Publishing science without results and recycling research

Most scientists focus too much on publishing original articles. In doing so, scientists are restricting their writing skills to this form of highly specialised publication, which is poorly readable by scientists from other disciplines. In the context of rising interdisciplinary research and data abundance, there is a need for more publications that recycle existing research and communicate to a wider audience. Therefore, I present here five types of publications that do not require additional experiments, namely reviews, methods, data papers, meta-analyses and videos. Benefits include more citations, larger visibility, wider dissemination, easier job finding, grant success and better recycling of research.     

River therapy

Environmental Chemistry Letters -     

Worldwide cases of water pollution by emerging contaminants: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Water contamination by emerging contaminants is increasing in the context of rising urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture production. Emerging...     

Electronic waste pollution and the COVID-19 pandemic

Environmental Chemistry Letters -     

Non-thermal plasmas for disease control and abiotic stress management in plants

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Climate change is predicted to cause severe loss in agricultural production by increasing disease epidemics and intensifying abiotic stresses. Therefore,...     

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.     

Glutathione-functionalized melamine sponge,a mimic of a natural antidote,as a quick responsive adsorbent for efficient removal of Hg(II) from aqueous solutions

Minamata disease is caused by methylmercury, which is produced by microorganisms from inorganic mercury ions, Hg(II), in the aquatic environment. Adsorption is a feasible method to remove Hg(II) from waters, but there are some drawbacks when using conventional adsorbents, for example, tedious solid–liquid separation, slow response, and excessive residual levels of mercury. In this work, a novel spongy adsorbent has been developed for Hg(II) removal via surface functionalization of melamine formaldehyde sponge by glutathione. This material mimics a natural antidote that removes trace heavy metals in the human body. Results show that the functionalized sponge displays a 99.99% removal efficiency for low concentrations of Hg(II) of 10 mg/L. As a consequence, the residual Hg concentration is lower than 0.005 mg/L, which is slightly below the standard for total mercury in drinking water, of 0.006 mg/L, formulated by the World Health Organization, and much lower that the discharge regulation standard, of 0.01 mg/L, set by the ministry of environmental protection of China. Adsorption kinetic studies indicate that the functionalized sponge has a fast response. Indeed, the adsorption equilibrium can be reached within 10 min, and about 80% of total adsorption capacities are reached in 1 min. Moreover, the maximum adsorption capacity of the glutathione-functionalized sponge is as high as 240.02 mg/g, as shown by adsorption isotherm. Overall our findings disclose the great potential of the developed sponge adsorbent for rapid and efficient removal of Hg(II) from water.     

A 25-year record of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soils amended with sewage sludges

We studied polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in crop soils amended with 1000 tonnes dry weight of sewage sludges per 10,000 m² from 1974 to 1992, then after sludges addition from 1993 to 1999. The absence of variations of total PAHs levels of control soils, averaging at 123 μg/Kg, shows the absence of horizontal contamination. During sludges addition, the total PAHs levels in amended soils increased from 232 to 402 μg/Kg. Seven years after sludges addition, it decreased to 275 μg/Kg, which is still more than twice –the levels of control soils. This finding shows that sludges PAHs are preserved in crop soils for long periods of time, on a human scale.     

Fossil Fuel Biomarkers in Sewage Sludges: Environmental Significance

 Fossil fuel biomarkers, or "molecular fossils," are specific organic substances found in coals, petroleums, and sedimentary rocks. They are formed during millions of years of sedimentary burial by geochemical alteration of biological molecules, such as cholesterol, under the effect of biodegradation, temperature, pressure, and mineral catalysis, to produce geochemically mature molecules, for example, aromatic steroids (Fig. 1). Since fossil fuel biomarkers have a very specific molecular structure betraying fossil fuel sources, such markers should be useful in assessing the fossil fuel contamination of various modern media such as soils, plants, waters, and modern sediments. Here the identification of fossil fuel biomarkers of high geothermal maturity in sewage sludges provides evidence of the contamination of sludges by petroleum products. The most likely sources of contamination are contaminated vegetal food, road dust, and soil particles carried by rain water. Received: 18 January 1999 / Accepted in revised form: 19 May 1999