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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 9781119650997
Cover image: Water background - Anna1311 | Dreamstime.com, Surf with clouds - Penguinpete | Dreamstime.com, Mountains with Rain - Jan Baars | Dreamstime.com Cover design by Kris Hackerott
The co-authors, M. Safiur Rahman and M.R. Islam would like to dedicate this book on water – the essence of life - to their daughters, Lamisa S. Rahman and Elif Hamida Islam, respectively, in recognition of the softness of their hearts that personify the essence of the co-authors’ joy and happiness.
Preface
Every civilization in human history recognized the importance of water and understood the importance of water and air in their natural state for the sustenance of life. This all changed during the plastic era. For over a century, the current civilization has been synonymous with synthetic chemicals. All such processes undergo deliberate ‘denaturing’, starting with removing innate water, which is ubiquitous in nature. At present, between 25,000 to 84,000 synthetic chemicals are used to drive modern corporate culture, the hallmark of Capitalism. The number of synthetic chemicals has multiplied 25 times since 1970, with a rise in economic dividend from $171 billion to over $4 trillion today. As these chemicals have created numerous problems in all aspects of civilization, another line of industry has cropped up – the so-called waste management and cleanup industry, which ironically has introduced a new line of synthetic chemicals to ‘purify’ the current contamination.
In this scheme, water is the most important yet most hapless victim. There are numerous techniques available today to purify water – the most potent purifier on Earth. Ironically, all techniques use chemicals to replace the contaminants of the water under treatment. These chemicals are all toxic to the environment, despite being ‘certified’ by the same establishment that upholds the plastic culture, which is responsible for the current toxic shock. It should come as no surprise that all techniques used for water purification today are unsustainable. This dichotomy arises from the fact that today’s civilization is driven by science that is incapable of identifying the causes, let alone remedying them of the inherent unsustainability of purification techniques.
In this book, the source of contaminations is identified as synthetic chemicals, which should not have entered the ecosystem to begin with. Any purification technique must use sustainable techniques. Sustainability lies within the adoption of a zero-waste scheme, rather than struggling to ‘minimize’ waste. In this book, sustainable purification techniques are presented that are applicable to municipal, agricultural and industrial sectors. They range from organic contaminants to radioactive wastes. For each technique, it is shown how value addition and conversion of waste into value-added products can turn a zero-waste process into an economically successful endeavor. This book shows that any paradigm shift to turn this toxic culture into a healthy one starts with water – the first ‘element’ of the universe.
M. Safiur RahmanM.R. Islam
1 Introduction
1.1 Opening Remarks
Water is synonymous with life. This has been the case since the pre-historic time to modern era (Tsiaras et al., 2019). While the indispensability of water for sustaining life is well known, water being the first creation and as such the ubiquitous phase on earth as well as the cosmos is little known in the modern era. This is a typical problem related to New Science, which disconnected modern knowledge from the previous annals of science. In the pre-Socratic cosmogony of Thales, considered to be the first ‘element.’* This was more than a poetic gesture, it was rather an attempt to answer the question: “What is the common stuff from which everything is composed?” This notion of water being the first creation permeated through Christianity. In Genesis 1:1-2, it is stated, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”. Quran (11:7) points to the existence of water before any other creation, the exact word being: “and His (creator’s) throne/dominion extends on the water - that He might manifest to you, which of you is best in action....” (Qur’an 11:7). This throne is similar to the notion of ‘lotus’ in ancient India (Tresdder, 1997). This, in addition to indispensability of water for sustainability of humans (67:30; 24:54) as well as overall origin of every life on earth (24:45). Islam (2014) presented the scientific justification of water as both the first matter of cosmos as well as the first material of life. As such, Islam (2014) characterized water as the ubiquitous phase. It follows that the purity of water is pivotal to global sustainability. For human health, water is the vehicle for carrying nutrients to all cells in our body and oxygen to our brain. Water allows the body to absorb and assimilate minerals, vitamins, amino acids, glucose and other substances. Water flushes out toxins and waste. Water helps to regulate body temperature and maintains the overall metabolism for sustaining life. As such, humanity, civilization, the environment, and the cosmos are all connected seamlessly (depicted in Picture 1.1).
Modern investigation in material science has been marred with the first premise, which is inherent to the Big Bang theory. The fundamental premise is: creation is made in two stages, namely 1) fundamental element is created out of nothing; 2) all other elements evolve from fundamental element. This theory considers hydrogen atoms as the first material in existence, thus creating paradoxical depiction of mass and matter. In the past decade, observations from space and the ground have found water to be the most abundant molecular species, after hydrogen, in the atmospheres of hot, gaseous extrasolar planets (Tsiaras, 2019). However, as early as 2011, evidence surfaced that the existence of hydrogen molecules is not factual and comes from the assumption that hydrogen is the first ‘element’ to come to existence. Khan and Islam (2016) point to the fact that scientists actually look for water molecules even in outer galaxy to consolidate the claim that the assumption that hydrogen, which is not the most abundant molecule in universe.
Picture 1.1 Humanity, civilization, environment and the
