Social chemistry

This article is both an essay to propose social chemistry as a new scientific discipline and a preface of the books Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World. Environmental chemistry is a fast emerging discipline aiming at the understanding the fate of pollutants in ecosystems and at designing novel processes that are safe for ecosystems. Past pollution should be cleaned, and future pollution should be predicted and avoided (Lichtfouse et al. 2005a). Such advices are still not applied by humans as demonstrated by the Fukushima nuclear event and global warming. Human errors are repeatable. We therefore suggest a possible solution, which involves bridging chemistry and society by integrating social sciences in chemical research. In particular, citizen discourse analysis should be useful to design chemicals that are both innovative and accepted by society. Then, we present the recent success of environmental chemistry through the foundation of the Association of Chemistry and the Environment; the increase in the impact factor of Environmental Chemistry Letters from 0.814 in 2006 to 2.109 in 2009; and over 35,000 chapter downloads of the book Environmental Chemistry. Lastly, we highlight major topics of the new book series Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World (Lichtfouse et al. 2011a, b). The two first volumes are entitled Nanotechnology and Health Risk, and Remediation of Air and Water Pollution.     

China’s sponge cities alleviate urban flooding and water shortage: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - About one tenth of humans are impacted by water shortages around the globe. Water resilience is worsening under climate change because intensifying weather...     

A reaction-transport model for calcite precipitation and evaluation of infiltration fluxes in unsaturated fractured rock

The percolation flux in the unsaturated zone (UZ) is an important parameter addressed in site characterization and flow and transport modeling of the potential nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV, USA. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has documented hydrogenic calcite abundances in fractures and lithophysal cavities at Yucca Mountain to provide constraints on percolation fluxes in the UZ. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between percolation flux and measured calcite abundances using reactive transport modeling. Our model considers the following essential factors affecting calcite precipitation: (1) infiltration, (2) the ambient geothermal gradient, (3) gaseous CO(2) diffusive transport and partitioning in liquid and gas phases, (4) fracture-matrix interaction for water flow and chemical constituents, and (5) water-rock interaction. Over a bounding range of 2-20 mm/year infiltration rate, the simulated calcite distributions capture the trend in calcite abundances measured in a deep borehole (WT-24) by the USGS. The calcite is found predominantly in fractures in the welded tuffs, which is also captured by the model simulations. Simulations showed that from about 2 to 6 mm/year, the amount of calcite precipitated in the welded Topopah Spring tuff is sensitive to the infiltration rate. This dependence decreases at higher infiltration rates owing to a modification of the geothermal gradient from the increased percolation flux. The model also confirms the conceptual model for higher percolation fluxes in the fractures compared to the matrix in the welded units, and the significant contribution of Ca from water-rock interaction. This study indicates that reactive transport modeling of calcite deposition can yield important constraints on the unsaturated zone infiltration-percolation flux and provide useful insight into processes such as fracture-matrix interaction as well as conditions and parameters controlling calcite deposition.     

Source identification of atlanta aerosol by positive matrix factorization

Data characterizing daily integrated particulate matter (PM) samples collected at the Jefferson Street monitoring site in Atlanta, GA, were analyzed through the application of a bilinear positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. A total of 662 samples and 26 variables were used for fine particle (particles < or = 2.5 microm in aerodynamic diameter) samples (PM2.5), and 685 samples and 15 variables were used for coarse particle (particles between 2.5 and 10 microm in aerodynamic diameter) samples (PM10-2.5). Measured PM mass concentrations and compositional data were used as independent variables. To obtain the quantitative contributions for each source, the factors were normalized using PMF-apportioned mass concentrations. For fine particle data, eight sources were identified: SO4(2-) -rich secondary aerosol (56%), motor vehicle (22%), wood smoke (11%), NO(3-) -rich secondary aerosol (7%), mixed source of cement kiln and organic carbon (OC) (2%), airborne soil (1%), metal recycling facility (0.5%), and mixed source of bus station and metal processing (0.3%). The SO4(2-) -rich and NO(3-) -rich secondary aerosols were associated with NH(4+). The SO4(2-) -rich secondary aerosols also included OC. For the coarse particle data, five sources contributed to the observed mass: airborne soil (60%), NO(3-)-rich secondary aerosol (16%), SO4(2-) -rich secondary aerosol (12%), cement kiln (11%), and metal recycling facility (1%). Conditional probability functions were computed using surface wind data and identified mass contributions from each source. The results of this analysis agreed well with the locations of known local point sources.     

Melamine-based organoclay to sequester atrazine

Sequestration of aqueous atrazine by organoclays prepared from the surfactant 6-piperazin-1-yl-N,N'-bis-(1,1,3,3-tetramethyl-butyl)-(1,3,5)triazine-2,4-diamine and Gonzales bentonite was assessed using 14C-labeled atrazine. Organoclays with varying ratios of surfactant to clay were evaluated with respect to their ability to sequester atrazine from an aqueous solution. Organoclays containing 100-200 g kg-1 surfactant on a total weight basis provided the most efficient adsorption of atrazine, with apparent KOC values exceeding 5000 l kg-1 at these loading fractions. Less than 12% of sequestered atrazine was released during four sequential day long washings, supporting our expectation that the majority of the reaction of atrazine with the surfactant lead to irreversible chemical bond formation through nucleophilic aromatic substitution.     

The Southeastern Aerosol Research and Characterization Study: part 1--Overview

This paper presents an overview of a major, long-term program for tropospheric gas and aerosol research in the southeastern United States. Building on three existing ozone (O3)-focused research sites begun in mid-1992, the Southeastern Aerosol Research and Characterization Study (SEARCH) was initiated in mid-1998 as a 7-year observation and research program with a broader focus including aerosols and an expanded geographical coverage in the Southeast. The monitoring network comprises four urban-rural (or urban-suburban) site pairs at locations along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and inland, including two moderately sized and two major urban areas (Pensacola, FL; Gulfport, MS; Atlanta, GA; and Birmingham, AL). The sites are equipped with an extensive suite of instruments for measuring particulate matter (PM), gases relevant to secondary O3 and the production of secondary aerosol particles, and surface meteorology. The measurements taken to date have added substantially to the knowledge about the temporal behavior and geographic variability of tropospheric aerosols in the Southeast. Details are presented in four papers to follow.     

Phytoremediation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, anilines and phenols

Phytoremediation technologies based on the combined action of plants and the microbial communities that they support within the rhizosphere hold promise in the remediation of land and waterways contaminated with hydrocarbons but they have not yet been adopted in large-scale remediation strategies. In this review plant and microbial degradative capacities, viewed as a continuum, have been dissected in order to identify where bottle-necks and limitations exist. Phenols, anilines and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were selected as the target classes of molecule for consideration, in part because of their common patterns of distribution, but also because of the urgent need to develop techniques to overcome their toxicity to human health. Depending on the chemical and physical properties of the pollutant, the emerging picture suggests that plants will draw pollutants including PAHs into the plant rhizosphere to varying extents via the transpiration stream. Mycorrhizosphere-bacteria and -fungi may play a crucial role in establishing plants in degraded ecosystems. Within the rhizosphere, microbial degradative activities prevail in order to extract energy and carbon skeletons from the pollutants for microbial cell growth. There has been little systematic analysis of the changing dynamics of pollutant degradation within the rhizosphere; however, the importance of plants in supplying oxygen and nutrients to the rhizosphere via fine roots, and of the beneficial effect of microorganisms on plant root growth is stressed. In addition to their role in supporting rhizospheric degradative activities, plants may possess a limited capacity to transport some of the more mobile pollutants into roots and shoots via fine roots. In those situations where uptake does occur (i.e. only limited microbial activity in the rhizosphere) there is good evidence that the pollutant may be metabolised. However, plant uptake is frequently associated with the inhibition of plant growth and an increasing tendency to oxidant stress. Pollutant tolerance seems to correlate with the ability to deposit large quantities of pollutant metabolites in the 'bound' residue fraction of plant cell walls compared to the vacuole. In this regard, particular attention is paid to the activities of peroxidases, laccases, cytochromes P450, glucosyltransferases and ABC transporters. However, despite the seemingly large diversity of these proteins, direct proof of their participation in the metabolism of industrial aromatic pollutants is surprisingly scarce and little is known about their control in the overall metabolic scheme. Little is known about the bioavailability of bound metabolites; however, there may be a need to prevent their movement into wildlife food chains. In this regard, the application to harvested plants of composting techniques based on the degradative capacity of white-rot fungi merits attention.     

Kinetics of phenol and chlorophenol utilization by Acinetobacter species

Although microbial transformations via cometabolism have been widely observed, the few available kinetic models of cometabolism have not adequately addressed the case of inhibition from both the growth and nongrowth substrates. The present study investigated the degradation kinetics of self-inhibitory growth (phenol) and nongrowth (4-chlorophenol, 4-CP) substrates, present individually and in combination. Specifically, batch experiments were performed using an Acinetobacter isolate growing on phenol alone and with 4-CP present. In addition, batch experiments were also performed to evaluate the transformation of 4-CP by resting, phenol-induced Acinetobacter cultures. The Haldane kinetic model adequately predicted the biodegradation of phenol alone, although a slight discrepancy was noted in cases of higher initial phenol concentrations. Similarly, a Haldane model for substrate utilization was also able to describe the trends in 4-CP transformation by the resting cell cultures. The 4-CP transformation by the Acinetobacter species growing on phenol was modeled using a competitive kinetic model of cometabolism, which included growth and nongrowth substrate inhibition and cross-inhibition terms. Excellent agreement was obtained between the model predictions using experimentally estimated parameter values and the experimental data for the synchronous disappearance of phenol and 4-CP.