Environmental Issue Nowadays Research Articles

Oligoelements in serum and intestinal tissue of pediatric IBD patients

IntroductionInflammatory bowel disease (IBD) develops through complex interplay of genetic, microbial, immune, and environmental factors. Trace elements alterations are commonly present in IBD and may have influence on IBD development. Heavy metal pollution is one of the major environmental issues nowadays and IBD incidence is rising in countries where industry starts to develop. Metals are implicated in processes that are connected to IBD pathogenesis. AimThe aim of this study was to investigate toxic and trace element levels in pediatric population of IBD patients both in serum and intestinal mucosa. Materials and methodsThis prospective study enrolled children newly diagnosed with IBD in University children’s hospital in Belgrade. Concentrations of thirteen elements: Al, As, Ca, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Se and Zn in serum and intestinal mucosa of 17 newly diagnosed children with IBD (10 Crohn’s disease (CD) and 7ulcerative colitis (UC)) and 10 controls were assessed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Intestinal mucosa samples were taken from terminal ileum and six different colon segments (cecum, ascending colon, colon transversum, descending and sigmoid colon and rectum). ResultsThe results demonstrated significant alterations in serum and intestinal mucosa concentrations of investigated elements. Serum iron was significantly decreased in IBD and CD group, compared to controls while serum Cu significantly differed between three investigated groups with highest concentration observed in CD children. Serum manganese was the highest in the UC subgroup. Terminal ileums of IBD patients contained significantly lower amount of Cu, Mg, Mn and Zn with Mn being significantly decreased also in CD patients compared to control. IBD patients’ caecum contained significantly less Mg and Cu while colon transversum tissue samples from IBD and Crohn’s patients contained significantly more chromium than controls. Moreover, sigmoid colon of IBD patients were poorer in Mg than controls (p < 0.05). Colon Al, As and Cd were significantly reduced in IBD, and UC children compared to control. Correlations of investigated elements in CD and UC groups were different from controls. Biochemical and clinical parameters showed correlation with element concentrations in intestines. ConclusionSera of CD, UC and control children significantly differ in Fe, Cu and Mn levels. Serum manganese was the highest in the UC subgroup creating the most prominent and only significant difference between UC and CD subgroups. Terminal ileum of IBD patients contained significantly lower amount of majority of investigated essential trace elements and toxic elements were significantly reduced in colon of IBD and UC patients. Investigation of macro- and microelement alterations in children and adults has potential to further elucidate IBD pathogenesis.

Urgensi Penerapan Konsep Green Banking di Indonesia

Era globalization, environmental management and protection become important matters. Environmental issues nowadays have become not only local or trans-local issues but also regional, national, transnational, and global issues. On that matter, banks in Indonesia transform their business activities by implementing the green banking concept, in which national banks nowadays consider environmental management and protection aspects in their operational activities. However, the absence of statutory regulations in Indonesia which explicitly stipulate obligations for a bank to include provisions for environmental management and protection requires legal renewal in the application of the green banking concept to banking management in Indonesia. This research aims to review the definition and history of green banking and the urgency of the green banking concept implementation in Indonesia. This research is normative legal research in which using a statute approach. The legal materials used in this research are derived from primary and secondary legal materials. The legal material collection technique used in this research is a library research technique. The data in which sourced from legal materials in this study were analyzed using a qualitative approach.

Bacterial distribution in long-term dioxin-contaminated soil in Vietnam and novel dioxin degrading bacteria isolated from Phu Cat airbase

ABSTRACT Herbicide-/dioxin-contaminated contamination in Vietnam is an environmental issue nowadays, despite Agent Orange being sprayed a long time ago. High levels of dioxin in military airbases cause hot spots of dioxin contamination sites in which potential biological source of microorganisms has developed. Understanding microorganism structure in contaminated soil is crucial for the bioremediation of the sites. Illumina Miseq platform was applied to sequence V3-V4 amplicons of long-term contaminated communities to evaluate the bacterial distribution. Contaminated soil from different regions Bien Hoa and Phu Cat showed a low level of connectedness; the species richness of Bien Hoa was much higher than that of Phu Cat. However, they shared similarities in the most abundant bacterial phyla: Actinobacteriota, Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteriota, and Planctomycetota. Several xenobiotic-degrading genera were found, such as Terrabacter, Nocardioides, and Streptomyces of Actinobacteriota; Bacillus, Paenibacillus, and Clostridium of Firmicutes; Burkholderia, Sphingomonas, Pseudomonas and Klebsiella of Proteobacteria. Seven bacterial isolates grew on dioxin-containing medium belonging to Firmicutes, they were classified in order Bacillales, in which two strains belong to Paenibacillaceae, and the rests are in Bacillaceae. Two isolates removed more than 80% of total toxicity (mainly 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin); strain PC5 is the first dioxin-degrading bacterium recognized in the genus Neobacillus.

Rational design of S-scheme AgI/ZrTiO4-x heterojunctions for remarkably boosted norfloxacin degradation

Emerging S-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts endowed with efficient charge separation and strong redox capacity have stimulated wide interests in dealing with environmental issues nowadays. In this work, we firstly fabricated the oxygen vacancy modified ZrTiO4-x nanocrystals, which was further combined with AgI to build the defective S-scheme AgI/ZrTiO4-x heterojunctions for visible-light photocatalytic norfloxacin degradation. The synthesized ZrTiO4-x nanocrystals and AgI/ZrTiO4-x heterojunctions displayed remarkably boosted norfloxacin degradation performance under visible-light irradiation. The reaction rate constant of the optimized AgI/ZrTiO4-x-5% heterojunction is as high as 0.01419 min−1, which is approximately 43.35 times that of AgI and 7.93 times that of ZrTiO4-x nanocrystals, and far superior to those of commercial TiO2 and commercial ZrO2. The high-performance photocatalytic norfloxacin degradation could be mainly attributed to the formation of S-scheme charge transfer pathways and oxygen vacancy defects. More significantly, AgI/ZrTiO4-x could also realize the effective photo-decomposition of other emerging pollutants. Finally, the visible-light photocatalytic performance and photocatalysis mechanism were investigated.

Characteristics of Initial Attachment and Biofilm Formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on Microplastic Surfaces

The toxic effect of microplastics on living organisms is emerging as a serious environmental issue nowadays. The biofilm formed on their surface by microorganisms can further increase the toxicity, but the mechanism of biofilm formation on microplastics is not yet fully understood because of the complexities of other factors. This study aimed to identify the factors with an important influence on biofilm formation on microplastic surfaces. The microtiter plate assay was used to evaluate the biofilms formed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, a model microorganism, on four types of microplastics, including polyethylene, polystyrene, polypropylene, and polytetrafluoroethylene. The density of microplastics was found to be a key factor in determining the amount of biofilm formation because the density relative to water has a decisive effect on the behavior of microplastics. Biofilm formation on plastics with densities similar to that of water showed remarkable differences based on surface characteristics, whereas biofilm formation on plastics with a higher density was significantly influenced by particle movement in the experimental environment. Furthermore, biofilm formation was inhibited by adding a quorum quenching enzyme, suggesting that QS is critical in biofilm formation on microplastics. This study provides useful information on biofilm formation on microplastic surfaces.

Increasing Awareness About the Use of Plastic in the Philippines Through Digital Posters

This thesis was all about increasing awareness about the Use of Plastic through posters. The researcher chose this topic because, as she understood from the research, the plastic problem is one of the most critical environmental issues nowadays. Mechanical impacts such as entanglement with plastic objects, concerns with plastic garbage ingestion, or exposure to plastic compounds that interfere with their physiology can harm living organisms, mainly marine animals.People's consciousness is one of the most important factors to avoid so much use of plastic by Filipino. According to the researchers' research during this paper, digital posters are one of the best ways to use less plastic. Semiotics, Color theory, and Agenda-setting theory were the theories that helped the researcher to make effective posters. According to the research, interview, survey, and the result of this thesis, the researcher could design six posters about the harmful effect of plastic on wildlife and our environment. The researcher could increase people's awareness about plastic use. And the researcher's recommendation is to replace these posters in barangay to raise barangay staff awareness. The second recommendation is to recycle stuff like plastic decorations, trash bins, and so on, which come entirely from plastic bottles.

Magnetic Porous Geopolymer: A Cheaper and Efficient Environmental Tool for Heavy Metal Sorption

AbstractSorption of heavy metals is a crucial controller method for environmental pollution. Contamination by heavy metals is one of the most critical and discussed environmental issue nowadays that fits in the context of bioaccumulation. Some examples of these contaminants are lead, cadmium, and chromium. In order to avoid increasing the level of these contaminants in rainwater networks, the Brazilian Council of Environment (CONAMA) establishes that it is essential that industries that produce effluents remove these metals before returning the effluent to the network. Given this, a new technology is proposed for the removal of heavy metals. A magnetic nanocomposite is produced by adding maghemite nanoparticles to an aluminosilicate matrix and subjected to heavy metal‐contaminated effluents to sorption through this material. In order to evaluate the efficiency of removal of heavy metals by aluminosilicates, the effluents are analyzed by atomic absorption spectroscopy, and the results show a 99% sorption capacity. Finally, lethality tests, using Artemia salina, are performed. The best results are from the chromium and lead absorption tests.

YOUNG GENERATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLY AWARENESS: DOES IT THE IMPACT OF GREEN ADVERTISING?

The environmental issues nowadays have make consumers becoming more selective in selecting products and brands going to use. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of green advertising on green purchase intentions mediated by green attitude awareness in the young generation. Young generation has strong curiosity and has easier access on getting products information, so this research focuses deeper on examining how much green advertising, green knowledge, and eco-label information affect the awareness on green attitude which later influences green intention to purchase. This research used primary data obtained from questionnaires distributed directly to 150 undergraduate students of universities in Indonesia. We used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for verifying hypothesis and AMOS 20 software for getting empirical results of 16 items questions representing indicator of 4 variables. The result showed that green advertising and green knowledge were able to form the awareness on environmental friendly. Although eco-label information did not influence the awareness on green attitude, it influenced the green purchase intention directly.

Bio‐ and oxo‐degradable plastics: Insights on facts and challenges

AbstractThe global accumulation of single‐use plastic bags made from nonbiodegradable plastics is the most concerning environmental issue nowadays. The utilization of biodegradable materials is a choice to reduce the environmental impact resulting from the use of plastic products. The utilization of renewable resources to produce fully biodegradable plastics is among the technologies used to overcome petroleum plastic's negative impact. On the other hand, the utilization of oxo‐biodegradable plastics where prodegradant additives are incorporated in conventional plastics to promote their degradation under certain conditions has recently received much attention. This review discusses the types and challenges that face the implementation of biodegradable plastics technology that uses renewable resources. This review also covers the debate addressed in the literature about the biodegradability fate of oxo‐biodegradable plastic in the air, compost, soil, landfill, and marine. A comparative study included the potential published literature in the last 10 years was performed. Based on the discussed evidence in this review, it can be concluded that all literature agrees that the addition of pro‐oxidant/prodegradants can accelerate the degradation of oxo‐plastics to small fragments. However, the complete biodegradation of oxo‐plastics by microorganisms remains in doubt. On the other hand, biopolymers produced from natural resources seem to be the future direction for plastics manufacturing especially single‐use plastic bags.

Recent progress on thin film composite membranes for CO2 separation

• The promising membranes for CO 2 separation are discussed. • The exploration of CO 2 separation membrane in pilot-scale are presented. • The challenges of materials and membrane preparation in large-scale are briefly analyzed. The excess CO 2 emission into the atmosphere is one of the important environmental issues nowadays. It is urgent to develop environmentally friendly and low energy technologies to reduce the CO 2 emission. Membrane technology shows great potential in CO 2 separation because of the inherent merit over other conventional separation techniques. High permselectivity membranes play a vital role in efficient membrane processes. The thin film composite membranes with excellent performance have attracted more and more attentions. In this review, the CO 2 separation membranes are grouped into dense polymer membranes, microporous material membranes and mixed matrix membranes. A number of representative membranes with high performance are highlighted. In addition, the exploration of CO 2 separation membrane in pilot-scale are presented, followed by a brief analysis on the challenges of materials and membrane preparation in large-scale. Finally, the direction for further research is also discussed. It is believed that the review provides potential insights and guidance for the future development of thin film composite membranes for CO 2 separation, and hence promote the development of membrane.

Numerical Study of NOx and Soot Formations in Hydrocarbon Diffusion Flames

Pollutant emission is becoming a serious environmental issue nowadays. Stringent legislations were introduced in several countries to limit the permissible levels of pollutant particle emission in ...

PENINGKATAN KEPEDULIAN PEMBUANGAN SAMPAH DENGAN MEDIA SALAM BIDADARI DI SLB BANGUN PUTRA KASIHAN BANTUL

Waste is the biggest environmental issue nowadays. Waste management is one of the solutions that should be disseminated to everyone, including children, as early as possible. This program involved 16 students of debiles and imbiciles in SLB Bangun Putra, Kasihan, Bantul. The learning methods in this program were the emotional approach and Community Based Interactive Approach (Cara Belajar Insan Aktif). The instrument in this program was a speaking bin. The results showed the increase of interest and understanding on the waste disposal as much as 27% in the imbicile students and 40% in the debile students. This improvement of understanding was accompanied by the imporvement in the students enthusiasm to dispose their waste properly

High-performance triboelectric nanogenerators for self-powered, in-situ and real-time water quality mapping

Water pollution is one of the most severe environmental issues nowadays. For sustainably and autonomously monitoring water quality, in-situ self-powered sensing systems which can harvest local wave energy are highly desired. Here, a high-performance tandem disk triboelectric nanogenerator (TD-TENG) for self-powered water quality monitoring is demonstrated. By surface modification and optimized design, a radial grating structure which can be effectively agitated by slow water waves is realized, boosting the peak and average power of wave-energy-harvesting TENG devices to 45.0 mW and 7.5 mW respectively, which are roughly 35 and 24 folds of the typical ball-shell structured device. The average power density reaches 7.3 W m−3, setting up a new record. The short-circuit current is greatly enhanced to 11 mA through a facile power management circuit. The high output enables a self-powered total dissolved solids testing system, which can be scaled up into networks for in-situ, real-time mapping water quality in a large area. The TD-TENG as a high-power wave energy harvesting device also opens up an avenue to solve the bottleneck of power supply for versatile sensing platforms that need to work autonomously in water, providing a fundamental technology for smart environmental and ocean science.

Fixation of CO 2 along with bromopyridines on a silver electrode

Resulting from the drastic increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration day by day, global warming has become a serious environmental issue nowadays. The fixation of CO2 to obtain desirable, economically competitive chemicals has recently received considerable attention. This work investigates the fixation of CO2 along with three bromopyridines via a facile electrochemical method using a silver cathode to synthesize picolinic acids, which are important industrial and fine chemicals. Cyclic voltammetry is employed to investigate the cyclic voltammetric behaviour of bromopyridines. In addition, systematic study is conducted to study the relationships between the picolinic acids' yield and the electrolysis conditions and intrinsic parameters. The results show that the target picolinic acids' yields are strongly dependent on various conditions such as solvent, supporting electrolyte, current density, cathode material, charge passed, temperature and the nature of the substrates. Moreover, in the studied electrode materials such as Ag, Ni, Ti, Pt and GC, electrolysis and cyclic voltammetry show that Ag has a good electrocatalytic effect on the reduction and carboxylation of bromopyridine. This facile electrochemical route for fixation of CO2 provides an indispensable reference for the conversion and utilization of CO2 under mild conditions.

Hierarchical Porous Chitosan Sponges as Robust and Recyclable Adsorbents for Anionic Dye Adsorption

Biomass waste treatment and detrimental dye adsorption are two of the crucial environmental issues nowadays. In this study, we investigate to simultaneously resolve the aforementioned issues by synthesizing chitosan sponges as adsorbents toward rose bengal (RB) dye adsorption. Through a temperature-controlled freeze-casting process, robust and recyclable chitosan sponges are fabricated with hierarchical porosities resulted from the control of concentrations of chitosan solutions. Tested as the adsorbents for RB, to the best of our knowledge, the as-prepared chitosan sponge in this work reports the highest adsorption capacity of RB (601.5 mg/g) ever. The adsorption mechanism, isotherm, kinetics, and thermodynamics are comprehensively studied by employing statistical analysis. Importantly and desirably, the sponge type of chitosan adsorbents exceedingly facilitates the retrieving and elution of chitosan sponges for recyclable uses. Therefore, the chitosan sponge adsorbent is demonstrated to possess dramatically squeezable capability with durability for 10,000 cycles and recyclable adsorption for at least 10 cycles, which provides an efficient and economical way for both biomass treatment and water purification.

Preparation Activated Carbon from Scrap Tires by Microwave Assisted KOH Activation for Removal Emulsified Oil

In this paper activated carbon adsorbents produced from waste tires by chemical activation methods and application of microwave assisted KOH activation. The influence of radiation time, radiation power, and impregnation ratio on the yield and oil removal which is one of the major environmental issues nowadays and considered persistent environmental contaminants and many of them are suspected of being carcinogenic. Based on Box-Wilson central composite design, polynomial models were developed to correlate the process variables to the two responses. From the analysis of variance the significant variables on each response were identified. Optimum conditions of 4 min radiation time, 700 W radiation power and 0.5 g/g impregnation ratio gave 205.8749 mg/g oil removal and 35.19618 % yield. The characteristics of the AC were examined by pore structure analysis, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The BET surface area and total pore volume were identified to be 374.594 m²/g and 0.2039 m³/g, respectively.

Phytoremediation of Industrial and Pharmaceutical Pollutants

Pollution in water bodies and soil is a major and ever-increasing environmental issue nowadays, and most conventional remediation approaches do not provide appropriate solutions. The contamination of soil is a major concern for the environment and needs to be remediated. These pollutants include complex organic compounds, heavy metals released from industries and plants and natural products such as oils from accidental release. Further the nature of pollution will be governed by the source and type of the contaminant, and other inorganic compounds are released into the environment from a number of sources like mining, smelting, electroplating, and farming. Plants can clean up many types of contaminants like metals, pesticides, oils, and explosives. Phytoremediation is emerging as a bio-based and low-cost alternative in the cleanup of heavy metal-contaminated soils.

PhotoATRP-Based Fluorinated Thermosensitive Block Copolymer for Controllable Water/Oil Separation

The increasing environmental burden in human society calls for the development of more environmentally benign technologies and sustainable applications. Wastewater contaminated by oil or organic solvents has become a serious environmental issue nowadays. Herein, a well-defined thermosensitive block copolymer was designed and used for controllable water/oil separation. The functional material poly(2,2,3,4,4,4-hexafluorobutyl methacrylate)-block-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) was synthesized through a new environmentally benign “living” radical polymerization technique [i.e., photoinitiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (photoATRP)]. The synthesized functional copolymer was considered as a modifier for fabricating a smart surface with thermal-responsive wettability. The switchable mechanism, surface composition, and morphology of the as-fabricated surface were investigated by water contact-angle measurement, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Results showed that the as-fabric...

Pretreatment and filterability tests of wastewater as a first step to characterize the influent to a membrane bioreactor

Abstract Wastewater reclamation and reuse has become one of the most important environmental issues nowadays. Thus, municipal wastewater treatment plants are being upgraded converting conventional activated sludge processes into membrane bioreactors in order to improve the quality of the treated wastewater. However, operational costs increase because of higher energy consumption and membrane fouling. Wastewater composition is one of the factors affecting membrane fouling, though its influence is difficult to describe. In this work, a study about wastewater pretreatment and filterability has been carried out in view of achieving valuable information for a further implementation of a membrane bioreactor. Experiments were performed with samples of four municipal wastewater treatment plants taken from the plant influent, the biological process influent and the plant effluent. Fiterability was evaluated by membrane filtration resistances using the resistance in series model. Resistances were measured with ultrafiltration tests performed with flat membranes. Results showed that suspended solids concentration was the most influential parameter on the total membrane resistance when pretreated wastewater is filtered. No statistical correlation between the membrane resistances of biological process influent and plant effluent was found.

Heat and Mass Transport in the Unsaturated Porous Media: Application to the Soil Dry Drainage Method

Salinity currently has the highest priority of all environmental issues nowadays. The only means of preventing the development of soil salinity was combining leaching and artificial drainage. Recently a new method of capturing and removing salt from the soil surface called a dry drainage method [1-4] has been studied (fig.1) to help arid soils prevention against such threat. This work is a numerical simulation of the simultaneous water, solute and heat transfer in an unsaturated porous media during the simultaneous evaporation and drainage of saline dry land soils. A detailed mathematical model was formulated to describe the non-isothermal transport of water in the unsaturated porous media [5]. The model consists of the coupled conservative equations of mass for liquid phase, gas phase, water vapour, species and the energy. The boundary conditions at the soil–atmosphere interface include dynamical mass flux and energy flux. Comparison of numerical simulations with analytical results demonstrated that the present model is able to describe water and energy transport dynamics.