Corrosion and disintegration of munition shells from the World Wars increase the risk that explosives are released into the marine environment, exposing a variety of organisms. Only few studies investigated contamination of fish with explosives in the field under environmental conditions. Here we present a comprehensive study on the contamination status of dab (Limanda limanda) from a munition dumpsite and from reference sites in the Baltic Sea. Bile of 236 dab from four different study sites, including a dumpsite for conventional munitions, was investigated and explosive compounds were detected by high performance liquid chromatographymas spectrometry. Five explosive compounds were identified, including 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, 4-amino-2,6-dinitrolouene, and hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine. 48% of the samples from the dumpsite contained at least one explosive compound. The results prove that toxic explosive compounds from a dumpsite in the Baltic Sea are accumulated by flatfish and may therefore pose a risk to fish health and human food safety.

External damages are indicators of the overall quality of fish and fish welfare. Haddock is an important commercial species widespread in the North Atlantic, but few studies related to quality have been carried out on this species. We studied the levels of external damages on haddock captured with a demersal trawl in the Northeast Atlantic. Further, we investigated to what extent the compulsory sorting grid and diamond mesh codend gear configuration employed in this trawl fishery is responsible for the external damages observed during the capture process. We evaluated external damages on 563 haddock captured over 22 hauls. In general, the results showed that catching haddock without any gear inflicted damages using demersal trawls is challenging. However, the results also showed that the severity of most damages is low and the probability to catch haddock with no external damage can be significantly increased removing the grid and changing codend design.

Despite aerobic granular sludge wastewater treatment plants operating around the world, our understanding of internal granule structure and its relation to treatment efficiency remains limited. This can be attributed in part to the drawbacks of time-consuming, labor-intensive, and invasive microscopy protocols which effectively restrict samples sizes and may introduce artefacts. Time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) allows non-invasive measurements which describe internal structural features of opaque, complex materials like biofilms. NMR was used to image aerobic granules collected from five full-scale wastewater treatment plants in the Netherlands and United States, as well as laboratory granules and control beads. T1 and T2 relaxation-weighted images reveal heterogeneous structures that include high- and low-density biofilm regions, water-like voids, and solid-like inclusions. Channels larger than approximately 50 μm and connected to the bulk fluid were not visible. Both cluster and ring-like structures were observed with each granule source having a characteristic structural type. These structures, and their NMR relaxation behavior, were stable over several months of storage. These observations reveal the complex structures within aerobic granules from a range of sources and highlight the need for non-invasive characterization methods like NMR to be applied in the ongoing effort to correlate structure and function.

The greatest adverse effect of environmental mercury pollution is reflected in the water matrix, because it accumulated in aquatic organisms thus transcending trophic chains, generating bioconcentration and biomagnification, causing negative effects on human health and ecosystems. This work is based on a methodological proposal for mercury remediation present in synthetic mercury-contaminated water using the method of photocatalysis. The methodology first proposes to perform an ecotoxicity test with Lactuca Sativa L. seeds to determine the lethal dose 50, then make a determination of two calibration curves differentiated only by the indicator used (KI or EDTA) and finally the photocatalytic process consisting of two phases, dark and light, with which you can find the concentration of TiO2  to use and the final mercury rate respectively. The results obtained by following this methodology reflect a decrease in the concentrations evaluated, going from an initial concentration of 0,0025 %P/V to 0,0020 %P/V in 50 minutes, which was the end time of the essay, that is, a 20% removal was obtained. Therefore, it can be concluded that, being a preliminary study, a good percentage of mercury removal was obtained | El mayor efecto adverso de la contaminación ambiental por mercurio se ve reflejado en la matriz agua, debido a que se acumula en los organismos acuáticos trascendiendo así por las cadenas tróficas, generando bioconcentración y biomagnificación originando efectos negativos sobre la salud humana y los ecosistemas. El presente trabajo se basa en una propuesta metodológica para la remediación de mercurio presente en muestras sintéticas de agua contaminada con mercurio mediante el método de la fotocatálisis. La metodología propone primero realizar un ensayo de ecotoxicidad con semillas de Lactuca Sativa L. para determinar la dosis letal 50, después hacer una determinación de dos curvas de calibración diferenciadas únicamente por el indicador empleado (KI o EDTA) y finalmente el proceso fotocatalítico que consta de dos fases, la oscura y la lumínica, con las cuales se puede encontrar la concentración de TiO2 a utilizar y el porcentaje de remoción de mercurio final respectivamente. Los resultados obtenidos reflejan una disminución en las concentraciones evaluadas, pasando de una concentración inicial de 0,0025 %P/V a 0,0020 %P/V en 50 minutos, que fue el tiempo final del ensayo, es decir que se obtuvo una remoción de un 20%. Por lo tanto, se puede concluir que, al ser un estudio preliminar, se obtuvo un buen porcentaje de remoción de mercurio