Evaluation of antifouling activity of eight commercially available organic chemicals against the early foulers marine bacteria and Ulva spores

Environmental impacts caused by tin and copper based commercial antifouling (AF) paints were proved to be detrimental to aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, a search of environmental friendly AF compounds to be used in marine paint to protect the surface of maritime developmental structures from the unwanted biofouling is a burning issue of the present time. Commercially available eight organic chemicals--allyl isothiocyanate, beta-myrecene, cis-3-hexenyl acetate, citral, ethyl heptanoate, eugenol, methyl caproate, and octyl alcohol were evaluated forAF activities using both laboratory and field assays. The test chemicals were found to repel the target motile marine bacteria--Alteromonas marina, Bacillus atrophaeus, Roseobactergallaeciensis and Shewanella oneidensis and motile spores of the green alga, Ulva pertusa. The bacterial and Ulva spore repulsion activities of the test chemicals were measured by chemotaxis and agar diffusion methods respectively interestingly these test chemicals were less toxic to the test fouling species. The toxicity of the test chemicals was measured by using antibiotic assay disks against the bacteria and motility test against Ulva spores. Moreover, in field assay, all test chemicals showed a perfect performance ofAF activity showing no fouling during the experimental period of one year Such results and commercial as well as technical feasibility of the test chemicals firmly showed the possibility of using as alternatives of the existing toxic AF agents.     

水中抗生素药物的迁移分布特征研究进展

环境水体中存在的痕量抗生素药物及其潜在危害影响已引起环境研究人员的广泛关注,已成为继传统持久性环境污染物,如多环芳烃、多氯联苯、农药等之后的又一个研究焦点。尽管抗生素药物在环境中的暴露浓度相对很低,但由于其本身具有较强的持久性、生物反应活性和难生物降解性等特点,特别是对细菌微生物抗药性的选择性效应,可以导致这类抗药性菌群在环境中的快速演变和散播,这将会对人类和其它生物的健康和安全造成长期性的潜在威胁。基于目前的研究现状和发展动态,文章综合分析了环境地表水体、地下水和饮用水中不同抗生素药物的主要来源、浓度分布和迁移特征,在此基础上,提出开发水中快速、准确、价廉的检测分析方法,以及痕量抗生素药物的生态风险评估将是今后的研究发展方向。     

Feedbacks in Human–Landscape Systems

This article identifies key questions and challenges for geomorphologists in investigating coupled feedbacks in human–landscape systems. While feedbacks occur in the absence of human influences, they are also altered by human activity. Feedbacks are a key element to understanding human-influenced geomorphic systems in ways that extend our traditional approach of considering humans as unidirectional drivers of change. Feedbacks have been increasingly identified in Earth-environmental systems, with studies of coupled human–natural systems emphasizing ecological phenomena in producing emerging concepts for social–ecological systems. Enormous gaps or uncertainties in knowledge remain with respect to understanding impact-feedback loops within geomorphic systems with significant human alterations, where the impacted geomorphic systems in turn affect humans. Geomorphology should play an important role in public policy by identifying the many diffuse and subtle feedbacks of both local- and global-scale processes. This role is urgent, while time may still be available to mitigate the impacts that limit the sustainability of human societies. Challenges for geomorphology include identification of the often weak feedbacks that occur over varied time and space scales ranging from geologic time to single isolated events and very short time periods, the lack of available data linking impact with response, the identification of multiple thresholds that trigger feedback mechanisms, the varied tools and metrics needed to represent both physical and human processes, and the need to collaborate with social scientists with expertise in the human causes of geomorphic change, as well as the human responses to such change.     

Efficient purification of Al30 by organic complexation method

A method was developed for preparing high purity Al₃₀O₈(OH)₅₆(H₂O)₂₄^18 + (Al₃₀) through elimination of impurities by complexation. Polyaluminum chloride II (PAC₃₀) with Al_c content of 75% was adopted as the source of Al₃₀. The PAC₃₀ was prepared under conditions of total aluminum concentration 0.1?mol/L and OH^?/Al ratio 2.2 to obtain the highest content of Al₃₀. A precipitation/metathesis method, organic solvent precipitation method and organic complexation method were examined to separate and purify Al₃₀. It was found that only by the organic complexation method could high purity Al₃₀ products be obtained in large yield economically. In the experiments, benzoic acid was used as the coordinating reagent to decompose the main impurity AlO₄Al₁₂(OH)₂₄(H₂O)₁₂^7 + (Al₁₃), and the Al₃₀ product could be obtained by precipitation and metathesis operations. It was noteworthy that the decomposition of impurities by benzoic acid could be completed in 2?hr. The Al₃₀ product was characterized by Ferron assay, ²⁷Al-NMR, SEM, XRD and TGA. The results showed that the purity of the Al₃₀ product could exceed 92%.     

氧化铁投加方式对餐厨垃圾厌氧消化产气的影响

氧化铁可以促进产甲烷菌的代谢活动,从而加快厌氧消化体系的产甲烷速率。通过设计3组反应器,探究了不同的氧化铁添加方式对餐厨垃圾厌氧消化产甲烷的影响:包括空白组A(餐厨垃圾+厌氧污泥),以及2个实验组B(餐厨垃圾+厌氧污泥,48 h后投加氧化铁)和C(餐厨垃圾+厌氧污泥+氧化铁)。结果表明:反应器A酸化严重,进入长期产甲烷抑制状态;反应器B可以解除酸抑制,恢复体系产甲烷能力,但需要较长的启动期;反应器C则能较快达到产甲烷阶段。此外,截止到第54天实验结束,反应器C的累积产甲烷量(48 349 m L)高于B(35 665 m L)。对于餐厨垃圾厌氧消化,投加氧化铁可解除体系酸抑制,恢复其产甲烷能力。而在厌氧消化初期加入氧化铁可以更快地解除酸抑制,并促成更高的产甲烷速率。     

Application of eggshell waste for the immobilization of cadmium and lead in a contaminated soil

Liming materials have been used to immobilize heavy metals in contaminated soils. However, no studies have evaluated the use of eggshell waste as a source of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) to immobilize both cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in soils. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of eggshell waste on the immobilization of Cd and Pb and to determine the metal availability following various single extraction techniques. Incubation experiments were conducted by mixing 0–5% powdered eggshell waste and curing the soil (1,246 mg Pb kg^?1 soil and 17 mg Cd kg^?1 soil) for 30 days. Five extractants, 0.01 M calcium chloride (CaCl₂), 1 M CaCl₂, 0.1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl), 0.43 M acetic acid (CH₃COOH), and 0.05 M ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), were used to determine the extractability of Cd and Pb following treatments with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste. Generally, the extractability of Cd and Pb in the soils decreased in response to treatments with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste, regardless of extractant. Using CaCl₂ extraction, the lowest Cd concentration was achieved upon both CaCO₃ and eggshell waste treatments, while the lowest Pb concentration was observed using HCl extraction. The highest amount of immobilized Cd and Pb was extracted by CH₃COOH or EDTA in soils treated with CaCO₃ and eggshell waste, indicating that remobilization of Cd and Pb may occur under acidic conditions. Based on the findings obtained, eggshell waste can be used as an alternative to CaCO₃ for the immobilization of heavy metals in soils.     

Fenton degradation of dialkylphthalates: products and mechanism

Contamination of wastewater by organic pollutants is a major worldwide issue. For instance plastic additives such as phthalates are found in wastewater. Efficient techniques are thus needed to clean wastewaters. The Fenton reaction involving H₂O₂ and Fe(II) salts can be used to treat polluted water. During the Fenton reaction pollutants are decomposed directly by hydroxyl radicals. In some cases toxic by-products are produced. Here dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, and dipropyl phthalate by-products formed during the Fenton reaction were studied. Fenton degradation of selected phthalates yielded numerous transformation products such as hydroxylated phthalates. The hydroxylation reaction occurred at the aromatic ring of phthalates and yielded mono- and dihydroxylated phthalates. For monohydroxylated phthalate, 3-hydroxy- and 4-hydroxydialkylphthalates are the main transformation products. In addition to hydroxylated derivatives, aliphatic chain degraded mono- and dihydroxylated phthalates were also detected.     

An evaluation approach using a HARA and FMEDA for the hardware SIL

Safety instrumented systems (SIS) are becoming increasingly complex, and form a growing proportion of programmable electronic parts. The IEC 61508 global standard was established to ensure the functional safety of SIS; however, it was expressed in highly macroscopic terms. The safety integrity level (SIL) is a criterion describing whether a component meets the safety requirements of a SIS. The safety requirements give a target SIL for the expected risks using hazard analysis and risk assessment (HARA). The SIL must correspond to the safety requirements. This study introduces an evaluation process for determining the hardware SIL through failure modes, effects, and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA). First, the components of the SIS subsystem are defined in terms of failure modes and effects, and then the failure rate and failure mechanism distribution are assigned to each component. The safety mode and detectability of each failure mode are determined for each component and, finally, the hardware SIL is evaluated. We perform a case study to evaluate the hardware SIL of the flame scanner system using HARA and FMEDA, where the safety requirement of the flame scanner was determined using the risk graph method. We verified that the hardware SIL of the flame scanner corresponded to the safety requirement.