José Miguel Rodríguez-Maroto

• Ph. D.
• Professor (Full) at University of Malaga

An innovative approach to the treatment of textile wastewater by utilizing fine fractions of construction and demolition waste (CDW) as a cost-effective adsorbent is presented in this work. Through batch experiments, the impact of key parameters on the adsorption process was explored, identifying optimal conditions: natural pH, adsorbent dosage (S/...

Addressing the environmental challenges posed by CO2 emissions is crucial for mitigating global warming and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This study compares CO2 storage (CCS) and utilization (CCU) technologies, highlighting the benefits of integrating captured CO2 into fuel production. This paper focuses on various carbon utilization route...

The growing demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has led to significant environmental and resource challenges, such as the toxicity of LIBs’ waste, which pose severe environmental and health risks, and the criticality of some of their components. Efficient recycling processes are essential to mitigate these issues, promoting the recovery of valu...

Electrodialysis is classified as a membrane separation process in which ions are transferred through selective ion-exchange membranes from one solution to another using an electric field as the driving force. Electrodialysis is a mature technology in the field of brackish water desalination, but in recent decades the development of new membranes ha...

Landfill leachate is a complex mix of organics, inorganics and heavy metals produced from conventional and engineering landfilling practices. The adverse effects of landfill leachate on human and environmental health have forced the relevant authorities to stipulate stringent disposal requirements, producing the need for ground-breaking technologic...

Landfill leachate is a complex mix of organics, inorganics and heavy metals produced from conventional and engineering landfilling practices. The adverse effects of landfill leachate on human and environmental health have forced the relevant authorities to stipulate stringent disposal requirements, producing the need for ground-breaking technologic...

The reduction of CO2 emissions, to minimize the impact of the climate change, has become a global priority. The continuous implementation of renewable energy sources increases energy efficiency, while the reduction of CO2 emissions opens new options for carbon capture technologies to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The combination of carbon capt...

Currently, many countries around the world face serious problems related to coastal erosion. The use of natural fillers extracted from shallow areas as well as from rivers for coastal regeneration and beach nourishment generates additional environmental impacts that affect plants and animal communities, water circulation and coastal dynamics, among...

The presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water poses a serious threat to the human health due to their toxic effects. Therefore, the removal of these compounds from drinking water in Potable Water Treatment Plants (PWTPs) should be evaluated and optimized to assure the quality of water intended for human consumption. In this work,...

Modeling electrokinetic remediation (EKR) involves identifying the most relevant physical‐chemical processes occurring. The evolution of the theoretical description of EKR has allowed the development of prediction tools for experimental setups, to increase overall understanding of the transport and transformation processes and improve and optimize...

In this work, a model has been formulated to describe the complex process of LiCoO2 leaching through the participation of competing reactions in acid media including the effect of H2O2 as reducing agent. The model presented here describes the extraction of Li and Co in the presence and absence of H2O2, and it takes into account the different phenom...

Electrochemically assisted dewatering, also called electro-dewatering (EDW), electrokinetic dewatering (EKD), and field-assisted dewatering is a technology widely used in soil engineering. The control of water movement in porous matrices under the application of an electrical field is the basis of the electrochemically assisted dewatering. This flo...

The anaerobic digestion of pig slurry samples collected from different points of a farm and raw pig slurry pretreated by centrifugation and decantation was first studied. The specific methane production of raw pig slurry and after centrifugation and decantation pretreatment was 158, 24, and 42.34 L kgVS‐1, respectively. Secondly, the anaerobic dige...

This work reports a kinetic study of the bioleaching process for Cu extraction from waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs), using iron as an oxidant agent. The kinetic study considered both the Fe²⁺ oxidation by bacteria metabolism and the chemical reaction between Fe³⁺ and Cu within WPCBs. The model was composed of a system of three differential equ...

The valorization of Spirulina as a potential biosorption material to treat contaminated wastewater was evaluated. Batch experiments were conducted to study the influence of pH value and ionic strength on the biosorption capacity of Spirulina. Higher removal capacity was observed at pH 5.2, while higher ionic strength was found to result in lower ad...

The valorization of agricultural waste as biosorbent requires studies dealing with aqueous systems containing coexisting heavy metals. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to study the competitive biosorption of Ni2+ and Cd2+ on alkali-modified lemon peel. The biosorption kinetic analysis indicated that the uptake of Ni (II) on lemon peel...

The sequential extraction procedure as a tool to assess the environmental risk of metals in solid matrices has been widely studied. In this work, another promising application of these methods is proposed: the evaluation of the recoverability of critical raw materials from a solid matrix. To this aim, the normalized sequential extraction procedure...

Featured Application The physicochemical model described in this work will be useful for the optimization of hydrometallurgical and combined electrochemical–hydrometallurgical recycling processes for spent lithium-ion batteries. Abstract The use of lithium-ion batteries as energy storage in portable electronics and electric vehicles is increasing...

The use of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (Na2EDTA) as a chelating agent presents ideal characteristics to be used for the removal of lead from a contaminated site. Batch experiments together with a simple local equilibrium model were carried out to evaluate the role of EDTA as enhancing agent in electrokinetic remediation of a Pb-co...

This work is aimed at the development of a semi-continuous mechanochemical process for biodiesel production and the subsequent valorization of glycerol, its by-product, via its conversion into calcium diglyceroxide using the same mechanochemical reactor. This basic solid catalyzes the methanolysis of vegetable oils. The implementation of a semi-con...

Lithium-ion batteries play an important role in our modern society as the main option to power portable electronic devices and electric vehicles. The growing demand for these batteries encourages the development of more efficient recycling processes, aiming to decrease the environmental impact of the spent batteries and recover their valuable compo...

Zero valent iron (ZVI) is being used in permeable reactive barriers (PRB) for the removal of oxidant contaminants, from nitrate to chlorinated organics. A sound design of these barriers requires a good understanding of kinetics. Here we present a study of the kinetics of nitrate reduction under relatively low values of pH, from 2 to 4.5. We use a p...

A kinetic study of the process for the copper leaching from printed circuit board, by Fe3+, was reported. A mathematical model, supported by experimental data, considered the mechanisms that control the reaction (chemical reaction, particle or liquid film diffusion). The kinetic of the chemical reaction was studied by two models (pseudo-first and p...

Electrokinetic remediation (EKR) is probably the only feasible alternative to treat contaminated soils with low hydraulic conductivity. This technology is based on the application of an electric current between two groups of electrodes into the soil inducing several transport and transformation processes. As a result, the contaminants and water are...

The valorization of agricultural waste peels as a low-cost biosorbent is a promising approach to water treatment. In this work, the improvement of the adsorption capacity of lemon peel to remove Ni (II) from aqueous effluents was explored using several chemical modifiers: HNO3, HCl, H3PO4, CaCl2, NH3 and NaOH. The surface pretreatment using NaOH wa...

The influence of operating conditions of wastewater treatment plants in microbial composition of activated sludge should be controlled to evaluate the efficiency of the plant. Respirometry has been widely applied as a useful tool for a better understanding of the processes taking place in activated sludge system. In the present study, respirometry...

Fruit and vegetable wastes (FVW) generated in a wholesale market, and mixed sewage sludge (MSS) from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) are heterogeneous residues that may suffer important seasonal changes. We study the influence of those possible changes on the co-digestion of both residues. All the experiments were conducted under meso...

Electrodialytic remediation has been widely applied to the recovery of different contaminants from numerous solid matrices, solving emerging issues of environmental concern. Results and conclusions reported in studies about real contaminated matrices are summarized in this work. The influence of pH value on the treatment effectiveness has been wide...

The anaerobic co-digestion of fruit and vegetable waste (FVW) and municipal sewage sludge (MSS) is investigated under mesophilic conditions. This was done at a constant hydraulic retention time (HRT) similar to that typically used at waste water treatment plant digesters, 20 days. The effects on digester performance of the FVW:MSS ratio and the org...

The immobilized algae Sargassum vulgare was used as biosorbent for Fe3+ removal through a batch and continuous system in order to study the biosorption capacity and to establish a new method of the valorization of this waste. The kinetic data could be described by the pseudo first-order and pseudo second-order kinetic models. The batch equilibrium...

In this study, the removal of PAHs from a clay-based soil, using electrokinetic remediation, was explored. The experiments used phenanthrene-spiked bentonite as a simplified model representative of a Vertisol soil polluted by hydrocarbons. Experiments were performed using a 1-D cell where 80 cm³ of phenanthrene-spiked bentonite was subjected to ele...

In this study, landfill gas emissions from a landfill located in southern Spain were estimated using static surface flux chambers and applying and comparing four geostatistical methods; ordinary kriging, lognormal kriging, intrinsic random functions of order K and indicator kriging. This paper presents the methodology used to calculate methane (and...

This paper studies the possible differences in the behavior of lead as a contaminant in soil samples when it is present as “naturally-aged” for decades after the contamination, and when it has been spiked in the laboratory. This behavior differences are stablished mainly in two ways: as changes in the fractionation analysis obtained after a sequent...

A mathematical model for simulating the electrodialytic phosphorus recovery from sewage sludge ash containing heavy metal (Al, Fe, Zn, Cu, Cr, Cd and Ni) is presented. The complex chemical system proposed consists of 46 species including aqueous and solid species. The system setup is modelled as a four compartments: solid, liquid, anode and cathode...

Understanding the scaling-up process is essential for the application of the electrokinetic remediation at field scale, as the technique is site-specific and dependent on the target contaminants. In this paper, a generalized and easy-to-use model is presented for the prediction of the energy requirements at different scales. The mathematical model...

This study was undertaken to determine the possible changes in the digester yield and performance for the anaerobic co-digestion under mesophilic conditions of strawberry residues (SRs) together with pig manure (PM). The first part of this paper deals with the digestion of SR as a single substrate. For organic loading rates (OLRs) of 4.4 (g L(-1) d...

Soil electro-remediation is a technique that allows the removal of organic and inorganic compounds [1-4]. Changes in the soil matrix during application of the electric field affects desorption and/or absorption, and even the mobilization process of pollutants [5]. Changes caused by the potential gradient in a model soil (sodium bentonite) and the r...

The laboratory tests for the use of sapogenic amphiphilic glycosides as a coagulation–flocculation aid are presented in this paper. These amphiphilic glycosides were obtained, through a natural fermentation process, of the juice, of fique (Furcraea sp.) leaves. Decantation allows for the separation of a supernatant denominated “supernatant fique ju...

In this chapter are presented both the experimental results of nZVI transport under electric fields, on mixtures of kaolin and glass beads to represent different porous media, and a generalized physicochemical and numerical model of this transport. In the experiments, a low-level direct current was used to enhance the transport of poly(acrylic acid...

This chapter is focused on the study of electroremediation of heavy metals from a real soil. Specifically, the case of the study was a soil from Almaden mining district, with a very high mercury concentration. The risk assessment of heavy metals depends on the mobility and bioavailability and not only on the total concentration. Therefore, this stu...

The non-biological energy (NBE), also named, mechanical, auxiliary, subsidiary, or complementary energy plays an important role on algal growth, mentioned by many however scarcely quantified. Using mass and energy transfer equations we estimated NBE in Watts m−2, as well as assimilable energy (AE). The effect of NBE on Dunaliella viridis depends on...

Understanding the possible pH-buffering processes is of maximum importance for risk assessment and remediation feasibility studies of heavy-metal contaminated soils. This paper presents the results about the effect of the buffering capacity of a polluted soil, rich in carbonates, on the pH and on the leaching evolution of its main contaminant (lead...

for Pb extraction experiments from a contaminated soil performed with citric acid and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (Na2EDTA) indicate that Na2EDTA is much more efficient. The Pb removal after 5 successive extractions using 24 mL of 0.1 M Na2EDTA solutions and 8 g of soil is close to 100%. Other non-toxic metals such as Ca and Mg, t...

Zero valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) are considered very promising for the remediation of contaminated soils and groundwaters. However, an important issue related to their limited mobility remains unsolved. Direct current can be used to enhance the nanoparticles transport, based on the same principles of electrokinetic remediation. In this work, a...

The most typical enhancement for electrokinetic remediation (EKR) involves the neutralization of the alkaline front generated at the cathode by the addition of an acid to the catholyte. Although the use of strong and weak acids can be found in the literature, there is still a clear lack of reliable comparisons between them. This paper presents a co...

Due to their abundance in the natural environment, chloride, nitrate and sulfate salts are considered the main responsible for the salt-induced decay processes in building materials and sculptures. Electro-desalination techniques, enhanced with carbonated clay buffer poultice placed between the surface of the stone and the electrodes, have been suc...

Clear economic advantages may be obtained from the management of seasonal fruit wastes by codigestion at existing facilities which are working throughout the year with other residues. We have explored the biomethanization of pear residues in a 5L stirred reactor loaded with sludge from the anaerobic digester of a municipal wastewater treatment plan...

Electrokinetic desalination techniques have been successfully applied for the prevention of salt-induced deterioration problems of masonry and other construction materials. A mathematical model for electrochemical desalination treatments is described, based on the Poisson-Nernst-Planck system of equations and accounting for the chemical interaction...

We have chosen the BCR (Bureau Communautaire de Référence) sequential extraction procedure as a speciation analysis to determine the mobility of mercury in the contaminated soil of the Almadén (Spain) mining district. This soil has a high mercury concentration (1000 mg kg⁻¹) in some areas. In previous works, the relationship between the weak-acid s...

The soil of Almaden mining district in Spain has a high concentration of mercury (1000mgkg−1), therefore decontamination activities are necessary. This paper studies the effectiveness of some chelant agents (thiosulfate, EDTA, iodide and HNO3) for the remediation of this soil which has been polluted for several millennia. The risk assessment of the...

The herbicides molinate and bentazone are used in paddy rice fields. Their behaviour in soils when submitted to an electric field was studied and the applicability of the electrokinetic (EK) process in soil remediation was evaluated. Three soils were used and nine EK experiments were carried out at a laboratory scale. A one-dimensional model is dev...

Electrokinetic mobilization is used for the transport of ionic and non-ionic species through the pore solution of porous materials, induced by an externally applied electric field. Several electrokinetic techniques have been proposed and successfully applied for different purposes in the fields of Civil and Environmental Engineering. A mathematical...

A one-dimensional model is developed for simulating the electrodialytic and dialytic treatment of a fly ash containing cadmium, copper and lead. Two experimental systems have been used, a column of ash and a stirred ash suspension. The movement of Cd, Cu and Pb has been modeled taking into account the diffusion transport resulting from the concentr...

Re-vegetation of trace element contaminated soils can alter the pH and chelating capacity in the rhizosphere, increasing the mobility of pollutants, which, in turn, may impact on rhizosphere ecology. In this study a short-term pot experiment was carried out in order to investigate the multi-factorial effects of: buffering capacity (sandy-loam and l...

The objective of this work is to gain a better understanding of the fate of carbetamide, as a representative herbicide, after its soil application. To reach this goal, batch and column laboratory experiments were performed and a transport model was proposed consistent with these results. Then field-scale experiments were carried out for two years a...

The use of reactive barriers is one of the preferred remediation technologies for the remediation of groundwater contamination. An adequate design of these barriers requires the understanding of the kinetics of the reaction between the target contaminant and the solid phase in the barrier. A study of the kinetics between metallic iron and aqueous n...

A laboratory study was conducted to evaluate the response of soil enzyme activities (acid and alkaline phosphatase, β-glucosidase, arylsulfatase, urease and dehydrogenase) to different levels of trace elements pollution in soils representative of the area affected by the pyrite sludge mining spill of Aznalcóllar (Guadiamar basin, SW Spain). Three u...

This work refers to the simulation and analysis of membrane thickness reduction effects on direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) performance. A resistances-in-series model has been used which allows the coupling of simultaneous heat and mass transfer in DCMD systems providing in this way an easier description of transport than more usual pola...

Metal sulphide tailings present a potential risk for the environment because of their natural oxidability which leads to the production of acid mine drainage. The prospected site close to Marrakech includes zinc, lead and copper sulphide deposits. This site is located in an agricultural area near the Tensift River which is used for irrigation. In a...

The electrokinetic remediation (EKR) of a soil sample contaminated with a sludge spill of pyritic mining origin is studied. The initial total metal content of the soil indicates that there is a very large concentration of Fe (about 100 g/kg), whereas other metals of environmental relevance are Zn (2390 mg/kg), Pb (1740 mg/kg), Cu (459 mg/kg) and Cd...

The effect of ammonia as a complexing reagent to enhance the efficiency of the in situ electrokinetic remediation is evaluated. Lab scale experiments with copper spiked kaolin were carried out to explore if the metal precipitation can be avoided at neutral and alkaline pH. Ammonia was added at the anode compartment and therefore delivered into the...

In this work a direct contact membrane distillation system is studied. The usual description of the polarization effects on flux using the temperature and concentration polarization coefficients is completed with the introduction of the transport resistances. The analysis in terms of these resistances facilitates the interpretation of the role play...

The possible management of Fruit and Vegetable Solid Wastes (FVSWs) through their simultaneous digestion with the primary sludge of Municipal Wastewater Treatment plants is investigated. This alternative allows the recovery of energy and a solid product that can be used as an amendment for soils that generated the residue, while is not expensive. R...

Results on direct contact membrane distillation experiments are given. The experiments were carried out to measure the effect on flux of improving the mass transfer characteristics of the membrane used and of including a spacer in the channels of the membrane module used. It is shown that the benefits of membrane mass transfer improvements can be o...

A one-dimensional model is developed for simulating the electrodialytic and dialytic treatment of a saturated bed of wood chips containing chromium, copper and arsenic. The movement of Cr, Cu and As is mathematically modeled taking into account the diffusion transport resulting from the concentration gradients of their compounds and the electromigr...

The first aim of this work is to present a method in order to characterize a direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) module, namely a method to determine the value of the parameters included in a commonly accepted transport model. The model includes membrane and module design characteristic parameters which have the same values regardless of fe...

Electrokinetic remediation uses an electric current density of the order of milliamps per square centimeter applied to the cross-sectional area of a soil mass between the electrodes, producing electric potential drops of the order of volts per centimeter. The main interest in electrokinetic soil remediation in environmental cleanup operations lies...

An electrodialytic soil remediation process was applied for the removal of cadmium (1000 mg/kg of dry soil) from spiked kaolin. The method consists of the application of a dc electric current to the soil placed between ion-exchanger membranes, which allows for the separation of the soil from electrode solutions. Characterization of cationic and ani...

The atrazine behaviour in soils when submitted to an electric field was studied and the applicability of the electrokinetic process in atrazine soil remediation was evaluated. Two polluted soils were used, respectively with and without atrazine residues, being the last one spiked. Four electrokinetic experiments were carried out at a laboratory sca...

Turbulence is a major variable controlling growth of microalgae. When turbulence is provided by means of air bubbling, mass transfer phenomena take place between the culture medium and the air bubbles. A mathematical model has been developed to evaluate the effects of air bubbling in bicarbonate-enriched media for microalgae cultivation, and in cul...