This study examined the rainwater yields of some of the three regions, namely the inhabited cities of Duhok and Zaho, and the Kowashe area of Iraqi Kurdistan, which is considered to be an industrial area with many factories for many different industries. Compiled in a study of chemical and physical properties. This is in an agricultural area where different types of crops are grown and this was done by conducting several tests. For example, pH TDS, Ca and Mg concentrations, salinity, conductivity, turbidity, ammonia, CO2, and heavy metal content were measured. The results were compared with the standard values of the World Health Organization (WHO). Samples were collected in the regional center and on 22nd October 2022. This is believed to be the first rain of the season after three consecutive years of drought.

A crucial component and effective instrument for examining the general characteristics of water quality is the Water Quality Index (WQI). Among the most significant tourist destinations in the northern part of Iraq and Kurdistan are the resort areas surrounding Zakho city. In December 2021, water samples were taken from a number of tourist locations, including Dashttagh, Sharanish Waterfall, and Bahair Cave. For the samples that were obtained, this investigation comprised chemical, biological, and physical tests. According to the World Health Organization drinking water quality standards, we conducted this research to determine whether this water is suitable for use by people, animals, and agriculture. The results of the tests revealed that water samples taken from Sharanish Waterfall had the best water quality when compared to other sources. both Bahair Cave, and Dashttagh samples.

The objective of this study is the characterization of activated carbon prepared from hawthorn core natural residue which is a vegetation waste. By using zinc chloride (ZnCl2) as a chemical agent 40 for 25 hours at (25 °C) as a raw material in this work. The best conditions were determined to be a carbonization temperature of 400 °C for 1 hour and a maximum yield is 82 %. Different operational factors such as carbonization time and temperature were used to prepare activated carbon from hawthorn core stones, pH, ash content, density, humidity content, conductivity, iodine number, and methylene blue dye absorption were all investigated in the generated activated carbon. The obtained characterization of the activated carbon was performed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). Finally, the activated carbon synthesized in this study acquired good properties that enable it to play an important function in a variety of environmental applications, including eco-protection, water treatment, and wastewater treatment and it was compared to a commercial reference sample from the B. D. H Company in industrial applications.

In this paper we presented a case study about the removal of a pharmaceutical contamination (in this case Meropenem) from the environment using organic natural substance (in this case study is Lemna minor). The study proved the efficiency of the used material to remove the contamination of three specific contamination levels of Meropenem. The experimental testing proved the concept, the effect on two vital measures (the chemical oxygen demand – COD, and the root length), which showed improvement in both measures. The degradation mechanism was proven to be not arbitrary by testing the degradation behavior measured practically to four kinetic models. The practical work was found to fit perfectly with the Grau second order model as the simulation work included in the paper shows. Based on this study it can be proven that the dangerous chemicals resulted from the residue of a pharmaceutical substances can be removed efficiently using a totally natural environmental friendly material.

The remediation of Congo Red (CR) dye by the synthetic sorbent composited from sewage and waterworks sludge was studied in batch and continuous experiments. The continuous experiments studied the composite synthetic after mixing with composite synthetic sorbent filter (CSF) glass waste to increase the hydraulic conductivity of the permeable reactive barrier (PRB). The synthetic composite sorbent was characterised by the nitrogen adsorption–desorption tests, field emission-scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. For evaluating the batch tests, the variable conditions of initial concentration, solution pH, agitation time and agitation speed were studied. The synthetic sorbent showed a high ability to remove the CR from a contaminated water, with maximum sorbent uptake equal to 9,469.211 mg/g and composite adsorbent-filter CSF equal to 4,415.946 mg/g. Pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm model governed the adsorption process. The column tests showed the highest reactivity, with 50:50 weight ratios of the adsorbent to filter glass waste. The experiments were done with different concentrations of CR and different bed heights of CSF as the PRB for 90 days. There was a delay in the breakthrough time when decreasing the contaminant concentrations and when increasing the composite adsorbent-filter CSF bed height. The breakthrough curves were well represented by the COMSOL model.

Providing clean and high-quality drinking water to both rural as well as urban areas is a great challenge by itself, adding to it the large volume requirements of such water at high population areas means a very high cost for such industry because mainly of the cost of expensive commercially available adsorbent used in this process. This led inhabitants of the remote and/or rural areas to use less quality water with all its risks and health challenges. In this study, a locally collected rice husk is tested to be used as an alternative adsorbent to the expensive common commercial ones. Parameters like adsorbent dosage, initial concentration of turbidity, and pH level were tested to investigate their effects on the process. Treatment of synthetic turbid water was done after changing these parameters to measure the effect of each parameter alone and the results showed a set of parameters that can be used to achieve high efficiency of turbidity removal. The study concluded that rice husk can be used as a well cheap alternative adsorbent to reduce the river water turbidity due to its availability and low cost with a decent removal efficiency approaching 95%.

Ten microalgae isolates were isolated from some ponds and Tigris River in Iraq, and screened for growth and lipid production. The results showed that the isolates Chrococcus dispersus, Anabaena augstumalis and Chlorella vulgaris exhibited higher growth rate and lipid production and reached (0.95, 1.9 and 1.17) g/l, respectively. The selected isolates stimulated by studying the effect of different levels of pH and salinity on growth and lipid production. The results showed higher lipid production by C. vulgaris reached maximum (3.45g/l) at lower pH 6, followed by A. augstumalis (2.75g/l at pH11) and C. disperses (2.68 g/l at pH9). The results also showed that lipid production by C. dispersus and A. augstumalis was stimulated by decreasing salinity concentration and reached maximum (2.94 and 2.5 g/l), respectively at 0.4 g/l of NaCl. While, maximum lipid production by C. vulgaris was (1.72 g/l) obtained at salt concentration of 1g/l. The combined effect of pH and salinity on lipid production studied. Maximum lipid production by C. dispersus (8.43 g/l) observed at (pH9 + salt 0. 4g/l). In case of C. vulgaris, total lipid production reached 4.43g/l which obtained at (pH6 + salt 0.75g/l). While, lipid production in microalgae of A. augstumalis was favored by alkaline condition, and maximum lipid production (4.42 g/l) observed at (pH11 + salt 0. 75g/l). Higher oil content was observed in C. vulgaris and reached 33.2% (0.332 g of oil / g of dry algal biomass) when the microalgae cultivated at (pH9 + salt 0.4 g/l). In comparison, to lower oil content (%) observed with A. augstumalis and C. dispersus reached to 16 % and 13.8% when the isolates stimulated at (pH11 + salt 0.4 g/l) and (pH 6 + salt 0.75 g/l), respectively. Analysis of lipid content by GC technique had shown that the lipid content of microalgae C. dispersus contained only stearic acid. While, oil content in C. vulgaris and A. augstumalis contained only stearic acid, but palmtic acid and oleic acid were detected in control and stimulus conditions.