Speaker
Description
The objective was to employ a locally engineered bio-based adsorbent, P-32 Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC), as an intervention strategy to minimize non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks associated with untreated abattoir effluent in Ghana. This prototypic and hypothesis-driven study used standard methods to determine the levels of contaminants; phosphate (PO43-) and nitrate (NO3-), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), and iron (Fe). Ex-ante deterministic and probabilistic health risk assessment (HRA) was conducted, followed by treatment using 5 – 25 g P-32 PAC per L of the effluent. A dose-response analysis (DRA), ex-post HRA, risk reduction analysis (RRA), and adapted RR optimization modeling were perused. A modified exponential decay model (mEDM) predicted the optimal dose required to reduce HR to acceptable threshold. Ex-ante HRA suggested probable risk (Hazard Index (HI) ranged from 45.12 [5th percentile] to 131.85 [95th percentile] for children, 27.15 [5th percentile] to 79.28 [95th percentile] for adult); and Total Cancer Risk (TCR) range of 2.25 × 10^(-3) [5th percentile] to 6.48 × 10^(-3) [95th percentile] for children and 4.52 × 10^(-3) [5th percentile] to 1.30 × 10^(-2) [95th percentile] for adults. DRA revealed a low NO3- logarithmic midpoint dose (logx0) while Cd had the highest Hill coefficient (p). At 25 g/L of P-32 PAC, HI and TCR reduced by 78.51 % and 71.44 %, respectively. The mEDM predicted HI and TCR reduction to acceptable risk threshold with 70 g and 110 g of P-32 PAC/L, respectively. P-32 PAC demonstrates environmental prowess to mitigate the health risks associated with the effluent.