Analysis of Cleaner Production Practices in a Printing Company in Brazil

This article presents an analysis of the application of a cleaner production program within a Brazilian printing company and describes its specific characteristics to propose a benchmark for similar efforts at other companies. As a result, a very number of improvement opportunities (136) were identified, indicating that the printing industry needs to make reasonable, collective efforts to ensure that companies' environmental systems reach international marks.     

Biogeochemistry of mercury in the Amazonian environment

In this paper, the processes that affect mercury (Hg) cycling in the Amazonian environment were reviewed, criticized and new directions of research are proposed. The discussion of the origin of the mercury contamination, whether natural or anthropogenic is marked by a lack of fundamented arguments from both sides. Undoubtedly mercury inputs from gold mining have locally increased environmental concentrations, but in the whole Amazon, these loads would be insignificant, considering the high concentrations observed by some authors in remote soils. A reasonable process that should explain these elevated concentrations in soil is that B horizons function as a mercury "sponge" that have been accumulating mercury over a geological time scale, releasing it back to cycling during erosion and forest fires. The environmental degradation of the Amazonian forest due to human activities is probably enhancing the release of that mercury to the cycle. Mercury transformations in reduced, anoxic environments--sediments and waters--are also a key problem for the understanding of the environmental methylation. The studies that have been carried out in the Amazonian environment are too restricted and results permit only circumstantial conclusions. Large efforts must be directed to monitoring programs considering time and space variability.     

Effect of liquefied petroleum gas on ozone formation in Guadalajara and Mexico City

Leakages of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are suspected to contribute greatly to ozone (O3) formation in Mexico City. We tested such a hypothesis by outdoor captive-air irradiation (CAI) experiments in the two largest Mexican metropolitan areas: Guadalajara (GMA) in 1997 and Mexico City (MCMA) in 2000. O3 was monitored in each city for 20 days (8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.) in smog chambers containing unaltered morning air or morning air enriched with either commercial LPG or LPG synthetic mixture 60/40 (propane and butane). Tested additions of both components were 35% (by volume) in GMA and 60% (by volume) in MCMA. The addition effects on O3 (max) were compared with effects from diluting LPG components or total nonmethane hydrocarbons (tNMHCs) by 50%. Diluting tNMHCs had the greatest absolute effect at both cities: it lowered O3 (max) by 24% in GMA and 55% in MCMA. Adding commercial LPG increased O3 (max) by 6% in GMA and 28% in MCMA; whereas adding LPG synthetic mixture 60/40 caused a similar increase in O3 (max), 4 and 21% in GMA and MCMA, respectively. Compared with dilution of tNMHCs, dilution of LPG-associated compounds had a smaller decreasing effect on O3 (max), only 4% in GMA and 15% in MCMA. These results show that commercial LPG and LPG synthetic mixture 60/40 affect O3 formation to a lesser extent than estimated previously.     

Influence of type and amount of straw cover on weed emergence

This research was undertaken during 2003-2004 growing season to evaluate the effects of type [forage sorghum "hybrid Cober Exp" (Sorghum bicolor x Sorghum sudanense), forage millet (Pennisetum americanum "var. BN2"), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), and St Lucia grass (Brachiaria brizantha)] and amount of straw cover (5.5 and 3.0 t ha(-1)) upon the emergence of Bidens pilosa, Chamaesyce spp., Amaranthus spp., and Commelina benghalensis, under field conditions of the Brazilian Cerrado, in the region of Uberlandia--MG. The control consisted additional treatment lacking the straw cover. Emergence of weed depended on the type and amount of straw cover, as well as the weed species. The lowest number of B. pilosa seedlings was found in the presence of forage sorghum straw; Chamaesyce spp. in the lack of straw; Amaranthus spp. in the presence of higher amount of forage sorghum and forage millet, and lower amounts of forage millet and Finger Millet. All the types and amounts of straw reduced the emergency of C. benghalensis, except at the lowest level of St Lucia grass and the lack of straw.     

亚马孙河流域汞的生物地球化学研究

本文阐述和评论了影响亚马孙河流域汞循环的途径,并提出了新的研究方向.对于汞污染源的讨论,无论是天然的还是人为的,都缺乏基本的论据.毫无疑问,黄金矿山释放的汞已经局部地提高了环境中汞的浓度,但在整个亚马孙河流域,与一些学者在远离金矿的土壤中测出的高浓度数值相比,这种负荷并不显著.土壤中汞的高浓度现象有一个合理的解释,即B层(淀积层)是在地质时期蓄积了汞的"海绵体",当发生侵蚀和森林火灾时,汞又被释放回循环体系.源于人类活动导致的亚马孙河流域森林的环境退化,很可能会加速汞的释放.汞在还原性的缺氧环境--沉积物和水中--的转换也是理解汞的环境甲基化的一个关键性问题.在亚马孙河流域环境所做的这项研究非常有限,研究结果只能得出受限的结论,进一步的工作应注重结合时间和空间变化的监测计划.     

Exponential Collapse of Benthic Depurative Capacity in A Eutrophic Tropical Marine Ecosystem: A Threshold Response to Organic Nitrogen Loading

Microbial decomposition of particulate organic matter in sediments can substantially modulate eutrophication of nearshore marine environments. Flux budgets for nitrogen compounds and quantification of rates of microbial transformation can provide important information on the process of eutrophication. This survey documents sediment nitrogen budgets for a eutrophic nearshore marine environment at La Parguera on southwest coast of Puerto Rico, including consideration of the organic fraction in addition to microbial transformations.

Sediments of the inshore channel at La Parguera denote the input of heavy organic loads with low redox potentials and high ammonium contents. Benthic fluxes of dissolved organic nitrogen are below those recorded for ammonium. These observations suggest that nearshore tropical sediments subject to heavy nitrogen loads act as a sink for organic nitrogen and that ammonification is a key process in the release of nitrogen from sediments to the water column. Nitrification and denitrification rates are low overall and inversely related to the redox potential. Depuration of excess nitrogen through denitrification is ineffective in these sediments. in contrast to more robust temperate environments, our work demonstrates that tropical marine systems are particularly susceptible to eutrophication given their limited capacity for depuration of excess nitrogen.     

Toxicological aspects of trihalomethanes: a systematic review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Chlorine is considered the most used chemical agent for water disinfection worldwide. However, water chlorination can lead to by-product generation...     

A formulation to optimize the risk reduction process based on LOPA

This paper presents a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model to improve the computational use of the layer of protection analysis (LOPA). For a given set of independent protection layers to be implemented in a process, the proposed optimization model is solved to: a) Include costs associated with the different prevention, protection and mitigation devices, and b) Satisfy the risk level typically specified in the LOPA analysis through the occurrence probability. The underline purpose focuses on improving the analysis process and decision making to obtain the optimal solution in the safeguards selection that satisfies the requirements to be considered as IPL’s. The optimization is based on economic and risk tolerance criteria. As a first stage of this proposal, the safety instrumented system (SIS) design is optimized so that the selection of SIS components minimizes the risk and satisfies the safety integrity level (SIL) requirements. A case study is presented to validate the whole proposed approach.