Pub Date : 2023-02-22DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00053
Sushil R. Kanel*, Tonoy K. Das, Rajender S. Varma, Sudarshan Kurwadkar, Sudip Chakraborty, Tista Prasai Joshi, Achintya N. Bezbaruah and Mallikarjuna N. Nadagouda*,
Arsenic (As) is abundant in the environment and can be found in both organic (e.g., methylated) and inorganic (e.g., arsenate and arsenite) forms. The source of As in the environment is attributed to both natural reactions and anthropogenic activities. As can also be released naturally to groundwater through As-bearing minerals including arsenopyrites, realgar, and orpiment. Similarly, agricultural and industrial activities have elevated As levels in groundwater. High levels of As in groundwater pose serious health risks and have been regulated in many developed and developing countries. In particular, the presence of inorganic forms of As in drinking water sources gained widespread attention due to their cellular and enzyme disruption activities. The research community has primarily focused on reviewing the natural occurrence and mobilization of As. Yet, As originating from anthropogenic activities, its mobility, and potential treatment techniques have not been covered. This review summarizes the origin, geochemistry, occurrence, mobilization, microbial interaction of natural and anthropogenic-As, and common remediation technologies for As removal from groundwater. In addition, As remediation methods are critically evaluated in terms of practical applicability at drinking water treatment plants, knowledge gaps, and future research needs. Finally, perspectives on As removal technologies and associated implementation limitations in developing countries and small communities are discussed.
{"title":"Arsenic Contamination in Groundwater: Geochemical Basis of Treatment Technologies","authors":"Sushil R. Kanel*, Tonoy K. Das, Rajender S. Varma, Sudarshan Kurwadkar, Sudip Chakraborty, Tista Prasai Joshi, Achintya N. Bezbaruah and Mallikarjuna N. Nadagouda*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00053","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00053","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Arsenic (As) is abundant in the environment and can be found in both organic (e.g., methylated) and inorganic (e.g., arsenate and arsenite) forms. The source of As in the environment is attributed to both natural reactions and anthropogenic activities. As can also be released naturally to groundwater through As-bearing minerals including arsenopyrites, realgar, and orpiment. Similarly, agricultural and industrial activities have elevated As levels in groundwater. High levels of As in groundwater pose serious health risks and have been regulated in many developed and developing countries. In particular, the presence of inorganic forms of As in drinking water sources gained widespread attention due to their cellular and enzyme disruption activities. The research community has primarily focused on reviewing the natural occurrence and mobilization of As. Yet, As originating from anthropogenic activities, its mobility, and potential treatment techniques have not been covered. This review summarizes the origin, geochemistry, occurrence, mobilization, microbial interaction of natural and anthropogenic-As, and common remediation technologies for As removal from groundwater. In addition, As remediation methods are critically evaluated in terms of practical applicability at drinking water treatment plants, knowledge gaps, and future research needs. Finally, perspectives on As removal technologies and associated implementation limitations in developing countries and small communities are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 3","pages":"135–152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/c3/69/vg2c00053.PMC10197174.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9506552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00054
Sebastian D. Eastham*, Erwan Monier, Daniel Rothenberg, Sergey Paltsev and Noelle E. Selin,
Air quality and climate change are substantial and linked sustainability challenges, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the implications of addressing these challenges together. Due to the high computational cost of accurately assessing these challenges, integrated assessment models (IAMs) used in policy development often use global- or regional-scale marginal response factors to calculate air quality impacts of climate scenarios. We bridge the gap between IAMs and high-fidelity simulation by developing a computationally efficient approach to quantify how combined climate and air quality interventions affect air quality outcomes, including capturing spatial heterogeneity and complex atmospheric chemistry. We fit individual response surfaces to high-fidelity model simulation output for 1525 locations worldwide under a variety of perturbation scenarios. Our approach captures known differences in atmospheric chemical regimes and can be straightforwardly implemented in IAMs, enabling researchers to rapidly estimate how air quality in different locations and related equity-based metrics will respond to large-scale changes in emission policy. We find that the sensitivity of air quality to climate change and air pollutant emission reductions differs in sign and magnitude by region, suggesting that calculations of “co-benefits” of climate policy that do not account for the existence of simultaneous air quality interventions can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Although reductions in global mean temperature are effective in improving air quality in many locations and sometimes yield compounding benefits, we show that the air quality impact of climate policy depends on air quality precursor emission stringency. Our approach can be extended to include results from higher-resolution modeling and also to incorporate other interventions toward sustainable development that interact with climate action and have spatially distributed equity dimensions.
{"title":"Rapid Estimation of Climate–Air Quality Interactions in Integrated Assessment Using a Response Surface Model","authors":"Sebastian D. Eastham*, Erwan Monier, Daniel Rothenberg, Sergey Paltsev and Noelle E. Selin, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00054","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00054","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Air quality and climate change are substantial and linked sustainability challenges, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the implications of addressing these challenges together. Due to the high computational cost of accurately assessing these challenges, integrated assessment models (IAMs) used in policy development often use global- or regional-scale marginal response factors to calculate air quality impacts of climate scenarios. We bridge the gap between IAMs and high-fidelity simulation by developing a computationally efficient approach to quantify how combined climate and air quality interventions affect air quality outcomes, including capturing spatial heterogeneity and complex atmospheric chemistry. We fit individual response surfaces to high-fidelity model simulation output for 1525 locations worldwide under a variety of perturbation scenarios. Our approach captures known differences in atmospheric chemical regimes and can be straightforwardly implemented in IAMs, enabling researchers to rapidly estimate how air quality in different locations and related equity-based metrics will respond to large-scale changes in emission policy. We find that the sensitivity of air quality to climate change and air pollutant emission reductions differs in sign and magnitude by region, suggesting that calculations of “co-benefits” of climate policy that do not account for the existence of simultaneous air quality interventions can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Although reductions in global mean temperature are effective in improving air quality in many locations and sometimes yield compounding benefits, we show that the air quality impact of climate policy depends on air quality precursor emission stringency. Our approach can be extended to include results from higher-resolution modeling and also to incorporate other interventions toward sustainable development that interact with climate action and have spatially distributed equity dimensions.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 3","pages":"153–163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/60/d8/vg2c00054.PMC10197161.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9557435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-13DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00039
Molly E. Cantrell, Émile Sylvestre, Hannah C. Wharton, Rahel Scheidegger, Lou Curchod, David M. Gute, Jeffrey Griffiths, Timothy R. Julian* and Amy J. Pickering*,
Enteric pathogen infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with the highest disease burden in low-income countries. Hands act as intermediaries in enteric pathogen transmission, transferring enteric pathogens between people and the environment through contact with fomites, food, water, and soil. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of prevalence and concentrations of fecal indicator microorganisms (i.e., E. coli, fecal coliform) and enteric pathogens on hands. We identified 84 studies, reporting 35,440 observations of hand contamination of people in community or household settings. The studies investigated 44 unique microorganisms, of which the most commonly reported indicators were E. coli and fecal coliforms. Hand contamination with 12 unique enteric pathogens was reported, with adenovirus and norovirus as the most frequent. Mean E. coli prevalence on hands was 62% [95% CI 40%–82%] and mean fecal coliform prevalence was 66% [95% CI 22%–100%]. Hands were more likely to be contaminated with E. coli in low/lower-middle-income countries (prevalence: 69% [95% CI 48%–88%]) than in upper-middle/high-income countries (6% [95% CI 2%–12%]). The Review also highlights the importance of standardizing hand sampling methods, as hand rinsing was associated with greater fecal contamination compared to other sampling methods.
{"title":"Hands Are Frequently Contaminated with Fecal Bacteria and Enteric Pathogens Globally: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis","authors":"Molly E. Cantrell, Émile Sylvestre, Hannah C. Wharton, Rahel Scheidegger, Lou Curchod, David M. Gute, Jeffrey Griffiths, Timothy R. Julian* and Amy J. Pickering*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00039","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Enteric pathogen infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with the highest disease burden in low-income countries. Hands act as intermediaries in enteric pathogen transmission, transferring enteric pathogens between people and the environment through contact with fomites, food, water, and soil. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of prevalence and concentrations of fecal indicator microorganisms (i.e., <i>E. coli</i>, fecal coliform) and enteric pathogens on hands. We identified 84 studies, reporting 35,440 observations of hand contamination of people in community or household settings. The studies investigated 44 unique microorganisms, of which the most commonly reported indicators were <i>E. coli</i> and fecal coliforms. Hand contamination with 12 unique enteric pathogens was reported, with adenovirus and norovirus as the most frequent. Mean <i>E. coli</i> prevalence on hands was 62% [95% CI 40%–82%] and mean fecal coliform prevalence was 66% [95% CI 22%–100%]. Hands were more likely to be contaminated with <i>E. coli</i> in low/lower-middle-income countries (prevalence: 69% [95% CI 48%–88%]) than in upper-middle/high-income countries (6% [95% CI 2%–12%]). The Review also highlights the importance of standardizing hand sampling methods, as hand rinsing was associated with greater fecal contamination compared to other sampling methods.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 3","pages":"123–134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00039","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49768050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-20DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00050
Poritosh Roy, Amar K. Mohanty*, Phil Dick and Manjusri Misra*,
Valorization of food waste (FW) is instrumental for reducing the environmental and economic burden of FW and transitioning to a circular economy. The FW valorization process has widely been studied to produce various end-use products and summarize them; however, their economic, environmental, and social aspects are limited. This study synthesizes some of the valorization methods used for FW management and produces value-added products for various applications, and also discusses the technological advances and their environmental, economic, and social aspects. Globally, 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food is lost or wasted each year, during which about 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas is emitted. The environmental (−347 to 2969 kg CO2 equiv/tonne FW) and economic (−100 to $138/tonne FW) impacts of FW depend on the multiple parameters of food chains and waste management systems. Although enormous efforts are underway to reduce FW as well as valorize unavoidable FW to reduce environmental and economic loss, it seems the transdisciplinary approach/initiative would be essential to minimize FW as well as abate the environmental impacts of FW. A joint effort from stakeholders is the key to reducing FW and the efficient and effective valorization of FW to improve its sustainability. However, any initiative in reducing food waste should consider a broader sustainability check to avoid risks to investment and the environment.
{"title":"A Review on the Challenges and Choices for Food Waste Valorization: Environmental and Economic Impacts","authors":"Poritosh Roy, Amar K. Mohanty*, Phil Dick and Manjusri Misra*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00050","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00050","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Valorization of food waste (FW) is instrumental for reducing the environmental and economic burden of FW and transitioning to a circular economy. The FW valorization process has widely been studied to produce various end-use products and summarize them; however, their economic, environmental, and social aspects are limited. This study synthesizes some of the valorization methods used for FW management and produces value-added products for various applications, and also discusses the technological advances and their environmental, economic, and social aspects. Globally, 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food is lost or wasted each year, during which about 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas is emitted. The environmental (−347 to 2969 kg CO<sub>2</sub> equiv/tonne FW) and economic (−100 to $138/tonne FW) impacts of FW depend on the multiple parameters of food chains and waste management systems. Although enormous efforts are underway to reduce FW as well as valorize unavoidable FW to reduce environmental and economic loss, it seems the transdisciplinary approach/initiative would be essential to minimize FW as well as abate the environmental impacts of FW. A joint effort from stakeholders is the key to reducing FW and the efficient and effective valorization of FW to improve its sustainability. However, any initiative in reducing food waste should consider a broader sustainability check to avoid risks to investment and the environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 2","pages":"58–75"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/3d/87/vg2c00050.PMC10021016.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9156215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-04DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00069
Xiang-dong Li*, Ian T. Cousins and Keri C. Hornbuckle,
T future of our planet relies on collaborative efforts and innovative solutions to the many pressing environmental challenges we face. Early career researchers are at the forefront of developing new and impactful science and technology in global environmental research arena. To recognize their significant contributions and foster future collaboration, ACS Environmental Au plans to organize virtual special issues highlighting some of the Rising Stars in Environmental Research and to promote their outstanding research to our readers. As the Editors of ACS Environmental Au, we are pleased to share our inaugural virtual special issue of Rising Stars in Environmental Research! Six early career investigators have been selected from around the world who are working on addressing important environmental research issues (e.g., air quality, biogeochemistry, climate change, life-cycle assessment, water pollution and treatment technology). Each “Rising Star” has contributed an outstanding peer-reviewed Article, Perspective or Review on topics addressing global environmental issues, and we are delighted to gather these contributions into a single collection to showcase their work and shine a spotlight on them. We encourage you to learn about these researchers and their work through the biographies below, their research group webpages, and their ACS Environmental Au publications that are part of this virtual special issue.
{"title":"ACS Environmental Au Recognizes 2022 Rising Stars in Environmental Research","authors":"Xiang-dong Li*, Ian T. Cousins and Keri C. Hornbuckle, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00069","url":null,"abstract":"T future of our planet relies on collaborative efforts and innovative solutions to the many pressing environmental challenges we face. Early career researchers are at the forefront of developing new and impactful science and technology in global environmental research arena. To recognize their significant contributions and foster future collaboration, ACS Environmental Au plans to organize virtual special issues highlighting some of the Rising Stars in Environmental Research and to promote their outstanding research to our readers. As the Editors of ACS Environmental Au, we are pleased to share our inaugural virtual special issue of Rising Stars in Environmental Research! Six early career investigators have been selected from around the world who are working on addressing important environmental research issues (e.g., air quality, biogeochemistry, climate change, life-cycle assessment, water pollution and treatment technology). Each “Rising Star” has contributed an outstanding peer-reviewed Article, Perspective or Review on topics addressing global environmental issues, and we are delighted to gather these contributions into a single collection to showcase their work and shine a spotlight on them. We encourage you to learn about these researchers and their work through the biographies below, their research group webpages, and their ACS Environmental Au publications that are part of this virtual special issue.","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 1","pages":"1–4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00069","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49767894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-03DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00059
Min Sub Sim*, Dong Kyun Woo, Bokyung Kim, Hyeonjeong Jeong, Young Ji Joo, Yeon Woo Hong and Jy Young Choi,
Sulfate often behaves conservatively in the oxygenated environments but serves as an electron acceptor for microbial respiration in a wide range of natural and engineered systems where oxygen is depleted. As a ubiquitous anaerobic dissimilatory pathway, therefore, microbial reduction of sulfate to sulfide has been of continuing interest in the field of microbiology, ecology, biochemistry, and geochemistry. Stable isotopes of sulfur are an effective tool for tracking this catabolic process as microorganisms discriminate strongly against heavy isotopes when cleaving the sulfur–oxygen bond. Along with its high preservation potential in environmental archives, a wide variation in the sulfur isotope effects can provide insights into the physiology of sulfate reducing microorganisms across temporal and spatial barriers. A vast array of parameters, including phylogeny, temperature, respiration rate, and availability of sulfate, electron donor, and other essential nutrients, has been explored as a possible determinant of the magnitude of isotope fractionation, and there is now a broad consensus that the relative availability of sulfate and electron donors primarily controls the magnitude of fractionation. As the ratio shifts toward sulfate, the sulfur isotope fractionation increases. The results of conceptual models, centered on the reversibility of each enzymatic step in the dissimilatory sulfate reduction pathway, are in qualitative agreement with the observations, although the underlying intracellular mechanisms that translate the external stimuli into the isotopic phenotype remain largely unexplored experimentally. This minireview offers a snapshot of our current understanding of the sulfur isotope effects during dissimilatory sulfate reduction as well as their potential quantitative applications. It emphasizes the importance of sulfate respiration as a model system for the isotopic investigation of other respiratory pathways that utilize oxyanions as terminal electron acceptors.
{"title":"What Controls the Sulfur Isotope Fractionation during Dissimilatory Sulfate Reduction?","authors":"Min Sub Sim*, Dong Kyun Woo, Bokyung Kim, Hyeonjeong Jeong, Young Ji Joo, Yeon Woo Hong and Jy Young Choi, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00059","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00059","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Sulfate often behaves conservatively in the oxygenated environments but serves as an electron acceptor for microbial respiration in a wide range of natural and engineered systems where oxygen is depleted. As a ubiquitous anaerobic dissimilatory pathway, therefore, microbial reduction of sulfate to sulfide has been of continuing interest in the field of microbiology, ecology, biochemistry, and geochemistry. Stable isotopes of sulfur are an effective tool for tracking this catabolic process as microorganisms discriminate strongly against heavy isotopes when cleaving the sulfur–oxygen bond. Along with its high preservation potential in environmental archives, a wide variation in the sulfur isotope effects can provide insights into the physiology of sulfate reducing microorganisms across temporal and spatial barriers. A vast array of parameters, including phylogeny, temperature, respiration rate, and availability of sulfate, electron donor, and other essential nutrients, has been explored as a possible determinant of the magnitude of isotope fractionation, and there is now a broad consensus that the relative availability of sulfate and electron donors primarily controls the magnitude of fractionation. As the ratio shifts toward sulfate, the sulfur isotope fractionation increases. The results of conceptual models, centered on the reversibility of each enzymatic step in the dissimilatory sulfate reduction pathway, are in qualitative agreement with the observations, although the underlying intracellular mechanisms that translate the external stimuli into the isotopic phenotype remain largely unexplored experimentally. This minireview offers a snapshot of our current understanding of the sulfur isotope effects during dissimilatory sulfate reduction as well as their potential quantitative applications. It emphasizes the importance of sulfate respiration as a model system for the isotopic investigation of other respiratory pathways that utilize oxyanions as terminal electron acceptors.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 2","pages":"76–86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9356516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) by conjugation poses great challenges to public health. Application of pyroligneous acids (PA) as soil amendments has been evidenced as a practical strategy to remediate pollution of ARGs in soils. However, little is known about PA effects on horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of ARGs by conjugation. This study investigated the effects of a woody waste-derived PA prepared at 450°C and its three distillation components (F1, F2, and F3) at different temperatures (98, 130, and 220°C) on conjugative transfer of plasmid RP4 within Escherichia coli. PA at relatively high amount (40–100 μL) in a 30-mL mating system inhibited conjugation by 74–85%, following an order of PA > F3 ≈ F2 ≈ F1, proving the hypothesis that PA amendments may mitigate soil ARG pollution by inhibiting HGT. The bacteriostasis caused by antibacterial components of PA, including acids, phenols, and alcohols, as well as its acidity (pH 2.81) contributed to the inhibited conjugation. However, a relatively low amount (10–20 μL) of PA in the same mating system enhanced ARG transfer by 26–47%, following an order of PA > F3 ≈ F2 > F1. The opposite effect at low amount is mainly attributed to the increased intracellular reactive oxygen species production, enhanced cell membrane permeability, increased extracellular polymeric substance contents, and reduced cell surface charge. Our findings highlight the hormesis (low-amount promotion and high-amount inhibition) of PA amendments on ARG conjugation and provide evidence for selecting an appropriate amount of PA amendment to control the dissemination of soil ARGs. Moreover, the promoted conjugation also triggers questions regarding the potential risks of soil amendments (e.g., PA) in the spread of ARGs via HGT.
{"title":"Hormetic Effect of Pyroligneous Acids on Conjugative Transfer of Plasmid-mediated Multi-antibiotic Resistance Genes within Bacterial Genus","authors":"Mengying Shao, Liuqingqing Liu, Bingjie Liu, Hao Zheng*, Wei Meng, Yifan Liu, Xiao Zhang, Xiaohan Ma, Cuizhu Sun, Xianxiang Luo, Fengmin Li and Baoshan Xing*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00056","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00056","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) by conjugation poses great challenges to public health. Application of pyroligneous acids (PA) as soil amendments has been evidenced as a practical strategy to remediate pollution of ARGs in soils. However, little is known about PA effects on horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of ARGs by conjugation. This study investigated the effects of a woody waste-derived PA prepared at 450°C and its three distillation components (F1, F2, and F3) at different temperatures (98, 130, and 220°C) on conjugative transfer of plasmid RP4 within <i>Escherichia coli</i>. PA at relatively high amount (40–100 μL) in a 30-mL mating system inhibited conjugation by 74–85%, following an order of PA > F3 ≈ F2 ≈ F1, proving the hypothesis that PA amendments may mitigate soil ARG pollution by inhibiting HGT. The bacteriostasis caused by antibacterial components of PA, including acids, phenols, and alcohols, as well as its acidity (pH 2.81) contributed to the inhibited conjugation. However, a relatively low amount (10–20 μL) of PA in the same mating system enhanced ARG transfer by 26–47%, following an order of PA > F3 ≈ F2 > F1. The opposite effect at low amount is mainly attributed to the increased intracellular reactive oxygen species production, enhanced cell membrane permeability, increased extracellular polymeric substance contents, and reduced cell surface charge. Our findings highlight the hormesis (low-amount promotion and high-amount inhibition) of PA amendments on ARG conjugation and provide evidence for selecting an appropriate amount of PA amendment to control the dissemination of soil ARGs. Moreover, the promoted conjugation also triggers questions regarding the potential risks of soil amendments (e.g., PA) in the spread of ARGs via HGT.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 2","pages":"105–120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00056","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9349776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00041
Zhichao Chen, Tara I. Yacovitch, Conner Daube, Scott C. Herndon, Darcy Wilson, Stacie Enoch and David T. Allen*,
Comparisons of observation-based emission estimates with emission inventories for oil and gas production operations have demonstrated that intermittency in emissions is an important factor to be accounted for in reconciling inventories with observations. Most emission inventories do not directly report data on durations of active emissions, and the variability in emissions over time must be inferred from other measurements or engineering calculations. This work examines a unique emission inventory, assembled for offshore oil and gas production platforms in federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States, which reports production-related sources on individual platforms, along with estimates of emission duration for individual sources. Platform specific emission rates, derived from the inventory, were compared to shipboard measurements made at 72 platforms. The reconciliation demonstrates that emission duration reporting, by source, can lead to predicted ranges in emissions that are much broader than those based on annual average emission rates. For platforms in federal waters, total emissions reported in the inventory for the matched platforms were within ∼10% of emissions estimated based on observations, depending on emission rates assumed for nondetects in the observational data set. The distributions of emissions were similar, with 75% of platform total emission rates falling between 0 and 49 kg/h for the observations and between 0.59 and 54 kg/h for the inventory.
{"title":"Reconciling Methane Emission Measurements for Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms with Detailed Emission Inventories: Accounting for Emission Intermittency","authors":"Zhichao Chen, Tara I. Yacovitch, Conner Daube, Scott C. Herndon, Darcy Wilson, Stacie Enoch and David T. Allen*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00041","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00041","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Comparisons of observation-based emission estimates with emission inventories for oil and gas production operations have demonstrated that intermittency in emissions is an important factor to be accounted for in reconciling inventories with observations. Most emission inventories do not directly report data on durations of active emissions, and the variability in emissions over time must be inferred from other measurements or engineering calculations. This work examines a unique emission inventory, assembled for offshore oil and gas production platforms in federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States, which reports production-related sources on individual platforms, along with estimates of emission duration for individual sources. Platform specific emission rates, derived from the inventory, were compared to shipboard measurements made at 72 platforms. The reconciliation demonstrates that emission duration reporting, by source, can lead to predicted ranges in emissions that are much broader than those based on annual average emission rates. For platforms in federal waters, total emissions reported in the inventory for the matched platforms were within ∼10% of emissions estimated based on observations, depending on emission rates assumed for nondetects in the observational data set. The distributions of emissions were similar, with 75% of platform total emission rates falling between 0 and 49 kg/h for the observations and between 0.59 and 54 kg/h for the inventory.</p>","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 2","pages":"87–93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/76/69/vg2c00041.PMC10125359.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9356513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-29DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00035
Abhishek Chaudhary*, and , Amaan Akhtar,
A massive amount of building construction is expected in economically developing nations such as India over the next few years. The first step in ensuring that the new construction takes place in a sustainable manner is the knowledge about the building’s impact on multiple environmental domains. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a promising tool for this, but its application in the Indian construction sector is hampered by a lack of access to detailed inventory data on amounts of all building materials used and the per unit environmental footprints of individual materials (characterization factors). Here, we overcome these limitations by proposing a novel approach that connects the building bill of quantity data with publicly available analysis of rate documents to obtain the detailed material inventory. The approach then combines the material inventory data with the newly available India-specific environmental footprint database of construction materials to calculate the impacts of a building during its different life cycle stages (cradle to site). We demonstrate the new approach through a case study of a residential building within a hospital in North-East India and quantify its environmental footprint on six domains of the environment: energy use, global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical oxidant formation potential. Results show that out of 78 materials used, bricks, aluminum sections, steel bars, and cement are the major contributors to the building’s total environmental impact. The material manufacturing stage is the hotspot in the building’s life cycle. Our approach can act as a template for conducting “cradle-to-site” LCA of buildings for which BOQ data becomes available in India and other countries in the future.
{"title":"Template for Evaluating Cradle-to-Site Environmental Life Cycle Impacts of Buildings in India","authors":"Abhishek Chaudhary*, and , Amaan Akhtar, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00035","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00035","url":null,"abstract":"A massive amount of building construction is expected in economically developing nations such as India over the next few years. The first step in ensuring that the new construction takes place in a sustainable manner is the knowledge about the building’s impact on multiple environmental domains. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a promising tool for this, but its application in the Indian construction sector is hampered by a lack of access to detailed inventory data on amounts of all building materials used and the per unit environmental footprints of individual materials (characterization factors). Here, we overcome these limitations by proposing a novel approach that connects the building bill of quantity data with publicly available analysis of rate documents to obtain the detailed material inventory. The approach then combines the material inventory data with the newly available India-specific environmental footprint database of construction materials to calculate the impacts of a building during its different life cycle stages (cradle to site). We demonstrate the new approach through a case study of a residential building within a hospital in North-East India and quantify its environmental footprint on six domains of the environment: energy use, global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical oxidant formation potential. Results show that out of 78 materials used, bricks, aluminum sections, steel bars, and cement are the major contributors to the building’s total environmental impact. The material manufacturing stage is the hotspot in the building’s life cycle. Our approach can act as a template for conducting “cradle-to-site” LCA of buildings for which BOQ data becomes available in India and other countries in the future.","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"3 2","pages":"94–104"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/fd/49/vg2c00035.PMC10125340.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9349781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00065
Yi Jiang*, and , Xiangdong Li*,
T year marks the 30th anniversary of Sustainable Development being institutionalized at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also commonly called the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit”) in 1992. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 further laid out a concrete plan to achieve the 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. These SDGs include poverty alleviation, clean water, human health, climate change, and sustainable energy, and are collectively regarded as “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” Sustainability is gradually being integrated into every aspect of our society. A recent example is the emergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), which is now impacting the operation of major corporations worldwide. Yet, despite recent advances, we cannot ignore the fact that massive efforts are required to meet the SDGs by 2030. For instance, among many striking statistics is the fact that the proportion of the global population using safely managed drinking water services only increased from 70 to 74% between 2015 and 2020. The rate of progress would need to grow 4-fold to reach universal coverage by 2030. Now more than ever, we require concerted efforts on financing, technology dissemination, capacity building, and international collaboration. Science and innovation play a pivotal role in facilitating advances, and open access to key research results accelerates our progress. In this issue of ACS Environmental Au, we are pleased to present a collection of six publications that contribute to advancing our progress toward some of the key SDGs. We have categorized them based on the SDG that each publication is most relevant to.
{"title":"Sustainable Development: 30 Years Since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit","authors":"Yi Jiang*, and , Xiangdong Li*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00065","DOIUrl":"10.1021/acsenvironau.2c00065","url":null,"abstract":"T year marks the 30th anniversary of Sustainable Development being institutionalized at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also commonly called the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit”) in 1992. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 further laid out a concrete plan to achieve the 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. These SDGs include poverty alleviation, clean water, human health, climate change, and sustainable energy, and are collectively regarded as “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” Sustainability is gradually being integrated into every aspect of our society. A recent example is the emergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), which is now impacting the operation of major corporations worldwide. Yet, despite recent advances, we cannot ignore the fact that massive efforts are required to meet the SDGs by 2030. For instance, among many striking statistics is the fact that the proportion of the global population using safely managed drinking water services only increased from 70 to 74% between 2015 and 2020. The rate of progress would need to grow 4-fold to reach universal coverage by 2030. Now more than ever, we require concerted efforts on financing, technology dissemination, capacity building, and international collaboration. Science and innovation play a pivotal role in facilitating advances, and open access to key research results accelerates our progress. In this issue of ACS Environmental Au, we are pleased to present a collection of six publications that contribute to advancing our progress toward some of the key SDGs. We have categorized them based on the SDG that each publication is most relevant to.","PeriodicalId":29801,"journal":{"name":"ACS Environmental Au","volume":"2 6","pages":"480–481"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/89/9c/vg2c00065.PMC10114617.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9361905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}