Iranian Journal of health, safety andenvironment

7

Authors: Roohollah Rostami, Ahmad Jonidi Jafari*, Roshanak Rezaei Kalantari, Mitra Gholami

ABSTRACT Environmental impacts and health concerns of BTEX compounds have been pointed in many studies. The agencies responsible for health and environment have delivered standard and guideline for BTEX concentrations. Because of the extensive use in industries and the presence of these compounds in fossil fuels, their emission resources are very divers. Today's, Control of air pollution caused by these compounds is one of the air qualities controlling challenges. "Thermal catalyzed" process is one of the technologies to control this kind of air pollution and consistent with using nanoparticles as a catalyst, this process is further considered now. So, we conducted this study to survey elimination of the BTEX, form polluted air flow, by this process. In this study, removal of the BTEX from polluted air by a thermal catalyzed process in the presence of zero-valent iron and copper oxide nanoparticles was investigated and the effect of changes in pollution load and flow rate was surveyed on removal efficiency and the decomposition of the pollutants. Fe0 and Cu2O nanoparticles were coated on a bed of natural zeolite (Clinoptilolite) with a zeolite grains size of 1-2 mm. The thermal catalyst process was conducted at 350°C and different pollution loading and air flow rate. 96.18% and 78.42% of removal efficiency achieved with the retention times of 14.1s and 7.05s. Increasing the pollution load reduced removal efficiency and pollutants' mineralization. By doubling the pollution load, the removal efficiency declined as much as 14.5 %. According to the results, increasing of the flow rate has a greater effect than the pollution load on the complete decomposition. Also this process showed a good efficiency for BTEX removal under high pollution loading and flow rates.

7

Authors: R. Yarahmadi, R. Abbaszadeh Dizaji*, A.f Hossieni, A. A. Farshad, Sh. Bakand

ABSTRACT Needle stick injuries (NSIs) are one of the most significant and preventable hazards in relation to Healthcare workers (HCWs). Such injuries have been shown to be of high prevalence within developing countries. To determine the prevalence and circumstances pertaining to the occurrence of NSIs among HCWs employed at a special hospital. The study conducted was a cross-sectional study on HCWs and was carried out in one of Tehran's special hospitals in the year 2012. In this study, in order to identify and determine hazardous potential due to needle stick, HFMEA method was chosen. This resulted in the collection of 240 valid and reliable questionnaires. The validity and reliable nature of the questionnaires was confirmed by experts and by means of the test re-test method. The gathered data was analyzed with SPSS software, version 16.From the analysis of the data it was shown that, a total of 97 (40.42%) HCWs had suffered NSIs in the last year. The patient ward showed the highest prevalence of NSIs (47.42%) in the hospital. Nurses had the highest risk of suffering NSIs (56.7%) in comparison with the other occupational groups. All in all 175 NSIs occurred for the 240 HCWs trialed during the selected period of clinical practice. Of those that received injuries, only roughly 1 in 3 (38.14%) reported it to their infection control officer. Just over a quarter (26.80%) of the injured HCWs used post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against HIV. Almost all (88.75%) of the HCWs had received a safe injection course. In general, NSIs and their subsequent underreporting are commonplace among hospital healthcare professionals. Significantly, more than two-thirds of the injured HCWs did not use post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against HIV. Improved prevention and reporting strategies are needed if the occupational health and safety of healthcare workers is to improve.

8

Authors: Mostafa Alizadeh, Amir Hossein Mahvi, Hossein Jafari Mansoorian*, Roya Ardani

ABSTRACT Discharge of textile industries colored wastewaters without enough treatment into natural water supplies cause serious damages to the environment. This study was performed to investigate the effect of electrocoagulation for dye removal from synthetic wastewater using iron electrodes. Removal of dye reactive orange 16 (RO16) by electrocoagulation using iron electrode was conducted in a batch reactor with volume 1 liter. The effect of operating parameters such as current density, initial concentration of dye, pH and contact time was studied and the electrical energy consumption was calculated. The maximum efficiency of hardness removal which was obtained in current density of 20mA/cm2, optimum concentration 50mg L-1, optimum pH 5.5, reaction time of 30 min and NaCL concentration 1.5g/l are equal to 99.27%. Also COD removal efficiency is increased to 66%. Results show, electrocoagulation process by iron electrode is an effective method for reactive dye removal from colored wastewater.