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Water Research Aug 2023Ozonation is a viable option to improve the removal of micropollutants (MPs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Nevertheless, the application of ozonation is...
Ozonation is a viable option to improve the removal of micropollutants (MPs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Nevertheless, the application of ozonation is hindered by its high energy requirements and by the uncertainties regarding the formation of toxic transformation products in the process. Energy requirements of ozonation can be reduced with a pre-ozone treatment, such as a biological activated carbon (BAC) filter, that removes part of the effluent organic matter before ozonation. This study investigated a combination of BAC filtration followed by ozonation (the BO process) to remove MPs at low ozone doses and low energy input, and focused on the formation of toxic organic and inorganic products during ozonation. Effluent from a WWTP was collected, spiked with MPs (approximately 1 µg/L) and treated with the BO process. Different flowrates (0.25-4 L/h) and specific ozone doses (0.2-0.6 g O/g TOC) were tested and MPs, ecotoxicity and bromate were analyzed. For ecotoxicity assessment, three in vivo (daphnia, algae and bacteria) and six in vitro CALUX assays (Era, GR, PAH, P53, PR, andNrf2 CALUX) were used. Results show that the combination of BAC filtration and ozonation has higher MP removal and higher ecotoxicity removal than only BAC filtration and only ozonation. The in vivo assays show a low ecotoxicity in the initial WWTP effluent samples and no clear trend with increasing ozone doses, while most of the in vitro assays show a decrease in ecotoxicity with increasing ozone dose. This suggests that for the tested bioassays, feed water and ozone doses, the overall ecotoxicity of the formed transformation products during ozonation was lower than the overall ecotoxicity of the parent compounds. In the experiments with bromide spiking, relevant formation of bromate was observed above specific ozone doses of approximately 0.4 O/g TOC and more bromate was formed for the samples with BAC pre-treatment. This indirectly indicates the effectivity of the pre-treatment in removing organic matter and making ozone more available to react with other compounds (such as MPs, but also bromide), but also underlines the importance of controlling the ozone dose to be below the threshold to avoid formation of bromate. It was concluded that treatment of the tested WWTP effluent in the BO process at a specific ozone dose of 0.2 g O/g TOC, results in high MP removal at limited energy input while no increase in ecotoxicity, nor formation of bromate was observed under this condition. This indicates that the hybrid BO process can be implemented to remove MPs and improve the ecological quality of this WWTP effluent with a lower energy demand than conventional MP removal processes such as standalone ozonation.
Topics: Wastewater; Charcoal; Ozone; Bromates; Bromides; Water Pollutants, Chemical; Water Purification
PubMed: 37302178
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2023.120179 -
Medical Gas Research 2023Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a devastating disease with extraordinarily poor treatment outcomes. Both pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) and ozone have good effects on the...
Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a devastating disease with extraordinarily poor treatment outcomes. Both pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) and ozone have good effects on the treatment of the disease. However, whether PRF and ozone have a synergistic effect on PHN remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the therapeutic effects of ozone alone and in combination with PRF in the treatment of PHN. Ninety-one patients with PHN were assigned into two groups: PRF combined with ozone (PRF + ozone group, n = 44) and ozone therapy alone (ozone group, n = 47). In PRF + ozone group, the high-voltage, long-duration PRF was applied to the target dorsal root ganglions. Then ozonated water (11.5 µg/mL) was injected through the inner cannula. In the ozone group, all other processes were the same as those in the PRF + ozone group apart from the electrical stimulation. The therapeutic efficacy was evaluated by visual analog scale and tactile sensation at pre-treatment and post-treatment 3, 6, and 12 months. Compared with pre-treatment data, the visual analog scale score was significantly decreased in both groups after treatment. Compared with the ozone group, the visual analog scale score was significantly decreased in the PRF + ozone group at 3, 6, and 12 months. Similarly, the tactile sensation was also significantly decreased at post-treatment when compared to pre-treatment. However, there were no statistical differences between the two groups. Regression analysis results showed that the history of diabetes mellitus and age had significant negative and positive effects, respectively, on the treatment results. To conclude, the administration of PRF + ozone and ozone therapy alone could both improve pain symptoms. Moreover, treatment effects and total efficacy rates tended to be higher for the combination of PRF and ozone than ozone alone. This conclusion was especially true for long-term therapeutic effects.
Topics: Ganglia, Spinal; Humans; Neuralgia, Postherpetic; Ozone; Pulsed Radiofrequency Treatment; Retrospective Studies
PubMed: 35946218
DOI: 10.4103/2045-9912.352660 -
Ultrasonics Sonochemistry Aug 2021Reduction of sanitizer dosage and development of non-immersion disinfection methods have become major focuses of research. Here, we examined the disinfection efficacy of...
Reduction of sanitizer dosage and development of non-immersion disinfection methods have become major focuses of research. Here, we examined the disinfection efficacy of combining gaseous ozone (4 and 8 ppm) with aerosolized oxidizing sanitizer [sodium hypochlorite (SH, 100 and 200 ppm)] and aerosolized organic acid [acetic acid (AA, 1% and 2%) and lactic acid (LA, 1% and 2%)]. Notably, 1% AA and 4 ppm gaseous ozone were ineffective for disinfecting Salmonella Typhimurium, and treatment with 1% AA + 8 ppm ozone caused browning of lettuce leaves and stimulated increases in aerobic mesophilic count (AMC), aerobic psychrotrophic count (APC), S. Typhimurium, and Escherichia coli O157:H7. Treatment with 2% LA + 8 ppm ozone resulted in the lowest S. Typhimurium, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, AMC, APC, and molds and yeasts during storage (0-7 days at 4 °C). Quality analysis indicates that LA + 8 ppm ozone and SH + 8 ppm ozone did not negatively affect L*, a*, b*, polyphenolic content, weight loss, and sensory properties; however, the levels of two individual phenolic compounds (3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid and vanillin), responsible for phenylpropanoid synthesis, were significantly increased after treatment with 2% LA + 8 ppm ozone. These findings provided insights into the use of LA combined with gaseous ozone for application in disinfecting fresh produce.
Topics: Aerosols; Disinfection; Food Microbiology; Lactuca; Ozone; Polyphenols; Taste; Ultrasonic Waves
PubMed: 34126525
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2021.105622 -
Scientific Reports Aug 2022The problematic combination of a rising prevalence of skin and soft tissue infections and the growing rate of life-threatening antibiotic resistant infections presents...
The problematic combination of a rising prevalence of skin and soft tissue infections and the growing rate of life-threatening antibiotic resistant infections presents an urgent, unmet need for the healthcare industry. These evolutionary resistances originate from mutations in the bacterial cell walls which prevent effective diffusion of antibiotics. Gram-negative bacteria are of special consideration due to the natural resistance to many common antibiotics due to the unique bilayer structure of the cell wall. The system developed here provides one solution to this problem through a wearable therapy that delivers and utilizes gaseous ozone as an adjunct therapy with topical antibiotics through a novel dressing with drug-eluting nanofibers (NFs). This technology drastically increases the sensitivity of Gram-negative bacteria to common antibiotics by using oxidative ozone to bypass resistances created by the bacterial cell wall. To enable simple and effective application of adjunct therapy, ozone delivery and topical antibiotics have been integrated into a single application patch. The drug delivery NFs are generated via electrospinning in a fast-dissolve PVA mat without inducing decreasing gas permeability of the dressing. A systematic study found ozone generation at 4 mg/h provided optimal ozone levels for high antimicrobial performance with minimal cytotoxicity. This ozone treatment was used with adjunct therapy delivered by the system in vitro. Results showed complete eradication of Gram-negative bacteria with ozone and antibiotics typically used only for Gram-positive bacteria, which showed the strength of ozone as an enabling adjunct treatment option to sensitize bacteria strains to otherwise ineffective antibiotics. Furthermore, the treatment is shown through biocompatibility testing to exhibit no cytotoxic effect on human fibroblast cells.
Topics: Anti-Bacterial Agents; Gram-Negative Bacteria; Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections; Humans; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; Ozone; Wearable Electronic Devices
PubMed: 35977975
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17495-3 -
Current Pain and Headache Reports May 2019The world faces a crisis in pain management. CRPS is a multifaceted painful disorder, which is difficult to treat and resolve. Ozone therapy has unique mechanisms of... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE OF REVIEW
The world faces a crisis in pain management. CRPS is a multifaceted painful disorder, which is difficult to treat and resolve. Ozone therapy has unique mechanisms of actions that may directly address the emerging discoveries of factors related to pathogenesis of the disorder and other pain conditions. These include oxygenation, immune modulation, anti-infective properties, and anti-inflammatory properties. This review is to present ozone therapy as a novel approach for pain treatment, including CRPS.
RECENT FINDINGS
Ozone therapy has been found, in basic science studies, to ameliorate many of the mechanisms promoting chronic pain and inflammation, including hypoxia, inflammatory mediators, and infection. Direct intravenous oxygen/ozone gas was administered nearly daily to an 11-year-old girl diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy and extremely frequent pseudoseizures. She rapidly improved. After 120 sessions, all symptoms had disappeared. Ozone's novel biochemical properties may make it a unique, safe, relatively inexpensive, and effective modality for the treatment of pain. In this particular case, it resolved the chronic condition when opiates were ineffective for even pain relief. Ozone therapy should be considered for institutional study despite its lack of financial reward (lack of patentability).
PERSPECTIVE
This manuscript presents ozone therapy as a novel, safe, and inexpensive approach for RSD/CRPS, and an alternative to drugs. It is practiced worldwide and has abundant literature on its biochemical mechanisms, effectiveness for pain (and other conditions), and overall healing usefulness, yet little is known conventionally as it is not patentable.
Topics: Administration, Intravenous; Child; Complex Regional Pain Syndromes; Female; Humans; Ozone; Pain Management
PubMed: 31062104
DOI: 10.1007/s11916-019-0776-y -
Scientific Reports Dec 2022Ozone is a phytotoxic air pollutant that has various damaging effects on plants, including chlorosis and growth inhibition. Although various physiological and genetic...
Ozone is a phytotoxic air pollutant that has various damaging effects on plants, including chlorosis and growth inhibition. Although various physiological and genetic studies have elucidated some of the mechanisms underlying plant ozone sensitivity and lesion development, our understanding of plant response to this gas remains incomplete. Here, we show evidence for the involvement of certain apoplastic proteins called phytocyanins, such as AtUC5, that protect against ozone damage. Two representative ozone-inducible responses, chlorosis and stomatal closure, were suppressed in AtUC5-overexpressing plants. Analysis of transgenic plants expressing a chimeric protein composed of AtUC5 fused to green fluorescent protein indicated that this fusion protein localises to the apoplast of plant cells where it appears to suppress early responses to ozone damage such as generation or signalling of reactive oxygen species. Moreover, yeast two-hybrid analyses suggest that AtUC5 may physically interact with stress-related proteins such as copper amine oxidase and late embryogenesis abundant protein-like protein. In addition to AtUC5, other examined phytocyanins such as AtUC6 and AtSC3 could confer ozone tolerance to plants when overexpressed in A. thaliana, suggesting that these proteins act together to protect plants against oxidative stress factors.
Topics: Arabidopsis; Ozone; Oxidative Stress; Arabidopsis Proteins; Plants, Genetically Modified; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
PubMed: 36550187
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-25706-0 -
Nature Sep 2023Wildfires are thought to be increasing in severity and frequency as a result of climate change. Air pollution from landscape fires can negatively affect human health,...
Wildfires are thought to be increasing in severity and frequency as a result of climate change. Air pollution from landscape fires can negatively affect human health, but human exposure to landscape fire-sourced (LFS) air pollution has not been well characterized at the global scale. Here, we estimate global daily LFS outdoor fine particulate matter (PM) and surface ozone concentrations at 0.25° × 0.25° resolution during the period 2000-2019 with the help of machine learning and chemical transport models. We found that overall population-weighted average LFS PM and ozone concentrations were 2.5 µg m (6.1% of all-source PM) and 3.2 µg m (3.6% of all-source ozone), respectively, in 2010-2019, with a slight increase for PM, but not for ozone, compared with 2000-2009. Central Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and Siberia experienced the highest LFS PM and ozone concentrations. The concentrations of LFS PM and ozone were about four times higher in low-income countries than in high-income countries. During the period 2010-2019, 2.18 billion people were exposed to at least 1 day of substantial LFS air pollution per year, with each person in the world having, on average, 9.9 days of exposure per year. These two metrics increased by 6.8% and 2.1%, respectively, compared with 2000-2009. Overall, we find that the global population is increasingly exposed to LFS air pollution, with socioeconomic disparities.
Topics: Humans; Air Pollution; Fires; Ozone; Particulate Matter; Wildfires; Socioeconomic Disparities in Health
PubMed: 37730866
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06398-6 -
Medical Gas Research 2019Medicine faces crisis with emerging "super bugs," lethal viruses (Ebola), and stealth pathogens such as tick-borne infections. Thousands are dying worldwide of once... (Review)
Review
Medicine faces crisis with emerging "super bugs," lethal viruses (Ebola), and stealth pathogens such as tick-borne infections. Thousands are dying worldwide of once easily treatable diseases. Ozone therapy, extensively studied, may be a valuable adjunctive or stand-alone therapy. Ebola again ravages Africa with over 2000 already dead, carrying a 65% mortality rate. The world desperately needs safe, inexpensive and effective anti-infective therapy to which microbes will not develop resistance. Oxidation therapies have shown an extremely high safety profile, lacking credible reports of significant injury beyond vein irritation. Ozone therapy, the most studied and least expensive to perform, is in itself a germicide, not an antibiotic, and improves several physiological parameters essential for infection defense. Recent reports indicate very favorable responses to both bacterial and viral disease, inclusive of Ebola. Despite lack of commercial profitability (not patentable), medicine would do well to revisit its pre-antibiotic era oxidation therapy roots, especially ozone in the current crisis.
Topics: Communicable Diseases; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola; Humans; Hyperbaric Oxygenation; Oxidation-Reduction; Ozone
PubMed: 31898609
DOI: 10.4103/2045-9912.273962 -
Plant, Cell & Environment Dec 2020Ozone pollution is a damaging air pollutant that reduces maize yields equivalently to nutrient deficiency, heat, and aridity stress. Therefore, understanding the...
Ozone pollution is a damaging air pollutant that reduces maize yields equivalently to nutrient deficiency, heat, and aridity stress. Therefore, understanding the physiological and biochemical responses of maize to ozone pollution and identifying traits predictive of ozone tolerance is important. In this study, we examined the physiological, biochemical and yield responses of six maize hybrids to elevated ozone in the field using Free Air Ozone Enrichment. Elevated ozone stress reduced photosynthetic capacity, in vivo and in vitro, decreasing Rubisco content, but not activation state. Contrary to our hypotheses, variation in maize hybrid responses to ozone was not associated with stomatal limitation or antioxidant pools in maize. Rather, tolerance to ozone stress in the hybrid B73 × Mo17 was correlated with maintenance of leaf N content. Sensitive lines showed greater ozone-induced senescence and loss of photosynthetic capacity compared to the tolerant line.
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Ozone; Photosynthesis; Plant Leaves; Reactive Oxygen Species; Ribulose-Bisphosphate Carboxylase; Stress, Physiological; Zea mays
PubMed: 32844407
DOI: 10.1111/pce.13876 -
Mediators of Inflammation 2010Although orthodox medicine has provided a variety of topical anti-infective agents, some of them have become scarcely effective owing to antibiotic- and... (Review)
Review
Although orthodox medicine has provided a variety of topical anti-infective agents, some of them have become scarcely effective owing to antibiotic- and chemotherapeutic-resistant pathogens. For more than a century, ozone has been known to be an excellent disinfectant that nevertheless had to be used with caution for its oxidizing properties. Only during the last decade it has been learned how to tame its great reactivity by precisely dosing its concentration and permanently incorporating the gas into triglycerides where gaseous ozone chemically reacts with unsaturated substrates leading to therapeutically active ozonated derivatives. Today the stability and efficacy of the ozonated oils have been already demonstrated, but owing to a plethora of commercial products, the present paper aims to analyze these derivatives suggesting the strategy to obtain products with the best characteristics.
Topics: Aging; Animals; Anti-Infective Agents, Local; Humans; Molecular Structure; Oils; Oxidants, Photochemical; Oxidation-Reduction; Ozone; Skin Diseases; Wound Healing
PubMed: 20671923
DOI: 10.1155/2010/610418