High doses of lithium salts are used for the treatment or prevention of episodes of mania in bipolar disorder, but the medication is rapidly excreted and also shows side effects. Li may also be beneficial in people with mood disorders. Nutritionally, popular foods such as wild and cultivated mushrooms have low Li contents. This study evaluated the Li enrichment of white Agaricus bisporus mushrooms using Li₂CO₃ solutions to fortify the commercial growing substrate at various concentrations from 1.0 to 500 mg kg⁻¹ dry weight (dw). Fortification of up to 100 mg kg⁻¹ dw resulted in a significant (p < 0.01) dose-dependent increase in the accumulation of Li in mushroom, but the highest fortification level was found to be detrimental to fruitification. The median values of Li in fortified mushrooms corresponded to the fortification levels, increasing from 0.49 to 17 mg kg⁻¹ dw relative to the background concentration of 0.056 mg kg⁻¹ dw (control substrate contained 0.10 mg kg⁻¹ dw). The potential for Li uptake in fruiting bodies was found to decrease at higher levels of fortification, with saturation occurring at 100 mg kg⁻¹. Resulting lithiated mushrooms were up to 300-fold richer in Li content than specimens grown on control substrate. The fortification showed some effects on the uptake of other trace minerals, but concentrations of co-accumulated Ag, Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sr, Tl, U, V and Zn were similar or lower than values reported in the literature for commercial A. bisporus. These lithiated mushrooms could be considered as a pro-medicinal alternative to treatments that use Li salts.

In this paper, we investigate the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (henceforth, EKC) hypothesis for 8 OECD countries. To this aim, we decompose the per capita GDP series into its increases and decreases and consider only increases by excluding decreases from the model. Therefore, this method may enable us to test the EKC hypothesis more accurately, in accordance with the original theory. Following decomposition, we apply the fixed-effect regression model with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors, and the common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimator. Empirical findings indicate that while the undecomposed model with undecomposed per capita GDP series supports the EKC hypothesis for 4 out of 8 countries, the decomposed model with decomposed per capita GDP series does not do so for any country. Hence, these mixed results reveal a need to employ different alternative techniques, such as the data transformation/decomposition applied in this study, for testing the EKC hypothesis.

The Stone (limestone) and Marble (trade name) Industry (SMI) is one of the most important and active industries in Palestine, as being economically and financially rewarding and greatly beneficial to the public and private sectors. This industry, which employs about 15,000–20,000 workers, contributes 20–25% to the total industrial revenues of Palestine, and 4.5% to the total gross national product. Despite its benefits, SMI has adverse effects on public health, the environment, biodiversity, water systems (both surface and underground), green cover, and ecosystems in general, as it is considered one of the most air- water-, soil-, and noise-polluting sources. To achieve the purpose of this research paper, available data and literature are analyzed, evaluated, and used, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the status of SMI, in light of sustainable development. This relates to various perspectives, including limestone geology, geopolitics, socioeconomics, culture, technology, legislation, as well as climate change, acid rain, and harmful effects of the SMI scale on public health and safety, environmental well-being, and challenges facing the industry. Two field studies, carried out in northern and southern West Bank, dealing with particulate matter (PM₁, PM₂.₅, PM₇, PM₁₀, and TSP) and environmental pollution, were analyzed, and their results were compared with each other, as well as with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines. It is found that both West Bank’s areas are heavily polluted, resulting in considerable adverse impacts on public health, the environment, and green cover. Based on the findings of this paper, it is recommended that SMI should properly adhere to WHO guidelines and international standards to make the industry safer and more durable and sustainable, with fewer negative impacts on public health, the environment, and green cover.

The aim of this research was to study the influence of the bed media configuration and particle size on the treatment efficiency of subsurface vertical flow (VF) constructed wetlands (CWs) treating municipal wastewater. Two outdoor pilot units (VF1 and VF2, planted with Phragmites australis) with the configuration C1 were operated in parallel for 2 years at similar surface loading rates of 9.7 ± 3.2 (VF1) and 10.1 ± 3.3 (VF2) g biological oxygen demand (BOD₅)/m²·day (19.5 ± 6.4 (VF1) and 20.4 ± 6.2 (VF2) g chemical oxygen demand (COD)/m²·day). A different configuration C2 was used during the third year at 16.9 ± 4.6 (VF1) and 18.2 ± 3.0 (VF2) g BOD₅/m²·day and 26.0 ± 7.2 (VF1) and 28.0 ± 4.7 (VF2) g COD/m²·day. Two different filtering materials (1–3-mm sand for VF1 and 2–6-mm fine gravel for VF2) were used for configuration C1. The same units were modified after 2 years of operation by adding a 10-cm layer of fine sand (0–2 mm) on the top (configuration C2). In C1 conditions, the unit with the coarse material VF2 showed significantly (p < 0.05) lower removal efficiencies of total suspended solids (TSS) and BOD₅ than VF1, and both units failed to meet the BOD₅ discharge limit. In C2 conditions, removal efficiencies reached 82% TSS, 97% BOD₅, 76–81% ammonia, and 60–66% TN, without significant differences between VF1 and VF2 units. Removal efficiencies were significantly higher for configuration C2 than that for C1, due to the positive effect of the upper fine sand layer. The presence of this fine sand layer doubled the water retention time and increased the removal rates, while the infiltration rates were high enough for an operation free of clogging.

The synergistic removal of multi-pollutants, including particles, SO₂, and NO₂, is a key concern in the process of flue gas purification, during which the supersaturated environment is an essential premise for the nucleation and deep reduction of particles. The condensation of desulfurized flue gas using heat exchangers can not only recover condensed water and latent heat but also create supersaturated environment to promote the flue gas purification. In this study, an experimental system for desulfurized flue gas condensation is established. The effect and associated mechanism of condensation process on the removal of multi-pollutions are clarified. The results show that particles with an aerodynamic diameter larger than 2.5 μm accounts for 50% in mass proportion. The flue gas temperature drop has positive influence to the increase of the ideal supersaturation degree, which is beneficial for the removal of particles (especially when the aerodynamic diameter is less than 1 μm), SO₂, and NO₂. The ideal supersaturation degree slightly reduces with the rise of inlet flue gas temperature, which can promote the removal efficiency of small particles, while weaken that of large particles, SO₂, and NO₂. Caused by the increase of flue gas flow rate, the nucleation process weakens, reducing the removal efficiency of all pollutants (particles, 45.2–28.3%; SO₂, 27.5–14.5%; NO₂, 21.5–15%). On the whole, the increase of the ideal supersaturation degree contributes to the synergistic removal of pollutants especially particles with smaller radius in the flue gas. The reduction of particles with aerodynamic diameter less than 1 μm is conductive to the synergistic removal of SO₂ and NO₂.

We evaluated the effectiveness of natural organic surfactants such as humic acids (HA) from lignite to simultaneously wash heavy metals (HM) and polychlorobiphenyls (PCB) from a heavily contaminated industrial soil of northern Italy. Supramolecular HA promote in solution a micelle-like structure, where recalcitrant apolar organic xenobiotics are repartitioned from surfaces of soil particles during soil washing process. Concomitantly, the HA acidic functional groups enable a simultaneous complexation of HM. A single soil washing with HA removed 68 and 75% of PCB congeners for 1:1 and 10:1 solution/soil ratios, respectively. The same HA washing simultaneously and efficiently removed a cumulative average of 47% of total HM, with a maximum of 57 and 67% for Hg and Cu, respectively. We showed that washing a highly polluted soil with HA solution not only is an effective and rapid soil remediation technique but also simultaneously removes both HM and persistent organic pollutants (POP). Soil washing by humic biosurfactants is also a sustainable and eco-friendly technology, since, contrary to synthetic surfactants and solvents used in conventional washing techniques, it preserves soil biodiversity, promotes natural attenuation of unextracted POP, and accelerates further soil reclamation techniques such as bio- or phytoremediation.

This study focused on the reaction of bivalve molluscs to biogas digestate, which is a waste product of an increasingly developing biogas production in rural areas worldwide. The effects of biogas digestate on aquatic organisms are not fully known, and neither this substance nor any types of manure were tested in the monitoring based on valvometry, which is a biomonitoring method based on bivalve behavior. The change in bivalves functioning in biogas digestate inflow was studied using three different diluted digestate concentrations. Exposure to the highest concentration of digestate induced a decline of mean shell opening and activity time of Unio tumidus species. A significant difference in behavioral patterns was recorded during the first 10 min after exposure to the digestate. A Gradual decreasing tendency of shell opening levels was apparent under the highest concentration reaching 55% compared to the pretreatment value. Also, a decreasing tendency was observed under the medium concentration (82.4% of initial level) after 2 h, while an increase in shell opening levels was recorded in the most diluted digestate. This research work proved that the inflow of biogas digestate has significant impact on bivalves’ behavior. Unio tumidus is a sensitive indicator of biogas digestate inflow in the aquatic environment. Moreover, it proved that the opening and closing activities over time depend on the concentration of the digestate. Therefore, the mollusk bivalves might be utilized in early warning systems to detect organic pollutants in water.

Faced with huge environmental problems of ecosystem degradation, “Ecological Redline Policy (ERP)” in China is a new key national-level policy to manage different land use functions in accordance with development and environmental limits. As the water–land complex ecosystem with the largest freshwater lake, wetland natural reserves and ecological importance in China, Poyang Lake Region (PLR) is selected to quantify and map multiple ecosystem services, investigate the ecological function zoning as part of research on ecological zoning control and major ecological source areas to illustrate and address the implementation of this strategy based on the importance and vulnerability analysis of ecosystem services. According to ecological function zoning results, extremely important, highly important, medium important and important zones respectively account for 26.1%, 28.1%, 17.4% and 28.4% of the total area. With an area of 5422.2 km², the extremely important zone is 1010.6 km² larger than the ERP. Moreover, 81.6% of the ERP is located in the extremely important zone. By discussing the implications and applications of ecological management, this study contributes to the ecological protection of Poyang Lake and provides a foundation for research on ecological function zoning at the regional scale.