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ABSTRACT

Libya is one of the largest countries in the olive oil production leading to

generate massive amounts of olive-waste cakes during the manufacture process

every year. Therefore, this experimental study aims to investigate the potential of

olive-waste cake as a low-cost natural source for preparation activated carbon

(AC). The solid olive oil mill residue was carbonized at 200 0C and chemically

activated using two methods including Model I (25% Zncl2) and Model II (25%

Zncl2 + 25% H2SO2) . To investigate the efficiency of prepared AC,decolourization of methylene blue founded in an aqueous solution was conducted. The effectiveness of this process was studied via key parameters

effects such as contact time, pH, and AC dose. The achieved results showed that

the decolourization using Model II was more than of Model I. The optimum

values of pH, contact time, and AC dose were 5, 120 min, and 2.5 g/L

respectively. At these conditions the maximum methylene blue removal was

75%. The results indicate that olive-waste cake has a potential in future water

treatment applications due to its high adsorption capacity.

ABSTRACT

Water sources in Al-Jabal Al-Gharbi area are very limited and need to be studied for use either as drinking water or human activities. Therefore, several physical and chemical parameters of water sources in Al-Jabal Al-Gharbi region located in Northwest of Libya were investigated. For untreated water three sources were studied including groundwater wells, rain water, and Man-Made River (MMR). However, for drinking water packed and unpacked treated commercial water were investigated. The examined properties were pH, conductivity, salinity, turbidity, total dissolved solids (TDS), chlorine, nitrates (NO- ), nitrites, sulfate, phosphate, iron, and cupper. The results showed that the groundwater and MMR water had high TDS concentrations between 1115 and 4090 mg/L leading to increase the total hardness in these samples. Most of the treated waters had very low of TDS concentrations causing loss the useful salts for consumers . However, the rain water samples had optimum values of TDS and other parameters. Regarding NO- all samples were within the limitation and in the range of 0.02 to 15 mg/L. Furthermore, all metal ions examined in this work such as iron and Cupper were within the WHO guidelines.

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Abstract

The present work was carried out in order to investigate the physical and chemical quality of the Libyan Asbi'ah groundwater and the degree of its contamination. The achieved results were compared with international quality standards for drinking water. The sampleswere collected from five water wells of the Asbi'ah region. Several parameters were examined including Colour, Taste, smell, pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), Calcium and Magnesium Hardness, Total Hardness, Iron, Fluoride, Ammonia, Phosphate and Chloride. The results showed that the groundwater of Asbi'ah area were within the limitations of WHO Standards. For instance, the maximum values of Fe, PO4, F, NH3 and Cl were (0.92, 0.16, 1.2, 0.05)mg/L respectively. However, some samples had a bit high of concentrations for TDS (590mg/L) and Total Hardness (702mg/L). The most of the water wells shared the high concentration of Total Hardness which might be due to the earth geology of the studied area. This makes the water taste unacceptable and therefore, the water might not be used as drinking water.

Keywords: Natural Groundwater, Chemical & Physical Properties, Contamination, Asbi'ah -Libya.