Photocatalysis: Preface

<正>A recent search of the keyword"Photocatalysis"in the CAS Sci Finder?database shows that at least 5,000 articles on this topic have been published each year from 2014 to2016.It is expected that even more articles on this topic will be published in the foreseeable future.These data indicate the importance of"Photocatalysis"in the field.The first     

Characteristics of road dust from different sampling sites in northern Taiwan

Road dust contributes a large percentage of the atmosphere's suspended particles in Taiwan. Three road dust samples were collected from downtown, electrical park, and freeway tunnel areas. A mechanical sieve separated the road dust in the initial stage. Particles > 100 microm were 75%, 70%, and 60% (wt/wt), respectively, of the samples. Those particles < 37 microm were resuspended in another mixing chamber and then collected by a Moudi particle sampler. The largest mass fraction of resuspended road dust was in the range of 1-10 microm. Ultrafine particles (< 1 microm) composed 33.7, 17, and 7.4% of the particle samples (downtown, electrical park, and freeway tunnel, respectively). The road dust compositions were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-atomic emissions spectroscopy and ICP-mass spectrometry. The highest concentration fraction contained more aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca), and potassium than other elements in the road dust particle samples. Additionally, the sulfur (S) content in the road dust from the electrical park and freeway tunnel areas was 2.1 and 3.4 times the downtown area sample, respectively. The sulfur originated from the vehicle and boiler oil combustion and industrial manufacturing processes. Furthermore, zinc (Zn) concentration in the tunnel dust was 2.6 times that of the downtown and electrical park samples, which can be attributed to vehicle tire wear and tear. Resuspended road dusts (< 10 microm) from the downtown and freeway tunnel areas were principally 2.5-10 microm Al, barium (Ba), Ca, copper (Cu), Fe, magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), antimony (Sb), and Zn, whereas arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), and nickel (Ni) were predominant in the ultrafine particle samples (< 1 microm). Al, Ba, and Ca are the typical soil elements in coarse particles; and As, and Cr and Ni are the typical fingerprint of oil combustion and vehicle engine abrasion in ultrafine particles. There was a special characteristic of resuspension road dust at electrical park, that is, many elements, including As, Ba, Ca, cadmium, Cr, Cu, Fe, manganese (Mn), Ni, lead (Pb), S, vanadium (V), and Zn, were major in ultrafine particles. These elements should be attributed to the special manufacturing processes of electric products.     

Using Chitosan as a Coagulant in Recovery of Organic Matters from the Mash and Lauter Wastewater of Brewery

Chitosan is a natural biopolymer which can be used to replace aluminum salts and chemical polymers as a coagulant to avoid the human health problems caused by the residual of aluminum and chemical polymers in water. Chitin is a major component in shrimp and crab shells, and chitosan can be produced from chitin via a deacetylated process. Since the biodegradation of chitin is very slow, large amount of discards from the processing of crustaceans has become a major concern in seafood industry. Therefore, more works are need to find the possible applications of chitin, chitosan and their derivatives. This research used chitosan as a coagulant to recover wheat dregs in the wastewater from washing the mash and the lauter unit in a brewery, and regards this study as an example to understand the influences of the characters of the wastewater on the treatment plant of brewery. The result shows that the␣wastewater from the mash and the lauter units can have the best treatment efficiency at the coagulant dosage of 120 mg/L in the original pH 4.5. Increasing the solution pH decreased the turbidity removal efficiency. The dominant mechanisms for chitosan to remove colloids in the␣wastewater are charge bridging and neutralization, and the later becomes less significant in␣the high pH. The coagulant of chitosan removed most of the colloidal form organic matter in the wastewater, but it has only little effect on the removal of dissolving organic matter. Chitosan is a natural material, after coagulation the sludge from the mash and lauter wastewater can serve directly as an animal husbandry fodder after been dehydrated. Therefore, the loading to wastewater treatment plant and the cost of treatment could be reduced.     

Controlled release fertilizers (CRFs) for climate-smart agriculture practices: a comprehensive review on release mechanism,materials, methods of preparation,and effect on environmental parameters

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Fertilizers play an essential role in increasing crop yield, maintaining soil fertility, and provide a steady supply of nutrients for plant...     

Photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen and caffeine using magnetite–hematite combined nanoparticles: kinetics and mechanisms

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The increased use of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) has contributed to the contamination of water systems and put pressure on the...     

Leveraging the Rao–Blackwell theorem to improve ratio estimators in adaptive cluster sampling

Rao-Blackwellization is used to improve the unbiased Hansen–Hurwitz and Horvitz–Thompson unbiased estimators in Adaptive Cluster Sampling by finding the conditional expected value of the original unbiased estimators given the sufficient or minimal sufficient statistic. In principle, the same idea can be used to find better ratio estimators, however, the calculation of taking all the possible combinations into account can be extremely tedious in practice. The simplified analytical forms of such ratio estimators are not currently available. For practical interest, several improved ratio estimators in Adaptive Cluster Sampling are proposed in this article. The proposed ratio estimators are not the real Rao-Blackwellized versions of the original ones but make use of the Rao-Blackwellized univariate estimators. How to calculate the proposed estimators is illustrated, and their performance are evaluated by both of the Bivariate Poisson clustered process and a real data. The simulation result indicates that the proposed improved ratio estimators are able to provide considerably advantageous estimation results over the original ones.     

Investigation of Mtbe and Aromatic Compound Concentrations at a Gas Service Station

Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) has been used as a fuel additive at levels of 2–11% in Taiwan for the past decade. The purpose of this additive is to enhance the octane, replace the use of lead-based anti-knock gasoline additives and reduce aromatic hydrocarbons. However, it is possible that oxygenated fuel has a potential health impact. To determine the air quality impact of MTBE, measurements were made of ambient MTBE and other gasoline constituents at a service station. Additionally, environmental conditions (wind speed, wind direction, and temperature, etc.) that could affect concentrations of emission constituents were measured. Gas samples were analyzed for target MTBE and volatile organic compounds, e.g., benzene and toluene. Ambient samples were collected using Tenax adsorbent tubes for mass spectrometric analysis at a service station located in Changhua County, Taiwan. The resulting measured ambient air concentrations were compared with Taiwans regulatory standards for hazardous air pollutants. Subsequently, the factors controlling the formation of high-VOC levels at the service station and in the residential neighborhoods were identified. Additionally, the results can provide the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Taiwan with useful information and prompt them to mandate this gas service station to install a refueling vapor recovery system.     

污染底质颗粒分析与铅、镉吸附特性的研究

通过对矿区选矿废水污染河流的底质进行采样分析,探讨了底质颗粒物粒径与质量分数的关系及其铅、镉的吸附特性。结果表明,底质中颗粒物粒径质量分数在垂直方向上无明显区别,但粒径间有显著的区别,其质量分数可分为3种类型。铅、镉吸附量随着污染底质颗粒的变小而增加,呈负相关关系。底质中铅、镉吸附贡献率具有相似的特性,两条贡献率曲线几乎是一致的,呈"双峰型",最大吸附贡献率出现在粒径为2mm~710μm和500~250μm处,粒径710~500μm处有一低谷。特别要强调的是:河流底质铅、镉污染严重,清理底质使河流免遭二次污染十分必要。     

Chromate reduction on humic acid derived from a peat soil--exploration of the activated sites on HAs for chromate removal

Humic substances are a major component of soil organic matter that influence the behavior and fate of heavy metals such as Cr(VI), a toxic and carcinogenic element. In the study, a repetitive extraction technique was used to fractionate humic acids (HAs) from a peat soil into three fractions (denoted as F1, F2, and F3), and the relative importance of O-containing aromatic and aliphatic domains in humic substances for scavenging Cr(VI) was addressed at pH 1. Spectroscopic analyses indicated that the concentrations of aromatic C and O-containing functional groups decreased with a progressive extraction as follows: F1>F2>F3. Cr(VI) removal by HA proceeded slowly, but it was enhanced when light was applied due to the production of efficient reductants, such as superoxide radical and H(2)O(2), for Cr(VI). Higher aromatic- and O-containing F1 fraction exhibited a greater efficiency for Cr(VI) reduction (with a removal rate of ca. 2.89 mmol g(-1) HA under illumination for 3 h). (13)C NMR and FTIR spectra further demonstrated that the carboxyl groups were primarily responsible for Cr(VI) reduction. This study implied the mobility and fate of Cr(VI) would be greatly inhibited in the environments containing such organic groups.