This study presents levels of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁴⁰K concentrations in the placentas of seals gathered in the period 2007–2015. The mean activity of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁴⁰K was 5.49 Bq kg⁻¹w.w. and 136.6 Bq kg⁻¹ ww respectively. Statistically significant correlation was observed between the ¹³⁷Cs activities in placenta and in herring—the staple food for seals. The concentrations of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁴⁰K were also determined in other tissues (muscle, liver, lung, and brain) of wild seals. The concentrations of ¹³⁷Cs were from 2.59 Bq⁻¹ ww (lungs) to 24.3 Bq kg⁻¹ ww (muscles). The transfer factor values for ¹³⁷Cs (seal tissue/fish) ranged from 0.89 to 2.42 in the case of the placentas and from 1.35 to 8.17 in the case of the muscle. For adults seal, the effective dose from ¹³⁷Cs was 2.98 nGy h⁻¹. The mean external radiation dose to pup was 0.77 nGy h⁻¹ from ¹³⁷Cs and 6.69 nGy h⁻¹ from ⁴⁰K.

In this study, the novel adsorbent PVA-TA-βCD was synthesized via thermal cross-linking between polyvinyl alcohol and β-cyclodextrin. The characterization methods SEM-EDS, FTIR, and XPS were adopted to characterize the adsorbent. The effect of pH, contact time, initial concentrations, and temperature during the adsorption of Pb(II), Cd(II), and Mn(II) onto the PVA-TA-βCD was also investigated. In a single-component system, the data fitted well to pseudo-second-order, and film diffusion and intra-particle diffusion both played important roles in the adsorption process. As for isotherm study, it showed a heterogeneous adsorption capacity of 199.11, 116.52, and 90.28 mg g⁻¹ for the Pb(II), Cd(II), and Mn(II), respectively. Competition between the ions existed in a multi-component system; however, owing to the stronger affinity of the PVA-TA-βCD for Pb(II) relative to Cd(II) and Mn(II), the Pb(II) adsorption onto the PVA-TA-βCD was less affected by the addition of the other metals, which could be effectively explained by the hard and soft acid and base theory (HSAB). Furthermore, PVA-TA-βCD showed good reusability throughout regeneration experiments.

N₂O is a GHG of environmental concern. It is generated from the nitrous material contained in wastewater and is the sixth most important contributor to N₂O emissions. There is a great variety of methods to quantify the emission of N₂O in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), which present variants among them, such as predetermined values and operational data of the plants. In this paper, we compared three different methods to quantify the N₂O emission in 2015 from WWTP in two metropolitan areas with high population density: Mexico City and the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB). MAB has advanced treatment plants that remove nutrients from wastewater, and Mexico City has only traditional treatment plants. The N₂O emission/inhabitant from WWTPs in MAB (3,214,211 inhabitants served) was 40% lower than the plants in Mexico City (1,806,440 inhabitants served). The MAB emission was 0.009 tCO₂e/inhabitant and 0.013 tCO₂e/inhabitant in Mexico City; these emission values could be considered statistically different with a risk error of 5%. This difference could be due to the fact that MAB has nutrient removal (42% of inhabitants served), and Mexico City has only traditional treatment plants. The results obtained may be influenced by the default emission factors of each methodology. In addition, per capita protein consumption and water consumption per inhabitant are different parameters that must be considered between these zones to quantify and compare the emission of N₂O. The integral methods are closer to the reality of the N₂O emission when the operating parameters of each plant and wastewater are considered. There should be more research on the reduction of this GHG in wastewater treatment for a correct quantification of these emissions, and more especially in the estimation of N₂O emission factors suitable for each treatment plant and study area.

Airborne and dissolved water PCB congener specific concentrations from southern Lake Michigan 2010. The data were used to estimated instantaneous air-water PCB fluxes.

Herein, activated carbon (AC) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were synthesised from potato peel waste (PPW). Different ACs were synthesised via two activation steps: firstly, with phosphoric acid (designated PP) and then using potassium hydroxide (designated PK). The AC produced after the two activation steps showed a surface area as high as 833 m² g⁻¹ with a pore volume of 0.44 cm³ g⁻¹, where the raw material of PPW showed a surface area < 4 m² g⁻¹. This can help aid and facilitate the concept of the circular economy by effectively up-cycling and valorising waste lignocellulosic biomass such as potato peel waste to high surface area AC and subsequently, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Consequently, MWCNTs were prepared from the produced AC by mixing it with the nitrogen-based material melamine and iron precursor, iron (III) oxalate hexahydrate. This produced hydrophilic multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with a water contact angle of θ = 14.97 °. Both AC and CNT materials were used in heavy metal removal (HMR) where the maximum lead absorption was observed for sample PK with a 84% removal capacity after the first hour of testing. This result signifies that the synthesis of these up-cycled materials can have applications in areas such as wastewater treatment or other conventional AC/CNT end uses with a rapid cycle time in a two-fold approach to improve the eco-friendly synthesis of such value-added products and the circular economy from a significant waste stream, i.e., PPW. Graphical abstract .

Thallium as a highly toxic metal element has been listed as one of priority drinking water contaminants. In this study, manganese oxide nanoparticles were synthesized through a simple hydrothermal method and applied for the removal of thallium(I). The adsorbent was composed of numerous needle-like nanorods and had an average volume diameter of 230 nm after heat-drying procedure. The crystal form of adsorbent was determined as α-MnO₂. The adsorbent exhibited a much faster adsorption rate than most of previously reported adsorbent, achieving over 66.4% of equilibrium adsorption capacity in the first 10 min. The adsorption process was found to be highly affected by solution pH and higher than 100 mg/g of adsorption capacity could be obtained in a wide pH range of 6.0–10.0. The isotherm study indicated that the adsorption of Tl(I) on the adsorbent was favorable and governed by a chemisorption process, with the maximum adsorption capacity of 505.5 mg/g at pH 7.0. The adsorption process was confirmed to be thermodynamically spontaneous and endothermic. The presence of Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, and Cu²⁺ cations had certain negative effects on the uptake of Tl(I). Based on the batch experiments and XPS analysis, the deprotonated hydroxyl groups that bonded to manganese atoms worked as the binding sites for the effective removal of Tl(I) ions and no redox reaction occurred during the adsorption process.

This study aims to investigate the dynamic relationship between renewable and non-renewable energies, CO₂ intensity and economic growth for the period of 1990–2016 using a case study of Myanmar. Autoregressive distributed lag, dynamic OLS, fully modified OLS and Gregory–Hansen co-integration are applied to analyse a time series dataset over the specified time period. The analysis shows that total energy use plays an insignificant role in promoting economic growth. However, decomposition analysis reveals that only renewable energy use significantly promotes, whereas non-renewable energy negatively influences, economic growth. Furthermore, non-renewable energy use is counterproductive in the presence of technological inefficiency, and the size of the overall labour force fosters economic growth. Overall results are robust under different estimation scenarios, including structural break, endogeneity and mixed order of integration. This study presents a new avenue of knowledge by investigating the role of decomposed energy use and technological efficiency in promoting economic growth in the context of Myanmar. Results emphasise the production and use of renewable energy to achieve sustainable economic development in Myanmar.

An uncertainty in the relationship between aerosol optical depth (AOD) and fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) comes from the uncertainty of AOD by aerosol models and the estimated surface reflectance, a mismatch in spatiotemporal resolution, integration of AOD and PM₂.₅ data, and data modeling. In this study, an integrated geographically temporally weighted regression (GTWR) and RANdom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC) models, which provide fine goodness-of-fit between observed PM₂.₅ and AOD data, were used for mapping of PM₂.₅ over Taiwan for the year 2014. For this, dark target (DT) AOD observations at 3-km resolution (DT₃K) only for high-quality assurance flag (QA = 3) were obtained from the scientific data set (SDS) “Optical_Depth_Land_And_Ocean”. AOD observations were also obtained from the merged DT and DB (deep blue) product (DTB₃K) which was generated using the simplified merge scheme (SMS), i.e., using an average of the DT and DB highest quality AOD retrievals or the available one. The GTWR model integrated with RANSAC can use the effective sampling and fitting to overcome the estimation problem of AOD-PM₂.₅ with the uncertainty and outliers of observation data. Results showed that the model dealing with spatiotemporal heterogeneity and uncertainty is a powerful tool to infer patterns of PM₂.₅ from a RANSAC subset samples. Moreover, spatial variability and hotspot analysis were applied after PM₂.₅ mapping. The hotspot and spatial variability of PM₂.₅ maps can give us a summary of the spatiotemporal patterns of PM₂.₅ variations.

Suspended solids (SS) and phosphorus (P) losses in rainfall generated runoff can lead to the deterioration of surface water quality. Simulated rainfall experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of rainfall intensity (30, 50, 65, and 100 mm h⁻¹) and land slope (0°, 5°, and 10°) on SS and P losses in runoff from experimental rigs containing bare land soil and soil planted with grass (tall fescue). In addition, total phosphorus (TP), particulate phosphorus (PP), and dissolved phosphorus (DP) losses in runoff were also measured. Results showed that tall fescue could reduce loads of SS by 86–99.5%, PP by 92–98.5%, and TP by 55–89.8% in runoff compared with losses from bare soil; this is due to a combination reduced raindrop kinetic energy at the soil surface, reduced soil erodibility in the presence of plant roots and shoots, and an increase in roughness and consequently reduced overland flow velocity resulting in the trapping of particles. Linear relationships between losses of SS and TP and between TP and PP in runoff were significant (R² > 0.93) in both bare soil and grass. In addition, SS and TP losses increased greatly significantly with rainfall intensity and slope. The influence of rainfall intensity on SS and P losses was greater than the influence of slope. Simple linear regressions were constructed between losses of SS and P, the rainfall intensity (30 to 100 mm h⁻¹), and land slope (0° to 10°). The multiple regression equations of SS and P losses in runoff established in this study can provide a simple predicting approach for estimating the non-point source pollution load of SS and P arising from rainfall.