Environmental Sciences Europe最新文献

Researchers are focused on the global issue of plastic contamination in agricultural soils because of the known effects of plastics on the soil ecosystem. Previous reviews did not pay attention to plastic sources, standardized extraction methods, soil characterization, and the abundance of plastics in agricultural soils. This study aims to review up-to-the-minute knowledge about plastic contamination studies, suggest the best method for microplastic studies, and propose future research areas. The research about plastic contamination in agricultural soils published from January 2018 to March 2022 was reviewed for this review article. Studies focusing on microplastics in soils other than agricultural soils were not considered in the present review. The data were acquired from several databases, namely Web of Science and Google Scholar. The keywords used to search these databases were "microplastics AND agricultural soils" and "macroplastics AND agricultural soils". Other literature sources were obtained from the reference lists of downloaded articles, and other pieces of literature that directly dealt with macroplastic and microplastic contamination in agricultural soils were obtained from relevant journals and books. Overall, 120 sources of literature, including 102 original research articles, 13 review articles, and five books, were selected, reviewed, and synthesized. As expected, agricultural soils, including arable lands, paddy lands, uplands, irrigation, and greenhouse soils, receive plastic contaminants. The contaminants of different sizes and forms are distributed spatially and temporally in the surface, subsurface, and profiles of the agricultural soils. Unlike previous studies that reported many studies on sewage sludge, the significant sources of plastic contamination in the agricultural soils included mulching, sludge and compost placement, and greenhouses abandonment. The distribution of plastic contamination studies in the agricultural lands is Asia: 60%; Europe: 29%; Africa: 4%; North America: 4%; Latin America: 3%; and Australia: 0%. After careful analysis of the methods used for the plastics contamination studies, the study concluded that floatations with low-density solutions such as distilled water and NaCl are efficient in separating light-density microplastics. In contrast, ZnCl and NaI are incredibly efficient in separating the heavy-density microplastics. Moreover, this review provides insight for future research in the field.

Laboratory tests and column tests were carried out in a waterwoks to investigate the removal of short- and long-chain PFAS using activated carbon filtration and ion exchange treatment. For all adsorbents, the sorption affinity of short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCA) was significantly lower than that of long-chain PFAS or short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSA). In the PFAS-polluted groundwater matrix, the short-chain PFCA PFBA and PFPeA could only be sufficiently removed with activated carbon over short run times of 6000 and 11,000 bed volumes (BV), respectively. Longer PFCA with a chain length of C6 or more were removed over longer run times.

The removal of short-chain PFCA using ion exchange media could also only be achieved over relatively short run times of 5000 BV for PFBA, 10,000BV for PFPeA and 18,000 BV for PFHxA. These are sometimes significantly longer than those of activated carbon. Due to the higher material costs for ion exchange media, there are nevertheless no lower operating costs when the ion exchangers are used in single-use mode. However, ion exchangers can be regenerated and then reused which can result in economic advantages compared to activated carbon filtration. However, for the extensive regeneration, especially for the elution of the long-chain PFAS, the additional use of ethanol is needed in the process. In contrast, the short-chain PFBA and PFPeA can be extracted without organic solvent from a weakly basic ion exchanger.

Abstract

Olive oil mill wastewater (OMW), a by-product of the olive oil industry, each year is generated millions of tons all over Mediterranean countries. Uncontrolled disposal of the OMW leads to massive environmental problems including soil and water pollution. In this experimental study, the OMW was used to partly replace clean water for getting prepared formaldehyde solution. Then, phenol and formaldehyde solutions were synthesized under alkali conditions to obtain more green phenol–formaldehyde (PF) resin. The effect of the OMW substitution level on the chemical and thermal properties of PF resin was examined by the Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectral and thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis, respectively. Moreover, the bonding strength of each PF resin was evaluated under dry and wet conditions. It was found that FT-IR measurements showed that the PF resin containing various amounts of the OMW had a chemical structure very similar to the PF resin. The thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated that the low‐molecular‐weight organics in the OMW had negatively affected the thermal stability of the modified PF resins. In addition, the wood samples bonded with the PF resin containing up to 30 wt% OMW met the minimum requirements of interior and exterior bonding performance according to standard EN 12765. The OMW could be replaced by clean water up to 30 wt% for the production of green phenolic resin.

The objective is to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, controlling CO₂ emissions is a primary problem to be solved in the current environmental protection field. Eliminating the environmental pollution of dyes in industrial wastewater is also an urgent problem to be solved in the field of environmental protection. The adsorption technique is an effective way to deal with these two issues. Developing high-efficiency adsorbents is an essential work in the adsorption field. In this work, a simple carbonization method has been developed to prepare porous carbon. The morphology and structure of the prepared porous carbon were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and surface area measurement. By studying the influence of preparation conditions on the structure and properties of the prepared carbon materials, it was found that the carbon materials prepared at 900 ℃ (PCMCA-900) exhibited a high specific surface area of 1476 m² g⁻¹ and a high total pore volume of 0.951 cm³ g⁻¹. The PCMCA-900 showed the highest CO₂ uptake of 7.67 mmol g⁻¹ at 0 ºC and the adsorption capacity of PCMCA-900 decreased by less than 5% after 10 times recycling. Moreover, when PCMCA-900 was used as an adsorbent to remove Congo red in water, an adsorption capacity of 652.3 mg g⁻¹ was achieved. Therefore, potassium citrate-derived porous carbon is a desirable candidate for excellent CO₂ adsorption and Congo red in industrial wastewater.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had many deep social and economic impacts that go beyond health issues. One consequence is that the pandemic has made it even harder to mobilize the financial resources needed to pursue SDG 13 (Climate Action) as a whole and to fund climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in particular. This is especially acute in respect of the efforts to achieve the targets set by the Paris Agreement and by the recent decisions in Glasgow. This paper looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated poverty and undermined climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, as a result of the switches in priorities and funding. Using a review of the recent literature, an analysis of international trends, and a survey among climate scientists, it identifies some of the impacts of the pandemic on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts and discusses their implications. The findings indicate a decrease in funding to climate change research since the pandemic crisis. The bibliometric analysis reveals that a greater emphasis has been placed on the relationship between COVID-19 and poverty when compared to the interrelations between COVID-19 and climate change. Addressing climate change is as urgent now as it was before the pandemic crisis started, and efforts need to be made to upkeep the levels of funding needed to support research in this field.

Background

In 2020, the European Commission published the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) in which it aims to increase the level of protection for human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals. Part of the implementation of the CSS will involve a reform of the REACH authorisation and restriction processes. One option for the reform of the authorisation process is to implement the essential-use concept as a tool to guide decision-making on applications for authorisation to make the process more efficient and to align it with societal needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether changes in the legal text that defines the authorisation process, and of the amount and type of information that applicants should provide in an application for authorisation, are needed to enable an implementation of the essential-use concept.

Results

The results suggest that no fundamental changes in the regulatory requirements are needed and that applicants should already provide sufficient and relevant information to the authorities to determine if the use(s) applied for is (are) essential.

Conclusions

Although the REACH authorisation already provides a legal and practical basis for an implementation of the essential-use concept, the feasibility of the essentiality assessment and its potential to make the decision-making on applications more efficient are highly dependent on the quality of the information provided and the clearness of decision criteria. However, if an applicant successfully demonstrates that the risk related to the use(s) applied for is adequately controlled, it could not be legally justified for the European Commission to refuse an authorisation by arguing that the use(s) applied for is (are) non-essential.