加入多孔球形颗粒微生物燃料电池的性能研究

设计了一个典型的双室微生物燃料电池,并考察了在阳极室加入多孔球形颗粒条件下对人工合成污水产电性能的影响。实验发现,加入多孔球形颗粒后,最高电压从不加颗粒的253 mV提高到280 mV,持续产电时间从5.5 d提高到8 d,COD去除率从78%提高到82.6%。进一步的实验发现,加入多孔球形颗粒后,系统内阻从286Ω降低到199.4Ω,最大功率密度从78.6 mW/m2提高到114.3 mW/m2。结果表明,微生物易于在多孔球形颗粒上附着和生长,颗粒通过均匀搅拌与阳极表面产生持续碰撞,有利于胞外电子传递到阳极,这一过程大大减小阳极的内阻,增大电池的输出电压进而增大输出功率,从而显著提高电池的产电性能。     

Sensitivity of biogenic secondary organic aerosols to future climate change at regional scales: An online coupled simulation

Biogenic emissions and secondary organic aerosols (SOA) are strongly dependent on climatic conditions. To understand the SOA levels and their sensitivity to future climate change in the United States (U.S.), we present a modeling work with the consideration of SOA formation from the oxidation of biogenic emissions with atmospheric oxidants (e.g., OH, O₃, and NO₃). The model simulation for the present-day climate is evaluated against satellite and ground-based aerosol measurements. Although the model underestimates aerosol concentrations over the northwestern U.S. due to the lack of fire emissions in the model simulations, overall, the SOA results agree well with previous studies. Comparing with the available measurements of organic carbon (OC) concentrations, we found that the amount of SOA in OC is significant, with the ratio ranging from 0.1 to 0.5/0.6. The enhanced modeling system driven by global climate model output was also applied for two three-year one-month simulations (July, 2001–2003 and 2051–2053) to examine the sensitivity of SOA to future climate change. Under the future two emissions scenarios (A1B and A2), future temperature changes are predicted to increase everywhere in the U.S., but with different degrees of increase in different regions. As a result of climate change in the future, biogenic emissions are predicted to increase everywhere, with the largest increase (～20%) found in the southeastern and northwestern U.S. under the A1B scenario. Changes in SOA are not identical with those in biogenic emissions. Under the A1B scenario, the biggest increase in SOA is found over Texas, with isoprene emissions being the major contributor to SOA formation. The range of change varies from 5% over the southeast region to 26% over Texas. The changes in either biogenic emissions or SOA under the two climate scenarios are different due to the differences in climatic conditions. Our results also suggest that future SOA concentrations are also influenced by several other factors such as the partitioning coefficients, the atmospheric oxidative capability, primary organic carbon aerosols and anthropogenic emissions.     

天然矿物组合材料渗透反应墙修复地下水镉污染

实验模拟地下环境,以天然矿物材料石灰石、海泡石和膨润土作为可渗透反应墙(PRB)填充材料,采用正交实验法设计了16种可渗透反应器,研究了天然矿物组合材料组配对污染地下水模拟液中镉污染的修复效果、出水pH、有效孔隙度和渗透系数的影响,同时对机理进行了分析。实验结果显示,组合材料对镉去除率达99.8%以上,石灰石对处理效果贡献最大,增加石灰石用量,处理效果明显改善,当石灰石含量为10%及更高时,对含镉1.0 mg/L的污染地下水模拟液处理后镉浓度低于0.7μg/L,达到地下水质量标准GB/T 14848-93规定的II类水质标准;石灰石用量的增加对渗透系数影响不大,但出水pH呈弱碱性(7pH9),随反应时间延长逐渐降低并稳定于8。增加海泡石和膨润土用量对处理效果改善作用不大,但显著降低体系渗透系数,影响透水性。以正交实验直观分析法计算得到修复效果最优的PRB填充材料组配为石灰石/海泡石/膨润土=20/10/2(质量分数)。     

响应曲面法优化电化学氧化技术处理染料废水

采用IR和XRD等手段对自制磷钼酸铁(FePMo12)杂多酸进行表征,表明杂多阴离子具有Keggin结构。将FePMo12负载于修饰后的分子筛上制备FePMo12/APTES-4A催化剂填充于电化学反应器中,考察电化学氧化体系对酸性大红3R染料废水的脱色效果,其脱色率高于二维电化学反应器。利用Box-Behnken中心组合实验设计及响应面(RSM)分析,以pH值,板间距,槽电压,曝气量为实验因素,建立了以酸性大红3R的脱色率为响应值的二次多项式回归模型。研究表明,当电解时间为60 min时,曝气量0.05 m3/h、pH为2、板间距3.0 cm、槽电压11.0 V,在此条件下色度去除率可达69.4%,模型预测值与实验值能很好地吻合。方差分析结果表明,槽电压和pH、pH和曝气量的交互作用对响应值具有显著性影响。     

The association between maternal nonylphenol exposure and parity on neonatal birth weight: A cohort study in Taiwan

Background

The aim of this study was to explore the association between NP exposure and parity and their effect on neonatal birth weight.

Methods

A cohort of pregnant women was established in a medical center in North Taiwan. Urinary NP concentration was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescent detection and adjusted using creatinine. A multivariable regression model was fit to determine the association between the maternal NP level in each trimester and neonatal birth weight. The odds ratios (ORs) of infant birth weight below the 10th, 25th, and 50th percentiles, comparing pregnant women with the different NP exposure levels, was estimated using a logistic regression.

Results

Of the 162 pregnant women in the study, 99 were multiparas and 63 were primiparas. After adjusting for other covariates, the NP level in the second trimester had a significant association with birth weight in the primiparas (β = −182.49 g, p value = 0.02). The OR of low infant birth weight, comparing pregnant women with different NP levels, was increased by decreasing the cutoff percentile for birth weight (OR = 1.18 for the 50th percentile, 2.12 for the 25th percentile, and 7.81 for the 10th percentile). The odds of primiparas with high NP level having a low neonatal birth weight increased to 3.87, 11.77, and 9.40 for the three different percentiles (p value < 0.05).

Conclusion

Maternal NP exposure level is associated with an increased risk of low neonatal weight. Primiparas are especially at risk, and the second trimester of pregnancy may be the critical stage of exposure.     

Application of a novel cold activated carbon fiber-solid phase microextraction for analysis of organochlorine pesticides in soil

A novel and simple analytical procedure using cold activated carbon fiber-solid phase microextraction (CACF-SPME) was applied to determine organochlorine pesticides (OCs) in soil samples. The pesticides in this study consist of alpha -, beta -, gamma -, and delta -hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH). By heating the sample while cooling the fiber, the developed method not only provides better performance in terms of sensitivity, linearity and recovery but also offers shorter adsorption procedure than that of traditional headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME). The experimental conditions such as the amount of water, adsorption time and adsorption temperature were optimized. Matrix effects were investigated with different types of soils. We concluded that using the standard addition method was required for quantification purposes. The limits of detection obtained using the proposed method range from 0.01 to 0.05 ng/g, and the recoveries for CACF-SPME are in the range of 80.01% to 89.68% with relative standard deviation (RSDs) better than 8.60%. The proposed method was further applied to determine OCs in real agricultural soil. The results are in good agreement with those obtained using traditional ultrasonic extraction. The research demonstrates the suitability of the CACF-SPME for the analysis of OCs in soil.     

Predicting bioavailability and bioaccumulation of arsenic by freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea using valve daily activity

There are many bioindicators. However, it remains largely unknown which metal–bioindicator systems will give the reasonable detection ranges of bioavailable metals in the aquatic ecosystem. Various experimental data make the demonstration of biomonitoring processes challenging. Ingested inorganic arsenic is strongly associated with a wide spectrum of adverse health outcomes. Freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea, one of the most commonly used freshwater biomomitoring organisms, presents daily activity in valve movement and demonstrates biotic uptake potential to accumulate arsenic. Here, a systematical way was provided to dynamically link valve daily activity in C. fluminea and arsenic bioavailability and toxicokinetics to predict affinity at arsenic-binding site in gills and arsenic body burden. Using computational ecotoxicology methods, a valve daily rhythm model can be tuned mathematically to the responsive ranges of valve daily activity system in response to varied bioavailable arsenic concentration. The patterned response then can be used to predict the site-specific bioavailable arsenic concentration at the specific measuring time window. This approach can yield predictive data of results from toxicity studies of specific bioindicators that can assist in prediction of risk for aquatic animals and humans.     

Spatial pattern assessment of river water quality: implications of reducing the number of monitoring stations and chemical parameters

The Tamsui River basin is located in Northern Taiwan and encompasses the most metropolitan city in Taiwan, Taipei City. The Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has established 38 water quality monitoring stations in the Tamsui River basin and performed regular river water quality monitoring for the past two decades. Because of the limited budget of the Taiwan EPA, adjusting the monitoring program while maintaining water quality data is critical. Multivariate analysis methods, such as cluster analysis (CA), factor analysis (FA), and discriminate analysis (DA), are useful tools for the statistically spatial assessment of surface water quality. This study integrated CA, FA, and DA to evaluate the spatial variance of water quality in the metropolitan city of Taipei. Performing CA involved categorizing monitoring stations into three groups: high-, moderate-, and low-pollution areas. In addition, this categorization of monitoring stations was in agreement with that of the assessment that involved using the simple river pollution index. Four latent factors that predominantly influence the river water quality of the Tamsui River basin are assessed using FA: anthropogenic pollution, the nitrification process, seawater intrusion, and geological and weathering processes. We plotted a spatial pattern using the four latent factor scores and identified ten redundant monitoring stations near each upstream station with the same score pattern. We extracted five significant parameters by using DA: total organic carbon, total phosphorus, As, Cu, and nitrate, with spatial variance to differentiate them from the polluted condition of the group obtained by using CA. Finally, this study suggests that the Taiwan EPA can adjust the surface water-monitoring program of the Tamsui River by reducing the monitoring stations to 28 and the measured chemical parameters to five to lower monitoring costs.     

Cadmium accumulation characteristics of the winter farmland weeds Cardamine hirsuta Linn. and Gnaphalium affine D. Don

In a preliminary study, we found that the cadmium (Cd) concentrations in shoots of the winter farmland weeds Cardamine hirsuta Linn. and Gnaphalium affine D. Don exceeded the critical value of a Cd-hyperaccumulator (100 mg kg^?1), indicating that these two farmland weeds might be Cd-hyperaccumulators. In this study, we grew these species in soil containing various concentrations of Cd to further evaluate their Cd accumulation characteristics. The biomasses of C. hirsuta and G. affine decreased with increasing Cd concentrations in the soil, while the root/shoot ratio and the Cd concentrations in shoot tissues increased. The Cd concentrations in shoots of C. hirsuta and G. affine reached 121.96 and 143.91 mg kg^?1, respectively, at the soil Cd concentration of 50 mg kg^?1. Both of these concentrations exceeded the critical value of a Cd-hyperaccumulator (100 mg kg^?1). The shoot bioconcentration factors of C. hirsuta and G. affine were greater than 1. The translocation factor of C. hirsuta was less than 1 and that of G. affine was greater than 1. These findings indicated that C. hirsuta is a Cd-accumulator and G. affine is Cd-hyperaccumulator. Both plants are distributed widely in the field, and they could be used to remediate Cd-contaminated farmland soil in winter.     

A 100-year sedimentary record of natural and anthropogenic impacts on a shallow eutrophic lake, Lake Chaohu, China

In this study, the sediment profiles of total organic carbon, total nitrogen, C/N ratios, total phosphorus, N/P ratios, C/P ratios, particle sizes, and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes (δ(13)C and δ(15)N) were used to investigate natural and anthropogenic impacts on Lake Chaohu over the past 100 years. Before 1960, Lake Chaohu experienced low productivity and a relatively steady and low nutrient input. The increasing concentration and fluxes of total organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, together with changes in the δ(13)C and δ(15)N of organic material in the sediment cores, suggested that the anthropogenic effects on trophic status first started because of an increase in nutrient input caused by a population increase in the drainage area. With the construction of the Chaohu Dam, an increase in the utilization of fertilizer and the population growth which occurred since 1960, stable depositional conditions and increasing nutrient input resulted in a dominantly algae-derived organic matter source and high productivity. Nutrient input increased most significantly around 1980 following the rapidly growing population, with concomitant urbanization, industrial and agricultural development. This study also revealed that the concentration and distribution of nutrients varied between different areas of sediment within Lake Chaohu because of the influence of different drainage basins and pollution sources.