Innovative technologies to remove alkylphenols from wastewater: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Alkylphenols and alkylphenol polyethoxylates are emerging hazardous contaminants due in particular to their endocrine-disrupting properties. These compounds...     

Professor Casu’s contribution to cyclodextrins,the remarkable cage-shaped molecules: a review

Cyclodextrins are cage-shaped molecules having the remarkable ability to trap smaller compounds, and have thus led to applications in many disciplines such as medicine to increase the bioavailability of hydrophobic drugs. This historical review summarizes the outstanding contribution of the late Professor Benito Casu to cyclodextrin research and, more generally, to the chemistry and biochemistry of linear and cyclic oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, glycosaminoglycans, and heparin. Professor Casu was the first to elucidate the structure and conformations of cyclodextrins by infrared spectroscopy and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). In particular, he showed that trapped compounds induced a shift of H peaks in NMR due to the shielding effect of cyclodextrins. He also demonstrated that the d-glucopyranose cyclodextrin units are in the C-1 chair conformation by analyzing α-cyclodextrin by NMR in dimethylsulfoxide-d₆.

     

Assessing conservation status with extensive but low-resolution data: Application of frequentist and Bayesian models to endangered Athabasca River rainbow trout

Use of extensive but low-resolution abundance data is common in the assessment of species at-risk status based on quantitative decline criteria under International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and national endangered species legislation. Such data can be problematic for 3 reasons. First, statistical power to reject the null hypothesis of no change is often low because of small sample size and high sampling uncertainty leading to a high frequency of type II errors. Second, range-wide assessments composed of multiple site-specific observations do not effectively weight site-specific trends into global trends. Third, uncertainty in site-specific temporal trends and relative abundance are not propagated at the appropriate spatial scale. A common result is the propensity to underestimate the magnitude of declines and therefore fail to identify the appropriate at-risk status for a species. We used 3 statistical approaches, from simple to more complex, to estimate temporal decline rates for a designatable unit (DU) of rainbow trout in the Athabasca River watershed in western Canada. This DU is considered a native species for purposes of listing because of its genetic composition characterized as >0.95 indigenous origin in the face of continuing introgressive hybridization with introduced populations in the watershed. Analysis of abundance trends from 57 time series with a fixed-effects model identified 33 sites with negative trends, but only 2 were statistically significant. By contrast, a hierarchical linear mixed model weighted by site-specific abundance provided a DU-wide decline estimate of 16.4% per year and a 3-generation decline of 93.2%. A hierarchical Bayesian mixed model yielded a similar 3-generation decline trend of 91.3% and the posterior distribution showed that the estimate had a >99% probability of exceeding thresholds for an endangered listing. We conclude that the Bayesian approach was the most useful because it provided a probabilistic statement of threshold exceedance in support of an at-risk status recommendation.     

Design of Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) Microbeads with Tunable Functional Properties and High Biodegradability in Seawater

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) were used to prepare microbeads, with diameter ranging from...     

Methods for selenium removal from contaminated waters: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Worldwide contamination of waters by metals, metalloids, and organometallic pollutants is a major health issue. In particular, the occurrence of the selenium...     

Removal of emerging contaminants from wastewater using advanced treatments. A review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The rise of emerging contaminants in waters challenges the scientific community and water treatment stakeholders to design remediation techniques that are simple,...     

Local production,downward and regional transport aggravated surface ozone pollution during the historical orange-alert large-scale ozone episode in eastern China

Increasing severe and persistent ozone pollution in China has resulted in serious harm to human health in recent years, yet the precise pollution sources are poorly known because there is few knowledge on large-scale extreme ozone episodes. Here, we studied the formation of the historical orange-alert regional ozone episode in eastern China on 6 June, 2021, by combining process analysis, integrated source apportionment modelling, and chemical and meteorological data. Results show that during the pollution episode, 94% of cities in eastern China suffered ozone pollution, and 39% had daily maximum 8-h average ozone concentrations higher than 100 ppb. This is explained by favorable local ozone formation and transports provided by the prevailing northwestern winds in the upper air, and by sinking atmospheric motions favoring the persistence of high surface ozone concentrations. During daytime, local photochemical production induced an ozone increase of 0.3–28.4 ppb h^?1 and vertical transport induced an ozone increase of 0.4–56.1 ppb h^?1. As a consequence, vertical downward transport of ozone generated in the upper air by photochemical reactions aggravated surface ozone pollution. Surface ozone concentrations include 25.8–53.9% of ozone from local provincial emissions, 0–42.6% of ozone from inter-regional transports from neighboring regions, 4.6–23.1% of ozone from outer-regional transport, and 13.6–52.9% of ozone from boundary conditions in the selected cities. Overall, our findings show that favorable meteorological conditions promoted the chemical productions of ozone on the surface and at high altitudes, thus resulting in this heavy ozone pollution. In addition, regional and vertical downward transports of aloft ozone further aggravated the surface ozone pollution, leading to the large-scale extreme ozone pollution episode.