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Cycle 5 (2015 Deadline)
Enhancing water quality monitoring and improving water disinfection processes in Lebanon
PI: Antoine Ghauch (ag23@aub.edu.lb) , American University of Beirut
U.S. Partner: David Sedlak, University of California, Berkeley
Project Dates: December 2016 - November 2021
Project Overview:
 | | Freshly graduated with a BS in Chemistry and a USAID scholarship student Omar Tantawi during testing a Concentrated Solar Power system developed in our laboratory for Persulfate activation toward the degradation of organic contaminants and the disinfection of water. (Photo courtesy of PI Antoine Ghauch) |
Relative to its neighbors, Lebanon has often been considered as a water-rich country. Unfortunately, the combined effects of climate change, population growth, and infrastructure underinvestment are creating considerable water stress in Lebanese cities. Specifically, an extended drought coupled with increased water demands from the arrival of large numbers of Syrian refugees is increasing the potential for water supply problems and degradation of water quality. International support for capacity building came first from USAID, which funded three municipal wastewater treatment plants to serve the population in the Beqaa and rehabilitated the main water establishments in the country by improving existing infrastructures. These efforts improved water quality, but significant unmet needs still remained. Development of existing but underdeveloped and new water resources would require consideration of the potential impacts of water pollution due to chemical contaminants and infectious disease pathogens. Currently, a lack of inexpensive water quality monitoring tools and the absence of advanced treatment technologies for industrial waste, hospital effluents, solid waste leachates, and municipal wastewater limit Lebanon’s ability to respond to challenges posed by water pollution.
This project was designed to improve water technologies and expand local capacity to monitor organic contaminants (OCs) and eradicate pathogenic bacteria in drinking water supplies. Previously, the research team received a PEER Cycle 1 award to investigate the use of activated persulfate (PS) to degrade trace concentrations of OCs in wastewater and water supplies. Dr. Ghauch and his colleagues also developed a room-temperature phosphorimeter (RTP) capable of detecting special dyes used for verifying the authenticity of official papers such as banknotes. The first generation RTP was used for this application because it lacked the sensitivity needed to detect low concentrations of chemicals with low phosphorescence yields. In this new PEER Cycle 5 project, the team worked to develop an innovative instrument to detect trace amounts of OCs in water by using a solid surface to pre-concentrate the OCs. After verifying its accuracy and precision, they used this new instrument to assess the performance of different types of water treatment systems and to monitor some OCs in Lebanese waterways that pose potential health risks (for example, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced by cars and solid waste incineration). Experience obtained from studies with the new apparatus and different types of treatment systems was used to develop a miniaturized prototype of the RTP, with the main goal of creating an inexpensive, robust sensor for monitoring trace OCs and the performance of water treatment systems.
Final Summary of Project Activities
During the five years of the project (2016-2021), the research outcomes exceeded all expectations at many levels. Below are the main achievements in terms of impacts on research development, student and faculty career progress, and benefits to society:
1. Capacity Building
PI Ghauch’s laboratory benefited from exceptional capacity building by purchasing standard analytical heavy instruments necessary to sustain research development within WASH topics such as chromatography, including COD and BOD analyzers along with spectrometers. Moreover, a very advanced iCCD detector was acquired for the detection of very low signals emitted by water pollutants upon excitation with UV light. This innovative piece of equipment allowed the team to create a new instrument with its autosampler fully developed in house. The apparatus is versatile, and the team can build on new ideas to make it more performant by changing in the excitation source, the sample holder, and the acquisition time to tackle species having very low lifetime under UV excitation.
2. Student Training
Many undergraduate and graduate students received training on cutting edge chromatography techniques with high sensitivity detection using diode array detectors for absorbance measurements and photomultiplier for fluorescence measurements. The laboratory became one of the most solicited laboratories by graduate students asking to perform research and prepare their Master’s degrees. Moreover, students who worked on the project received many awards from both AUB and internationally after obtaining PhDs in North America. The rate of acceptance of project students for PhDs abroad was 100% based on their record as attested by the peer-reviewed publications they co-authored with the PI in international high impact journals such as Chemical Engineering Journal (IF 12.312).
3. International Recognition
The latest worldwide classification of researchers across the globe by Stanford University at California placed PI Ghauch at the top 2% of cited researchers in the field of environmental sciences. This classification was entirely based on the publications that emerged from PEER projects since 2012 (PEER 1-84 and PEER 5-18). Many of these papers received the label of highly cited papers as per Clarivate Web of Science putting them at top 1% in their field. Results were published in more than 10 papers in specialized high impact journals. PEER results were disseminated at more than 10 international conferences mainly the National Meetings of the American Chemical Society. Moreover, PEER results were also presented in local and regional conferences and symposia such as the Arab-American Frontiers, a program developed and implemented by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine for the Arab countries.
4. Impactful Research Topic
The PI addressed a very important issue not yet solved in Lebanon about industrial wastewater. The results obtained on actual industrial effluents showed high potential for decontamination at low cost. The advanced oxidation technology developed and based on persulfate chemistry was validated and promoted across end users and funding agencies. This facilitated the obtainment of additional grants such as the Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Engagement Plan funded by USAID through RTAC. This grant was crucial to draw a road map for the PI in order to better implement PEER outcomes. Moreover, the PI received the support of USAID through MEPI TLP Tomorrow’s Leaders College to Work Pipeline program. This grant is under implementation and will produce a demonstration prototype serving as minimum viable product to be considered by stakeholders for potential funding toward scaling up.
5. Stakeholder Attraction
The PEER award was a catalyst for stakeholder attraction because of the excellent outcomes of the hot topics addressed such as the improvement of the quality of drinking water through drinking water supplies preservation and decontamination. Moreover, the counterfeiting detection topic attracted a large audience in view of its application at large scale to solve the problem of corruption in Lebanon and other countries around the world.
Publications
Suha Al Hakim, Saly Jaber, Nagham Zein Eddine, Abbas Baalbaki, and Antoine Ghauch. 2020. Degradation of theophylline in a UV254/PS system: Matrix effect and application to a factory effluent. Chemical Engineering Journal 380: 122478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2019.122478
O. Tantawi, A. Baalbaki, R. El Asmar, R., and A. Ghauch. 2019. A rapid and economical method for the quantification of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) using a modified HPLC apparatus. Science of The Total Environment 654: 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.372
Maya Amasha, Abbas Baalbaki, and Antoine Ghauch. 2018. A comparative study of the common persulfate activation techniques for the complete degradation of an NSAID: The case of ketoprofen. Chemical Engineering Journal 350: 395-410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2018.05.118
Abbas Baalbaki, Nagham Zein Eddine, Saly Jaber, Maya Amasha, and Antoine Ghauch. 2018. Rapid quantification of persulfate in aqueous systems using a modified HPLC unit. Talanta 178: 237-245. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2017.09.036
Maya Amasha, Abbas Baalbaki, Suha Al Hakim, Rime El Asmar, and Antoine Ghauch. 2018. Degradation of a Toxic Molecule o-Toluidine in Industrial Effluents using UV254 / PS System. Journal of Advanced Oxidative Technologies 21(1). https://doi.org/10.26802/jaots.2017.0099
Antoine Ghauch, Abbas Baalbaki, Maya Amasha, Rime El Asmar, and Omar Tantawi. 2017. Contribution of persulfate in UV-254 nm activated systems for complete degradation of chloramphenicol antibiotic in water. Chemical Engineering Journal 317: 1012-1025. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2017.02.133
Antoine Ghauch. 2017. Editorial: The importance of advanced oxidation processes in degrading persistent pollutants. Journal of Advanced Oxidative Technologies 2017: 20160197. https://doi.org/10.1515/jaots-2016-0197
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