Removal of phenol by powdered activated carbon adsorption

In this study, the adsorption performance of powdered activated carbon (PAC) on phenol was investigated in aqueous solutions. Batch adsorption studies were performed to evaluate the effects of various experimental parameters like PAC type, PAC dose, initial solution pH, temperature and pre-oxidation on the adsorption of phenol by PAC and establish the adsorption kinetics, thermodynamics and isothermal models. The results indicated that PAC adsorption is an effective method to remove phenol from water, and the effects of all the five factors on adsorption of phenol were significant. The adsorption rate of phenol by PAC was rapid, and more than 80% phenol could be absorbed by PAC within the initial 10 min. The adsorption process can be well described by pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetic model with rate constant amounted to 0.0313, 0.0305 and 0.0241 mg·μg ^-1·min ^-1 with coal, coconut shell and bamboo charcoal. The equilibrium data of phenol absorbed onto PAC were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Tempkin adsorption isotherms and Freundlich adsorption isotherm model gave the best correlation with the experimental data. Thermodynamic parameters such as the standard Gibbs free energy (?G^o), enthalpy (?H^o) and entropy (?S^o) obtained in this study indicated that the adsorption of phenol by PAC is spontaneous, exothermic and entropy decreasing.     

Phthalate esters contamination in soil and plants on agricultural land near an electronic waste recycling site

The accumulation of phthalic acid esters (PAEs) in soil and plants in agricultural land near an electronic waste recycling site in east China has become a great threat to the neighboring environmental quality and human health. Soil and plant samples collected from land under different utilization, including fallow plots, vegetable plots, plots with alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) as green manure, fallow plots under long-term flooding and fallow plots under alternating wet and dry periods, together with plant samples from relative plots were analyzed for six PAE compounds nominated as prior pollutants by USEPA. In the determined samples, the concentrations of six target PAE pollutants ranged from 0.31–2.39 mg/kg in soil to 1.81–5.77 mg/kg in various plants (dry weight/DW), and their bioconcentration factors (BCFs) ranged from 5.8 to 17.9. Health risk assessments were conducted on target PAEs, known as typical environmental estrogen analogs, based on their accumulation in the edible parts of vegetables. Preliminary risk assessment to human health from soil and daily vegetable intake indicated that DEHP may present a high-exposure risk on all ages of the population in the area by soil ingestion or vegetable consumption. The potential damage that the target PAE compounds may pose to human health should be taken into account in further comprehensive risk assessments in e-waste recycling sites areas. Moreover, alfalfa removed substantial amounts of PAEs from the soil, and its use can be considered a good strategy for in situ remediation of PAEs.     

Long-term geochemical evolution of acidic mine wastes under anaerobic conditions

A nearly 5-year anaerobic incubation experiment was conducted to observe the geochemical evolution of an acidic mine waste. Long-term storage of the mine waste under strict anaerobic conditions caused marked increase in aqueous sulfur, while aqueous iron showed no remarkable change. Co-existing oxidation and reduction of elemental sulfur appeared to play a central role in controlling the evolutionary trends of aqueous sulfur and iron. Addition of organic matter increased the aqueous Fe concentration, possibly due to enhanced iron mobilization by microbial iron reduction and increased iron solubility by forming organically complexed Fe species. Further addition of CaCO₃ resulted in immobilization of aqueous iron and sulfur due to elevated pH and gypsum formation. The chemical behaviors of environmentally significant metals were markedly affected by the added organic matter; Al, Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn tended to be immobilized probably due to elevated pH and complexation with insoluble organic molecules, while As and Pb tended to be mobilized. Jarosite exhibited high stability after nearly 5 years of anaerobic incubation and even under circumneutral pH conditions. Long-term weathering of aluminosilicate through acid attack raised pH, while continuous reaction between the added CaCO₃ and mine waste-borne stored acid decreased pH.     

天然沸石同步去除水中氨氮和磷酸盐

通过静态吸附实验考察了浙江缙云产天然沸石对溶液中氨氮和磷酸盐的同步去除能力及机制,结果表明,天然沸石对溶液中氨氮的吸附过程较好地满足拟二级动力学模型、Langmuir和Dubinin-Radushkevich等温吸附模型。天然沸石对磷酸盐的去除能力随溶液中初始氨氮浓度的增加而增加。当溶液pH由7.0增加到9.0时,天然沸石对氨氮的吸附能力随之增加,而当pH由9.0增加到10时,天然沸石对氨氮的吸附能力则下降。当溶液pH低于7.5时,天然沸石对溶液中的磷酸盐无去除能力,当溶液pH位于7.5～9.0时,天然沸石对磷酸盐的去除能力随pH的增加急剧增加,当溶液pH大于9.0时,天然沸石对磷酸盐的去除能力随pH的增加则呈下降趋势。天然沸石对溶液中氨氮和磷酸盐的同步去除过程是自发进行、吸热及熵增加的过程。天然沸石对溶液中氨氮的吸附机制为离子交换,对磷酸盐的去除机制则为化学沉淀作用。     

原生动物与BOD_5相关性的研究

本文着重研究了原生动物平衡期及密度与ＢＯＤ５浓度的相关性。研究结果表明,原生动物平衡期与ＢＯＤ５的浓度有着ｙ＝１５６２７·ｅ０２４０·ｘ的指数关系,相关性为显著相关;原生动物密度与ＢＯＤ５浓度有着ｙ＝１１３４＋００３６·ｘ的线性关系,相关性为高度相关     

大气采样可调自动恒温加热器

本文阐述了实验目的及如何通过水温实验,用温控器和加热器来完成实验,从而得出结论：所设想的可调自动加热器是可行的     

黄土高原地区水资源承载力动态变化及灰色拓扑预测——以山西、陕西、宁夏、甘肃四省为例

研究水资源承载力对促进区域水资源的合理开发和保证经济可持续发展具有十分重要的作用.文章采用模糊综合评价方法,以水资源利用率、降水量、人均占有水量和生态用水量作为评价因素,首次对黄土高原水资源承载力进行了大尺度综合评价,并建立灰色拓扑预测模型对其动态变化进行预测,在此基础上提出了黄土高原水资源可持续利用对策.结果表明:黄土高原四省水资源承载力在1994-2004年间总体上呈缓慢上升趋势,水资源开发潜力呈微弱增大趋势;但值得注意的是,黄土高原水资源开发已有一定规模,其水环境仍十分脆弱,需要进一步作好节水和水资源的保护工作.     

Metallakkumulation in Moosen: Standörtliche und regionale Randbedingungen des Biomonitoring von Luftverunreinigungen

Goal and Scope

Several studies show that the concentration of metals in mosses depends not only on metal deposition but also on factors such as moss species, canopy drip, precipitation, altitude, distance to the sea and the analytical technique used. However, contrasting results have been reported and the interpretation of the spatial variability of the metal accumulation in mosses remains difficult. In the presented study existing monitoring data from the European Heavy Metals in Mosses Surveys together with surface data on precipitation, elevation and land use are statistically analysed to assess factors other than emissions that have an influence on the metal accumulation in the mosses.

Main Features

Inference statistics and Spearman correlation analysis were applied to examine the association of the metal accumulation and the distance of the monitoring sites to the sea as well as the altitude. Whether or not significant differences of the metal loads in the mosses exist at national borders was examined with help of the U-test after Mann and Whitney. In order to identify and rank the factors that are assumed to have an influence on the metal uptake of the mosses Classification and Regression Trees (CART) were applied.

Results

No clear tendency could be derived from the results of the inference statistical calculations and the correlation analyses with regard to the distance of the monitoring site to the sea and the altitude. According to the results of the CART-analyses mainly the moss species, potential emission sources around the monitoring sites, canopy drip and precipitation have an effect on the metal bioaccumulation. Assuming that each participating country followed strictly the manual for sampling and sample preparation the results of the inference statistical calculations furthermore suggest that in most cases different techniques for digestion and analysis bias the measurements significantly.

Discussion

For the first time a national monitoring data base consisting of measurement data and metadata as well as surface information on precipitation, land use and elevation was applied to examine influence factors on the metal bioaccumulation in mosses. The respective results mirror existing knowledge from other national studies to a large extend, although further analyses are necessary to affirm the findings. These analyses should include data from other national monitoring programmes and should additionally be carried out with other decision tree algorithms than CART.

Conclusions

The local variability in the metal concentration in mosses can be uncovered in terms of predictors or underlying hidden causes by using CART. Ideally, such an approach should be applied across the whole of Europe. This will only be feasible if all participating countries provide additional information about site characteristics as currently is done in for example the German moss surveys.

Recommendations

The UNECE Metals in Mosses Survey experimental protocol should be improved in order to reduce the observed influences, to enhance standardisation, and to strengthen the quality control. This implies the integration of sampling site describing metadata into the assessment. Furthermore, basis research is needed to test the hypothesis concerning moss species-specific accumulation of depositions.

Perspectives

Provided that the presented results hold true in further analyses correction factors should be applied on the moss data in order to get the depicted spatial patterns and temporal trends of metal bioaccumulation unbiased. Such factors should be calculated for natural landscape units or ecoregions that are homogeneous with regard to climate, vegetation and altitude.     

Spatial and temporal variation of soil organic carbon in the North China Plain

The organic carbon, permeability test, grain size, chemical composition, and mineral composition were analyzed for 147 samples collected from the Luan River catchment, Hebei province, China, to quantitatively characterize the effects of land use, climate change, sedimentary environment, mineral composition, and chemical composition on the spatial and temporal variation of soil organic carbon (SOC). The results indicate that there was higher SOC content and stronger variation in the south plain than in the northern low mountain. The effects of land use, climate change, and sedimentary environment on SOC distribution were greater than the effects of mineral composition and chemical composition. The cropping systems in the Luan River catchment resulted in significant difference in SOC concentration between the south plain and north mountain. The precipitation mainly transmitted its effects through the sedimentary environment to SOC, which caused the stronger temporal variation in SOC from June to October in the south plain. The north mountain did not have significant temporal variation because of the lower hydraulic conductivity of the sedimentary sequence. The spatial variation of SOC was correlated with land use, and their temporal variation was attributed to climate change and sedimentary environment. Apart from land use, the decision maker can also affect the organic carbon mineral and sequence through the sedimentary environment.     

A generalized analytical solution for turbulent dispersion with inhomogeneous wind and diffusion coefficient

A technique is presented to solve analytically the turbulent diffusion equation for the concentration of a passive contaminant emitted from an elevated continuous source into the atmosphere. A generalized method of solution using Sturm–Liouville and WKB theories is developed to overcome difficulties due to the height‐dependent wind velocity and diffusion coefficient appearing in the diffusion equation. The method presented in this paper is able to derive an asymptotic expression for the concentration obtained from the solution of the atmospheric diffusion equation which involves explicitly inhomogeneous wind velocity and diffusion coefficient. The diffusion equation model derived from this method can be applied in a practical prediction of contaminant concentration in a turbulent atmosphere. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.