Abundance and sources of ambient dioxins in Hong Kong: a review of dioxin measurements from 1997 to 2001

Ambient measurements of seventeen 2,3,7,8-polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin/dibenzofuran congeners (2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs) have been taken in a number of monitoring programs or ad-hoc studies in Hong Kong. The longest monitoring program started at two locations in the territory in July 1997. The other monitoring efforts are ad-hoc studies, varying from a few coordinated sampling events at multiple sites to a year-long monitoring project that targeted suspected local dioxin sources. In this paper, we examined these measurements to understand the ambient levels, temporal and spatial variation, and possible sources of the 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs in Hong Kong. The territory-wide annual average concentration of the dioxins was 0.052 pg I-TEQ/m3 measured at the regular monitoring stations in the most recent annual cycle of 2000/2001. This level fell at the lower end of the range of dioxin concentrations measured at other urban locations around the world. The dioxin levels showed a clear seasonality in that elevated concentrations were observed in the winter and lower concentrations in the summer at all monitoring sites with one year or more regular measurements. The measurements indicated that the few known local dioxin sources, including a major chemical waste incinerator facility, landfill sites, and vehicular traffic, are not important contributors to ambient dioxins in Hong Kong. On days of high dioxin concentrations, the 2,3,7,8-PCDD/F congeners were observed to have almost identical compositions with a north-northwest to south-southeast spatial gradient in concentrations at different sampling locations in Hong Kong. This observation, along with other collaborative evidence, established a strong link between high dioxin concentration days in Hong Kong and regional transport of the polluted air masses from the north.     

粤港细粒子(PM2.5)污染导致能见度下降与灰霾天气形成的研究

为了研究珠三角地区细粒子气溶胶的环境效应,使用粤港地区长期气象资料和珠三角大气成分站网高分辨率资料,结合卫星遥感AOD结果,分析了珠三角地区由于细粒子(PM2.5)污染导致能见度下降与形成灰霾天气的长期变化趋势.结果表明,近年来珠江三角洲地区的气溶胶污染日趋严重,气溶胶云一年四季都可以出现,且长期稳定存在,重污染区位于珠江口以西的珠江三角洲西侧.灰霾天气主要出现在10月至次年4月.灰霾导致能见度恶化.自20世纪80年代初开始,该地区的能见度急剧恶化,灰霾天气显著增加,其中有3次大的波动,分别代表珠江三角洲经济发展相伴随的粗颗粒气溶胶污染、硫酸盐+粗颗粒气溶胶污染、光化学过程的细粒子+硫酸盐和粗颗粒气溶胶的复合污染时期.雾和轻雾造成的低能见度的长期变化趋势,没有由于人类活动影响或经济发展影响带来趋势性变化,其波动主要反映了气候波动固有的年际和年代际变化.珠江三角洲能见度的恶化主要与细粒子关系比较大,PM10有一半年份的年均值超过国家二级标准的年均值限值(70μg·m-3),而PM2.5年均值全部年份都超过国家二级标准的年均值限值(35μg·m-3),尤其是有些年份的年均值浓度超过标准限值的2倍,细粒子浓度甚高.另外,近年PM2.5占PM10的比重非常高,可达51%～79%,黑碳气溶胶浓度非常高,月均值达到5.0～9.1μg·m-3.和20余年前的资料相比较,细粒子在气溶胶中的比重有明显增加.因而在目前粤港地区的气溶胶污染中,主要是细粒子的污染,尤其是黑碳气溶胶污染严重.     

Larval settlement in the serpulid polychaete Hydroides elegans in response to bacterial films: an investigation of the nature of putative larval settlement cue

Larval settlement in the marine polychaete Hydroides elegans (Haswell) is induced by certain bacteria in marine biofilms. The exact nature of the settlement cue that larvae of H. elegans receive from these bacteria remains unknown. In this study, we revealed some properties of the bacterially derived larval settlement cue by investigating the larval settlement inductive activity of two bacterial strains after various treatments. These two bacterial strains, Roseobacter sp. and an α-subclass Proteobacteria, are highly inductive to larval settlement of H. elegans. The larvae responded similarly to Roseobacter and Proteobacteria in all the larval settlement bioassays, suggesting that the larval settlement-inducing substances produced by these bacteria may share common characteristics. First of all, the larvae did not settle in the seawater conditioned by the bacteria attached as a film or by the bacteria that were freely suspended in seawater. The results suggest that the putative larval settlement cue is not released into seawater and, therefore, should be associated with the surface of the bacteria. Secondly, formaldehyde treatment entirely eliminated the larval settlement induction activity of the bacterial films, and streptomycin treatment reduced the percentage of larval settlement on the bacterial films in a concentration-dependent manner. Since both treatments can kill bacteria with little damage to the surface chemistry of bacterial cells, the decline in larval settlement is suggested be due to a reduction of the viable bacterial population in the bacterial films. In fact, the reduction of larval settlement in the streptomycin treatments coincided with the decrease in viable bacterial populations in broth cultures containing respective concentrations of streptomycin. These results suggest that the viability of Roseobacter and Proteobacteria is important to their settlement induction effect. Since the larval settlement induction activity of the bacterial strains appears to correlate with their viability, we suggest that the putative larval settlement cue is derived from a metabolic pathway in the bacteria and that the cue is exported to and concentrated at the extracellular polymer matrix of the bacterial cell, at which the larvae establish contact with the bacteria. The larval settlement cue may be highly susceptible to degradation so that a metabolically active bacterial film is needed to maintain the putative cue at a concentration that surpasses the threshold for induction of larval settlement. Received: 14 October 1998 / Accepted: 5 September 2000     

Hydrous ferric oxide nanoparticles hosted porous polyethersulfone adsorptive membrane: chromium (VI) adsorptive studies and its applicability for water/wastewater treatment

In this present study, adsorptive membranes for Cr(VI) ion removal were prepared by blending polyethersulfone (PES) with hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) nanoparticles (NPs). The effects of HFO NPs to PES weight ratio (0–1.5) on the physicochemical properties of the resultant HFO/PES adsorptive membranes were investigated with respect to the surface chemistry and roughness as well as structural morphologies using different analytical instruments. The adsorptive performance of the HFO NPs/PES membranes was studied via batch adsorption experiments under various conditions by varying solution pH, initial concentration of Cr(VI), and contact time. The results showed that the membrane made of HFO/PES at a weight ratio of 1.0 exhibited the highest adsorption capacity which is 13.5 mg/g. Isotherm and kinetic studies revealed that the mechanism is best fitted to the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order model. For filtration of Cr(VI), the best promising membranes showed improved water flux (629.3 L/m² h) with Cr(VI) ion removal of 75%. More importantly, the newly developed membrane maintained the Cr(VI) concentration below the maximum contamination level (MCL) for up to 9 h.

     

ICP-MS法测定电子电器材料中的有害元素铅、镉、砷、铬

建立了电感耦合等离子体质谱测定不同基体的电子电器材料中铅、镉、铬、砷四种有害元素的方法.对仪器的参数、测试稳定性等作了系统研究,优化了对不同基体样品中铅、镉、铬、砷元素分析的前处理条件,探讨了各种材料中基体元素与其它共存元素对待测元素的影响.方法检出限为0.0024-0.46μg·g-1,对标准物质的测定值与参考值相符,相对准偏差为0.6%-5.8%.