The biochar was prepared by pyrolyzing corn straw at 773 K temperature under an oxygen-limited condition. Then, the gained biochar samples were further modified with MgCl2 solution through mixing method for 3 h at the speed of 120 rpm. The physicochemical properties of the modified biochar from corn straw were investigated by surface area analysis, elemental analysis, scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra. The adsorption experiments of ammonia nitrogen in aqueous solution by modified biochar were carried out. The results showed that the modified biochar contains high surface area, rough surface and a lot of oxygen-containing functional groups. The adsorption process fits well with the pseudo-second-order kinetics equation and Langmuir isotherm equation. The adsorption mechanism of modified biochar to NH4 + ion in aqueous solution includes ion exchange and physical adsorption. The ion exchange is primary in the process of adsorption.

This study was designed to investigate the heavy metal accumulation characteristics of 13 native plant species and associated rhizosphere soils around Taoyuan coal gangue dump and to determine their potentials for phytoremediation. The mean concentrations of Cu, Cd, Pb and Cr in rhizosphere soils were 46.70, 0.43, 16.86 and 109.67 mg·kg-1, respectively. According to the pollution load index, the soils were strongly contaminated by Cd, moderately contaminated by Cu, slightly contaminated by Cr and uncontaminated by Pb. The concentrations of Cu, Cd, Pb and Cr in shoots of the 13 plant species ranged as 1.86-33.10, 0.10-0.94, 2.04-14.72 and 0.49-9.03 mg·kg-1, respectively, while in roots ranged as 0.44-91.56, 0.31-1.82, 4.83-50.49 and 0.37-99.63mg·kg-1, respectively. No plant species satisfied the concentration criteria of hyperaccumulator, but two high Cd-enriched species of M. falcata and C. japonicum, whose BCF and TF values were all greater than one, were recorded. Based on the Individual Phytoremediation Factors (IPF), S. viridis showed the strongest remediating capability per a single plant for Cu, while M. falcata, S. viridis, C. eragrostis and C. japonicum had relatively strong remediating capability per a single plant for Cd. The four plant species were proposed to be preferentially taken as the candidates for phytoremediation.

Zhuzhou is an important part of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city group in southern China. To grasp the economic benefits of urban wetland resources value in Zhuzhou City, strengthen wetland conservation and utilization, and ensure the sustainable development of cities, this paper takes Zhuzhou 2016 wetland remote sensing image interpretation map and multi-source data as the foundation, and build urban wetland ecosystem service evaluation system. Through deduplicate double counting, this paper evaluates the value of urban wetland ecosystem service in Zhuzhou City employing shadow project method, replacement cost method, travel cost method, conditional value method and other economic value evaluation methods. The results indicate: (a) The total value of urban wetland ecosystem services is $1,527,908,900 in 2016. (b) The ultimate value of urban wetland services ranked as follows: water storage regulation value ($539,566,265), climate regulation value ($424,930,361), tourism recreation value ($174,543,328), water supply value ($133,183,901), biological product value ($121,987,952), atmospheric composition regulation value ($92,111,687), soil erosion prevention value ($15,799,608), water purification value ($14,598,298), and aesthetic heritage value ($10,075,346); (c) The value of different types of wetlands ranked as follows: paddy fields ($526,111,672), riverine wetland ($526,111,672), ponds ($329,628,343), reservoirs ($149,275,241), wastewater treatment plant ($207,831/a); (d) The value per unit area of different types of wetlands ranked as follows: reservoirs ($240,919/ha), riverine wetland ($236,627/ha), pond ($145,693/ha), paddy fields ($26,551/ha) and wastewater treatment plant ($17,003/ha). The evaluation results reveal the great contribution of urban wetland system service to the Zhuzhou city with numbers, that not only provides data basis for wetland conservation and management but also provides a reference for the refined evaluation of urban wetland ecosystem service value.

The metal ions play a vital role in a large number of widely differing biological processes. Some of these processes are quite specific in their metal ion requirements. In that only certain metal ions, in specific oxidation states, can fulfil the necessary catalytic or structural requirement, while other processes are much less specific. In this paper, the interactions between triethanolamine, lauryl sulphate and albumin molecules have been reported. The pH and diffusion current measurements on the binding of copper and mercury ions with albumin have been discussed. The effect of physico-chemical factors on the interaction between divalent metal ions and albumin has been carried out. Physico-chemical studies on the binding of Hg(II) and Cu (II) with albumin have been discussed.

In this paper, the LSTM model is used to predict the PM2.5 concentrations in five representative Chinese cities with the GDP exceeding 1 trillion Yuan, including Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Wuhan. The PM2.5 concentration data in 2015-2017 are selected for training, and the results are optimized to achieve an efficient solution by adjusting the parameters. Based on the optimized solution, a test is carried out to predict the PM2.5 concentration in 2018, and the results are compared with the real value obtained from the monitoring centre. According to the comparison results, the correlation coefficient of Wuhan and Chengdu is 0.86724 and 0.80070, which are the highest in these five cities. While the correlation coefficient of Shenzhen and Shanghai, are 0.78225, 0.72147, Beijing, as the capital city of China achieved the lowest correlation coefficient which is 0.64118. The LSTM-based predictive model has relatively good reliability and transferability. More effective predictive results can be achieved by implementing deep learning to analyse PM2.5 concentration.

The freshwater fish Cirrhinus mrigala was exposed to Cartap hydrochloride (50% SP) for 24, 48, 72 and 96 h. The LC 50 values were found to be 0.436, 0.419, 0.394 and 0.376 mg-1 in static method and 0.399, 0.371, 0.361 and 0.339 mg.L-1 in continuous flow-through system. The static LC50 values are higher than the continuous flow-through method. The LC50 values showed a decreasing trend with an increase in time of exposure in both the methods. The decrease was more in a continuous flow-through method than in the static method. The fish were exposed to sub-lethal (1/10th of 96 h LC50 value 0.0376 mg.L-1) and lethal (96 h LC50 value 0.376 mg.L-1) concentrations of the pesticide for 24 and 96 hours to study the alterations in glycogen, total proteins and nucleic acids (DNA & RNA) contents of various tissues viz., gill, brain, liver, kidney and muscle. Glycogen, total proteins and nucleic acids (DNA & RNA) content values decreased in all the tissues of exposed fish and the per cent decrease is more apparent in lethal concentrations than in sub-lethal concentrations. From the present study, it can be concluded that Cartap hydrochloride caused a decline in the glycogen, total protein and nucleic acids (DNA, RNA) content in Cirrhinus mrigala and the changes are more pronounced in lethal exposure than in sub-lethal exposure.

Sikkim is a small Indian state located in the Himalayan region with 10.67 thousand hectares under cultivation and rice production of 19.69 thousand tonnes. Mechanized rice harvesting can play a crucial role in reducing grain loss and operational cost. To mechanize rice harvesting in hilly areas, a feasibility study has been undertaken to evaluate the field performance of self-propelled Vertical Conveyor Reaper (VCR) for the harvesting of rice as well as economically in terraces of Daramdin Government farm, Sikkim. In India, out of total 488 MT crop residue, about 24% of it was burnt in agricultural fields during 2017, resulting in emissions of particulate matter (PM2.5), elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) and additionally CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O) were also added to the atmosphere. VCR has been evaluated under the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) code in field & laboratory conditions. The pre and post-harvesting field parameters for operating the VCR have been determined. The field capacity and efficiency of VCR were 0.1203 ha/h and 72.03% at 1.52 km/h, compared to 0.0178 ha/h in manual operation. At lower speed and better control, terrace-1 losses were 0.58% less than terrace-2. The harvesting cost/ha calculated considering the field capacity was Rs.1140.59/ha (US$16.44) and Rs. 1368.61/ha (US$19.73) for gear-1 and gear-2 respectively, which leads to considerable savings in time and labour which was 85.2% and 30.8% for the operational cost (gear-1) giving maximum efficiency. Also, instead of manual operation where stubble height remains at 70 mm, VCR harvest the crop at a maximum height of 11-13 mm, which further reduces the crop residue burning in fields and results in mitigation of air pollution. Therefore, in hilly terraces or plane areas where the use of reaper is feasible, its use may be promoted as efficient harvesting and environmental strategy both.

The study on photodegradation of Brilliant Green dye was done by barium calciate nanoparticles (BaCaO2). The BaCaO2 was prepared by solution combustion synthesis. The analytical instruments like SEM, XRD, EDAX, and UV-absorption spectroscopy were employed for characterization. All the experiments were accomplished under various irradiation conditions such as sunlight, UV light and dark conditions. The obtained results examined the percentage of degradation capacity of BaCaO2 on Brilliant Green by differing the Brilliant Green concentration, pH and catalyst loading. The percentage of degradation was 98.93% in 20ppm of dye concentration at pH 6 with a constant catalyst concentration of 0.7g/100mL. This proves that the synthesized barium calciate nanoparticles are more efficient in removing Brilliant Green from the wastewater.

The exponential increase in anthropogenic activities has led to the accumulation of xenobiotics into the environment, synthetic dyes being one of the culprits. Noteworthy is the fact that the textile industry utilizes enormous volumes of water for dyeing and printing unit operations thereby generating wastewater proportionately. Taking into consideration, implications of toxic textile effluents, a pilot study was planned to screen for naturally attenuated bacterial isolates capable of degrading textile effluents. Requisite effluent samples were collected from Kelki Printers Co-operative Society Limited, Sanganer, Jaipur and bacterial screening was carried out by bioaccumulation of Remazol Brilliant Blue R (RBRR) (formation of halo around colonies). Of the 19 bacterial isolates obtained, the most promiscuous isolate was biochemically characterized as Enterobacter sp. For biodegradative investigations, it was inoculated in sterilized textile effluent and incubated at 37°C for 7 days under agitating conditions. Pre and post bacterial inoculation (1% v/v), Physico-chemical parameters were analysed following standard procedures. A significant (p<0.05) lowering of pollution indicators was monitored when contrasted with abiotic control. The present study was aimed to explore the role of naturally attenuated and effluent adapted Enterobacter sp. screened from untreated textile effluent based on its colour (RBRR) removal efficacy under in vitro conditions. Furthermore, it was also explored for its biodegradative properties to minimize the level of potential pollution indicators through the microcosm approach. This pilot study based on a three-tier approach encompassing bioprospecting, bio enrichment and bioaugmentation plausibly provided insights for enhanced degradation of real dye wastewaters by unlocking the biochemical pathways of adapted microbes.

Government of India (GOI) initiated Smart Cities Mission in June 2015. In order to guide the process, evaluate the performance, and finally move towards making a Sustainable Smart Cities program, the objective is to develop software based Environmental Decision Support System for Sustainable Smart Cities in India (EDSS-SSCI). Identification and finalization of indicators to be used in the framework for evaluation of Sustainable Smart Cities in Indian context is the objective of the present study. The analyses indicate that Smart Cities Mission guidelines of GOI include 14 performance parameters related with environment, out of which 11 qualify the criteria required for being considered as environmental indicator as per World Bank Environment Development (WBED) considerations and 3 of them do not meet the requirements in terms of clarity of design and quantification for development costs. Further, a set of 20 additional environmental performance indicators are identified from the available literature on requirements of Sustainable Cities, many of which are generally used as monitoring parameters in various programs of GOI. Subjecting these 20 additional indicators for suitability as environmental indicators based on WBED criteria and City Key Indicators criteria result in finalizing a set of 13 indicators which meet all requirements and qualify to be used in development of framework for EDSS-SSCI. 10 of these indicators are already part of monitoring programs of Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), 2 have been suggested by Bureau of Standards (BIS 2016) and 1 considered important by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA 2016). Thus, taking 11 environmental indicators from Smart Cities Mission Guidelines and 13 selected indicators for Sustainable Cities, a total of 24 environmental indicators are finalised to be used in the framework of EDSS-SSCI for benchmarking, performance evaluation and guiding the investment plans for most effective resource utilization under Indian conditions.