Economic assessment of the health effects related to particulate matter pollution in 111 Chinese cities by using economic burden of disease analysis

With China's rapid economic development, environmental problems have become more and more serious. Particulate air pollution is terrible in cities with large and dense population. It may lead to adverse health effects and economic costs. In this study, we calculated the health effects of pollution caused by particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters less than 10mum (PM(10)) in 111 Chinese cities in 2004 according to statistical data and epidemiological exposure-response functions. Using economic burden of disease analysis, an economic assessment of these health risks was also presented. In contrast to many previous studies that have examined individual cities, this study covered most large and medium-sized cities in China, which accounted for more than 70% gross domestic product (GDP) of China in 2004. The total economic cost caused by PM(10) pollution was estimated as approximately US$ 29,178.7 million. Mega cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin contribute relatively more to the total costs. The results will help policy makers in formulating more effective countermeasures and increasing public awareness to enhance environmental protection.     

图书馆书库清点方法初探

图书馆藏书大多存在实物与财产登记不符的状况,如情况较为严重则会影响到图书馆流通、采访等项工作的开展,因此适时进行书库清点具有重要意义。本文以中国环境管理干部学院图书馆的清点为实例,初步探讨了将条码作为清点切入点的书库清点工作的方法、步骤和注意事项。     

城区天然气配气站噪声的产生及防治

城区天然气配气站噪声超标已成为供气部门亟待解决的难题,文章分析了配气站噪声污染现状,指出噪声产生原因主要为天然气流动,供气量增长使设备超负荷运行等7个方面。分别针对现有配气站和新建、改扩建站场提出降噪措施,指出设备在额定范围内运行、气体流速控制、工艺改造等是噪声控制的重要手段。并对城区天然气配气站噪声治理的进一步研究提出了建议。     

Highly efficient conversion of sugarcane bagasse pretreated with liquid hot water into ethanol at high solid loading

Liquid hot water (LHW), an environmental-friendly physico-chemical treatment, was applied to pretreat the sugarcane bagasse (SCB). Tween80, a non-ionic surfactant, was used to enhance the enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated SCB. It found that 0.125 mL Tween80 /g dry matter could make the maximum increase (33.2%) of the glycan conversion of the LHW-pretreated SCB. A self-designed laboratory facility with a plate-and-frame impeller was applied to conduct batch hydrolysis, fed-batch hydrolysis, and the process of high-temperature (50°C) fed-batch hydrolysis following low-temperature (30°C) simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) which was adopted to overcome the incompatible optimum temperature of saccharification and fermentation in the SSF process. After hydrolyzing LHW-pretreated SCB for 120 h with commercial cellulase, the total sugar concentration and glycan conversion obtained from fed-batch hydrolysis were 91.6 g/L and 68.3%, respectively, which were 9.7 g/L and 7.3% higher than those obtained from batch hydrolysis. With Saccharomyces cerevisiae Y2034 fermenting under the non-sterile condition, the ethanol production and theoretical yield obtained from the process of SSF after fed-batch hydrolysis were 55.4 g/L and 88.3% for 72h, respectively, which were 15.5 g/L and 24.7% higher than those from separate fed-batch hydrolysis and fermentation. The result of this work was superior to the reported results obtained from the LHW-pretreated SCB.     

油气勘探开发建设项目环境影响评价管理探讨

油气勘探开发建设项目存在滚动开发的特点,在近年来的环境影响评价管理实践中引发较多矛盾。文章分析了目前油气勘探开发建设项目环评管理中存在的环评要求不清晰、分类管理需细化、审查尺度不统一等问题,并从界定建设项目类型、明确环评开展时间和要求、明确环评文件编制类型、界定项目重大变更四个方面提出了改进油气项目环评管理的建议。     

Carbonyl emissions from vehicular exhausts sources in Hong Kong

Vehicular emission (VE) is one of the important anthropogenic sources for airborne carbonyls in urban area. Six types of VE-dominated samples were collected at representative locations in Hong Kong where polluted by a particular fueled type of vehicles, including (i) a gas refilling taxis station (liquefied petroleum gas [LPG] emission); (ii) a light-duty passenger car park (gasoline emission); (iii) a minibus station (diesel emission); (iv) a single-deck-bus depot (diesel emission); (v) a double-deck-bus depot (diesel emission); and (vi) a whole-food market entrance for light- and heavy-duty vehicles (diesel emission). A total of 15 carbonyls in the samples were quantified. Formaldehyde was the most abundant carbonyl among the VE-dominated samples, and its contribution to the total quantified amount on a molar basis ranged from 54.8% to 60.8%. Acetaldehyde and acetone were the next two abundant carbonyls. The carbonyls were quantified at three roadside locations in Hong Kong. The highest concentrations of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, 22.7 +/- 8.4 and 6.0 +/- 2.8 microg/m3, respectively, were determined in the samples collected at a main transportation gate for goods between Hong Kong and Mainland China. The total quantified carbonyl concentration, 37.9 +/- 9.3 microg/m3, was the highest at an entrance of a cross-harbor tunnel in downtown area. The theoretical carbonyls compositions of the three roadside locations were estimated according to the VE-dominated sample profiles and the statistics on vehicle numbers and types during the sampling period. The measured compositions of formaldehyde were much higher than the theoretical compositions in summer, demonstrating that photochemical reactions significantly contributed to the formaldehyde production in the roadsides.     

Biodegradation of high molecular weight PAHs using isolated yeast mixtures: application of meta-genomic methods for community structure analyses

Bioaugmentation for the removal of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from wastewater using bacteria and yeasts is considered environment-friendly and a cost-effective technique. The effectiveness of this biodegradation system depends on the stability of inoculated microorganisms and the availability of nutrients. This study is aimed to investigate the removal of high molecular weight (HMW)-PAHs from biologically treated produced water using different biological systems. Three systems, inoculated with activated sludge (AS), the mixture of five yeast strains (MY), and the mixture of AS and the five yeast strains (SY), respectively, were constructed, and their performance for the removal of HMW-PAHs was compared over 10 weeks. The effluent of the biologically treated produced water from an oilfield was used as the influent after chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene were spiked as HMW-PAHs. Polymerase chain reaction-based denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques were used to examine the changes in the structures and abundances of the bacterial and yeast communities in these three systems. Only SY and MY systems were capable to remove chrysene (90.7 % and 98.5 %, respectively) and benzo(a)pyrene (80.7 % and 95.2 %, respectively). PCR-DGGE analysis confirmed that all of the five yeast strains inoculated remained in the SY and MY systems, while FISH results showed that the relative abundance of yeast in the SY and MY systems (10.6 % to 21.9 %, respectively) were significantly higher than AS system (2.3 % to 7.8 %, respectively). The relative abundances of the catechol 2,3-dioxygenase (C23O) indicated that the copy number ratios of benzene ring cleavage gene C23O in the yeast amended systems were much higher than that in the AS system. In this study, all of the three systems were effective in removing the low molecular weight (LMW)-PAHs, while HMW-PAHs including chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene were efficiently removed by MY and SY systems, not by AS system. The high HMW-PAHs removal in the MY and SY bioaugmentation systems possibly attributed to the inoculation of the mixed yeast culture. By combining the PCR-DGGE results with the FISH analyses, it was found that yeast probably consisting mainly of the five inoculated strains inhabited in the two bioaugmentation systems as a dominant population. The relatively higher performance of the SY system might be attributed to the suspended growth type which permitted a more efficient contact between microbial cells and contaminants. The bioaugmentation systems (SY and MY) were successfully established by inoculating with five nonindigenous yeast strains and demonstrated high performance in removal of HMW-PAHs.     

Second-order chlorine decay and trihalomethanes formation in a pilot-scale water distribution systems

It is well known that model-building of chlorine decay in real water distribution systems is difficult because chlorine decay is influenced by many factors (e.g., bulk water demand, pipe-wall demand, piping material, flow velocity, and residence time). In this paper, experiments were run to investigate the kinetic model of chlorine decay and the formation model of trihalomethanes (THMs) in pilot-scale water distribution systems. Experimental results show that the rate constants of chlorine decay, including wall decay and bulk decay, increasing with temperature. Moreover, the kinetic model of chlorine decay and the formation model of THMs describe experiment data of pilot-scale water distribution systems. The effect of different piping material on chlorine decay and THMs formation were also investigated. The rate constants of chlorine decay are ranked in order: stainless steel pipe, ductile iron pipe, and last, polyethelene pipe because wall decay is the largest in stainless steel pipe than that in other piping material. Correspondingly, the rate of THMs formation follows the order of stainless steel pipe, ductile iron pipe, and last, polyethelene pipe because of less chlorine in bulk water reacting with the trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP).     

Persistence of repeated triadimefon application and its impact on soil microbial functional diversity

The effects of repeated applications of the fungicide triadimefon in agricultural soil on the microbial functional diversity of the soil and on the persistence of the fungicide in the soil were investigated under laboratory conditions. The degradation half-lives of triadimefon at the recommended dosage, simulated by a first-order kinetic model, were 23.90, 22.95, and 21.52 days for the first, second, and third applications, respectively. Throughout this study, no significant inhibition of the Shannon-Wiener index (H') was observed. However, the Simpson index (1/D) and the McIntosh index (U) were obviously reduced (p ≤ 0.05) during the initial 3 days after the first triadimefon application and thereafter, gradually recovered to or exceeded the level of the control soil. A similar trend in variation but with a faster recovery in the 1/D and U was observed after the second and third triadimefon applications, respectively. Taken together, the above results indicate that the repeated application of triadimefon enhanced the degradation rate of the fungicide and the recovery rate of the soil microbial functional diversity. It is concluded that repeated triadimefon applications in soil have a transient or temporary inhibitory effect on soil microbial communities.     

Mo-N-TiO_2光催化剂的制备、表征及其活性提高机制

以钼酸铵和氨水分别为钼源和氮源,采用溶胶-凝胶法制备了Mo-N-TiO2光催化剂,并对其进行了XRD、XPS和UV-visDRS表征。XRD结果表明,Mo、N共掺杂有效抑制了TiO2晶粒的生长,提高了TiO2由锐钛矿向金红石相的转变温度。UV-vis表明,Mo-N-TiO2光催化剂可见光吸收能力增强,吸收带边明显＂红移＂,且钼酸铵添加量（相对TiO2）为0.5%的样品＂红移＂程度最大,最大吸收带边为550 nm。XPS分析结果表明,Mo取代了TiO2晶格中的部分Ti4＋,以Mo6＋形式存在的,而N以Ti—N及N—Ti—O形式存在。以罗丹明B为模型污染物,重点考察了钼酸铵添加量与焙烧温度对Mo-N-TiO2光催剂性能的影响。结果表明,400℃焙烧下、钼酸铵添加量为0.5%的样品催化活性最好。模拟太阳光下光照120min对罗丹明B的降解率达到96.8%,是纯TiO2的2.42倍。