Recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is crucially important since it handles hazardous waste according to ever tightening laws and regulations and it adds benefits to economy and sustainable environment. Disassembly is one of the most important processes performed during the recovery of WEEE. The overall goal of disassembly is to maximize the retrieval of various metals and plastics contained in WEEE in order to reduce their negative effects on human health and environmental sustainability and to increase economic gains. This study aims to evaluate alternative layout configurations for WEEE disassembly systems (WDS). In this context, various configurations were compared in terms of pre-defined performance criteria, such as the total number of disassembled WEEE and the total revenue from sales, using simulation models. The results of this study show that the performance of a WDS was significantly affected by output transfer systems along with the specialization of operators on certain types of WEEE.
Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is a rapidly growing category of solid waste. China is now facing WEEE problems from both growing domestic generation and illegal imports. Currently, the amount of WEEE formally treated has increased steadily in China. The layout of the formal sector has been basically completed. Meanwhile, by controlling illegal disassembly activities, the informal sector has been gradually transformed to formal one. Beginning with the overview of the WEEE recycling industry in China, this paper first lists the latest progress in WEEE management from such aspects as the new edition of China RoHS Directive (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive), the updated WEEE Treatment List, the updated WEEE fund standard, the revised National Hazardous Waste List, and a brand-new plan on extended producer responsibility. In so doing, we elucidate the current challenges on WEEE management in detail: the imbalance between fund levies and subsidies, the gap in the supervision scope, the homogenization of recycling industry and the lack of life cycle approaches. Finally, a conceptual framework for integrated management of WEEE is proposed from a life cycle perspective. Overall, the life cycle management of WEEE includes three aspects: developing life cycle information for decision-making, implementing life cycle engineering with life cycle tools, and improving WEEE legislation based on life cycle thinking. By providing specific operating strategies, this life cycle framework should help to optimize WEEE management in developing countries where legislation is imperfect and the recycling system is relatively immature.
Modern societies strongly support the recycling practices over simple waste accumulation due to environmental harm caused. In the framework of sustainable recycling of plastics from WEEE, pyrolysis is proposed here as a means of obtaining secondary value-added products. The aim of this study was to investigate the thermal degradation and the products obtained after pyrolysis of specific polymers found in the plastic part of WEEE, using thermogravimetric analysis and a pyrolizer equipped with a GC/MS. Polymers studied include ABS, HIPS, PC and a blend having a composition similar to that appearing in WEEE. It was found that, PC shows greater heat endurance compared to the other polymers, whereas ABS depolymerizes in three-steps. The existence of several polymers in the blend results in synergistic effects which decrease the onset and final temperature of degradation. Moreover, the fragmentation occurred in the pyrolyzer, at certain temperatures, resulted in a great variety of compounds, depending on the polymer type, such as monomers, aromatic products, phenolic compounds and hydrocarbons. The main conclusion from this investigation is that pyrolysis could be an effective method for the sustainable recycling of the plastic part of WEEE resulting in a mixture of chemicals with varying composition but being excellent to be used as fuel retrieved from secondary recycling sources.
Catalytic pyrolysis of thermoplastics extracted from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) was investigated using various fly ash-derived catalysts. The catalysts were prepared from fly ash by a simple method that basically includes a mechanical treatment followed by an acid or a basic activation. The synthesized catalysts were characterized using various analytical techniques. The results showed that not treated fly ash (FA) is characterized by good crystallinity, which in turn is lowered by mechanical and chemical treatment (fly ash after mechanical and acid activation, FAMA) and suppressed almost entirely down to let fly ash become completely amorphous (fly ash after mechanical and basic activation FAMB). Simultaneously, the surface area resulted increased. Subsequently, FA, FAMB and FAMA were used in the pyrolysis of a WEEE plastic sample at 400°C and their performance were compared with thermal pyrolysis at the same temperature. The catalysts principally improve the light oil yield: from 59 wt.% with thermal pyrolysis to 83 wt.% using FAMB. The formation of styrene in the oil is also increased: from 243 mg/g with thermal pyrolysis to 453 mg/g using FAMB. As a result, FAMB proved to be the best catalyst, thus producing also the lowest and the highest amount of char and gas, respectively.
A novel, functionalized bubble surface can be obtained in dissolved air flotation (DAF) by dosing chemicals in the saturator. In this study, different cationic chemicals were used as bubble surface modifiers, and their effects on natural organic matter (NOM) removal from river water were investigated. NOM in the samples was fractionated based on molecular weight and hydrophobicity. The disinfection byproduct formation potentials of each fraction and their removal efficiencies were also evaluated. The results showed that chitosan was the most promising bubble modifier compared with a surfactant and a synthetic polymer. Tiny bubbles in the DAF pump system facilitated the adsorption of chitosan onto microbubble surfaces. The hydrophobic NOM fraction was preferentially removed by chitosan-modified bubbles. Decreasing the recycle water pH from 7.0 to 5.5 improved the removal of hydrophilic NOM with low molecular weight. Likewise, hydrophilic organic compounds gave high dihaloacetic acid yields in raw water. An enhanced reduction of haloacetic acid precursors was obtained with recycle water at pH values of 5.5 and 4.0. The experimental results indicate that NOM fractions may interact with bubbles through different mechanisms. Positive bubble modification provides an alternative approach for DAF to enhance NOM removal.
This work presents an overall introduction to the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System–SORPES in Nanjing, East China, and gives an overview about main scientific findings in studies of air pollution-weather/climate interactions obtained since 2011. The main results summarized in this paper include overall characteristics of trace gases and aerosols, chemical transformation mechanisms for secondary pollutants like O3, HONO and secondary inorganic aerosols, and the air pollution–weather/climate interactions and feedbacks in mixed air pollution plumes from sources like fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning and dust storms. The future outlook of the development plan on instrumentation, networking and data-sharing for the SORPES station is also discussed.
Waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) constitutes one of the most relevant waste streams because of the quantity and presence of valuable materials. However, there is limited knowledge on the resource potential of urban mining WEEE, as data on material composition, and the efficiency of current recycling treatments are still scarce. In this article, an evaluation of the recycling performance at a national level for one of the fastest growing e-waste streams: LCD TVs is carried out through the following four steps. Firstly, material characterisation is performed by means of sampling of the waste stream. Secondly, a material flow analysis is conducted by evaluating the separation performance of a recycling plant in Belgium. Thirdly, the recovered economic value and avoided environmental impact (EI) of the analysed recycling system is assessed. Finally, the potential of urban mining for Belgium is forecasted. The analysis shows that while recycling performance for ferrous metals and aluminium are relatively high; there is substantial room to better close the material loops for precious metals (PM) and plastics. PMs and plastics account for 66 % of the economic value in LCD TVs and 57%of the EI.With the current, commonly applied recycling technology only one-third of the PM and housing plastics are recycled; meaning that for these materials, at a national level for Belgium, there is a potential for improvement that represents 3.3 million euros in 2016 and 6.8 million euros in 2025.
As the Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) are upgraded more frequently in China, a large quantity of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) was and will be generated. It becomes an urgent issue to develop and adopt an effective End-of-Life (EoL) strategy for EEE in order to balance the resource recovery and environmental impacts. In an EoL strategy hierarchy for EEE, reuse strategy is usually deemed to be prior to materials recovery and other strategies. But in practice, the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies are always context-dependent. Therefore, main EoL strategies for EEE in China need to be evaluated in environment and resources aspects from the life cycle perspective. In this study, the obsolete refrigerator and Power Supply Unit (PSU) of desktop PC are both taken as the target products. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to assess the environmental impacts of different EoL scenarios in China: Unit Reuse Scenario (URS), Component Reuse Scenario (CRS) and Materials Recovery Scenario (MRS). The LCA results show that the EoL strategies hierarchy is reasonable for the part of computer, but not necessarily suitable for obsolete refrigerators. When the policy makers promote or demote one EoL strategy especially reuse, it is necessary to take subsequent impacts into consideration.
Arsenic (As) is a pervasive environmental toxin and carcinogenic metalloid. It ranks at the top of the US priority List of Hazardous Substances and causes worldwide human health problems. Wetlands, including natural and artificial ecosystems (i.e. paddy soils) are highly susceptible to As enrichment; acting not only as repositories for water but a host of other elemental/chemical moieties. While macroscale processes (physical and geological) supply As to wetlands, it is the micro-scale biogeochemistry that regulates the fluxes of As and other trace elements from the semi-terrestrial to neighboring plant/aquatic/atmospheric compartments. Among these fine-scale events, microbial mediated As biotransformations contribute most to the element’s changing forms, acting as the ‘switch’ in defining a wetland as either a source or sink of As. Much of our understanding of these important microbial catalyzed reactions follows relatively recent scientific discoveries. Here we document some of these key advances, with focuses on the implications that wetlands and their microbial mediated transformation pathways have on the global As cycle, the chemistries of microbial mediated As oxidation, reduction and methylation, and future research priorities areas.
Heterogeneous photocatalysis has long been considered to be one of the most promising approaches to tackling the myriad environmental issues. However, there are still many challenges for designing efficient and cost-effective photocatalysts and photocatalytic degradation systems for application in practical environmental remediation. In this review, we first systematically introduced the fundamental principles on the photocatalytic pollutant degradation. Then, the important considerations in the design of photocatalytic degradation systems are carefully addressed, including charge carrier dynamics, catalytic selectivity, photocatalyst stability, pollutant adsorption and photodegradation kinetics. Especially, the underlying mechanisms are thoroughly reviewed, including investigation of oxygen reduction properties and identification of reactive oxygen species and key intermediates. This review in environmental photocatalysis may inspire exciting new directions and methods for designing, fabricating and evaluating photocatalytic degradation systems for better environmental remediation and possibly other relevant fields, such as photocatalytic disinfection, water oxidation, and selective organic transformations.
A membrane-aerated biofilm reactor was employed to investigate the nitrogen removal of one typical municipal reverse osmosis(RO) concentrate with a high total nitrogen (TN) concentration and a low C/ N ratio. The effects of operational conditions, including the aeration pressure, the hydraulic retention time and the C/N ratio, on the systematic performance were evaluated. The nitrogen removal mechanism was evaluated by monitoring the effluent concentrations of nitrogen contents. Furthermore, the microbial tolerance with elevated salinity was identified. The results indicated that the optimal TN removal efficiency of 79.2% was achieved of the aeration pressure of 0.02 MPa, hydraulic retention time of 24 h, and the C/N ratio of 5.8, respectively. It is essential to supplement the carbon source for the targeted RO concentrate to promote the denitrification process. The inhibitory effect of salinity on denitrifying bacteria and nitrite oxidizing bacteria was significant, revealing the limited TN removal capacity of the conditions in this work. The TN removal efficiency remained more than 70% with the addition of salt (NaCl) amount below 20 g/L. This work preliminarily demonstrated the MABR feasibility for the nitrogen removal of municipal RO concentrate with low C/N ratio and provided technical guidance for further scale-up application.
Mercury enrichment in response to elevated atmospheric mercury concentrations in the organs of rape (Brassica napus) was investigated using an open top chamber fumigation experiment and a soil mercury enriched cultivation experiment. Results indicate that the mercury concentration in leaves and stems showed a significant variation under different concentrations of mercury in atmospheric and soil experiments while the concentration of mercury in roots, seeds and seed coats showed no significant variation under different atmospheric mercury concentrations. Using the function relation established by the experiment, results for atmospheric mercury sources in rape field biomass showed that atmospheric sources accounted for at least 81.81%of mercury in rape leaves and 32.29% of mercury in the stems. Therefore, mercury in the aboveground biomass predominantly derives from the absorption of atmospheric mercury.
In this research, supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SFE) showed better extraction effect when compared with Solid- liquid extraction (SLE), Soxhlet extraction (SE) and Ultrasonic extraction (UE), not only in the rate but also the time. The comparison among these three extraction modifiers, including acetone, ethanol and methanol demonstrated that ethanol was preferred to SFE due to its high extraction effect and low toxicology. In addition, parameter of SFE, influence of temperature and pressure were investigated, and the best extraction effect was achieved at the optima conditions, temperature of 40°C and the pressure of 35 MPa. Thus, SFE is a highly effective method for flavonols extraction, requiring minimum energy and producing non-toxic byproduct. SFE-GC system is applied for the evaluation on flavonols that plays a key role in plant resistance to heavy metal, with its content and synthetase gene expression significantly increasing in plant when threatened by heavy metal. Besides, results indicated that flavonols can improve plant resistance to oxidative stress by quenching the redundant ROS in matrix.
Methane fermentation process can be restricted and even destroyed by the accumulation of propionate because it is the most difficult to be anaerobically oxidized among the volatile fatty acids produced by acetogenesis. To enhance anaerobic wastewater treatment process for methane production and COD removal, a syntrophic propionate-oxidizing microflora B83 was obtained from an anaerobic activated sludge by enrichment with propionate. The inoculation of microflora B83, with a 1:9 ratio of bacteria number to that of the activated sludge, could enhance the methane production from glucose by 2.5 times. With the same inoculation dosage of the microflora B83, COD removal in organic wastewater treatment process was improved from 75.6% to 86.6%, while the specific methane production by COD removal was increased by 2.7 times. Hydrogen-producing acetogenesis appeared to be a rate-limiting step in methane fermentation, and the enhancement of hydrogen-producing acetogens in the anaerobic wastewater treatment process had improved not only the hydrogen-producing acetogenesis but also the acidogenesis and methanogenesis.
Nutrients and water play an important role in microalgae cultivation. Using wastewater as a culture medium is a promising alternative to recycle nutrients and water, and for further developing microalgae-based products. In the present study, two species of microalgae, Chlorella sp. (high ammonia nitrogen tolerance) and Spirulina platensis (S. platensis, high growth rate), were cultured by using poultry wastewater through a two-stage cultivation system for algal biomass production. Ultrafiltration (UF) or centrifuge was used to harvest Chlorella sp. from the first cultivation stage and to recycle culture medium for S. platensis growth in the second cultivation stage. Results showed the two-stage cultivation system produced high microalgae biomass including 0.39 g·L–1Chlorella sp. and 3.45 g·L–1S. platensis in the first-stage and second-stage, respectively. In addition, the removal efficiencies of NH4+ reached 19% and almost 100% in the first and the second stage, respectively. Total phosphorus (TP) removal reached 17% and 83%, and total organic carbon (TOC) removal reached 55% and 72% in the first and the second stage, respectively. UF and centrifuge can recycle 96.8% and 100% water, respectively. This study provides a new method for the combined of pure microalgae cultivation and wastewater treatment with culture medium recycling.
Bdellovibrio-and-like organisms (BALOs) are a group of ubiquitous and obligate predatory bacteria and commonly used as biocontrol agents. In this study, an efficient, environmental-friendly, and convenient BALOs encouraged municipal waste sludge biolysis pretreatment technique was developed and investigated for dewaterability enhancement of excess waste sludge. The indigenous predatory BALOs were successfully isolated from the sludge for biolysis treatment. Without any chemical addition or pH adjustment, the sludge specific resistance (SRF) and capillary suction time (CST) were significantly reduced by as high as 53.4% and 23.8%, respectively within 24 h’s treatment, which would further be lowered with the increase of BALOs input dosage. However, the continuous extension of reaction time would worsen the sludge dewaterability. The decreases of SRF and CST accompanied with the increases of sludge disintegration degree and soluble chemical oxygen demand, nitrogen, and phosphorus concentrations all emphasized the contributions of BALOs’ predation activities to sludge disturbance, cell lysis, and consequently the release of sludge intracellular water to finally effectively improve the sludge dewaterability and disposal efficiency.
Inflow and infiltration (I/I) are serious problems in hybrid sewerage systems. Limited sewerage information impedes the estimation accuracy of I/I for each catchment. A new method dealing with I/I of a large-scale hybrid sewerage system with limited infrastructure facility data is proposed in this study. The catchment of representative pump stations was adopted to demonstrate the homological catchments that have similar wastewater fluctuation characteristics. Homological catchments were clustered using the self-organizing map (SOM) analysis based on long-term daily flow records of 50 pumping stations. An assessment index was applied to describe the I/I and overflow risk in the catchment based on the hourly wastewater quality and quantity data of representative pump stations. The potential operational strategy of homological catchments was determined by the assessment index of representative pump stations. The simulation results of the potential operational strategy indicated that the optimized operation strategy could reduce surcharge events and significantly improve the quality of wastewater treatment plant effluent.
Biological synthesis of quantum dots (QDs) as an environmental-friendly and facile preparation method has attracted increasing interests. However, it is difficult to distinguish the roles of bio-thiols in QDs synthesis process because of the complex nature in organisms. In this work, the CdSe QDs synthesis conditions in organisms were reconstructed by using a simplified in vitro approach to uncover the roles of two small bio-thiols in the QDs formation. CdSe QDs were synthesized with glutathione (GSH) and L-cysteine (Cys) respectively. Compared with Cys at the same molar concentration, the CdSe QDs synthesized by GSH had a larger and broader particle size distribution with improved optical properties and crystal structure. Furthermore, quantum chemical calculations indicate that the stronger Cd2+ binding capacity of GSH contributed a lot to the CdSe QDs formation despite of the greater capability Cys for selenite reduction. This work clearly demonstrates the different roles of small thiols in the Cd2+ stabilization in the environment and biomimetic QDs synthesis process.
The development of cost-effective and highly efficient anode materials for extracellular electron uptake is important to improve the electricity generation of bioelectrochemical systems. An effective approach to mitigate harmful algal bloom (HAB) is mechanical harvesting of algal biomass, thus subsequent processing for the collected algal biomass is desired. In this study, a low-cost biochar derived from algal biomass via pyrolysis was utilized as an anode material for efficient electron uptake. Electrochemical properties of the algal biochar and graphite plate electrodes were characterized in a bioelectrochemical system (BES). Compared with graphite plate electrode, the algal biochar electrode could effectively utilize both indirect and direct electron transfer pathways for current production, and showed stronger electrochemical response and better adsorption of redox mediators. The maximum current density of algal biochar anode was about 4.1 times higher than graphite plate anode in BES. This work provides an application potential for collected HAB to develop a cost-effective anode material for efficient extracellular electron uptake in BES and to achieve waste resource utilization.
Microwave irradiation has been used to prepare Al, Fe-pillared clays from a natural Tunisian smectite from the El Hicha deposit (province of Gabes). Chemical analysis, XRD spectra and surface properties evidenced the success of pillaring process. The obtained solids present higher surface area and pore volume than conventionally prepared Al-Fe pillared clays. The main advantages of the microwave methodology are the considerable reduction of the synthesis time and the consumption of water. The microwave-derived Al-Fe pillared clays have been tested for catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) of phenol in a stirred tank at 160°C and 20 bar of pure oxygen pressure. These materials are efficient for CWAO of phenol and are highly stable despite the severe operating conditions (acidic media, high pressure, high temperature). The catalyst deactivation was also significantly hindered when compared to conventionally prepared clays. Al-Fe pillared clays prepared by microwave methodology are promising as catalysts for CWAO industrial water treatment.
