Comparison of Microbial Pyrene and Benzo[a]Pyrene Mineralization in Liquid Medium,Soil Slurry,and Soil

The microbial degradation of ¹⁴C-pyrene and ¹⁴C-benzo[a]pyrene by a bacterial mixed culture was studied within a mixture of the PAHs phenanthrene, anthracene, pyrene, fluoranthene, and benzo[a]pyrene as sole carbon source in the different culture systems: (i) liquid medium, (ii) soil slurry (surface and grinding influence), and (iii) soil. The fate of these two labeled compounds was followed in these systems with an emphasis on mineralization to carbon dioxide, extractability, and adsorption to humic materials and formation of unextractable residual. Mineralization showed the most obvious differences: soil slurries achieved the best results both concerning the extent of mineralization and the time required. The highest extent of pyrene mineralization (54% within 21 days) was observed in soil slurries; in liquid media, pyrene mineralization was slower, but reached approximately the same extent (54% in 150 days); in soils, mineralization reached only 36% of added pyrene after 160 days. Benzo[a]pyrene was mineralized in a mixture of PAHs in soil slurries to an extent of 34% within 70 days, whereas mineralization in liquid medium and soil occurred in the range of 5% (70 days). Mineralization of benzo[a]pyrene in sand slurries was lower compared to soil slurries (19% in sand slurries vs. 32% in soil slurries within 50 days).     

京津冀民用燃煤减排对大气中BaP污染影响评估

运用空气质量模型CMAQ模拟评估民用燃煤减排政策对京津冀大气中BaP污染状况的改进效果,模拟包括作为基准情景的2014年和低消减和高消减2个减排情景.模拟结果表明：基准情景下,京津冀BaP年均浓度为2.54ng/m³,超过国家空气质量标准（1ng/m³）,呈现1月 > 4月 > 10月 > 7月的季节变化特点,反映出冬季供暖燃煤的影响;京津冀南部BaP浓度高于北部,推测原因是南部BaP排放量较高.1月削减民用燃煤排放量对降低该地区BaP浓度和沉降量效果最显著,低削减和高削减下,北京、保定、廊坊BaP浓度分别比基准情景降低30%和40%以上;4、7、10月削减民用燃煤排放量对该地区BaP浓度和沉降量的变化影响不大.京津冀民用燃煤联防联控能更加有效地降低该地区BaP浓度.     

环境中苯并[a]芘的研究进展

苯并[a]芘(B[a]P)是国际公认的人类化学致癌物,在自然界中分布极广,卫生学中一般以它作为多环芳烃类致癌物的代表物.详细介绍了B[a]P的来源、理化性质、检测方法、毒性、致毒机理以及降解特性等方面最近的研究进展.展望了B[a]P今后重要的研究方向.     

Isolation of marine benzo[a]pyrene-degrading Ochrobactrum sp. BAP5 and proteins characterization

A bacterial strain BAP5 with a relatively high degradation ability of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) was isolated from marine sediments of Xiamen Western Sea, China and identified as Ochrobactrum sp. according to 16S rRNA gene sequence as well as Biolog microbial identification system. Strain BAP5 could grow in mineral salt medium with 50 mg/L of BaP and degrade about 20% BaP after 30 d of incubation. Ochrobactrum sp. BAP5 was able to utilize other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (such as phenanthrene, pyrene and fluoranthene) as the sole carbon source and energy source, suggesting its potential application in PAHs bioremediation. The profile of total soluble protein from Ochrobactrum sp. BAP5 was also investigated. Some over- and special-expressed proteins of strain BAP5 when incubated with the presence of BaP were detected by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and found to be related with PAHs metabolism, DNA translation, and energy production based on peptide fingerprint analysis through matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry.     

Using a novel adsorbent macrocyclic compound cucurbit[8]uril for Pb removal from aqueous solution

In this study, cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]) was utilized as a kind of new adsorbent to remove Pb^2 + ions from aqueous solution. With the solution pH increased from 2 to 6, the removal efficiency of adsorption increased from 55.6% to 74.5%correspondingly. The uptake of Pb^2 + increased rapidly in the initial 30 min, and then the adsorption rate became slower. The Pseudo-second order model could be used to interpret the adsorption kinetics satisfactorily; and the rate determining step in Pb^2 + adsorption onto CB[8] was the external mass transfer step. Equilibrium isotherm study reveals that the Langmuir model gave a better fitting result than Freundlich model. The maximum adsorption capacity calculated by the Langmuir model was 152.67 mg/g for 298 K, 149.70 mg/g for 313 K and 136.42 mg/g for 323 K, respectively. The adsorption is a spontaneous process of exothermic nature. The effect of the adsorbent dosage and the influences of solution pH and co-existing cations were also investigated. The CB[8] was synthesized and characterized by ¹H NMR, IR, ESI-MS spectra, SEM-EDAX, Zeta-potential and BET-analysis. The adsorption mechanism was due to the coordination between CB[8] molecule and Pb^2 + ions.     

Environmental risk assessment for trisodium [S,S]-ethylene diamine disuccinate, a biodegradable chelator used in detergent applications

Environmental safety data are presented for [S,S]-Ethylene Diamine Disuccinate ([S,S]EDDS), a new, biodegradable, strong transition metal chelator. An environmental risk assessment for its use in detergent applications, which takes into account the chelating properties of [S,S]-EDDS, is proposed.

A property of [S,S]-EDDS that distinguishes it from other strong transition metal chelators is its, “ready” and transparent (no recalcitrant metabolites) biodegradation profile. Because its sorption to activated sludge solids is low ( Kp of 40 1/kg), removal of [S,S]EDDS during sewage treatment, which is greater than 96% as determined by the Continuous Activated Sludge test , is mainly ascribed to biodegradation. At projected use volumes in detergent applications [S,S] - EDDS predicted steady-state concentration in rivers leaving the mixing zone will be below 5 pg/I due to rapid biodegradation. [S,S]-EDDS exhibits low toxicity to fish and Daphnia ( both EC₅₀s> 1000 mg/l). By contrast, due to limitation of the algal test for chelators apparent toxicity was observed (EC₅₀ = 0.290 mg/l, NOEC - No observable Effect Concentration = 0.125 mg/l). Schowanek et al. [1] demonstrated that this is not toxicity sensu stricto but a chelation effect of trace metals in the test medium and of resulting essential nutrients limitation. This requires specific attention when the results of algal toxicity are to be extrapolated to a field situation to perform realistic risk assessment. Metal speciation calculations, using MINEQL+, show that at the predicted environmental concentrations of [S,S] - EDDS (1–5 μg/l), such a chelation effect would be insignificant. These calculations allow to estimate the NOEC for chelation effects in the field to be in the range of 0.250-0.500 mg/l, depending on the background water chemistry. These values are well above the laboratory NOEC.

An environmental risk assessment was performed using the EUSES (1.0) program. EUSES is currently the EU recommended tool for conducting risk assessments (TGD 1995). It was applied to estimate the river water and soil concentrations from production, formulation and private use life stages. The estimated PEC/PNEC ratio in all relevant environmental compartments is smaller than 1, indicating “no immediate concern” at the anticipated usage level.     

平邑甜茶根毛细胞离子流动性对PAHs胁迫的响应

以苹果砧木-平邑甜茶（Malus hupehensis Rehd）幼苗为实验材料,采用营养液栽培,利用非损伤微测技术,研究多环芳烃（PAHs）中荧蒽和苯并（b）荧蒽胁迫处理对平邑甜茶幼苗根毛细胞Ca²⁺、K⁺、H⁺流速的影响.结果表明：（1）经荧蒽及苯并（b）荧蒽胁迫处理后,平邑甜茶幼苗根毛细胞Ca²⁺平均流速由对照的（-63.53±9.30）pmol/（cm²×s）分别增加到（+62.85±10.00）pmol/（cm²×s）、（91.33±19.72）pmol/（cm²×s）;K⁺流速平均值由基础流速（-60.56±14.56）pmol/（cm²×s）分别增至（+32.60±5.44）pmol/（cm²×s）、（+36.76±5.23）pmol/（cm²×s）;H⁺平均流速由对照的（+44.38±5.19）pmol/（cm²×s）分别降低至（-0.72±0.055）pmol/（cm²×s）、（-6.34±0.79）pmol/（cm²×s）.经荧蒽及苯并（b）荧蒽处理,根毛细胞表面Ca²⁺、K⁺、H⁺流动性发生明显逆转.Ca²⁺、K⁺表现为外排趋势,且外排量逐渐降低,最终趋于稳定;H⁺表现较稳定的内吸趋势.（2）苯并（b）荧蒽胁迫对平邑甜茶幼苗根毛细胞离子流动性造成的毒性效应高于荧蒽.说明PAHs胁迫会破坏植物根毛细胞离子流动性,影响植物正常生长,为深入研究植物受PAHs胁迫所产生的响应提供理论依据.     

Simulation-based fault propagation analysis—Application on hydrogen production plant

Recently production of hydrogen from water through the Cu–Cl thermochemical cycle is developed as a new technology. The main advantages of this technology over existing ones are higher efficiency, lower costs, lower environmental impact and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Considering these advantages, the usage of this technology in new industries such as nuclear and oil is increasingly developed. Due to hazards involved in hydrogen production, design and implementation of hydrogen plants require provisions for safety, reliability and risk assessment. However, very little research is done from safety point of view. This paper introduces fault semantic network (FSN) as a novel method for fault diagnosis and fault propagation analysis by using evolutionary techniques like genetic programming (GP) and neural networks (NN), to uncover process variables’ interactions. The effectiveness, feasibility and robustness of the proposed method are demonstrated on simulated data obtained from the simulation of hydrogen production process in Aspen HYSYS^®. The proposed method has successfully achieved reasonable detection and prediction of non-linear interaction patterns among process variables.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in medicinal plants from Syria

The levels of 16 US Environmental Protection Agency polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (EPA PAHs) in 10 medicinal plants in different used parts of plant (leaves and flowers) have been determined. The analytical method consists of sample preparation by ultrasonic extraction with dichloromethane followed by silica gel clean-up. Subsequently, the analysis was carried out by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to both ultraviolet and fluorescence detections in series to insure the detection of all 16 EPA PAHs. It was observed that the sum of the 16 PAHs (ΣPAHs) in the investigated medicinal plants ranged from 47 to 890 μg kg^–1 where the highest ΣPAHs was found in Sage plant sample. Light PAHs were dominants in all studied medicinal plants. The sum of eight genotoxic PAHs (ΣPAH8) have shown a better indicator of the degree of contamination with carcinogenic PAHs compared to benzo[a]pyrene in these products.     

Thermodynamic investigation of the effect of oxygen and hydrogen chloride potential upon generation and decomposition behavior of dioxins

The thermodynamic equilibrium of the C‐H‐O‐Cl system has been calculated to elucidate the generation and decomposition behavior of dioxins, and is discussed from the viewpoint of the oxygen and hydrogen chloride potential. The dioxins behavior is greatly dependent on the oxygen potential, i.e. higher temperature and oxygen potential lead to the complete decomposition of dioxins, while low hydrogen chloride potential under insufficient oxygen condition leads to an increase of multi‐chlorine displacement of dioxins.