Faculty Publications
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Item Occurrence and environmental risks of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in urban wastewater in the southwest monsoon region of India(Springer, 2020) Thalla, A.K.; Vannarath, A.S.Municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) are considered to reduce the amount of pollutants that enter water reservoirs as a result of wastewater disposal. An assessment of the occurrence and removal of pharmaceutical compounds, mainly nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), in wastewater from the Kavoor MWWTP (southwest monsoon region), India, is presented in this paper. The performance of the MWWTP was monitored in the summer (May) and monsoon (September) periods. The highest inlet concentrations of diclofenac, naproxen, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, and acetylsalicylic acid in the wastewater were observed in May and were 721.37, 2132.48, 2109.875, 2747.29, and 2213.36 ?g/L, respectively. The ketoprofen content was found to be higher than that of other NSAIDs in the influent in both seasons, whereas the diclofenac content was found to be the lowest. The removal efficiency (RE) of the target NSAIDs in the Kavoor secondary treatment plant varied from 81.82–98.92% during the summer season. During the monsoon season, the influent NSAID concentration level dropped, probably because of infiltration in old sewer pipes. In addition, a 100% RE was achieved for all the target NSAIDs in the wastewater of the MWWTP. The results showed that secondary treatment plants have the potential to remove NSAID compounds from municipal sewage with consistent performance. The environmental hazards caused by the accumulation of such compounds in water reservoirs are due to open discharge. The environmental risk levels of these compounds were also studied by the environmental risk assessment (ERA) using the European Agency for Evaluation of Medicines approach. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Item A comprehensive study on quantification and characterization of microplastics in compost, landfill-soil and leachate(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2025) Dubey, A.P.; Thalla, A.K.Microplastics (MPs), a category of synthetic emerging pollutants, have been detected in various environmental matrices. This study assesses the abundance of MPs in the soil, wet compost (WC), Black soldier compost (BSC) and landfill leachate (LL) of the municipal solid waste management plant. Samples were pretreated with a Fenton reagent, followed by density separation and analysed using a digital portable microscope. They were then categorized based on their shape, colour and size to provide information on their distribution. The work reveals an average MP count of 7590?±?1004.092 MP kg?1in soil. MPs were 5900?±?565.69 MP kg?1for BSC, 11,350?±?353.55 MP kg?1for WC and LL samples 98.83?±?6.83 MP L?1. Notably, a significant proportion of MPs, 85% in soil, 86% in compost and 72.6% in LL, measured size less than 300?µm. Samples showed different proportions of fragments, microbeads and fibres, with white/transparent and black being the predominant colours of MPs. Additionally, the study identifies the physicochemical properties of the samples, and the polymer types are identified using attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The study revealed that polypropylene and polyethylene are the most abundant polymers in the samples, indicating that landfills serve as significant sources of MPs. The adopted MP extraction method was tested for its recovery efficiency, and the recovery rates for leachate, compost and soil were found to be 94.3%, 80% and 77.9%, respectively. This research offers insight into the types and abundance of MPs in southern India’s landfills, prompting further studies on detection methods. © The Author(s) 2025