Observed effects of metal mixtures on animals and plants often differ from the estimates, which are commonly calculated by adding up the biological responses of individual metals. This difference from additivity is commonly referred to as being a consequence of specific interactions between metals. The science of how to quantify metal interactions and whether to include them in risk assessment models is in its infancy. This review summarizes the existing predictive tools for evaluating the combined toxicity of metals present in mixtures and indicates the advantages and disadvantages of each method. We intend to provide eco-toxicologists with background information on how to make good use of the tools and how to advance the methods for assessing toxicity of metal mixtures. It is concluded that statistically significant deviations from additivity are not necessarily biologically relevant. Incorporation of interactions between metals in a model does not on forehand mean that the model is more accurate than a model developed based on additivity only. It is recommended to first use a relatively simple method for effect prediction of uninvestigated metal mixtures. To improve the reliability of toxicity modeling for metal mixtures, further efforts should focus on balancing the relationship between the significance of statistics and the biological meaning, and unraveling the toxicity mechanisms of metals and their mixtures.
This paper studied the biofilm properties and corrosion behavior of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) on stainless steel 316L (SS316L) surface in circulating cooling water system with and without additives including hydroxy ethyl fork phosphonic acid (HEDP), dodecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chlotide (1227) and NaClO. Biochemical technique, electrochemical technology, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used. The results show that the extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) in biofilm attached on the SS316L surface mainly contain proteins and polysaccharides, the contents are 98 ug·cm-2 and 635ug·cm-2, respectively. The polysaccharides were cut by 1227 about 80%, while 55% by NaClO. The proteins were reduced by NaClO about 53%, while only 30% by 1227. The potentiodynamic polarization shows that the corrosion potential of SS316L was enhanced from -0.495 V to -0.390 V by the chemical additives, delaying the occurrence of the corrosion. And the corrosion rate was also reduced from 5.19 × 10-3 mm·a-1 to 2.42 × 10-3 mm·a-1. But NaClO still caused pitting corrosion after sterilizing the bacteria, while 1227 can form a protective film on the surface of SS316L. Though HEDP contribute to the bacteria activity, it can enhance the breakdown potential. XPS results confirmed that 1227 can change the value of C:O in the biofilm attached on metal surface, and NaClO can eliminate the existence of amidogen. This study would provide some recommendations for the selection of chemical additives in the thermal power plant.
A biofilm membrane bioreactor (BF-MBR) and a conventional membrane bioreactor (MBR) were parallelly operated for treating digested piggery wastewater. The removal performance of COD, TN, NH4+-N, TP as well as antibiotics were simultaneously studied when the hydraulic retention time (HRT) was gradually shortened from 9 d to 1 d and when the ratio of influent COD to TN was changed. The results showed that the effluent quality in both reactors was poor and unstable at an influent COD/TN ratio of 1.0±0.2. The effluent quality was significantly improved as the influent COD/TN ratio was increased to 2.3±0.5. The averaged removal rates of COD, NH4+-N, TN and TP were 92.1%, 97.1%, 35.6% and 54.2%, respectively, in the BF-MBR, significantly higher than the corresponding values of 91.7%, 90.9%, 17.4% and 31.9% in the MBR. Analysis of 11 typical veterinary antibiotics (from the tetracycline, sulfonamide, quinolone, and macrolide families) revealed that the BF-MBR removed more antibiotics than the MBR. Although the antibiotics removal decreased with a shortened HRT, high antibiotics removals of 86.8%, 80.2% and 45.3% were observed in the BF-MBR at HRTof 5–4 d, 3–2 d and 1 d, respectively, while the corresponding values were only 83.8%, 57.0% and 25.5% in the MBR. Moreover, the BF-MBR showed a 15% higher retention rate of antibiotics and consumed 40% less alkalinity than the MBR. Results above suggest that the BF-MBR was more suitable for digested piggery wastewater treatment.
Characterization of the molecular properties of soluble microbial products (SMP) is critical for understanding the membrane filtration and fouling mechanisms in anaerobic and aerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR & MBR). In this study, the distributions of the absolute molecular weight and intrinsic viscosity of SMP polysaccharides from an AnMBR were effectively determined by a high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) that was coupled with the refractive index (RI), diode array UV (DAUV), right and low angle light scattering (LS), and viscometer (Vis) detectors. Based on the tetra-detector HPSEC determined absolute molecular weights and intrinsic viscosity, a universal calibration relationship for the SMP polysaccharides was developed and the molecular conformations, average molecular weights, and hydrodynamic sizes of the SMP polysaccharides were also explored. Two factors which can be derived from the tetra-detector HPSEC analysis were proposed for the characterization of the viscous and osmotic pressure properties of the SMP polysaccharides. In addition, it was also extrapolated how to analyze the resistance characteristics of the concentration polarization layers formed in membrane filtration based on the molecular properties determined by the tetra-detector HPSEC analysis.
When microalgae are simultaneously applied for wastewater treatment and lipid production, soluble algal products (SAP) should be paid much attention, as they are important precursors for formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs), which have potential risks for human health. Chlorella sp. HQ is an oleaginous microalga that can generate SAP during growth, especially in the exponential phase. This study investigated the contribution of SAP from Chlorella sp. HQ to DBP formation after chlorination. The predominant DBP precursors from SAP were identified with the 3D excitation-emission matrix fluorescence. After chlorination, a significant reduction was observed in the fluorescence intensity of five specific fluorescence regions, particularly aromatic proteins and soluble microbial by-product-like regions, accompanied with slight shifting of the peak. The produced DBPs were demonstrated to include trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. As the algal cultivation time was extended in wastewater, the accumulated SAP strengthened the formation of DBPs. The trend for DBP formation was as follows: chloroform>dichloroacetic acid>trichloroacetic acid.
Eutrophication with a large number of Microcystis aeruginosa commonly occurs worldwide, thereby threatening the aquatic ecosystem and human health. In this study, four kinds of algicides were tested to explore their influence on cell density and chlorophyll-a of M. aeruginosa. Results showed that aluminum silicate agent, which inhibited more than 90% cell growth compared with the control group, demonstrated the strongest inhibition effect immediately on M. aeruginosa growth. Furthermore, the production and release of microcystin (MC)-LR were investigated. Aluminum silicate, CuSO4, and Emma-11 were more effective than pyrogallic acid in disrupting the cells of M. aeruginosa, thereby increasing the extracellular MC-LR concentration. Aluminum silicate caused the highest extracellular MC-LR concentration of more than 45 mg·L–1. Biotoxicity was also detected to evaluate the environmental risks of MC-LR release, which were related to the usages of different algicides. Extracellular MC-LR concentration mostly increased when the biotoxicity of algae solution increased. The experiments were also designed to reveal the effects of physical conditions in riverways, such as natural sunlight, aeration and benthal sludge, on MC-LR degradation. These findings indicated that UV rays in sunlight, which can achieve a MC-LR removal efficiency of more than 15%, played an important role in MC-LR degradation. Among all the physical pathways of MC-LR removal, benthal sludge adsorption presented the optimal efficiency at 20%.
This first nationwide survey was conducted to evaluate the overall performance of the circulating fluidized bed (CFB) incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2014-2015 in China. Total 23 CFB incineration power plants were evaluated. The data for monthly average flue gas emission of particles, CO, NOx, SO2 and HCl were collected over 12 consecutive months. The data were analyzed to assess the overall performance of CFB incineration by applying the Mahalanobis distance as a multivariate outlier detection method. Although the flue gas emission parameters had met the Chinese national emission standards, there were 11 total outliers (abnormal behavior) detected in 6 out of 23 CFB incineration power plants from the perspective of the MSWincineration performance. The results demonstrate that it is more important for a better performance of CFBs to reduce the frequencies of the MSW load changes, rather than the magnitudes of the MSW load changes, particularly reducing the frequencies in the range of 10% and more of the load changes, under the same and stable conditions. Furthermore, the overloading occurs more often than the underloading during the operation of the CFB incineration power plants in China. The frequent overloading is 0% to 30% of the designed capacity. To achieve the stable performance of CFBs in practice, an appropriately designed MSW storage capacity is suggested to build in a plant to buffer and reduce the frequency of the load changes.
Leaching behavior and gastrointestinal bioaccessibility of rare earth elements (REEs) from hospital waste incineration (HWI) fly and bottom ash samples collected from Beijing and Nanjing Cities were assessed. In the same ash sample, the leaching concentrations of individual REEs determined by the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) were higher than those detected by the European standard protocol (EN-type test), thereby suggesting that the low pH value of leaching solution was an important factor influencing the leachability of REE. The REE bioaccessibility results, which were evaluated using the physiologically based extraction test (PBET), indicated that REEs were highly absorbed during gastric phase by dissolution; and subsequently precipitated and/or re-adsorbed in small intestinal phase. The relative amounts of the total REEs extracted by the TCLP method, EN-type test and PBET test were compared. In addition to the pH value of extraction solutions, the chelating role of REEs with organic ligands used in the PBET method was also an important parameter affecting REE adsorption in human body. Additionally, this study showed that REEs were extracted by these methods as concomitants of heavy metals and anions (NO3–, F–, SO42–, and Cl–) from HWI ash, which probably caused the remarkably complex toxicity on human body by the exposure pathway.
It is common that 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) coexists with nitrate or nitrite in industrial wastewaters. In this work, simultaneous reductive dechlorination of TCP and denitrification of nitrate or nitrite competed for electron donor, which led to their mutual inhibition. All inhibitions could be relieved to a certain degree by augmenting an organic electron donor, but the impact of the added electron donor was strongest for TCP. For simultaneous reduction of TCP together with nitrate, TCP’s removal rate value increased 75% and 150%, respectively, when added glucose was increased from 0.4 mmol?L–1 to 0.5 mmol?L–1 and to 0.76 mmol?L–1. For comparison, the removal rate for nitrate increased by only 25% and 114% for the same added glucose. The relationship between their initial biodegradation rates versus their initial concentrations could be represented well with the Monod model, which quantified their half-maximum-rate concentration (KS value), and KS values for TCP, nitrate, and nitrite were larger with simultaneous reduction than independent reduction. The increases in KS are further evidence that competition for the electron donor led to mutual inhibition. For bioremediation of wastewater containing TCP and oxidized nitrogen, both reduction reactions should proceed more rapidly if the oxidized nitrogen is nitrite instead of nitrate and if readily biodegradable electron acceptor is augmented.
Urban mining is essential for continued natural resource extraction. The recovery of rare and precious metals (RPMs) from urban mines has attracted increasing attention from both academic and industrial sectors, because of the broad application and high price of RPMs, and their low content in natural ores. This study summarizes the distribution characteristics of various RPMs in urban mines, and the advantages and shortcomings of various technologies for RPM recovery from urban mines, including both conventional (pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical, and biometallurgical processing), and emerging (electrochemical, supercritical fluid, mechanochemical, and ionic liquids processing) technologies. Mechanical/physical technologies are commonly employed to separate RPMs from nonmetallic components in a pre-treatment process. A pyrometallurgical process is often used for RPM recovery, although the expensive equipment required has limited its use in small and medium-sized enterprises. Hydrometallurgical processing is effective and easy to operate, with high selectivity of target metals and high recovery efficiency of RPMs, compared to pyrometallurgy. Biometallurgy, though, has shown the most promise for leaching RPMs from urban mines, because of its low cost and environmental friendliness. Newly developed technologies—electrochemical, supercritical fluid, ionic liquid, and mechanochemical—have offered new choices and achieved some success in laboratory experiments, especially as efficient and environmentally friendly methods of recycling RPMs. With continuing advances in science and technology, more technologies will no doubt be developed in this field, and be able to contribute to the sustainability of RPM mining.
