Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) have become an environmental havoc in last few decades with reported cases of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs), lethal effects over aquatic organisms, interference in natural decomposition of organic matter, reduced diversity of microbial communities in different environmental compartments, inhibition of growth of microbes resulting in reduced rate of nutrient cycling, hormonal imbalance in exposed organisms etc. Owing to their potential towards bioaccumulation and persistent nature, these compounds have longer residence time and activity in environment. The conventional technologies of wastewater treatment have got poor efficiency towards removal/degradation of PhACs and therefore, modern techniques with efficient, cost-effective and environment-friendly operation need to be explored. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) like Photocatalysis, Fenton oxidation, Ozonation etc. are some of the promising, viable and sustainable options for degradation of PhACs. Although energy/chemical or both are essentially required for AOPs, these methods target complete degradation/mineralization of persistent pollutants resulting in no residual toxicity. Considering the high efficiency towards degradation, non-toxic nature, universal viability and acceptability, AOPs have become a promising option for effective treatment of chemicals with persistent nature.

Urban heat island (UHI) is one of the most important climatic implications of urbanization and thus a matter of key concern for environmentalists of the world in the twenty-first century. The relationship between climate and urbanization has been better understood with the introduction of thermal remote sensing. So, this study is an attempt to understand the influence of urbanization on local temperature for a small developing city. The study focuses on the investigation of intensity of atmospheric and surface urban heat island for a small urbanizing district of Punjab, India. Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite data and field observations were used to examine the spatial pattern of surface and atmospheric UHI effect respectively, for the month of April, 2018. The satellite data has been used to cover the larger geographical area while field observations were taken for simultaneous and daily temperature measurements for different land use types. The significant influence of land use/land cover (LULC) patterns on UHI effect was analyzed using normalized built-up and vegetation indices (NDBI, NDVI) that were derived from remote sensing satellite data. The statistical analysis carried out for land surface temperature (LST) and LULC indicators displayed negative correlation for LST and NDVI while NDBI and LST exhibited positive correlation depicting attenuation in UHI effect by abundant vegetation. The comparison of remote sensing and in-situ observations were also carried out in the study. The research concluded in finding both nocturnal and daytime UHI effect based on diurnal air temperature observations. The study recommends the urgent need to explore and impose effective UHI mitigation measures for the sustainable urban growth.

Industrialization and urbanization are modern need and trends. Such trends affect the natural ecosystem of rivers. Indian rivers face such problems in a high ratio. The aim of this study is to investigate the cause and amount of pollution in a tributary river Krishni. Pre-monsoon sampling of Krishni river water was performed as per APHA standard. Water samples were collected from different sites of Krishni river. Physiochemical parameters as well as trace elements concentrations have been analysed and results were compared with BIS-2012, WHO-2017 and EPA-2001 recommendations. The presence of high BOD, COD, TDS and others physiochemical parameters along with heavy metals reveals that tributary is highly polluted owing to industrial and domestic discharge either directly or through drains. High values of these parameters are harmful for the ecological health of the river because it makes survival of aquatic flora and fauna at risk. On the basis of the results obtained by the present study, it was concluded that level of the pollution in river Krishni is at alarming phase, where if strong action for the rejuvenation of river not takes place, river becomes a dead pool.

The problems with unsorted municipal waste are always associated with disposal issues as it requires a large area for landfilling or high energy used for incineration. In recent years, an autoclaving technique has been considered a promising approach which could minimize the volume of organic waste from being directly disposed or incinerated. In this work, an attempt was done to study the saccharification potential of organic residues under elevated temperature Thermal treatment involving hot water bath was applied to treat the organic residue ranging from 60℃ to 100℃ for 30 and 60 minutes. The result obtained showed an increasing trend for the concentration of glucose and carbohydrate. However, the result for lignocellulose content which contains various component includes extractive, holocellulose, hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin show variation. Based on the thermal treatment carried out, the result indicated that the trend of glucose and carbohydrate content. The highest percentage of glucose that can be obtained 978.602 ㎍/ml which could be obtained at 90℃ at 60 minutes. The carbohydrate also shows an increasing trend with 0.234 mg/ml as the highest peak achieved at 80℃ for 30 minutes treatment. However, it was found that the lignocellulose content varies with temperature and time. The statistical analysis was carried out using two-ways ANOVA shows an interaction effect between the independent variables (temperature and contact time) and the saccharification effects on the food wastes. The result shows a variation in the significant effect of independent variables on the changes in the composition of food waste.

The potential use of Sargassum boveanum algae for the removal of uranium from aqueous solution has been studied by varying three independent parameters (pH, initial uranium ion concentration, S. boveanum dosage) using a central composite design (CCD) under response surface methodology (RSM). Batch mode experiments were performed in 20 experimental runs to determine the maximum metal adsorption capacity. In CCD design, the quantitative relationship between different levels of these parameters and heavy metal uptake (q) were used to work out the optimized levels of these parameters. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the proposed quadratic model revealed that this model was highly significant (R² = 0.9940). The best set required 2.81 as initial pH(on the base of design of experiments method), 1.01 g/L S. boveanum and 418.92 mg/L uranium ion concentration within 180 min of contact time to show an optimum uranium uptake of 255 mg/g biomass. The biosorption process was also evaluated by Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm models represented that the experimental data fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model of a suitable degree and showed the maximum uptake capacity of 500 mg/g. FTIR and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the biosorbent and implied that the functional groups (carboxyl, sulfate, carbonyl and amine) were responsible for the biosorption of uranium from aqueous solution. In conclusion, the present study showed that S. boveanum could be a promising biosorbent for the removal of uranium pollutants from aqueous solutions.