Zulkifl Ahmed

• PhD in Geotechnical engineering
• Research Scholar at Northeastern University

This study presents the fabrication and characterization of mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) incorporating green-synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Hibiscus Rosa sinensis extract within a polyethersulfone (PES) matrix for nanofiltration (NF) application. The membranes were evaluated for their pure water permeability, salt rejection, dye re...

Water is one of the most important elements for life on Earth. The main cause of water contamination is the industrial development. Dyes are the most important part of textile industry that are used as coloring substance and are toxic to human health and animals. The present review summarized the literature review of dye degradation by using nanoco...

Microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) is a technique used in geotechnical engineering to reinforce soil and rock. While it is commonly used for soil reinforcement, its application for rock reinforcement in saline–alkaline environments is limited. In order to improve the reinforcement effect of microbially induced calcium carbon...

Failure analysis of rock slope is a core topic in rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering. This paper simulates the failure mechanism of a rock slope formed by mudstone at Girdu, Pakistan. Initially, site surveys and laboratory experiments were carried out to measure slope geometry and input shear strength properties of the material. The geotec...

Present study assessed the growth of two plant species and ion uptake by them grown on different proportion of industrial solid waste and garden soil. The industrial waste having high concentration of chemicals were used with garden soil at different proportion i.e. 0% (T0), 5% (T1), 10% (T2), 15% (T3) and 20% (T4). Two species namely Conocarpus er...

The present study focused on to determine the concentration and health risk of heavy metals (Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Hg, Cr) in e-waste contaminated soils collected from different provinces of Pakistan. Further, the impact of heavy metals on soil enzyme activities and microbial community was also investigated. The concentration (mg/kg) of Hg, Zn, Fe, Cu, P...

Determination of representative Critical Slip Surface (CSS) for loose rock slope is one of the most important topics for slope reinforcement design. In this paper, a SLOPE/W software is used to analyze the failure characteristics of CSS considering the spatial variability effect of strength parameters. Initially, the Morgenstern-Price limiting equi...

The aim of the present study was to assess the drinking water quality in the selected urban areas of Lahore and to comprehend the public health status by addressing the basic drinking water quality parameters. Total 50 tap water samples were collected from groundwater in the two selected areas of district Lahore i.e., Gulshan-e-Ravi (site 1) and Sa...

Artificial neural network (ANN) methods, based on sophisticated models, have been developed recently that can predict slope stability. In this study, we have developed a genetic algorithm (GA) based on ANN to assess the stability of soil slope. Firstly, an ANN-based genetic algorithm was trained for nonlinear input-output mapping of the slope. A to...

The current research work is done to determine the concentration of heavy metals (Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Hg, Cr) in the surface soil of recycling centres located in different provinces of Pakistan and to quantify and compare the environmental risk by using different geostatistical techniques. The impact of recycling activities on the soil microbial commun...

Introduction: This study aims to assess the extent of heavy metal contamination in urban soils in sixteen selected cities of Pakistan, encompassing the elements cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), cobalt (Co), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), and copper (Cu). Methods: The data utilized for this study was collected from online...

Lithium is among the alkali metals which can significantly reduce plant growth and yield. In this study, different levels of lithium stress lithium were applied to Vigna radiata (Mung bean), an economically important crop, grown in earthen pots. Each treatment of lithium was compared with the plants inoculated with bacteria that is resistant to lit...

Concrete cracks have an adverse effect on the strength properties and durability of concrete structures. Therefore, repairing concrete cracks to recover the concrete’s strength parameters is an important task in the civil engineering field. For repairing concrete cracks, the MICP technique has been widely analyzed in recent times; however, no resea...

Concrete cracks have a detrimental effect on the strength properties and durability of the structures. So, repairing of concrete cracks to recover their strength parameters is more important task in civil engineering. To repair concrete cracks, MICP has been widely analysed in recent times; but, zero research is conducted to deeply investigate the...

Electric and electronic waste termed as e-waste which is significant contributor of environmental pollution. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are emitted from e-waste activities and affect the human health and soil quality, so PCBs removal from the soil has become a global concern. Phytoremediation provides sustainable solution to treat PCBs contam...

Due to rapid expansion in the global economy and industrialization, PM 2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter) pollution has become a key environmental issue. The public health and social development directly affected by high PM 2.5 levels. In this paper, ambient PM 2.5 concentrations along with meteorological data are forecaste...

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19), first identified at the end of December 2019, has significant impacts on all aspects of human society. In this study, we aimed to assess the ambient air quality patterns associated to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region using a random forest (RF) model. To estimate the accuracy of the mode...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants and pose toxic effects to environment and public health. The current study investigates PCB levels in the dust samples collected from the indoor environment of three cities viz; Lahore, Faisalabad and Bahawalnagar Punjab, Pakistan. The highest concentrations of ∑ 35 PCBs were record...

Plastics are man-made long-chain high polymeric compounds which have long-lasting effects on environment and human health. One of the most concerning issues of plastic is related with their associated chemicals and their subsequent effects upon release on ecological resources and human beings. The current study was conducted with the purpose to ass...

To study the damage evolution laws of red sandstone samples with prefabricated cracks under cyclic uniaxial compression, physical tests were conducted. In this research, the stress–strain curve characteristics, failure process characteristics, strength, and deformation properties of the cracked sandstone specimens were studied under different crack...

In current research, a novel geometrical technique is introduced to estimate the length ( L ) of sliding arc by considering slip surface entry point distance ( d e ). Morgenstern-Price limiting equilibrium and strength reduction methods are selected within the framework of SLOPE/W and FLAC 3D softwares respectively, to study the sliding mechanism a...

In loose or highly weathered rock slopes, the circular shear failure mechanism occurs in large scale. Most rock slope stability investigations ignore the influence of geometric parameters, i.e., failure surface entry point distance (le). This study presents failure surface determination based on constant element stress-based method. The failure sur...

Organic carbon (OC) is the amount of carbon found in an organic compound. Once entered, the environment OC may cause climate change and effects on public health. The objective of the study was to assess the spatio-temporal trends of OC, climatology, and to develop inventories. The three satellite datasets (MACCity, ACCMIP, RCP 8.5) showed significa...

The analysis of damage process and the characterization of damaged rock masses through numerical models are the most difficult and challenging tasks in geotechnical engineering. This review paper describes and collects information regarding the causes of damage in the rocks and damage models (constitutive and hybrid damage models) for rock damage a...

Arsenic (As) is naturally found in the Earth’s crust at certain concentration above which it refers as toxic. Due to various anthropogenic activities as well as natural processes, As concentration reaches the threshold level. The fate of As in soil is influenced by biotransformation, immobilization, confinement process, and soil properties. The aim...

Block failure is a common type of uncertainty in blocky and layered rock slopes. One of the most critical types of block failure is a slide of slope top flexural toppling. In the current research, such kind of block failure is studied through numerical modeling. For this purpose, extensive field investigations and laboratory tests were conducted to...

Rock cliff faces are mostly avoided in rock engineering research, especially where the scale of the slope exceeds the scale of fracturing present in the rock mass. The research to understand the rock cliff face joints plays an important role in slope engineering. This paper presents a rock block identification method based on unnamed aerial vehicle...

The era of anthropogenic antibiotics began after the discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming (Diggins 1999). Natural soil is the reservoir of autochthonous soil microorganisms which biosynthesize antimicrobial secondary metabolites (Martinez-Fleites et al. 2006; Raaijmakers et al. 1997). Nevertheless, since the first introduction of an...

The central pillar of toxicology is that of the dose-response relationship. The field of toxicology has been dominated by the use of two dose-response models, the threshold and linear models. These two models essentially determine strategies for animal model selection, study design (including the number and range of doses employed), and the means t...

This study investigates PCBs attenuation and the abundance of active polychlorinated-degrading Dehalococcoides spp. biphenyl dioxygenase (bphC), chemotaxis (CheA) and flagellum (flic) genes in floody and dry soil conditions polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls. The results revealed that total PCBs, high chlorinated PCBs (> 4cl) and less chlorina...

Heavy metal concentrations in sediments of the Kurang stream: a principal feeding tributary of the Rawal Lake Reservoir were investigated using enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and metal pollution index (MPI) to determine metal accumulation, distribution and its pollution status. Sediment samples were collected from twenty one s...