نشریه مهندسی بهداشت محیط
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 5، پاییز 1393)

In recent years, consumption of bottled water has increased in many countries, including Iran. Bottled waters sometimes can be contaminated by chemical agents such as nitrate which cause healthy effects on consumers. So, quality monitoring of such waters has great importance. The aim of this study was evaluation of nitrate concentration in existing bottled waters in Iran.
This descriptive cross- sectional study was performed to determine nitrate in Iranian bottled water in 2014. 71 water sample brands were collected from different geographical regions and were examined by Ion chromatography (IC).
Obtained results showed that nitrate concentration in all examined water samples ranged from 0.15 to 50.1 mg/L and average of nitrate concentration was 10.55±9.9 mg/L. Also, in most brands, results of examination concentration were higher than concentration of nitrate on labels.
In all exanimated brands, nitrate concentrations were incompliance with WHOand Iranian standards. 70 brands were lower than USEPA, FDA, and IBWA standards.

Phthalate esters are polymeric compounds usually used as a plasticizer. These materials can enter to the human body through various ways the main way could be food packaging. Chronic contact with these materials could result cancer, including breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men as well as other endocrine problems. The objective of this study was to assess the concentration of phthalate esters in carbonated beverages.
In this study, a magnetic nano-scale adsorbent, made from carbon nanotubes and Fe3O4. Deposition of Fe3O4 on the adsorbent could result in improvement of adsorption and desorption as well as extraction procedure. Then, by means of adsorbent and solvent extraction, phthalate esters were extracted from the beverage matrices and determined using GC-MS analysis.
amongst studied ingredients, BEP or DEHP, that have been found to be carcinogenic, had highest concentration in beverages, and also the brand of A and taste of C had the highest average concentration. Except one sample, the total amounts of these ingredients were below than international standards.
Based on the results, consumers can use these beverages without any concern regarding phthalate esters amounts. The results also demonstrated that this synthesized adsorbent has good performance for extraction of phthalates from studied matrices.

consumption of mineral waters in the world has increased in recent years, and also concerns of consumers about its contamination are growing. Thereby, implementation of such a protective system as HACCP can prevent contamination of waters by different agents. This research aimed to develop an HACCP-Plan standard for mineral waters manufacturing factories in Iran.
In current study, like production lines, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers packaging, warehouses and laboratories sections of factories were observed from view of production and quality control. To monitor, control and restrict the hazards, seven principles of HACCP were considered. In continue applicable solutions were presented inclusive and practically for all factories. Required information were verified and presented through investigation of national and international standards.
The results shown that lack of sanitizing mineral water supplies and factories environment, incomplete water treatment, non-standard production of PET bottles, improper storage of raw materials and final product, and lack of inspection of equipment led to the increasing health hazards of the product and endanger the consumers health.
In order to produce safe mineral water, it is necessary to sanitize the water supplies and factory environment. In addition, the process of water treatment and the production of PET bottles must be according to national and international standards. As the implementation of the HACCP system in various mineral water producing factories is not same, application of developed system in this research will be effective to standardize the implementation of this system in plants.

Dental wastes are one of the environmental issues which are of great importance due to having hazardous, toxic, and pathogenic agents such as infectious, medical, chemical, and toxic wastes. The objective of this study was to determine the quality, quantity, and management of dental wastes in 4 dental clinics in Tehran.
In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the study area was consisted of 4 dental clinics in west, center, east, and north of Tehran city. Overall, 195 samples were taken. Then, the wastes were manually segmented and divided into 36 parts. In continue they were weighted using a laboratory scale. In order to examine the current state and the implementation process of hazardous dental waste management, we applied a checklist technique which was containing 54 questions.
According to the obtained scores, management quality of 3 clinics was proved to be at an average level and only clinic number 4 was perfectly managed. The capita percentage for infectious waste except for clinic 1, which was 50%, was 48% for all clinics. The capita percentage for chemical-pharmaceutical waste except for clinic 1, which was 36%, was 48% for all clinics. The amount of toxic waste for each clinic was 13%. The averages of infectious, toxic and chemical-pharmaceutical wastes were 187.09 ± 9.81, 48.38 ± 1.4, and 147± 4.33 g per capita per day, respectively.
Considering the existence of different types of materials with different components and various features in dental wastes, their optimal management must be done based on their specific features which are include plans for generation reduction, segmentation, separation, and recycling of these wastes.

Hospital operating rooms are one of the most sensitive parts of hospital which observe their hygiene is very important. Fungal spores present in the hospital air can cause many nosocomial infections. The Aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of fungal pollution in the air of operation room in the Alborz Province selected hospitals.
In this study, the operating rooms of two hospitals were selected according to the type of activity and hospitalized patients for sampling. Sampling was carried out before the first operation at 6 AM, when the operating room had been disinfected by UV light, and after the last operation at 12 PM, when the pollution was too much. Samples were cultured on Sabouraud Dextrose Agar according to open plate method.
The most fungi found in the hospitals operating rooms air were allocated to the Cladosporium, Penicillium, Mucor, and Aspergillus flavus genus which were equal to 36.8%, 18.47, 13.2, and 10.5%, respectively. The highest and lowest pollution rate was related to operating room and cosmetic surgery room, respectively.
According to the obtained results, a positive pressure ventilation system can be a good option to control and prevention of nosocomial infections caused by fungi agents.

Heavy metals are known as significant pollutants because of toxicity and nonbiodegradable characteristics. Cadmium is one of the heavy metals that have carcinogen potential. So, this study carried out in order to investigate the acorn fruit ash efficiency in cadmium removal from aqueous solutions.
This study was done in the batch laboratory conditions. In this study, the effect of different parameters including pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, and initial cadmium concentration were evaluated. The Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models were used for analysis of the equilibrium isotherm. Adsorption kinetics of cadmium by different models were also investigated. The measurement of residual cadmium in the samples was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry at 228.8 nm. The SPSS-16 software was used for analysis of data.
According to the results, the maximum adsorption capacity of cadmium was 9.29 mg/g at pH=7 and 8 g/L adsorbent dose. The removal efficiency was increased with increasing contact time and decreased with increasing of cadmium initial concentration. Investigation of achieving data showed that the adsorption process followed better by Freundlich isotherm and the pseudo-second order kinetic.
According to the results of this study, it could be concluded that the acorn fruit ash had high ability in cadmium adsorption and could be used as a cheap adsorbent in the removal of cadmium.

One of the most important sources of environmental pollution is dye from industrial wastewater which is harmful for human health and environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate removal of Crystal violet (CV) dye from aqueous solutions by citric acid modified barley straw using response surface methodology.
This research was an experimental-laboratory study. The batch experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of pH, dye concentration, adsorbent dosage, and contact time on dye removal from aqueous solution. Response surface methodology was applied to appraise the effect of these different variables. The dye concentration in the solutions was measured by spectrophotometer at the wavelength of 594 nm.
The result of this research showed that dye removal efficiency was increased by increasing of adsorbent dosage, pH, and contact time, whilst decreased by increasing of initial dye concentration. The Maximum and minimum dye removal were obtained 94 and 35 percent, respectively. Analysis of variances test showed that the linear model was the best model to explain the interaction of variables.
According to the obtained results, modified barley straw appears to be used as a suitable, low cost, and efficient adsorbent for removal crystal violet dye from aqueous solutions.