This paper is concerned with health effects from the inhalation of particulate matter (PM) emitted from the combustion of coal, and from the co-combustion of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and pulverized coal mixtures, under both normal and low NOx conditions. Specific issues focus on whether the addition of RDF to coal has an effect on PM toxicity, and whether the application of staged combustion (for low NOx) may also be a factor in this regard.
Ash particles were sampled and collected from a pilot scale combustion unit and then re-suspended and diluted to concentrations of 1000 μg/m3. These particles were inhaled by mice, which were held in a nose-only exposure configuration. Exposure tests were for 1 h per day, and involved three sets (eight mice per set) of mice. These three sets were exposed over 8, 16, and 24 consecutive days, respectively. Pathological lung damage was measured in terms of increases in lung permeability.
Results show that the re-suspended coal/RDF ash appeared to cause very different effects on lung permeability than did coal ash alone. In addition, it was also shown that a “snapshot” of lung properties after a fixed number of daily 1-h exposures, can be misleading, since apparent repair mechanisms cause lung properties to change over a period of time. For the coal/RDF, the greatest lung damage (in terms of lung permeability increase) occurred at the short exposure period of 8 days, and thereafter appeared to be gradually repaired. Ash from staged (low NOx) combustion of coal/RDF appeared to cause greater lung injury than that from unstaged (high NOx) coal/RDF combustion, although the temporal behavior and (apparent) repair processes in each case were similar. In contrast to this, coal ash alone showed a slight decrease of lung permeability after 1 and 3 days, and this disappeared after 12 days. These observations are interpreted in the light of mechanisms proposed in the literature. The results all suggest that the composition of particles actually inhaled is important in determining lung injury. Particle size segregated leachability measurements showed that water soluble sulfur, zinc, and vanadium, but not iron, were present in the coal/RDF ash particles, which caused lung permeabilities to increase. However, the differences in health effects between unstaged and staged coal/RDF combustion could not be attributed to variations in pH values of the leachate. 相似文献
BACKGROUND: Models for predicting uptake and transport of chemicals in plants are applied in pesticide design, risk assessment, and environmental biotechnology. OBJECTIVE: This review considers the theoretical basics of the most popular models, and discusses what they have in common. The line is drawn between models for neutral compounds, and models for weak and strong electrolytes. MAIN FEATURES: Neutral Compounds. Neutral compounds undergo only very few processes inside plants (lipophilic interactions, metabolism), in contrast to weak electrolytes. The models developed for neutral compounds are widely applied in the risk assessment of environmental contaminants, but are not of much use for weak electrolytes, such as pesticides. Weak electrolytes. A very important process for weak electrolytes is the 'ion trap', which traps chemicals that dissociate inside plant cells. This is considered in the popular models of Kleier, Satchivi and Briggs. Other relevant processes for electrolytes are electrophilic interactions, speciation and complex formation. None of the currently used models considers these processes. CONCLUSIONS: The accuracy of models for neutral compounds is satisfactory, but the prediction of electrolyte behavior inside plants is still quite difficult due to gaps in knowledge. 相似文献
