Extensive application of pesticides has caused a lot of environmental pollution and health problems, prompting the development of highly efficient and lowly toxic pesticide formulations. Here, buprofezin (BPF)-loaded poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (P(HB-HH)) microspheres were prepared by O/W emulsion/solvent evaporation method. Under optimal conditions (P(HB-HH) 7.07% (w/v) and PVA 1.84% (w/v)), the spherical and monodispersed microspheres were obtained. The average particle size, pesticide loading (PL), and encapsulation efficiency (EE) of the optimized microspheres were 1.2 μm, 15.68%, and 78%, respectively. Release of 80% BPF from the microspheres in pH 5 (192 h) was faster than that in pH 7 (228 h) and 8 (204 h). Moreover, kinetic analysis indicated that BPF release behaved in a non-Fickian diffusion manner (0.43 < n < 0.85) and the release mechanism was the combined effects of pesticide diffusion and hydrolysis of polymer. The bioassay and toxicity results showed that encapsulation of BPF could exhibit high efficacy on the target organism and low toxicity to the non-target organism. Therefore, these results demonstrated that BPF-loaded P(HB-HH) microspheres with good stability were prepared successfully, and they could be further explored for constructing other highly efficient and lowly toxic pesticide formulations.

In the recent past, the NOₓ removal efficiency of photocatalytic materials has been subject of many studies with promising results. However, many of these studies involve laboratory tests carried out under standardized climatic exposure conditions, often not representative of the real-world environment. With the aim to bridge this gap, selected photocatalytic materials have been applied to different substrates in outdoor demonstrator platforms at pilot scale as part of the project LIFE-PHOTOSCALING. The paper presents the results of in situ measurements of NOₓ removal efficiency of the materials, performed during 17 months. Statistical models accounting for the influence of exposure time and relevant environmental variables are derived. They suggest that photocatalytic emulsions on the tested asphalt experience a significant loss of activity over time irrespective of climatic conditions. The efficiency of photocatalytic slurries on asphalt and of concrete tiles, with the photocatalyst applied on surface or in bulk, mainly depends on substrate humidity.

Carbon monoxide (CO) emission inventory data are crucial for air quality control. However, the emission inventories are labor-intensive and time-consuming and generally have large uncertainties. In this study, we developed a new regional data assimilation system (TracersTracker) for estimating the surface CO emission flux from continuous mixing ratio observations using the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)-based four-dimensional variational (4D-VAR) data assimilation method (POD-4DVar) and a coupled regional model (Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) with the Models-3 Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model). This system was applied to estimate CO emissions in Xuzhou city, China. An experiment was conducted with the continuous hourly surface CO mixing ratio observations from 21 monitoring towers in January and July of 2016. The experimental results of the system were examined and compared with the continuous surface CO observations (a priori emission). We found that the retrieved CO emission fluxes were higher than the a priori emission and were mainly distributed in urban and industrial areas, which were 104% higher in January (winter) and 44% higher in July (summer).

Accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in soil, water and air is one of the major environmental concerns worldwide, which mainly occurs due to anthropogenic activities such as industrialization, urbanization, and mining. Conventional remediation strategies involving physical or chemical techniques are not cost-effective and/or eco-friendly, reinforcing the necessity for development of novel approaches. Phytoextraction has attracted considerable attention over the past decades and generally refers to use of plants for cleaning up environmental pollutants such as HMs. Compared to other plant types such as edible crops and medicinal plants, ornamental plants (OPs) seem to be a more viable option as they offer several advantages including cleaning up the HMs pollution, beautification of the environment, by-product generation and related economic benefits, and not generally being involved in the food/feed chain or other direct human applications. Phytoextraction ability of OPs involve diverse detoxification pathways such as enzymatic and non-enzymatic (secondary metabolites) antioxidative responses, distribution and deposition of HMs in the cell walls, vacuoles and metabolically inactive tissues, and chelation of HMs by a ligand such as phytochelatins followed by the sequestration of the metal–ligand complex into the vacuoles. The phytoextraction efficiency of OPs can be improved through chemical, microbial, soil amending, and genetic approaches, which primarily target bioavailability, uptake, and sequestration of HMs. In this review, we explore the phytoextraction potential of OPs for remediation of HMs-polluted environments, underpinning mechanisms, efficiency improvement strategies, and highlight the potential future research directions.

The variations of vegetation carbon sequestration have become a gauge for evaluating the ecological effect of vegetation restoration. In this study, the spatiotemporal patterns of the net ecosystem production (NEP) were simulated using an improved CASA model and GSMSR model. It showed that the NEP markedly increased in the tableland of Loess Plateau during 2003–2012, with an annual average growth of 3.65 g C·m⁻² a⁻¹. The mixed broadleaf-conifer forest ranked first (127.23 g C·m⁻² a⁻¹) while the bare land and sparse vegetation presented the lowest carbon sequestration (14.64 g C·m⁻² a⁻¹). The NEP manifested a significantly uneven overall spatial distribution: high in the southwest and low in the northeast. The spatial variations of NEP resulted from the combined effects of geographic position, terrain, meteorology, and soil and vegetation, respectively. Quantitative isolation revealed that the most dominant factor of vegetation carbon sequestration was soil and vegetation, while terrain exerted insignificant impacts on the NEP.

Comprehensive understanding of the influence of soil properties on the potential availability of heavy metals could facilitate soil environment management. This study investigated the distribution of heavy metals and their potential availability in paddy and vegetable fields around electroplating factory outlets and irrigated with its wastewater. The potential availability was assessed using secondary phase fraction (SPF) of heavy metals, including acid-soluble, reducible, and oxidizable fractions resulting from BCR sequential extraction procedure. In total, 94 of topsoil samples (0–20 cm) were collected. Total and SPF concentrations of heavy metals as well as soil physicochemical properties were determined. Multivariable statistical analyses (i.e., principal component analysis (PCA) and redundancy analysis (RDA)) were employed. Results showed that total and SPF concentrations of heavy metals in soil decreased (P<0.05) as sampling distance away from the electroplating factories increased, suggesting that sampling distance was the major parameter that affected gradient variations of both total and potential availability of soil heavy metals. According to PCA, soil samples distributed on the PCA axis representing anthropogenic effect, illustrating that the variation of soil properties resulted from irrigation with electroplating wastewater. RDA and stepwise regression indicated that soil Mn oxides, amorphous Fe oxides, silt content, and pH could explain 68.8% and 43.5% of the variation of SPF concentration in paddy and vegetable garden soil, respectively, suggesting they were the most important factors influencing the potential availability of heavy metals in soils. The potential availability of heavy metals in soil was positively correlated with soil Mn oxides but negatively associated with soil amorphous Fe oxides, indicating that Mn oxides enhanced the potential availability of heavy metals while amorphous Fe oxides reduced the potential availability.

Drinking water is a potential source of human exposure to lead (Pb²⁺), which can induce several health effects upon exposure to low dose for a long period. In particular, the children and young populations are the vulnerable groups. Removal of Pb²⁺ from drinking water using an inexpensive adsorbent is a challenge. In this research, activated carbon adsorbent was developed using jute stick, an agricultural by-product. Following carboxylic acid functionalization, the jute stick activated carbon (JSAC) was applied for Pb²⁺ removal from aqueous solution. The carboxylated JSAC (JSAC-COO⁻) was characterized using several techniques. The surface area of the JSAC-COO⁻ was 615.3 m²/g. The JSAC-COO⁻ was tested for variable concentrations of Pb²⁺ (10 and 25 mg/L) at different pH (4.0 and 7.0), temperature (15 °C and 27 °C), and contact periods (1, 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min). Up to 99.8% removal of Pb²⁺ was achieved for these concentrations of Pb²⁺ within 15 min of contact time. The adsorption process followed standard kinetics, and the adsorption capacity was > 25.0 mg Pb²⁺/g of JSAC-COO⁻. The JSAC-COO⁻ can be used for fast and easy removal of Pb²⁺ from aqueous solution, which has the potential for domestic and industrial applications.

The study was conducted on a model of dairy cows of the Holstein breed. At the first stage of research, the elemental composition of cow hair was studied (n = 198). Based on this study, the percentile intervals of chemical elements concentrations in hair were established; values of 25 and 75 percentiles were determined, and they were considered as “physiological standard.” At the second stage, the elemental composition of hair from the upper part of withers of highly productive Holstein cows during the period of increasing milk yield was analyzed (n = 47). The elemental composition of biological substrates was studied according to 25 indicators, using the methods of atomic emission and mass spectrometry (AES-ICP and MS-ICP). An assessment of productivity parameters of cows depending on the level of toxic elements in hair revealed a negative statistically significant relationship with the level of lead. Lead content in hair was negatively correlated with the yield of fat (r = − 0.50), protein (r = − 0.37), and dry matter (r = − 0.48) in milk. Based on these data, cows were divided into three groups: group I, with Pb concentration in hair 0.0245–0.0449 mg/g, group II—between 0.0495 and 0.141 mg/kg, and in group III—between 0.145 and 0.247 mg/g. It was established that increasing Pb content decreases daily production of milk fat by 18.8 (P ≤ 0.05) and 25.3% (P ≤ 0.05), protein by 9.7 (P ≤ 0.05) and 10.7% (P ≤ 0.05), and dry matter by 8.0 and 13.0% (P ≤ 0.05) in cows. Average daily milk yield, adjusted for 1% of fat, decreased by 19.2 (P ≤ 0.05) and 25.3% (P ≤ 0.05), respectively. As the concentration of lead in hair increased, the content of toxic elements (Al, As, Cd, Hg, Pb, Sn, Sr) increased from 0.07 to 0.235 mmol/kg in group I, in group II from 0.082 to 0.266 mmol/kg, and in group III—from 0.126 to 0.337 mmol/kg. It was concluded that it is necessary to further study the use of physiological standard indicators of the content of toxic chemical elements in hair of dairy cows to increase productivity and maintain animal health and to create an effective system of individual health monitoring of highly productive cattle.

This work systematically examines the empirical interactions among foreign direct investment (FDI), renewable power generation (RPG), hydropower generation (HPG), non-hydropower generation (NHPG), and CO₂ emissions in the long run and short run. To test the existence of long-run equilibrium association among those variables, Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model have been employed on time series of China for the period 1991–2017. The vector error correction model-based short-run impacts among the variables of interest are also estimated. Besides, Toda-Yamamoto causality and Granger causality are employed to confirm the direction of causal links. The existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship is revealed in case of all types of specification. The expansion of both FDI and CO₂ emissions boosted RPG, HPG, and NHPG in the short run and long run, with greater intensity of impacts in the long run. To reflect comparisons, it is found that the renewables generation driving the impact of CO₂ emissions and FDI on NHPG is greater than RPG, which further exceeds HPG. In turn, the RPG, HPG, and NHPG mitigated CO₂ emissions both in the long run and short run, with stronger impacts in the long run. Moreover, the CO₂ emissions inhibition impact of HPG dominated NHPG, which further exceeded that of RPG. The FDI boosted CO₂ emissions in a way that the long-run pollution haven impact is revealed to be powerful than that of the short run. A unidirectional causality has been observed running from FDI to CO₂ emissions, RPG, HPG, and NHPG. A bidirectional causality is found operative between CO₂ emissions and RPG/HPG/NHPG. Interestingly, the long-run and short-run impacts remained homogeneous in terms of directionality. Nevertheless, strict heterogeneity is observed in terms of the degree of impacts. Based on empirics, both long-term and short-term policies on FDI, renewables generation, and CO₂ emissions are vital for decision-makers in China. Graphical abstract

Eco-ditches (ecological ditches) not only drain water from rice paddies, but also facilitate the removal of nitrogen (N). We established an experiment with both static and flowing water in 2017 to observe N removal from rice paddy drainage by eco-ditches containing three different types of monoculture vegetation: Zizania aquatica, Canna indica L., and Pontederia cordata. Results showed that ammonia volatilization and plant uptake contributed little to N removal. Harvest of Z. aquatica from the eco-ditch during the late growing season had an appreciable effect on N removal. However, harvest of C. indica L. and P. cordata had negligible effects. During static test, the concentration of total N (TN) and ammonium N (NH₄⁺-N) and the pH all decreased from the surface to the bottom of water. The concentration of nitrate N (NO₃⁻-N) did not exhibit stratification. In a flowing water experiment, ditches with Z. aquatica, C. indica L., and P. cordata had the following average removal rates: TN 15.8%, 11.6%, and 27.9%; NO₃⁻-N 4.2%, 8.4%, and 17.8%; NH₄⁺-N 22.8%, 16.4%, and 37.5%, respectively. The removal rates of TN and NH₄⁺-N decreased with the increase of water level, while that of NO₃⁻-N increased significantly. Nitrogen removal rates decreased with the increase of influent TN concentration or flow rate. Nitrogen removal rate of P. cordata ditch was highly dependent on the influent TN concentration, but the flow rate was not as important due to the great drag caused by its large density. While the contrary was observed in the C. indica L. ditch. For Z. aquatica ditch, both the flow rate and the TN concentration had a strong negative correlation with the N removal rate.