10(-4) M (H2O2 = 10(-2) M, lambda = 254 nm, pH = 11), gives a degradation of 93.2%. At dye concentration of 10(-3) M, the performance was reduced to 53.1%.
An extremely sensitive and simple gas chromatography with mass spectrometry method was developed and completely validated for the analysis of five process-related impurities, viz., 4-hydroxy-l-phenylglycine, 4-hydroxyphenylacetonitrile, 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, methyl-4-hydroxyphenylacetate, and 2-[4-{(2RS)-2-hydroxy-3-[(1-methylethyl)amino]propoxy}phenyl]acetonitrile, in atenolol. The separation of impurities was accomplished on a BPX-5 column with dimensions of 50 m × 0.25 mm i.d. and 0.25 μm film thickness. The method validation was performed following International Conference on Harmonisation guidelines in which the method was capable to quantitate 4-hydroxy-l-phenylglycine, 4-hydroxyphenylacetonitrile, and 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid at 0.3 ppm, and methyl-4-hydroxyphenylacetate and 2-[4-{(2RS)-2-hydroxy-3-[(1-methylethyl)amino]propoxy}phenyl]acetonitrile at 0.35 ppm with respect to 10 mg/mL of atenolol. The method was linear over the concentration range of 0.3-10 ppm for 4-hydroxy-l-phenylglycine, 4-hydroxyphenylacetonitrile, and 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, and 0.35-10 ppm for methyl-4-hydroxyphenylacetate and 2-[4-{(2RS)-2-hydroxy-3-[(1-methylethyl)amino]propoxy}phenyl]acetonitrile. The correlation coefficient in each case was found ≥0.998. The repeatability and recovery values were acceptable, and found between 89.38% and 105.60% for all five impurities under optimized operating conditions. The method developed here is simple, selective, and sensitive with apparently better resolution than the reported methods. Hence, the method is a straightforward and good quality control tool for the quantitation of selected impurities at trace concentrations in atenolol.
Struvite precipitation has been widely applied for the removal of ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N) from wastewater. Due to the high cost of phosphorus (P) reagents, the current research trend was directed to find alternative sources of P, in order to maintain a sustainable NH4-N removal process. The current study investigated waste bones ashes as alternative sources of P. Different types of bones' ashes were characterized, in which the ash produced from waste fish bones was the highest in P content (17%wt.). The optimization of the factors affecting P extraction from ash by acidic leaching showed that applying 2M H2SO4 and 1.25 kg H2SO4/kg ash achieved the highest P recovery (95%). Thereafter, the recovered P was successfully used in struvite precipitation, which achieved more than 90% NH4-N removal and high purity struvite.