Browsing by Author "Orynbayev, Seitzhan A."
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- Environmental Impact of Wastewater on Surface and Groundwater in Central AsiaPublication . Kalmakhanova, Marzhan S.; Kurtebayeva, Assel A.; Tleuova, Zhanna T.; Satybaldiev, Bagdat; Orynbayev, Seitzhan A.; Malakar, Arindam; Gomes, Helder; Snow, Daniel D.This review aims to increase attention on present water quality issues on Central Asia, finding gaps in the literature on ways to address treatment needs, and help ensure future use of Central Asia surface waters and groundwater for all beneficial uses. Central Asia is a landlocked region known for its harsh climatic conditions and scarce water resources, despite being home to some of the world's largest internal drainage basins. The available literature suggests that increasing salinity has rendered water unsuitable for irrigation and consumption; hazardous trace elements are found throughout Central Asia, most often associated with mining and industrial sources; and that legacy pesticides influence water quality, particularly in agriculturally influenced basins. This study also focuses on the effects of municipal and industrial wastewater discharge. Additionally, the impact of inadequately treated wastewater on water resources is analyzed through a review of available data and reports regarding surface and groundwater quantity and quality. Given the challenges of water scarcity and accessibility, the reuse of treated wastewater is becoming increasingly important, offering a valuable alternative that necessitates careful oversight to ensure public health, environmental sustainability, and water security. However, due to insufficient financial and technical resources, along with underdeveloped regulatory frameworks, many urban areas lack adequate wastewater treatment facilities, significantly constraining their safe and sustainable reuse. Proper management of wastewater effluent is critical, as it directly influences the quality of both surface and groundwater, which serve as key sources for drinking water and irrigation. Due to their persistent and biologically active nature even at trace levels, we discuss contaminants of emerging concern such as antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and modern agrochemicals. This review thus highlights gaps in the literature reporting on impacts of wastewater inputs to water quality in Central Asia. It is recommended that future research and efforts should focus on exploring sustainable solutions for water quality management and pollution control to assure environmental sustainability and public health.
- Use of Permeable Reactive Barriers in the Removal of ACT and DCF from Effluents of Wastewater Treatment PlantsPublication . Kalmakhanova, Marzhan S.; Khabashova, Aidana U.; Nurlybayeva, Aisha N.; Orynbayev, Seitzhan A.; Gomes, Helder; Snow, Daniel D.Pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol and diclofenac (DCF) are among the most extensively consumed drugs worldwide and are continuously released into municipal and hospital wastewater due to incomplete human metabolism. Their persistent presence in aquatic environments, typically ranging from ng/L to µg/L, raises concerns due to endocrine disruption, chronic toxicity, and the promotion of antimicrobial resistance. Conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) remove 70–90% of ACT but less than 30% of DCF, primarily because these systems were not designed to target low-concentration, recalcitrant micropollutants. As a result, pharmaceuticals frequently pass into treated effluents, highlighting the need for advanced, sustainable, and passive treatment solutions. Permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) have emerged as a promising technology for the interception and removal of pharmaceuticals from both wastewater treatment plant effluents and groundwater. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of ACT and DCF occurrence, environmental behavior, and ecotoxicological risks, followed by a detailed evaluation of PRB performance using advanced reactive media such as geopolymers, activated carbon, carbon nanotubes, and hybrid composites. Reported removal efficiencies exceed 90% for ACT and 70–95% for DCF, depending on media composition and operating conditions. The primary removal mechanisms include adsorption, ion exchange, π–π interactions, hydrogen bonding, and redox transformation. The novelty of this review lies in systematically synthesizing recent laboratory and pilot-scale findings on PRBs for pharmaceutical removal, identifying critical knowledge gaps including long-term field validation, media regeneration, and performance under realistic wastewater matrices and outlining future research directions for scaling PRBs toward full-scale implementation. The study demonstrates that PRBs represent a viable and sustainable tertiary treatment option for reducing pharmaceutical loads in aquatic environments.