Journal of hazardous materials最新文献

Nitrogen oxides (NO_x), primarily NO from high-temperature fuel combustion, pose serious threats to ecological and human health. Photocatalysis offers a solar-driven approach for NO oxidation, but often leads to toxic NO₂ byproduct due to insufficient active sites and reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, the tri-synergetic photocatalyst was developed that integrated the internal electric field (IEF) of AgCl/ZnSn(OH)₆ heterojunction, the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Ag nanoparticles and the spin polarization effect of Co clusters to realize the rapid separation and transport of photogenerated charges. Experimental and theoretical calculations confirmed that IEF promotes the directional migration of electrons, Ag nanoparticles extends visible light absorption and increases charge density through the SPR effect, and Co clusters acts as electron trap facilitating interfacial transfer after illumination. The Co clusters also caused spin polarization effect to promote exciton separation and became an activation center that enhanced the adsorption and activation of O₂ and H₂O to promote the generation of ROS, and also promote the adsorption and activation of NO to become the intermediate NO^-, which could quickly react with ROS to generate NO₃^- by one step, suppressing the release of NO₂ toxic byproducts. The charge transport mechanism and activation mechanism of the tri-synergistic photocatalyst have important reference significance for the design of photocatalyst for efficient removal of air pollutants.

The effects of exposure to air pollution on epigenetic age acceleration remain unclear. This study investigated the associations between exposure to six air pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, CO, NO₂, SO₂, and O₃) and DNA methylation age using multiple epigenetic clocks, including Horvath (353 CpGs), Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (BLUP, 319,607 CpGs), and Elastic Net (EN, 514 CpGs) among 2462 participants from the Taiwan Biobank. Both PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ exposure showed significant associations with all three epigenetic clocks. In multi-pollutant models combining PM_2.5 with other pollutants, the associations remained significant. The weighted sum of all air pollutants showed significant associations with all three epigenetic clocks. Weight distribution analyses identified PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ as the predominant contributors across all clock models. These results underscore the importance of air pollution control as a key component of public health strategies aimed at promoting healthy aging.

Pesticides have traditionally been detected based on the inhibition of natural acetylcholinesterase enzyme activity by pesticides. This approach was costly, offered limited detection coverage for pesticides, and suffered from the inherent instability of natural enzymes. To address the instability issue in sensor arrays, artificially synthesized nanozymes with enzyme-like activities were constructed in the sensor array. The diverse enzyme-like activities of nanozymes provide an excellent foundation for developing multi-channel sensor arrays. A four-channel sensor array was constructed based on multienzyme-like activities for the identification and discrimination of nine pesticides. An accurate distinction was achieved for 5 categories of pesticides using the constructed multienzyme-like sensor array method. In addition, a concentration-independent identification model of pesticides based on machine learning was constructed to simulate the detection situation in real environments, with an accuracy of 99.20 %. The proposed sensor array has great practical application prospects to be widely used for the detection of pesticides on food surfaces and in the water environment due to its excellent anti-interference capability.

Aquatic ecosystems are increasingly threatened by organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) such as diazinon (DZN) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) like benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), both of which disrupt metabolic, immune, and neural functions in fish. This study investigated the protective efficacy of Spirulina platensis (SP), a natural heat shock protein inducer (HSPi), against DZN- and BaP-induced toxicity in Acipenser stellatus fingerlings. Experimental treatments involved individual and combined exposures to DZN and BaP, with or without SP supplementation, over 1, 3, and 6 days. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis identified methyl palmitate (38.43 %) and γ-linolenic acid methyl ester (GLA; 19.06 %) as the predominant bioactive constituents of SP. Exposure to DZN and BaP significantly increased hepatic cytochrome P450 (CYP450; up to 0.95 ng/mg protein), serum cortisol (to 33 ng/mL), and liver enzyme activities, while reducing acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity by approximately 40 %. In contrast, treatments combining SP with pollutant stress markedly upregulated HSP70 expression, enhanced antioxidant enzyme activities, and elevated immune markers by 25-40 %. Furthermore, SP supplementation reduced cortisol levels by 30-35 % and restored AChE activity to near-baseline values. These findings demonstrate SP's HSP70-mediated cytoprotective effects and support its potential as a dietary strategy to mitigate multi-pollutant stress in aquatic organisms.

Constructed wetlands and other nature-based solutions (NBS) are widely used to mitigate pesticide runoff from agricultural landscapes, but their performance is often limited by short hydraulic retention times and fluctuating environmental conditions. To enhance the pollutant removal capacity of NBS, we developed a biochar-calcium peroxide (CaO₂) composite material designed to combine adsorption with oxidative degradation. The composite was fabricated by embedding biochar and CaO₂ into a cement matrix and achieved up to 76.8 % removal of tebuconazole after 30 days of static incubation, which was 2-6 times higher than CaO₂ alone (10-20 %), depending on biochar loading and solution pH. Notably, under acidic conditions (initial pH ∼5.6), the oxidative degradation contribution of the composite (35-47 %) increased by approximately 20-30 times compared with the composite without biochar (1.9 %). Moreover, incorporating CaO₂ into biochar moderated its consumption and reduced CaO₂ loss by nearly 50 % after 30 days of incubation in water, enabling a more sustained release of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The material maintained stable performance under both acidic and unbuffered conditions, demonstrating applicability under variable field environments. These findings demonstrate the potential of biochar-CaO₂ composites to improve the robustness and effectiveness of NBS for decentralized water treatment of pesticide-contaminated runoff.

As an emerging pollutant, Micro/nano plastics (M/NPs) pose a serious threat to the aquatic ecosystem and human health. Electrochemical oxidation technology has advantages such as high catalytic performance, environmental friendliness, and simple operation, and it has the potential to degrade M/NPs in water. In this work, we proposed a Ti/Sb-SnO₂ anode modified by co-doping with Sm-Mn composite intermediate layer for the electrochemical oxidation degradation of polystyrene nanoplastics (PS NPs) in water. Experimental results showed that the Ti/Sm-Mn-Sb-SnO₂ anode exhibited the best PS NPs removal efficiency (58.75 %) and the longest electrode lifespan (825 h). The doping of composite intermediate layer elements possessed a more uniform and dense crack structure on the anode surface, as well as the formation of a fuller crystal structure, effectively increasing the active sites and specific surface area for electrochemical process. Moreover, material characterization and theoretical calculations confirmed that the synergistic effect of the bimetal facilitates the electron transfer process between Sn and Sb, improves current mass transfer efficiency, and promotes the occurrence of redox reactions. Combined with DFT calculations and the identification of intermediate products, the degradation pathways of PS NPs were analyzed, which mainly included electrophilic substitution (benzene ring hydroxylation), C-C and C-H bond cleavage (chain breakage and ring opening), and hydrogen atom addition reactions. This modification strategy not only provides a new approach for NPs degradation through electrochemical oxidation but also offers theoretical basis and technical support for the future application of M/NPs pollution control in water environments.

Pollution and warming are major threats to freshwater ecosystems, yet their joint effects on predator-prey interactions structuring these ecosystems and how thermal evolution may modulate these impacts are largely unknown. Under common-garden settings, we investigated how exposure to the widespread pesticide chlorpyrifos and warming affected predator life history, metabolic rate and functional response, and prey population dynamics to predict the long-term interaction strength (intrinsic stability) of low- and high-latitude populations of Ischnura elegans damselfly larvae preying on Daphnia magna water fleas. Warming magnified the negative impact of pesticide exposure on predator performance and predation rates, but remarkably, for high-latitude predators, pesticide exposure mitigated some of the negative impacts of warming on long-term predator-prey system stability. This reversed the stressor interaction types at different biological organization levels, from negative synergistic and antagonistic to positive synergistic and antagonistic. Under warmer future conditions, thermal plasticity destabilized the predator-prey system for high-latitude predators. Interestingly, pesticide exposure helped to stabilize this system under warming, while having no effect under the current cooler thermal regime. Using a space-for-time substitution, our results suggest that joint thermal plasticity and evolution of high-latitude predators could contribute to stabilizing predator-prey systems under warming, with pesticide exposure further enhancing this effect, providing evidence that thermal evolution could alter the stressor interaction type. Our findings highlight the importance of considering thermal evolution, multiple-stressor interactions, and biotic interactions into ecotoxicology to better predict the impact of pollutants on the local persistence of species in increasingly stressed environments.

Plastic film has emerged as a nonnegligible source of microplastics (MPs) in farmland soil. However, knowledge of regarding the distribution characteristics of MPs in soil profiles and aggregates remains limited. This study focuses on the typical plastic film mulching area of Shihezi, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, analyzing the spatial distribution of MPs in soils and soil aggregates over various durations of mulching. The results indicated that the abundance of MPs in the soil of 3-23 years of continuous mulching fields ranged from 20.90 ± 9.66-54.17 ± 21.19 items g^-1, with its abundance increased linearly with the increase of film mulching years. MPs showed obvious vertical differentiation characteristics in the soil profiles. Among them, the abundance of MPs in the surface 0-10 cm soil layer was the highest, decreasing with the increase of depth. The abundance of MPs in aggregates was positively correlated with their size. Utilizing these data, a random forest model was developed to predict MPs abundance in soil profiles and aggregates across different mulching durations. This study contributes valuable data to enhance the understanding of MPs distribution in soil layers and aggregates under long-term mulching conditions.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) holds great promise for sensitive molecular detection across diverse fields, including environmental monitoring and food safety. However, its practical efficacy is often constrained by relatively low sensitivity and poor reproducibility over large areas. In this study, a hotspot-optimized SERS platform is developed via the interfacial co-assembly of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of two distinct sizes. Inspired by the clustered luminosity of stars, this Stellaris Somnia-inspired interlaced nanoarray (SSIN) features a monolayer of larger AuNPs (>90 nm) complemented by smaller AuNPs (21 nm) intercalated within interstitial gaps, significantly increasing hotspot density and SERS enhancement. This strategy enables the fabrication of highly sensitive and signal-stable nanoarrays without relying on complex anisotropic nanomaterials or laborious top-down processes. The SSIN substrate achieved exceptional detection limits of 0.392 ng/L for malachite green (MG). In real fish samples such as large yellow croaker and channel catfish, the platform successfully detected malachite green at concentrations as low as 0.5 μg/kg. The results were consistent with those obtained by HPLC-MS/MS, confirming high analytical accuracy. The substrate enabled label-free detection of trace pesticides, including difenoconazole, thiabendazole, and thiram, demonstrating broad-spectrum applicability. Moreover, the SSIN substrate maintains over 75 % of its SERS activity after 180 days of storage at room temperature, highlighting its long-term stability. This work introduces a rational, scalable, and materials-efficient co-assembly strategy to engineer robust, hotspot-dense SERS platforms. The SSIN substrate holds great promise for practical applications in environmental contaminants and food hazards monitoring and the broader field of trace analyte detection.

The widespread use of polymer-coated fertilizers raises concerns about microplastics (MPs) pollution, yet their impacts on soil-crop systems remain unclear. This study evaluated the effects of MPs derived from polyurethane (PU) and polyethylene-polycarbonate (PE-PC) coated fertilizers on tomato growth and soil enzyme activity. Results showed that PU and PE-PC MPs significantly reduced 7-day germination rates by 12.5-17.5 % and 12.5-21.7 %, respectively, and inhibited early seedling growth. Interestingly, during the 45-day stage, neither PU nor PE-PC MPs exhibited apparent phytotoxicity, and in some cases even enhanced the total fresh weight of tomato plant. Chlorophyll analysis revealed that 1 % PU MPs slightly promoted chlorophyll content, whereas high PE-PC concentrations reduce it. Soil enzyme analysis revealed increases in β-glucosidase and acid phosphatase activity but no significant change in urease activity. Furthermore, distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) indicated that MPs type and concentration jointly influenced plant physiological traits and soil enzyme activities. These findings suggest that coated fertilizer-produced MPs pose potential risks at germination stages, but their adverse effects appear negligible during the vegetative growth stage. These results can provide a support for scientific application and security risk assessment of coated fertilizers.