Current status and research on E-waste issues in Asia

Rapid economic growth in Asia and the increasing transboundary movement of secondary resources will increasingly require both 3R endeavors (reduce, reuse, recycle) in each country and appropriate control of international material cycles. Recently, managing electrical and electronic waste (E-waste) has become an important target for domestic and international material cycles from the viewpoints of environmental preservation and resource utilization efficiency. To understand the current status of E-waste issues in the context of international material cycles and to discuss the future tasks related to achieving 3R in the region, we organized the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) E-waste Workshop in December 2004. This article reviews past studies on E-waste and briefly describes the topics presented and discussions held at the workshop. The topics at the workshop included E-waste generation, recycling systems, international trade, and environmental impacts. In addition, we discussed various issues such as terminology, current environmental concerns, and possible solutions. Transboundary shipments of E-waste should be conducted taking into consideration the concept of sustainable development. The direction of future research and possible collaborations are also discussed.     

若干生态农业的模式及其应用

本文根据浙江省生态农业的实践,总结出数种生态农业模式,叙述了各种模式的结构、功能、效益、特点及应用现状,提出了模式的适用对象和应用时需重点注意的问题。     

长江常熟段排污口布置方案数值模拟论证研究

为合理确定常熟氟化工项目排污口布置方案 ,本文在分析长江常热段水环境特征的基础上 ,针对其复杂的水下地形和水流流场 ,建立了较为准确和实用的平面二维水流水质耦合数学模型 ,预测计算了三套方案污水对重点保护水域影响程度和范围 ,并从水流流场、水质影响评价、技术经济多角度对方案进行了比较论证 ,最终推荐污水江中排放的方案 ,为项目的工程设计和环境管理提供了科学依据。     

Material cycles in Asia: especially the recycling loop between Japan and China

In this article, we clarify the current status of Japanese exports and Chinese imports of secondary resources. A total of around 10 million metric tons (t) of secondary resources are exported annually from Japan to China, Hong Kong, and Korea. Hong Kong plays the role of a transshipment point, especially regarding the trade in plastic waste, and China imports much from the USA and Japan, often through Hong Kong. The secondary resources exported from Japan include both byproducts from manufacturing processes and end-of-life products or materials. The great demand in China, and the difference in prices between countries, drive this transboundary shipment, although Japan has enacted various recycling laws that were implicitly intended to promote domestic recycling. In China, the imported secondary resources are recycled, usually by means of primitive and low-cost hand labor. The greatest concern is whether there are still improper (illegal or polluting) recycling activities in China. International material cycles should prevent environmental pollution and ensure efficient resource utilization. To that end, the following measures are needed: cooperative control of the trade of secondary resources between countries, the alignment of domestic laws with the regulations in other countries based on the actual trade activities, and the realization of sound practices for global resources management.     

Concentrations of cadmium and lead heavy metals in Dardanelles seawater

Cadmium and lead were determined simultaneously in seawater by differential pulse stripping voltammetry (DPSV) preceded by adsoptive collection of complexes with 8-hydroxyquinoline (oxine) on to a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE). In preliminary experiments the optimal analytical condition for oxine concentration was found to be 2.10⁻⁵ M, at pH 7.7, the accumulation potential was −1.1 V, and the initial scannig potential was −0.8 V. The peak potentials were found −0.652 V for Cd and −0.463 V for Pb At the 60 s accumalation time. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitatification (LOQ) were found to be by voltammetry as 0.588 and 1.959 μg l⁻¹ (RSD, 5.50%) for Cd and 0.931 and 3.104 μg l⁻¹ (RSD, 4.10%) for Pb at 60 s stirred accumulation time respectively. In these conditions the most of the seawater samples are amenable for direct voltammetric determination of cadmium and lead using a HMDE. An adsorptive stripping mechanism of the electrode reaction was proposed. For the comparison, seawater samples were also analysed by ICP-atomic emission spectrometry method (ICP-AES). The applied voltammetric technique was validated and good recoveries were obtained.     

Optimal charges on river effluent from lumped and distributed sources

We propose a modelling framework for the design of a Pigouvian effluent tax, in an environmental management problem implicating several economic agents located in a river basin. The proposed charging system allows for the agents' geographical position relative to the river's sections, at which environmental standards are to be enforced, and takes into account the possible different market structures within which the agents are operating. In particular, we consider industrial agents competing on an oligopolistic market, and a set of farmers acting as price takers on a large market. A regional authority's goal is to induce agents to some sort of cooperation which would result in the satisfaction of the common environmental constraints. The economic process on one side, and the pollution transport and accumulation on the other, constitute two dynamic processes in two different time scales. As the economic process is much slower than the other process we can neglect the latter's transients and concentrate on the time invariant steady state solutions to the transportation equation. The model thus constructed has some noncooperative game and optimal control problem's features with space being the ‘running’ variable. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ligand exchange rate of metal-nom complexes by EDTA

Metal complexation by natural ligands is important for metal transport and distribution in surface and ground water. The goal of the work was to study the ligand exchange rate for two important metal ions in natural aquatic systems (Al, Fe) was determined using EDTA and natural organic matter (NOM) of humic type as ligands. After adding EDTA to a solution containing metal-NOM complexes, these complexes dissociated and metal-EDTA complexes were formed. Metal-NOM complexes were separated from metal-EDTA complexes with the help of size-exclusion chromatography and detected by on-line inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Injecting the samples into the system over time after addition of EDTA allowed us to measure the rate of the exchange of NOM by EDTA. The experiments could be well described with a first-order rate law assuming that the dissociation of the metal-NOM complexes is the rate-determining step. The exchange rate of Fe was found to be faster than that of Al. This corresponds well with the exchange rate of water molecules from the coordination sphere of the metal ions, which is also faster for Fe than for Al. Furthermore, the UV and the fluorescence signal of the chromatograms were measured. The results indicate that no disaggregation of NOM molecules took place, although about 75-85% of the aggregate-forming metal ions exchanged NOM by EDTA in their coordination sphere. This suggests clearly the fundamental role of NOM in colloidal transport of metals and in their bioavailability.     

低温等离子体催化氧化甲烷的实验研究

采用电容耦合等离子体和催化剂协同作用对干空气中的甲烷进行了氧化实验，并和没有放置催化剂时进行了对比，结果表明，放置催化剂后甲烷的分解效率明显提高，反应产物中CO2的选择性增加，副产物NO和NO2的浓度减少．反应所需的能耗降低。甲烷的最终氧化产物为CO、CO2和H2O。     

生物膜与A／O工艺耦合快速降解氨氮

应用由城市污水处理厂序批式间歇反应器（SBR）中筛选得到的4株特殊氨氧化菌，分别在SBR和有回流的生物膜与A／O工艺耦合体系培养中，考察其降解低碳高氨氮废水的功能。结果表明，自养硝化与异养氨氧化菌的混合菌群较单一自养硝化菌株降解氨氮速率快；在生物膜与A／O工艺耦合系统中，自养硝化与异养氨氧化菌协同代谢加速氨氮氧化脱除，氨氮脱除速率远比SBR系统快。对生物膜与A／O工艺耦合系统中氨氮脱除动力学进行了研究，模拟了NH4^＋、NO2^-；质量浓度与氨氮脱除比速率之间的关系，模型得到了较好的验证。     

AAS与ICP－AES间接测定天然水中硫酸盐

本文以与过量形成ＢａＳＯ＿４沉淀反应为基础，较详细地讨论了反应条件、从而拟定了用ＡＡＳ和ＩＣＰ－ＡＥＳ间接测定天然水中的方法、确定了方法的精密度，ＡＡＳ法的ＲＳＤ％为１．５，ＩＣＰ－ＡＥＳ法为３．２．两种方法对比分析的结果接近，误差为１．０％（相对）。用于天然水中的测定，获得满意的结果。