As part of the cultural season of the Environmental Research Center

Dr. Rana Riyadh Khaleel-lecturer in the Department of Environmental Pollution-ERC presented a lecture online using the ZOOM platform on Tuesday, 28/4/2020 at 12:30 pm entitled “The Effect of Surface Active Agents (Surfactants) on the Aquatic Environment”. The lecturer stated that surface active agents, surfactants, are one of the types of organic pollutants that seep into the water systems as a result of disposing domestic wastes (due to the use of industrial detergents) and industrial wastes (due to industrial activity). These pollutants can cause many health problems, and thus becoming a source of concern in current time.

Surfactants are characterized by their ability to weaken the performance of conventional treatment methods where they play a negative role in the processes of biodegradation of organic components, denitification of ammonium nitrogen and activated sludge. Thus, expecting that these agents can pass through wastewater treatment units in conventional plants to the aquatic environment such as (rivers, lakes, and sediments) and so, affecting aquatic organisms (affecting the entire food chain) or plants (affecting physiological activities and metabolism in plants when these agents are absorbed on their surface or transferred through their roots) or land (soil) due to the discharge of wastewater sludge containing these agents. The bioaccumulation of these agents is an environmental having negative effects on the biological components of the ecosystem (such as toxicity and endocrine balance disorder) at which their nature are toxic and carcinogenic (whatever their concentration are very low).

 The lecturer recommended the necessity to study these agents and monitor their fate and behavior in the environment, and find appropriate methods to treat them at a level that is fit to the approved environmental standards.

As part of the cultural season of the Environmental Research Center

Mrs. Zahraa Zahraw Farhan-Assist. lecturer in the Department of Environmental Pollution-ERC presented a lecture online using the ZOOM platform on Tuesday, 21/4/2020 at 12:30 pm entitled “Digital Platforms”. The lecturer stated that electronic platforms can be defined as an interactive educational environment that depends on the nature of its work on the use of numerous technologies, allowing more participants to communicate and interact with each other. These platforms are characterized by many advantages such as their ability to combining the advantages of electronic content management systems with online communication networks and contributing to the dissemination of various educational activities and achieving a communication between the teacher and the student, which lead to facilitating the process of exchanging ideas and opinions and sharing scientific content between the two sides of communication. Thus, positively reflecting in the achievement of high-quality educational outcomes. The lecturer demonstrated there have been many of these platforms where each of them having characteristics and advantages in terms of the performance and the number of participants as well as the allowed period of time for communication.

Because of the current conditions in terms of the spread of coronavirus and the complete disruption of official working hours in educational institutions, the lecturer recommended that the electronic platforms should be used (easy tools and do not need special skills) to ensure the continuing process of education and academic communication.