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Morocco’s economy has recently seen an unprecedented growth, which made the country emerge into the 5th strongest economy of the African continent. As other countries at the same stage of development, Morocco is also undergoing rapid urbanization, which results in increased anthropogenic air-pollution levels. The geographical location of the country makes it vulnerable to both short and longterm impacts of climate change. Despite the elevated risk and vulnerability, the current air pollution and climate change monitoring strategy of the country needs improvement. The present paper introduces a novel strategy to improve the air quality monitoring system in the capital combined with developing a project-based climate education curriculum, and promises to raise public awareness to the risks related to air pollution and climate change. The sustainability of the project is guaranteed by the low cost of instruments and the educational aspect which ensures that future experts are well-trained for the maintenance of the system that we propose to install.

The goal of this study was to investigate the performance of coagulation-flocculation, and sedimentation tests to reduce contaminant concentrations in domestic wastewater to ecologically acceptable levels. The tests were performed at the (ONEE) laboratory using a jar test apparatus (GPB FLCDidatec, France) for enhancing the primary treatment of domestic wastewater effluent from the wastewater plant of Ain Aouda City, Rabat, Morocco. Aluminum sulphate Al2(SO4)3.18H2O (termed alum) was employed as a coagulant in the study. The impact of coagulant doses and pH at optimum dosage on the process of coagulation was studied and conditions were optimized to obtain the best removal of studied pollutants. The evolution of physico-chemical parameters pre-and post-treatment was monitored to determine the efficacy of the process. The turbidity and total suspended solids (TSS) were the best indicators of the treatment’s efficacy of coagulant concentration (150mg/L) within the pH optimum of 7. Laboratory tests have shown 98.4% of turbidity, and 97% total suspended solids removal at initial concentrations of 121 NTU, 220 mg/L respectively. Also, it has shown good removal efficiency for COD, BOD5 of the order 83%, 77% at initial concentrations of 340 mg/L, 150 mg/L respectively. Following the coagulation tests, the examination of the main parameters studied revealed that the degree of contamination had decreased. This is confirmed that Aluminium sulphate as a coagulant has proven its effectiveness in the treatment of domestic wastewater in this study.

The epidemic of coronavirus is spreading all over the world, which is not only a health problem, but also affects the social sector, politics, the environment in various ways and the world economy. In response to the rapidly changing international epidemiological situation of COVID-19, several governments have imposed restrictions on the movement of people and vehicles and suspended industrial activities as a safety measure to reduce the spread of the virus and protect human health. This study aims to compare the state of air quality in Morocco, before the pandemic and during the lockdown situation of the Moroccan territory between March 2020 and June 2020.

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment has increased. These pollutants are toxic and non-biodegradable. Piroxicam (PRX) is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that ends up in wastewater via pharmaceutical industry activities and human being consumption. This work aimed to study the pharmaceutical pollutant removal from wastewater using agricultural by-products as low-cost adsorbent material. Different parameters were studied, such as time, initial adsorbate concentrations, and temperature. The study of the initial concentration-effect shows that the greatest amount of adsorbed is observed in low concentrations. The temperature has shown a negative effect in this study. The kinetics show that after 45min, the equilibrium is obtained; that means the exhaustion of all active sites. The representative model of this adsorption is the Langmuir isotherm according to the regression coefficient, which is equal to 0.99. The natural abundance of this material and the low cost of investment could offer a good alternative to other more expensive adsorbents such as activated carbon.

This research aimed to investigate the performance of seeds extract of Moringa Oleifera (MO) as an eco-friendly coagulant and an alternative practice in enhancing primary domestic wastewater effluent treatment by coagulation/flocculation, and sedimentation. The seeds of Moringa Oleifera were dried, crushed, and sieved, the content of oil was extracted with n-hexane as a solvent employing soxhlet apparatus (electro thermal) then used the residue as domestic wastewater coagulant. Jar tests were conducted for improve the primary treatment of domestic wastewater effluent from the wastewater plant of Ain Aouda city, Rabat, Morocco. For this reason, perform of coagulation tests was comparative with using aluminium sulphate (alum). Moringa Oleifera seeds extract at the optimal dose of 250 mg/L shows encouraging results, by comparison with the use of alum (150 mg/L). In reality, in terms of TSS reduction 95.5% and 96.8%, while turbidity reduction 97.5% and 98.1% were obtained for MO seeds extract and alum, respectively. But, the reduction rate of COD and BOD of Alum was somewhat higher than that of MO seeds extract 81.8% and 76.8% for COD, while were 75.5% and 72% for BOD respectively. Differently from alum, observed that increase in the extract of MO seeds dosage happened a slight change in pH value, decrease conductivity, and three times less bulky quantity of sludge than alum. For avoiding the numerous disadvantages associated with the use of chemical coagulants, the usage of Moringa Oleifera seeds extracts is recommended.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the importance of toxicological analysis in acute intoxications by pesticides through the experience of the laboratory of the Poison Control and Pharmacovigilance Center of Morocco (CAPM). This is a retrospective study from January 2014 to September 2020, concerning suspected pesticides poisoning cases. The cholinesterase activity was measured in whole blood and the chromatographic analyzes (GC-MS and LC-MS-MS) were conducted in blood, urine and gastric lavage fluid. In this study, 398 tests were involved. The median age of the patients was 14 with an interquartile range of [4-26 years]. The sex ratio (F / M) was 1.5. The requests were from the region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra in 82.8% of cases (north-western Morocco). The cholinesterase activity measurement was performed for 295 patients with low values in 3.7% of cases. The toxicological screening by GC-MS and LC-MS-MS detected the pesticide responsible of poisoning in 62 cases as insecticides in 38% of cases, redenticides (33% of cases) and herbicides (5% of cases). Toxicological analysis plays an essential role in the diagnosis and the management of acute pesticides poisoning. Interpretation of results is carried over by analyst with close cooperation with clinical toxicologist.

Over the past two decades, Morocco has been able to develop a political and strategic vision which has gradually considered the environment as a prerequisite for any public policies. The new approach aims to make the environment the cornerstone of sustainable development, and therefore, ultimately, of the birth of a new "green and inclusive" economy. This vision benefits from an exceptional impetus from His Majesty the King Mohammed VI. Morocco has therefore put in place a national environmental and sustainable development policy which breaks down into several priority areas, namely: strengthening the legal and institutional framework; environmental upgrading through programs dedicated to the preservation of the environment and providing financial instruments and systems in the service of environmental monitoring. In addition, Morocco, with its strategic north-south status, is actively engaged in the environmental diplomacy and multilateral cooperation. On the road to an integrated and sustainable human development, Morocco continues to deploy ambitious efforts in environmental communication, awareness and education. Based on the bidimensional classic model, Morocco has therefore developed a tridimensional/pyramidal model for the sustainable development. This, by integrating governance in the summit, and putting human being at the center of the new form, as an actor and a beneficiary at the same time. This manuscript presents an overview of the Moroccan model in all aspects of preserving the environment and establishing the second generation of the sustainable development.

Four varieties of Prunus avium (Burlat, Napoleon, Coeur de pigeon, Van) kernel oils were extracted using a soxhlet apparatus with n-hexane as solvent. These oils composition was compared amongst them, with fatty acids, phytosterols and tocopherols identification and physicochemical characterization of said oils. Several differences, such as in oil yield were observed, “Coeur de pigeon” variety being the highest with a 23.5% yield. Twelve fatty acids were identified in all the varieties with linoleic and oleic fatty acids being the most abundant. β-sitosterol, Campesterol and Δ5-Avenasterol were the major compounds in the sterols assay performed. Also, total tocopherols ranged from 352.22 mg/kg (Var. Coeur de pigeon) to 2072.55 mg/kg (Var. Napoleon), with γ-tocopherol being the dominant one. These results suggest that these oils have numerous active compounds that can be further exploited.

The purpose of this study is to assess and evaluate the physicochemical properties of the seed oils of two Moroccan varieties of watermelon “Citrullus lanatus” extracted by three different techniques, a mechanical process using cold press, and two chemical processes using a Soxhlet apparatus and a sonotrode ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) using n-hexane. The total phenolic compounds (TPC) and antioxidant properties against the DPPH radicals (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) were also studied. The seed oils of both varieties of watermelon exhibited high concentrations of unsaturated fatty acids with the predominance of linoleic and oleic fatty acids. The primary sterol was β-sitosterol, and high levels of total tocopherols were observed. Ɣ-tocopherol was the predominant tocopherol in all tested oils. The Citrullus lanatus var. lanatus variety seeds oil exhibited the highest TPC value (89.5 ± 0.06 mg EGA/100 g; EGA: gallic acid equivalent), with 82.4 ± 0.03% DPPH free radical inhibition efficiency. Nevertheless, all tested seeds oils showed a significant amount of total phenolic compounds and a good inhibition against DPPH radicals ranging from 51.1 ± 0.1% to 84.8 ± 0.04%. In addition, the influence of the ultrasonic extraction parameters was studied using two different solvents (n-hexane and the methanol-chloroform mixture), with different particle sizes (500–300 µm), duration (10 and 20 minutes), cycle (1–0.5), amplitude (80–100%) and solvent/seed ratios (1:5 and 1:10), and the seed roasting parameter was also studied. The oil yield was mainly affected by the extraction solvent, then the solvent/seed ratio and the duration, respectively.