Publications related to Light-Assisted Advanced Oxidation Processes for the Elimination of Chemical and Microbiological Pollution of Wastewaters in Developed and Developing Countries

Oxidation processes and me

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Monitoring an Emergent Pathogen at Low Incidence in Wastewater Using qPCR: Mpox in Switzerland

Tamar Kohn, Timothy R. Julian

Wastewater-based epidemiology offers a complementary approach to clinical case-based surveillance of emergent diseases and can help identify regions with infected people to prioritize clinical surveillance strategies. However, tracking emergent diseases in ...

2024

Microbial genome collection of aerobic granular sludge cultivated in sequencing batch reactors using different carbon source mixtures

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger, Pilar Natalia Rodilla Ramírez, Laetitia Janine Andrée Cardona, Jaspreet Singh Saini, Ruizhe Pei

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) consists of a microbial consortium that has an important role in wastewater treatment. This study investigates AGS microorganisms cultivated in a laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactor. Metagenomic sequencing was conducted ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

In Situ Synthesis of CuxO/N Doped Graphdiyne with Pyridine N Configuration for Ammonia Production via Nitrate Reduction

Sophia Haussener, Roberto Valenza, Jian Li

Electroreduction of nitrate to ammonia provides an interesting pathway for wastewater treatment and valorization. Cu-based catalysts are active for the conversion of NO3− to NO2− but suffer from an inefficient hydrogenation process of NO2−. Herein, CuxO/N- ...

2024

Optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making

Mats Julius Stensrud, Aaron Leor Sarvet

We consider optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making. Such regimes are decision functions of measured pre-treatment variables and, by leveraging natural treatment values, enjoy a superoptimality property whereby they are guaranteed to o ...

2024

The Mn(VII)-H2O2 oxidation process: Abatement of electron-deficient N-containing organic compounds

Urs von Gunten, Ke Xu

Chemical oxidants applied in water treatment are electrophiles, which preferentially attack sites with higher electron density. This typically results in less efficient oxidative abatement of organic compounds with electronwithdrawing substituents. In this ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Role of Carbonyl Compounds for N-Nitrosamine Formation during Nitrosation: Kinetics and Mechanisms

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Urs von Gunten, Yishuai Pan

N-Nitrosamines are potential human carcinogens frequently detected in natural and engineered aquatic systems. This study sheds light on the role of carbonyl compounds in the formation of N-nitrosamines by nitrosation of five secondary amines via different ...

2024

MRI characterization of in vitro clots at 3T and 7T: A technical note

François Lazeyras, Lijing Xin

In acute ischemic stroke, the composition of the occlusive clot can be associated with the underlying pathophysiology and the response to treatment. For these reasons, it is important to characterize the clot composition from clinical scans. We examine the ...

Masson Editeur2024

Characterization of low-temperature plasmas generated by dielectric barrier discharges for bacterial inactivation

Lorenzo Ibba

Low-temperature plasmas (LTPs) at atmospheric pressure hold great promise for disinfection and sterilization applications. When compared to traditional sterilization technologies like autoclaving, LTPs may offer several benefits, including reduced energy c ...

EPFL2024

Characterization of a flexible a-Si:H detector for in vivo dosimetry in therapeutic x-ray beams

Sylvain Dunand, Nicolas Würsch, Jonathan Emanuel Thomet, Luca Massimiliano Antognini, Matthew James Large

BackgroundThe increasing use of complex and high dose-rate treatments in radiation therapy necessitates advanced detectors to provide accurate dosimetry. Rather than relying on pre-treatment quality assurance (QA) measurements alone, many countries are now ...

Wiley2024

Acids from fruits generate photoactive Fe-complexes, enhancing solar disinfection of water (SODIS): A systematic study of the novel " fruto-Fenton " process, effective over a wide pH range (4-9)

César Pulgarin, Aline Laetitia Schaub, Stefanos Giannakis, Giulio Farinelli, Mona Kohantorabi

This study aimed to enhance solar disinfection (SODIS) by the photo-Fenton process, operated at natural pH, through the re-utilization of fruit wastes. For this purpose, pure organic acids present in fruits and alimentary wastes were tested and compared wi ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Gene expression of Pocillopora damicornis coral larvae in response to acidification and ocean warming

Hui Huang, Nils Rädecker

Objectives The endosymbiosis with Symbiodiniaceae is key to the ecological success of reef-building corals. However, climate change is threatening to destabilize this symbiosis on a global scale. Most studies looking into the response of corals to heat str ...

BMC2024

Homogeneous vs. heterogeneous photo-Fenton elimination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria bearing intracellular or extracellular resistance: Do resistance mechanisms interfere with disinfection pathways?

César Pulgarin, Stefanos Giannakis, Truong-Thien Melvin Le, Jérémie Decker

The present study aimed to fill the knowledge gap between the implications of intracellular and extracellular antibiotic resistance mechanisms may inflict on the inactivation pathways of the photo-Fenton process under mild conditions. It was thus designed ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Identification of carbonous and nitrogenous carbonyl-containing oxidation byproducts by non-target screening

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of drinking water and wastewater is accompanied by the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) such as low molecular weight aldehydes and ketones from the reactions of ozone with dissolved organic matter (DOM). By applying a recently develope ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Mechanistic insights on interactions of dissolved organic matter with chemical oxidants: quantification of reactive sites and identification of oxidation byproducts

Joanna Maria Houska

Chemical oxidants including ozone (O3), chlorine (HOCl/OCl-) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) are applied for disinfection of drinking water. To cope with water scarcity and the increased risks associated with the presence of micropollutants, water treatment sy ...

EPFL2023

A Survey of Industrial N-nitrosamine Discharges in Switzerland

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Caroline Gachet Aquillon, Urs von Gunten

N-nitrosamines are formed during different industrial processes and are of significant concern due to their carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. This study reports concentrations of N-nitrosamines in eight different industrial wastewater treatment plants ...

2023

Oxidative Water Treatment: The Track Ahead

Urs von Gunten, Yun Ho Lee

Chemical oxidation has been applied in municipal water treatment for more than a century, initially for disinfection. In the early decades, chlorine disinfection was adopted in the fight against waterborne disease. However, the oxidative properties of chlo ...

2023

Why five decades of massive research on heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially on TiO2, has not yet driven to water disinfection and detoxification applications? Critical review of drawbacks and challenges

César Pulgarin, Julian Andrés Rengifo Herrera

For fifty years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered as having potential to remove organic and microbiological pollutants from water under either artificial UV light or sunlight irradiation. However, after tens of thousands of published resear ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Periodate activation with copper oxide nanomaterials for the degradation of ciprofloxacin- A new insight into the efficiency and mechanisms

Shaoxian Li, Xi Zhang

In this study, CuO was synthesized using a facile precipitation method and was characterized using various techniques for the efficient activation of periodate (PI). Compared to systems consisting of PI alone (0.5 mM) and CuO alone (0.5 g/L), the CuO (0.5 ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Predicting Transformation Products during Aqueous Oxidation Processes: Current State and Outlook

Urs von Gunten

Water quality and its impacts on human and ecosystem health presents tremendous global challenges. While oxidative water treatment can solve many of these problems related to hygiene and micropollutants, identifying and predicting transformation products f ...

2023