Dust Pollution Research Articles

Evaluation of the effects of dust pollution on specific plant species near and around the marble mining site in Rajasthan, India.

Airborne particles (dust pollution) pose a significant threat to both human and plant populations. Plant leaves act as crucial biofilters, capturing significant amounts of air pollution; this characteristic offers a valuable tool to measure local pollution levels and assess individual plant species' ability to intercept and mitigate harmful dust particles. The present study was carried out to asses the effect of responses of various plant species to dust pollution near and around the marble mining site comprising residential site, highway area, and Central University of Rajasthan as control. The anticipated pollution index, air pollution tolerance index (APTI), dust absorption capacity, metal accumulation index (MAI), and biochemical factors were used to evaluate plant responses. Azadirachta indica A. Juss. demonstrated the highest (29.0) and Vachellia nilotica L. showed lowest (5.6) APTI, respectively. A. indica showed maximum MAI values in comparison to other plant species situated at residential site. Additionally, monitoring of particulate matter (PM10) observed to highest at highway, followed by mining, residential, and control sites. Overall A. indica representing highest APTI and effective dust capturing capacity at all sites could serve as potential pollution sinks. V. nilotica, with its very low APTI, can be marked as biomonitoring tool for detecting dust pollution.

Pollution Characteristics and Sources of Ambient Air Dustfall in Urban Area of Beijing

Since 2016, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Beijing Municipal Government have adjusted the minimum concentration limit for ambient air dustfall several times, indicating that they attach great importance to dustfall. To grasp the pollution characteristics and sources of dustfall, in this work, the filtration method was used to determine the insoluble dustfall and water-soluble dustfall in the urban area of Beijing. From our analysis, the influence of the meteorological parameters on dustfall was found, and the chemical components of dustfall were determined. The positive matrix factorization (PMF) model was also utilized to analyze the sources of dustfall. The results indicated that the average amount of dustfall in 2021–2022 was 4.4 t·(km2·30 d)−1, and the proportion of insoluble dustfall deposition was 82.4%. Dustfall was positively correlated with the average wind speed and temperature and negatively correlated with the relative humidity and rain precipitation. The impact of the meteorological parameters on insoluble dustfall and water-soluble dustfall was the opposite. The average proportions of crustal material, ions, organic matter, element carbon, trace elements, and unknown components were 48%, 16%, 14%, 1.4%, 0.20%, and 20%, respectively. The proportions of the crustal material and ions were the highest in spring (57%) and summer (37%). The contribution rates of fugitive dust source, secondary inorganic source, mobile source, coal combustion source, snow melting agent source, and other sources were 42.4%, 19.3%, 8.3%, 3.0%, 2.7%, and 24.3%, respectively. This study supported dustfall pollution control by analysing the pollutant characteristics and sources of dustfall from the standpoint of total chemical components. In order to better control dustfall pollution, control measures and evaluation standards for fugitive dust pollution should be formulated.

Annual and Seasonal Variations in Aerosol Optical Characteristics in the Huai River Basin, China from 2007 to 2021

Over the past three decades, China has seen aerosol levels substantially surpass the global average, significantly impacting regional climate. This study investigates the long-term and seasonal variations of aerosols in the Huai River Basin (HRB) using MODIS, CALIOP observations from 2007 to 2021, and ground-based measurements. A notable finding is a significant decline in the annual mean Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) across the HRB, with MODIS showing a decrease of approximately 0.023 to 0.027 per year, while CALIOP, which misses thin aerosol layers, recorded a decrease of about 0.016 per year. This downward trend is corroborated by improvements in air quality, as evidenced by PM2.5 measurements and visibility-based aerosol extinction coefficients. Aerosol decreases occurred at all heights, but for aerosols below 800 m, with an annual AOD decrease of 0.011. The study also quantifies the long-term trends of five major aerosol types, identifying Polluted Dust (PD) as the predominant frequency type (46%), which has significantly decreased, contributing to about 68% of the total AOD reduction observed by CALIOP (0.011 per year). Despite this, Dust and Polluted Continental (PC) aerosols persist, with PC showing no clear trend of decrease. Seasonal analysis reveals aerosol peaks in summer, contrary to surface measurements, attributed to variations in the Boundary Layer (BL) depth, affecting aerosol distribution and extinction. Furthermore, the study explores the influence of seasonal wind patterns on aerosol type variation, noting that shifts in wind direction contribute to the observed changes in aerosol types, particularly affecting Dust and PD occurrences. The integration of satellite and ground measurements provides a comprehensive view of regional aerosol properties, highlighting the effectiveness of China’s environmental policies in aerosol reduction. Nonetheless, the persistence of high PD and PC levels underscores the need for continued efforts to reduce both primary and secondary aerosol production to further enhance regional air quality.

Experimental and simulation studies on the improvement of coal dust pollution by an aqueous solution of sodium α-alkenylsulfonate and amino acid-based surfactants

The use of surfactants is crucial for the prevention and control of coal dust pollution in coal mining operation areas, yet there still exist many challenges in the control of coal dust pollution. In this paper, the green biomass-based amino acid surfactant sodium myristoyl glutamate (SMG) and the anionic surfactant sodium α-alkenyl sulfonate (AOS) were selected to investigate the improvement of coal dust wettability by single and binary solutions from the macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. Molecular simulations were used to reveal the microscopic mechanism of the wettability of coal dust by the different solutions. Experimental measurements showed that the contact angle of the AOS + SMG aqueous solution was as low as 13.8° on a coal surface. Coating the coal dust with the AOS + SMG solution reduced the surface tension by 12.02% compared to coating the coal with a single component solution. Additionally, the use of the binary AOS + SMG solution increased the hydrophilic group content in the coating by 11.77% compared to a single component solution, and the linkage between hydrophilic groups was enhanced, which pulls the water molecules to wet the coal dust. These research results should provide a new way to promote more environmentally friendly coal dust pollution control technology.

Characterization of Sand and Dust Pollution Degradation Based on Sensitive Structure of Microelectromechanical System Flow Sensor.

The effect of sand and dust pollution on the sensitive structures of flow sensors in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is a hot issue in current MEMS reliability research. However, previous studies on sand and dust contamination have only searched for sensor accuracy degradation due to heat conduction in sand and dust cover and have yet to search for other failure-inducing factors. This paper aims to discover the other inducing factors for the accuracy failure of MEMS flow sensors under sand and dust pollution by using a combined model simulation and sample test method. The accuracy of a flow sensor is mainly reflected by the size of its thermistor, so in this study, the output value of the thermistor value was chosen as an electrical characterization parameter to verify the change in the sensor's accuracy side by side. The results show that after excluding the influence of heat conduction, when sand particles fall on the device, the mutual friction between the sand particles will produce an electrostatic current; through the principle of electrostatic dissipation into the thermistor, the principle of measurement leads to the resistance value becoming smaller, and when the sand dust is stationary for some time, the resistance value returns to the expected level. This finding provides theoretical guidance for finding failure-inducing factors in MEMS failure modes.

Predicting dust pollution from dry bulk ports in coastal cities: A hybrid approach based on data decomposition and deep learning

Dust pollution from storage and handling of materials in dry bulk ports seriously affects air quality and public health in coastal cities. Accurate prediction of dust pollution helps identify risks early and take preventive measures. However, there remain challenges in solving non-stationary time series and selecting relevant features. Besides, existing studies rarely consider impacts of port operations on dust pollution. Therefore, a hybrid approach based on data decomposition and deep learning is proposed to predict dust pollution from dry bulk ports. Port operational data is specially integrated into input features. A secondary decomposition and recombination (SDR) strategy is presented to reduce data non-stationarity. A dual-stage attention-based sequence-to-sequence (DA-Seq2Seq) model is employed to adaptively select the most relevant features at each time step, as well as capture long-term temporal dependencies. This approach is compared with baseline models on a dataset from a dry bulk port in northern China. The results reveal the advantages of SDR strategy and integrating operational data and show that this approach has higher accuracy than baseline models. The proposed approach can mitigate adverse effects of dust pollution from dry bulk ports on urban residents and help port authorities control dust pollution.

Research on the mechanism of coal wall fragmentation and dust production characteristics in the perspective of differentiated discrete elements

In order to efficiently and accurately control coal dust pollution in coal mining faces, this study addresses the insufficient research on the dust generation mechanism during cutting. Firstly, a similar experimental platform for simulating coal wall cutting with a drum cutter was used to investigate the changes in coal wall fragmentation and dust generation at drum speeds of 35 r/min, 50 r/min, 65 r/min, and 80 r/min. The experimental results revealed that the degree of coal wall fragmentation and dust generation increased with the increase in rotational speed, leading to a wider range of particle size distribution and an increase in the generation of fine dust particles. A 1:1 scale discrete element simulation of coal wall cutting with a drum cutter was conducted based on the experiments. The results indicated that, under the four rotational speeds, the cracks generated during coal wall fracture were predominantly tensile cracks, accounting for over 76% of the total crack count. The total number of cracks increased from 10,600 to 11,200, the number of free single particles increased from 2555 to 2728, and the fragmentation volume increased from 0.021607 to 0.023024 m3. The range and degree of coal wall fragmentation increased with the increase in drum speed.

Study on multiple influence mechanism of airflow-dust-gas coupling diffusion under large vortex flow technology

In response to the serious dust pollution and excessive gas concentration in fully mechanized excavation face, a multi-phase coupling diffusion model of airflow-dust-gas was established, and the influence of pressure pumping ratio and air volume on dust and gas diffusion was studied. The results showed that the dust of the traditional ventilation mode was diffused to the whole roadway, and the high-concentration gas accumulated obviously. However, after adopting the new ventilation mode of large vortex flow, a quantity of dust was controlled in the eddy field, and high-concentration gas was dissipated by strong airflow, so there was no gas accumulation. As the pressure pumping ratio decreases, the extraction effect increases, the eddy current intensity also increases, and the control effect on dust is enhanced. The pressure pumping ratio with the best dust control effect is 0.6, and there is no dust pollution and no gas accumulation in the driver's location. The fixed pressure pumping ratio is 0.6, and the diffusion of dust and gas is not significantly affected by an increase in air volume, but high-speed airflow can dilute and reduce the concentration of dust and gas. When Qb = 600.0 mg/m³, the high-speed airflow can dilute the dust concentration, accelerate the dispersion of high-concentration gas, keep the gas below the safe level, and have a good dust control effect. The increase of air volume will further reduce the dust and gas concentration. This study provides a theoretical basis for the promotion and utilization of new ventilation method on-site.

Livestock Manure Compost Mixed with Biochar: Efficient Pelleting and Pellet Production Characteristics

Biochar is difficult to make pellets on its own. The pelleting of biochar mixed with livestock manure compost could have the following advantages: (1) use compost as a binder, (2) reduce the moisture content of compost for pelleting by simply mixing without drying, and (3) promote the application of biochar for carbon sequestration by simultaneous application with agricultural machinery for chemical fertilizers while preventing dust pollution and additional work for the farmer. Fertilizer pellets need to be produced in an economical manner. Therefore, we empirically examined the productivity of pelleting using a roller die pellet mill, which is characterized by high throughput and is commonly used in the mass production of multifertilizer and wood pellets. Although a feedstock with 25% biochar mixed with cattle manure compost produced fewer pellets than a feedstock consisting of only compost, the energy input per unit of production remained the same. The results suggest that the addition of biochar may not increase GHG emissions during the production of this new material. Durability and wettability showed similar or higher values in the mixed pellets, indicating that the new material can be used as a fertilizer in the same way as cattle manure pellets.

МЕТОДОЛОГИЯ ПРИНЯТИЯ ОПТИМАЛЬНЫХ РЕШЕНИЙ ПО УПРАВЛЕНИЮ ЖИЗНЕННЫМ ЦИКЛОМ ОБЪЕКТА КАПИТАЛЬНОГО СТРОИТЕЛЬСТВА С УЧЕТОМ КРИТЕРИЯ ПЫЛЕВОГО ЗАГРЯЗНЕНИЯ АТМОСФЕРНОГО ВОЗДУХА

Abstract. The existing approaches to decision-making in construction have two significant drawbacks. Firstly, they allow us to calculate the effectiveness of the options under consideration only for the object construction phase, without giving an idea of the decisions effectiveness taken at other life cycle stages. Secondly, the absence of an environmental safety criterion for a particular technology in the model reduces its universality and the adequacy of the decisions taken.
 The article proposes a new approach to management decision-making in construction as to the management of a capital construction object life cycle. A methodology has been developed for making optimal decisions on life cycle management, taking into account the criterion of atmospheric air dust pollution. In order to build the methodology, a block diagram of the formation of dust emissions into the atmosphere from temporary pollution sources at various stages was developed. The dust pollution values for works performed at various life cycle stages of a capital construction object were obtained experimentally. Based on the data obtained, the values of the given optimization criterion are determined for choosing the optimal solution for life cycle management, taking into account the criterion of atmospheric air dust pollution.
 Unlike the existing ones, the developed methodology allows, firstly, to calculate the effectiveness of the options under consideration not only for the construction stage, but also for the entire object life cycle. Secondly, the model introduces a criterion of environmental safety of the control solutions under consideration, quantified by the degree of dust pollution of atmospheric air.
 Subject of research: The processes of atmospheric air dust pollution when performing work at various stages of the capital construction object life cycle. 
 Materials and methods: Theoretical and experimental methods for determining the concentration of dust pollution using the Ecologist program, based on the results of field dust pollution measurements and aerosol dispersed composition analysis.
 Results: A methodology for making optimal decisions on managing the capital construction object life cycle has been developed, including 5 stages.
 1. Identification of work types that cause atmospheric air dust pollution.
 2. Determination of fine dust concentration from each type of work.
 3. Determination of the atmospheric air pollution indicator total value for the implementation of all control solutions (technologies) variants and for all capital construction object life cycle stages according to the proposed model.
 4. Determination of given optimization criterion values for the implementation of all control solutions (technologies) variants and for all life cycle stages according to the proposed expression.
 5. Selection of the control solution (technology) with the lowest given optimization criterion value.
 Conclusions: As a result of theoretical and practical research, a methodology has been created that allows, firstly, to calculate the effectiveness of the options under consideration not only for the construction stage, but also for the entire object life cycle. Secondly, the model introduces a criterion of environmental safety of the control solutions under consideration, quantified by the atmospheric air dust pollution degree.

ПЛАНИРОВАНИЕ И РЕАЛИЗАЦИЯ СТРОИТЕЛЬНЫХ РАБОТ ПРИ ТОЧЕЧНОЙ ЗАСТРОЙКЕ ДЛЯ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ УДЕЛЬНЫХ ПЫЛЕВЫХ ВЫБРОСОВ

Abstract. The construction industry is one of the significant sources of environmental damage. The effects of dust pollution have an impact on all stages of the building's life cycle, from the start of work on the construction site to completion, operation and demolition. Despite the fact that the stage of work implementation does not last long in comparison with other stages of the life cycle of an investment and construction project, the construction stage has a number of significant impacts on the environment. The development of the construction industry requires the comprehensive assessment and investigation of the construction site as a source of pollu-tion, identification and evaluation of all sources of dust pollution on the construction site, the processes of dust pollution propagation in an urban environment. 
 The article offers an analysis of data on field studies of the degree of atmospheric air pollution in the territory of Rostov-on-Don, an analysis of the volume of construction dust emissions from construction works, a method for calculating control over the implementation of construction processes and the spread of dust pollution generated in the atmospheric air, indi-cators of the maximum, average daily emission concentration of fine dust PM2.5 and PM10 formed from construction production and the ability to control the level of pollution on the construction site. There are no fundamental studies on the calculation of dust emission from construction works during spot construction. Based on the field studies conducted earlier using the Handheld 3016 particle counter, data on dust emissions from construction processes under various climatic influences were obtained.
 Subject: analysis of data on field studies of the degree of atmospheric air dustiness in the territory of Rostov-on-Don, the volume of emissions of construction dust from construction work on construction sites in urban conditions.
 Materials and methods: conducting systematic measurements of the degree of dust in Rostov-on-Don using the Lighthouse Handheld 3016 IAQ manual particle counter, taking into account typical climatic, heterogeneous factors of the territory on which the city is located. Systematic monitoring of several construction sites where residential complexes similar in technology and conditions were built in the most dusty area of Rostov-on-Don and the selection of five construction sites for the development of a calendar schedule for construction and installation work, taking into account specific emissions of dust particles and climatic conditions for calculating the dust pollution factor.
 Results: an effective approach that can be usefully applied to the determination of dust emissions on the construction site, to calculate the gross emission of dust released on the site from construction work, daily indicators of the maximum single and average daily concentration, as well as to dust dispersion with the determination of zones exceeding the MPC indicators is the use of network modeling with further calendarization to predict these types of indicators during the design and implementation of construction production.
 Conclusions: based on the data obtained, it can be concluded that with the existing implemented organization and technology of work, the concentration of fine dust particles are within the MPC, but given the background concentrations of atmospheric air in Rostov-on-Don, these indicators in a particular area will exceed the permissible MPC. The process of using existing SMR models taking into account specific dust emissions, the development of a schedule of dust pollution of a specific territory taking into account natural and climatic factors and the determination of zones of excess of MPC indicators in the process of modeling the dispersion of fine dust particles beyond the fence boundaries of the construction site will make it possible to draw up a passport of environmental safety of the nearby urbanized territory during spot development. Daily determination of dust pollution indicators will allow you to adjust the schedule of construction work. Modeling the dispersion of construction dust, taking into account the direction and speed of the wind, will make it possible to monitor the zones of exceeding the MPC of the neighboring territory on a daily basis and adjust measures to extinguish dust emissions at the construction site.

Modeling and Predicting PM2.5 Concentration at a Construction Site Using the Artificial Intelligence

Introduction. High concentration of PM2.5 has the adverse effect on people's health. According to the evaluations made by the researchers, the impact of the particulate matter from the construction dust emissions resulted in 18% of deaths from respiratory diseases. Due to the growth of construction production volume and consequent increase of dust emission volumes, there arises the need to expand the scope of using the end-to-end technologies, namely the artificial intelligence technologies, for predicting the fine-dispersed dust particles PM2.5 concentration in dust emissions at the construction site.Materials and methods. To achieve this goal, the measurements of PM2.5 concentration at the construction site were carried out using the Handheld 3016 IAQ particle counter in the period from July 1 to July 6, 2023 taking into account the meteorological characteristics of the territory, which then became the input data for modelling the forecast of dust pollution concentration using such algorithms as ARIMA, EMA, XGBoost, etc., and the ensemble models that included the above machine learning algorithms. The efficiency of using these technologies for predicting was determined by comparing the results of the forecast and the field measurements data.Results. A correlation analysis was performed using the Modeltime program, which determined the relationship between PM2.5 concentration and meteorological variables. Autocorrelation was performed using Pearson correlation. At the first stage, four one-dimensional models based on the artificial intelligence were evaluated to determine the accuracy of mean concentration forecast. The next step was to evaluate the capacity of predicting the mean PM2.5 concentration using the multidimensional models that took into account the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. At the final stage of the research, three most efficient predictive models were included to test the ensemble model.Discussion and conclusion. The reliable predictive models can be the useful tools for understanding the concentration impact factors. In the present research, seven machine learning algorithms were used to predict the concentration of PM2.5. The research, as a whole, presents the evidences of the integrated modeling method efficiency for predicting the air pollution.

Design of fluorine-free superhydrophobic coating for fibred architectonic concrete

In outdoor environment, the exterior walls surface of buildings always suffers from damages caused by ultraviolet radiations, temperature variation, abrasion and erosion phenomenon, dust pollution, and microbial adhesion: Thereby reducing their durability over time. In order to overcome these obstacles, the superhydrophobic coatings can be an advantageous solution to ensure long-term stable use by improving the exterior concrete walls durability. In this line, a fluorine-free water-repellent coating was developed through sol-gel method and successfully applied to concrete substrates by dip-coating technique. The coating was formulated with low surface energy polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polymeric silica (PS) to simultaneously modify the microstructure and chemical properties of concrete substrate surface. The coated concrete substrate showed super-hydrophobicity with high water contact angle (WCA) over than 150°. Besides, the self-cleaning property, mechanical robustness, stability under UV irradiations, resistance to temperature and humidity were investigated. The results indicated that the coated concrete substrate cannot be soiled by dust and can resist over than 300 cycles of abrasion test. It also presents resistance to temperature of 45°C associated with a humidity of 80% during 720 hours and showed excellent resistance to prolonged exposure to UV irradiations during 1440 hours. Natural out-door aging tests have shown that the superhydrophobic coating is weather resistant.

MEMS sensitive structure sand and dust friction contamination test and electrical variation characteristics

The impact of dust pollution on the sensitive components of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) has been a hot topic in current reliability research. However, previous studies have rarely focused on the fundamental analysis of the influence of dust pollutants on the sensitive components of MEMS, and these research results lack universality. This paper aims to present experimental results on the electrical characteristic changes of MEMS thermal sensitive resistors based on dust friction, providing a more detailed description and explanation. Through dust friction experiments, we investigated the effects of dust particle size and relative humidity on the electrical characteristics of MEMS devices. We chose the resistance value output as the electrical characteristic parameter, based on the performance exhibited during the dust friction experiments. We conducted a detailed analysis of the reasons for the changes in the electrical characteristic parameters. The research results showed that when dust particles settle on the device, the failure mode of the device manifests as resistance drift. The inducing factor is the electrostatic current generated by the friction between dust particles, which enters the sensitive components through the principle of electrostatic dissipation. The measurement principle leads to changes in the resistance value measurement, although the actual resistance value does not change. The magnitude of this electrostatic current is directly proportional to the size of the particles and inversely proportional to the relative humidity. This finding provides theoretical guidance for identifying failure-inducing factors in MEMS failure modes.

OPTIMISING POLICY SELECTION FOR PM2.5 REDUCTION IN CENTRAL THAILAND’S AGRICULTURAL AREAS: A MULTI-CRITERIA DECISIONMAKING AND SIMULATION APPROACH TOWARDS HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY

This study focuses on optimising policy directions using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Sensitivity Analysis (SA) algorithm techniques to control burning in agricultural areas, thereby reducing the amount of PM2.5 dust pollution in the atmosphere. Data were collected through pairwise comparisons from a group of 15 individuals, comprising government agency representatives (seven individuals), and agricultural workers (eight individuals) in Nakhon Sawan Province, Thailand. Data analysis was conducted using PriEsT software. The study considered five criteria to determine the success of policies: Environmental, economic, technological, political, and social. The policy alternatives considered were sugar cane, rice, cassava, and rice. By calculating the weighted relevance of each criterion and comparing them, policies were developed to prevent burning in agricultural areas. Based on the study’s findings, economic factors (37.1%) were identified as the most significant, followed by technological (18.2%), social (17.9%), political (13.6%), and environmental (13.2%) factors. To simulate decisionmaking under uncertainty, the SA algorithm was employed through PriEsT. The results indicate that to effectively reduce burning in agricultural areas and subsequently decrease PM2.5 pollution, the government and related agencies should formulate policies that promote economic measures for handling post-harvest rice scraps.

Study on the characteristics of compound dust source pollution and foam dust suppression technology in coal mine anchor excavation production

To guard against the damage caused by the dust pollution of the shuttle driver in the anchor excavation production, the Discrete Phase Model(DPM)-Discrete Element Model(DEM) was constructed based on the gas-solid two-phase flow theory, the dust pollution characteristics of the shuttle transfer stage were numerically simulated, and a dual carborne combined foam dust suppression system was developed. The results showed that at the rear of the transfer machine, due to the reduction of the roadway section space during transferring made the wind velocity relatively maximum, and the space after transferring dispersed many cutting dust and transferring dust, resulting in the wind velocity after transferring was slightly smaller than before transferring, and the wind velocity difference was 0.18 m/s on average. The dust pollution in the operating environment of the shuttle driver before, during and after transferring was more serious, with 162.1 mg/m³, 340.7 mg/m³ and 540.8 mg/m³. There was variability in the particle diameter of dust generated by different processes, and smaller micron-sized dust particles were generated during transferring, of which respiratory dust below 7.07 μm accounted for up to 21% of the total. To reduce the high concentration of respiratory dust clusters, a strong wettability high-fold foam dust suppressant was prepared and applied to a dual carborne combined foam dust suppression system, and the average dust reduction rates of total dust and respiratory dust reached 91.9% and 93.6%, respectively.

Development of an eco-friendly dust suppressant based on modified guar gum: Performance and mechanism analysis

In order to solve the soil fugitive dust pollution at the infrastructure construction site, a new environment friendly dust suppressant was prepared with carboxymethyl guar gum (CMGG) as the core raw material. The optimal formulation of the dust suppressant was determined using single factor experiments and RSM (Response surface method). The performance test results showed that the water erosion rate of the soil dust was <5%, and wind erosion rate reached 97.51%. The water retention rate of dust suppressant reached 31.33%. The dust suppressant contained substantial oxygen-containing functional groups (-OH, -COOH). The -COOH and -OH contained in the soil were interactively attracted with -OH and -COOH in dust suppressant to form hydrogen bonds, resulting in interfacial between dust suppressant and soil dust surface. The dust suppressant-soil dust adhesion system is formed, thereby inhibiting the spread of soil dust.

Preparation and performance evaluation of modified soy protein isolate polymeric dust suppressant using graft copolymerization

AbstractTo effectively control mine dust pollution, a polymeric dust suppressant with wetting, bonding and moisture absorption, and retention properties was prepared by graft copolymerization of soy protein isolate (SPI) with polyacrylamide (PAM) and glycerol (Gl) through chemical modification. The relevant properties of the polymeric dust suppressant were determined through microscopic and macroscopic experiments. The results indicated that the contact angle of the polymeric dust suppressant dropped to 28.34° after 15 s, with a rate of change of 2.56°/s. The viscosity of the polymeric dust suppressant was 17.5 mPa s, which meets the requirements for the viscosity of dust suppressants for spraying (5–30 mPa s). After 24 h of spraying, a nonliquid consolidated monolayer shaped on the coal sample surface, with a hardness of 86.3 HA. In a muggy environment, the moisture absorption rate of the polymeric dust suppressant was 31.6%, and the moisture retention rate remained 28.5%, far exceeding that of the coal sample sprayed with water. When the wind speed increased from 6 to 21 m/s, the wind erosion resistance rate of the polymeric dust suppressant decreased from 99.78% to 96.55%, and the average mass loss increased from 0.11 to 1.73 g/(m2·min), while still maintaining a high dust suppression efficiency.

Methacrylic acid in situ modified steel converter slag/natural rubber composites: Resourceful utilization of steelmaking solid wastes

As a by-product of the steelmaking industry, the large-volume production and accumulation of steel converter slag cause environmental issues such as land occupation and dust pollution. Since metal salts of unsaturated carboxylic acid can be used to reinforce rubber, this study explores the innovative application of in-situ modified steel slag, mainly comprising metal oxides, with methacrylic acid (MAA) as a rubber filler partially replacing carbon black. By etching the surface of steel slag particles with MAA, their surface roughness was increased, and the chemical bonding of metal methacrylate salt was introduced to enhance their interaction with the molecular chain of natural rubber (NR). The results showed that using the steel slag filler effectively shortened the vulcanization molding cycle of NR composites. The MAA in-situ modification effectively improved the interaction between steel slag and NR molecular chains. Meanwhile, the physical and mechanical properties, fatigue properties, and dynamic mechanical properties of the experimental group with MAA in-situ modified steel slag (MAA-in-situ-m-SS) were significantly enhanced compared with those of NR composites partially filled with unmodified slag. With the dosage of 7.5 phr or 10 phr, the above properties matched or even exceeded those of NR composites purely filled with carbon black. More importantly, partially replacing carbon black with modified steel slag reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission from carbon black production. This study pioneered an effective path for the resourceful utilization of steel slag and the green development of the steelmaking and rubber industries.

Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in Dust in Vilnius Schools: Source Identification, Pollution Levels, and Potential Health Risks for Children.

The main objective of this study is to thoroughly evaluate the diversity and sources of heavy metals in the school environment. Specifically, this study examines the presence of heavy metals in the dust found and collected from 24 schools in Vilnius. Employing hierarchical cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and positive matrix factorization, we identified combustion-related activities as primary contributors to elevated metal concentrations, notably zinc, scandium, and copper, with PM2.5/PM10 ratios indicating a combustion source. They reveal significant differences in the levels of elements such as arsenic (4.55-69.96 mg/kg), copper (51.28-395.37 mg/kg), zinc, and lead, which are affected by both local environmental factors and human activities. Elevated pollution levels were found in certain school environments, indicating environmental degradation. Pollution assessment and specific element pairings' strong positive correlations suggested shared origins or deposition processes. While this study primarily assesses non-carcinogenic risks to children based on a health risk assessment model, it acknowledges the well-documented carcinogenic potential of substances such as lead and arsenic. The research emphasizes the immediate necessity for efficient pollution management in educational environments, as indicated by the elevated hazard index for substances such as lead and arsenic, which present non-carcinogenic risks to children. This research offers important insights into the composition and origins of dust pollution in schools. It also promotes the need for broader geographic sampling and prolonged data collection to improve our understanding of pollution sources, alongside advocating for actionable strategies such as environmental management and policy reforms to effectively reduce exposure risks in educational settings. Furthermore, it aims to develop specific strategies to safeguard the health of students in Vilnius and similar urban areas.