Study on a new correlation between diffusion coefficient and temperature in porous building materials

The diffusion coefficient (D) and partition coefficient (K_ma) are the two important parameters used to predict the volatile organic compound (VOC) emission or sorption characteristics in porous building materials. D and K_ma may be strongly affected by temperature (T). In this study, we derived a new correlation between D and T based on the assumption that molecular diffusion is dominant, and evaluated this correlation using a series of existing experimental data. The modeling results using the new correlation agree well with the experimental data. The correlation would be useful for assessment of indoor air quality under different environmental (temperature) conditions.     

Environmental and socioeconomic assessment of impacts by mining activities—a case study in the Certej River catchment,Western Carpathians,Romania

Background, aim and scope

In the region of the Apuseni Mountains, part of the Western Carpathians in Romania, metal mining activities have a long-standing tradition. These mining industries created a clearly beneficial economic development in the region. But their activities also caused impairments to the environment, such as acid mine drainage (AMD) resulting in long-lasting heavy metal pollution of waters and sediments. The study, established in the context of the ESTROM programme, investigated the impact of metal mining activities both from environmental and socioeconomic perspectives and tried to incorporate the results of the two approaches into an integrated proposition for mitigation of mining-related issues.

Study site

The small Certej catchment, situated in the Southern Apuseni Mountains, covers an area of 78 km². About 4,500 inhabitants are living in the basin, in which metal mining was the main economic sector. An open pit and several abandoned underground mines are producing heavy metal-loaded acidic water that is discharged untreated into the main river. The solid wastes of mineral processing plants were deposited in several dumps and tailings impoundment embodying the acidic water-producing mineral pyrite.

Methods

The natural science team collected samples from surface waters, drinking water from dug wells and from groundwater. Filtered and total heavy metals, both after enrichment, and major cations were analysed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Major anions in waters, measured by ion chromatography, alkalinity and acidity were determined by titration. Solid samples were taken from river sediments and from the largest tailings dam. The latter were characterised by X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction. Heavy metals in sediments were analysed after digestion. Simultaneously, the socioeconomic team performed a household survey to evaluate the perception of people related to the river and drinking water pollution by way of a logistic regression analysis.

Results and discussion

The inputs of acid mine waters drastically increased filtered heavy metal concentrations in the Certej River, e.g. Zn up to 130 mg L⁻¹, Fe 100 mg L⁻¹, Cu 2.9 mg L⁻¹, Cd 1.4 mgL⁻¹ as well as those of SO₄ up to 2.2 g L⁻¹. In addition, river water became acidic with pH values of pH 3. Concentrations of pollutant decreased slightly downstream due to dilution by waters from tributaries. Metal concentrations measured at headwater stations reflect background values. They fell in the range of the environmental quality standards proposed in the EU Water Framework Directive for dissolved heavy metals. The outflow of the large tailing impoundment and the groundwater downstream from two tailings dams exhibited the first sign of AMD, but they still had alkalinity.

Most dug wells analysed delivered a drinking water that exhibited no sign of AMD pollution, although these wells were a distance of 7 to 25 m from the contaminated river. It seems that the Certej River does not infiltrate significantly into the groundwater.

Pyrite was identified as the main sulphide mineral in the tailings dam that produces acidity and with calcite representing the AMD-neutralising mineral. The acid–base accounting proved that the potential acid-neutralising capacity in the solid phases would not be sufficient to prevent the production of acidic water in the future. Therefore, the open pits and mine waste deposits have to be seen as the sources for AMD at the present time, with a high long-term potential to produce even more AMD in the future.

The socioeconomic study showed that mining provided the major source of income. Over 45% of the households were partly or completely reliant on financial compensations as a result of mine closure. Unemployment was considered by the majority of the interviewed persons as the main cause of social problems in the area. The estimation of the explanatory factors by the logistic regression analysis revealed that education, household income, pollution conditions during the last years and familiarity with environmental problems were the main predictors influencing peoples’ opinion concerning whether the main river is strongly polluted. This model enabled one to predict correctly 77% of the observations reported. For the drinking water quality model, three predictors were relevant and they explained 66% of the observations.

Conclusions

Coupling the findings from the natural science and socioeconomic approaches, we may conclude that the impact of mining on the Certej River water is high, while drinking water in wells is not significantly affected. The perceptions of the respondents to pollution were to a large extent consistent with the measured results.

Recommendations and perspectives

The results of the study can be used by various stakeholders, mainly the mining company and local municipalities, in order to integrate them in their post-mining measures, thereby making them aware of the potential long-term impact of mining on the environment and on human health as well as on the local economy.

     

Endosulfan in China 1—gridded usage inventories

Background, aim, and scope  Endosulfan, an organochlorine pesticide (OCP), is genotoxic in mammalian cells and generally considered to be toxic and classified by the World Health Organization and the US Environmental Protection Agency as priority pollutants and a nominator for inclusion in a future iteration of the persistent organic pollutants treaty. Endosulfan is a currently used pesticide and still being used worldwide. The general trend of total global endosulfan use has increased continuously since the first year when this pesticide was applied. It is critical to create national endosulfan usage/emission inventories for China to carry out source–receptor relation analysis, risk assessment, and other research related to endosulfan in this country. Chinese inventories have been published for some OCPs, such as technical HCH and lindane, DDT, and chlordane; for endosulfan, however, there has not been any usage inventory available on any scales (national or provincial), although endosulfan has been widely used since 1994 in this country. This is the first part of the work. The goal of this paper is to quantify the historical production and usage of endosulfan in China and to compile gridded historical usage inventories of endosulfan for this country. Based on these usage inventories, emission and residue inventories will be created, which is the goal of the second part of the work. Materials and methods  Due to the lack of national production and usage information of endosulfan in China, a method to estimate the use of endosulfan was developed. First, information of crops on which endosulfan is applied and average endosulfan use and annual application frequencies of endosulfan on these crops were collected. Secondly, usage of endosulfan on each crop was estimated using the national cropland area for each province from Chinese government reports. Finally, with the help of GIS (geographic information system), the usage data of this insecticide was allocated to a grid system, with a 1/4° longitude by 1/6° latitude resolution, with a size for each grid cell of approximately 25 km by 25 km. Results and discussion  The use of endosulfan in agriculture in China started on cotton in 1994, and on wheat, tea, tobacco, apples, and other fruits in 1998. Endosulfan usage on cotton, wheat, tea, tobacco, and apples in China has been estimated to be approximately 25,700 t between 1994 and 2004. The province with the highest usage of endosulfan is Henan Province, with a total usage reaching 4,000 t, followed by the uses in Xinjiang Autonomous Region (3,200 t), Shandong Province (3,000 t), Hebei Province (2,100 t), and Anhui Province (1,900 t). Gridded usage inventories of endosulfan at a 1/4° longitude by 1/6° latitude resolution have been created, which indicate that the intensive endosulfan use was in the south of Hebei Province, west of Shandong Province, east of Henan Province, north of Anhui Province, east of Jiangsu Province, and some areas in Yunnan Province and Xinjiang Autonomous Region. General agreement has been found between the usage data from our estimation and the small amount of usage data published in China. Conclusions  This is the first national gridded endosulfan usage inventory produced for China. The annual applications of endosulfan from 1994 to 2004 in China were estimated based on the total areas of major crops, on which endosulfan was applied, and spatial distribution of the application was generated at provincial and prefecture levels. With the help of GIS, endosulfan usage based on prefecture was transferred to a 1/4° longitude by 1/6° latitude gridding system. The satisfaction of the inventories was supported by the consistence between the estimation of the annual usage and the reported annual production of endosulfan. Recommendations and perspectives  This gridded endosulfan usage inventory created in this study will be improved upon availability of new information of endosulfan. The usage inventories can be used to create gridded emission and residue inventories for this insecticide. It is believed that this work will pave the way for further endosulfan studies in China and beyond.     

北京市春季大气颗粒物污染特性研究

为研究北京市春季大气颗粒物污染特性,2008年3月至2008年5月,对北京市西三环大气颗粒物进行采样分析.测定了总悬浮颗粒物(TSP)与可吸入颗粒物(PM10)的日平均质量浓度,使用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)观察大气颗粒物的微观形貌,并通过X射线能谱仪(EDX)对样品中的元素组成进行分析.结果表明,TSP和PM10日平均质量浓度以初春最高,春天次之,春夏交际最低;PM10/TSP以春夏交际最高,初春次之,春天最低;大气颗粒物形态有规则和不规则2类,以不规则形态居多,同时发现花粉颗粒存在.EDX分析表明,大气颗粒物所附着的重金属中Pb所占的质量分散最高,并且集中吸附在细粒子颗粒物上.     

Ultrafine particles near a major roadway in Raleigh,North Carolina: Downwind attenuation and correlation with traffic-related pollutants

Ultrafine particles (UFPs, diameter < 100 nm) and co-emitted pollutants from traffic are a potential health threat to nearby populations. During summertime in Raleigh, North Carolina, UFPs were simultaneously measured upwind and downwind of a major roadway using a spatial matrix of five portable industrial hygiene samplers (measuring total counts of 20–1000 nm particles). While the upper sampling range of the portable samplers extends past the defined “ultrafine” upper limit (100 nm), the 20–1000 nm number counts had high correlation (Pearson R = 0.7–0.9) with UFPs (10–70 nm) measured by a co-located research-grade analyzer and thus appear to be driven by the ultrafine range. Highest UFP concentrations were observed during weekday morning work commutes, with levels at 20 m downwind from the road nearly fivefold higher than at an upwind station. A strong downwind spatial gradient was observed, linearly approximated over the first 100 m as an 8% drop in UFP counts per 10 m distance. This result agreed well with UFP spatial gradients estimated from past studies (ranging 5–12% drop per 10 m). Linear regression of other vehicle-related air pollutants measured in near real-time (10-min averages) against UFPs yielded moderate to high correlation with benzene (R² = 0.76), toluene (R² = 0.49), carbon monoxide (R² = 0.74), nitric oxide (R² = 0.80), and black carbon (R² = 0.65). Overall, these results support the notion that near-road levels of UFPs are heavily influenced by traffic emissions and correlate with other vehicle-produced pollutants, including certain air toxics.     

Single particle mass spectrometry of oxalic acid in ambient aerosols in Shanghai: Mixing state and formation mechanism

Oxalic acid in individual aerosol particles was measured using single particle aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ATOFMS) in the summer of 2007 in Shanghai, China. Oxalate was found in 3.4% of total particles with diameters in the range of 0.2 – 2.0 μm. Size, chemical composition and hourly temporal counts of single particles that contained oxalic acid were measured. The predominant types of oxalate-containing particles were characterized to distinguish the primary and secondary sources of oxalic acid. Biomass burning was revealed as a major primary source of oxalic acid which contributed more than 20% of the oxalate-containing particles. Evidences for two different formation pathways of oxalic acid were observed in our experiment. The number fraction of oxalate-containing particles correlated with that of sulfate particles and the changes of air parcel backward trajectories, suggesting that in-cloud processing played important roles in oxalic acid formation. The diurnal patterns of dust and sea salt particle counts fitted well with the ambient relative humidity variation, suggesting that heterogeneous reactions occurring in hydrated/deliquesced aerosols also contributed to the production of oxalic acid.     

污泥膨胀状态下原生动物群落结构分析

系统研究了丝状菌膨胀与非丝状菌膨胀2种典型污泥状态下原生动物的群落结构特征及其演变规律。伴随丝状菌的大量增殖,原生动物总量相应减少,匍匐型纤毛虫及有壳类肉足虫数量迅速上升,占据明显的优势地位,典型原生动物为斜管虫（Chilodonella sp.）、小轮毛虫（Trochilia minuta）以及匣壳虫（Centropyxis sp.）;非丝状菌污泥膨胀对原生动物总量及种群结构影响较小,伴随粘性菌胶团的大量出现,各功能类群的比例变化较小,但原生动物总量持续增加,其中菌食性纤毛虫呈线性增加,典型原生动物为钟虫（Vorticella sp.）。     

膜生物反应器中新型无纺布膜过滤特性及膜污染特征

通过无纺布和聚偏氟乙烯平板膜组件在相同操作条件下的对比实验,研究无纺布膜的过滤特性。结果表明,2种膜的膜生物反应器COD、氨氮平均去除率均＞90%。过膜压力变化表明在长期运行条件下,无纺布可适于作为膜生物反应器的过滤介质,其过滤机理为膜表面滤饼层形成动态膜,从而增强了膜截留能力。膜污染研究表明,无纺布膜阻力主要来自滤饼层（占总阻力的83.6%）,经清洗后膜通量可恢复至94%。扫描电镜显示膜表面滤饼层较厚,结合膜阻力分析结果认为,该滤饼层对膜污染和可逆性影响较大。对膜表面和膜孔中胞外聚合物（EPS）的红外分析证实,其中含有蛋白质和多糖物质,而且组分分析表明蛋白质是膜污染物EPS中的主要组分,在膜孔中的含量比滤饼层中还高。     

红萍净化水产养殖水体的研究

利用红萍(Azolla)对富营养化水产养殖水体进行净化研究。结果表明,红萍能显著增加水体中的DO,增氧幅度随流量在16.88%～70.46%之间变化,随着养殖水体流经的层数增多或者处理的时间延长,红萍对水体的增氧量加大,水中DO最终趋向一个常数值K;同时,红萍对水体中的NH₃-N和TP都有明显的去除效果,NH₃-N去除率随流量在9.86%～38.90%间波动,TP的去除率则随流量的变化在5.80%～38.43%之间波动。可见,红萍是净化水质的良好材料,能有效改善水产养殖水环境。利用红萍净化水体将为解决高密度集约化水产养殖的瓶颈提供新途径,实现水产养殖用水的封闭循环利用。     

氧化亚铁硫杆菌浸出废弃线路板中铜的研究

对废弃线路板中的铜进行了细菌浸出、只有硫酸亚铁环境下的浸出及酸浸出实验,研究了不同条件对比浸出效果,研究结果表明,细菌浸出比只有硫酸亚铁存在的浸出和酸浸要快得多。研究了在线路板粉末浓度12、24、40、60和120 g/L下浸出速率的变化,结果表明, 在考察范围内,浸出速度随着加入的废弃线路板粉末浓度的升高而降低,当线路板粉末的浓度＞60 g/L时,浸出速度维持在较低水平,选取24 g/L作为浸出的线路板粉末的浓度。分别在细菌培养0、24、48和72 h时加入线路板粉末24 g/L进行浸出实验,结果表明,细菌培养时间长,使得浸出过程进行得也更快。