Photovoltaic industry has shown tremendous growth among renewable energy sector. Though, this high installation rate will eventually result in generation of large volume of end-of-life photovoltaic waste with hazardous metals. In present study, reported leached metal contents from different photovoltaics in previous investigations were utilized for (i) potential fate and transport analysis to soil and groundwater and, (ii) estimating ecological and human health risks via dermal and ingestion pathways for child and adult sub-populations. The results indicate that the children are at highest risk, mainly due to lead (hazard quotient from 1.2 to 2.6). Metals, such as cadmium, lead, indium, molybdenum and tellurium pose maximum risks for child and adult sub-populations via soil-dermal pathway followed by soil-ingestion pathway. This is further proved by calculated high values of contamination factor and geo-accumulation index for cadmium (102.4), indium (238.9) and molybdenum (16.12). The estimated soil contamination is significant with respect to aluminium, silver, cadmium, iron, lead, however, groundwater contamination was insignificant. Exposure to polluted soils yields an aggregate hazard index (for non-cancer effects) > 1 for all four pathways, with soil dermal pathway as the major contributor. Lead poses significant cancer risk for all scenarios (average risk: 0.0098 to 0.047 (soil) and 2.1 × 10⁻⁵ to 3.5 × 10⁻⁵ (groundwater)), whereas acceptable non-cancer risk was observed for other metals from groundwater exposure. Further, variance contribution and spearman correlation coefficient analysis show that metal concentration, exposure frequency and ingestion rate are the main contributors towards overall uncertainty in risk estimates. More detailed assessment for environmentally-sensitive metals should be carried out by considering other field breakage scenarios also, although the assessment suggests low risk for majority of metals examined.

Contamination of the Technology Critical Elements (TCE) through e-wastes and beach plastic wastes are some of the attributes to the recent rise in marine pollution. A generalized study of pollutants in the marine waters showed no evidence of the effect of TCE. However, an in-depth study revealed the mean TCE concentrations in the sequence of gallium (Ga) > thallium (Tl) > niobium (Nb) > tellurium (Te) > tantalum (Ta) > germanium (Ge) > indium (In) in wastewater (0.38 ng.L⁻¹) >sediment (0.3 ng g⁻¹) e-wastes (0.29 ng g⁻¹) > coastal water (0.26 ng.L⁻¹) > plastic wastes (0.133 ng g⁻¹) >fish (0.13 ng g⁻¹). The mean site-wise analysis of all the samples showed high TCE during winter than in the summer seasons as well, in the sequence of Site-II>Site-I>Site-V>Site-IV>Site-III. The mean distribution coefficient (Kd) of TCE was high in the summer (1.95) than during the winter (1.60) seasons but, the reverse seasonal effects were observed with the bioavailability (%BA) and geo-accumulation index (Igₑₒ). This index quantified TCE in e-wastes and plastic materials. Furthermore, these indicators labeled TCE as one among the sources for ‘Fish Kill,’ a futuristic threat to seafood consumers and a biomonitoring tool to marine pollution.

Quantum dots (QDs) have strong adsorption capacity; therefore, their potential toxicity of the facilitated transport of other trace toxic pollutants when they co-exist to aquatic organisms has become a hot research topic. The lab study was performed to determine the developmental toxicities to the zebrafish after exposed to the combined pollution of Cadmium-telluride (CdTe) QDs and copper ion (Cu2+) compared to the single exposure. Our findings for the first time revealed that: 1) CdTe QDs facilitated the accumulation of Cu2+ in zebrafish, 2) the higher mortality, lower hatch rate, and more malformations can be clearly observed, 3) the diverse vascular hyperplasia, turbulence, and bifurcation of the exposed FLI-1 transgenic zebrafish larvae appeared together, 4) the synergistic effects played more important role during joint exposure. These observations provide a basic understanding of CdTe QDs and Cu2+ joint toxicity to aquatic organisms.

The cement industry has been one of the major sources of air pollution in the past and the Turkish Air Quality Protection Regulation has issued limits also to trace elementemissions to minimise the polluting effects of this industrialsector. In the present study, dust samples were obtained isokinetically from 18 main stacks of 10 cement plants locatedin different geographical areas of Turkey. The samples were analysed for trace elements Hg, Cd, Cr, Pb, Ni, Se, Te, TI, V, Sb, Ba, Zn, Co, Sr, Cu, Bi, Mo, Be, and As. The results are presented both as concentration in the dust samples as well as emissions per unit production, and concentration inthe stack gas. The trace element emissions of the main stacksagree to great extent with the values given in the literature. On the other hand, the trace element emissions of the plants considered are well below the limits set in the Turkish Air Quality Protection Regulation.

A novel tellurite-resistant photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris strain TX618, was isolated from wastewater and reduction of tellurite by this strain was investigated. The results showed that Rhodopseudomonas palustris strain TX618 could reduce tellurite to elemental tellurium, both anaerobically and aerobically. During anaerobic and illuminated growth, strain TX618 possessed a high-level resistance and removal efficiency to tellurite, that it could resist up to 180 mg/L Na₂TeO₃ in the medium and removed 91.9% of 90 mg/L Na₂TeO₃ over 8 days. The high efficiency in the removal of tellurite could sustain wide variations in pH (5.0–9.0), temperature (20–40 °C), light intensity (1500–3000 lx), and initial tellurium concentration (30–180 mg/L Na₂TeO₃). It could be observed by scanning electron micrograph (SEM), transmission electron micrograph (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis that the cells suffered serious deformation due to the toxicity of tellurite, and the less toxic black precipaite (Te⁰) generated by bioreduction of tellurite mostly located in the central cytoplasm. This is the first study to observe that Rhodopseudomonas palustris can reduce tellurite to elemental tellurium, which will provide a new microbial species for bioremediation and biotransformation of toxic tellurite.

The aim of this work was to compare 10 mostly edible aboveground and 10 wood-growing mushroom species collected near a heavily trafficked road (approximately 28,000 vehicles per 24 h) in Poland with regard to their capacity to accumulate 26 trace elements (Ag, Al, As, Au, B, Ba, Bi, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ga, Ge, In, Li, Mn, Ni, Pb, Re, Sb, Se, Sr, Te, Tl, and Zn) in their fruit bodies in order to illustrate mushroom diversity in element accumulation. All analyses were performed using an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) spectrometer in synchronous dual view mode. The aboveground species had significantly higher levels of 12 elements, including Ag, As, Pb, and Se, compared to the wood-growing species. An opposite relationship was observed only for Au, Ba, and Sr. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) implied some new relationships among the analyzed species and elements. Of the analyzed mushroom species, lead content in Macrolepiota procera would seem to pose a health risk; however, at present knowledge regarding lead bioaccessibility from mushrooms is quite limited.

Although tellurite is highly toxic to organisms, elemental tellurium nanomaterials (TeNMs) have many uses. The microbe-mediated reduction of tellurite to Te(0) has been shown to be a green and cost-effective approach for turning waste into wealth. However, it is difficult to tune the morphology of biogenic nanomaterials. In this study, a series of experiments was conducted to investigate the factors influencing tellurite reduction by the tellurite-reducing bacterium Lysinibacillus sp. ZYM-1, including pH, tellurite concentration, temperature, and heavy metal ions. The optimal removal efficiency of tellurite was respectively achieved at pH 8, 0.5 mM tellurite, and 40 °C. All of the tested metal ions retarded the reduction of tellurite, especially Cd²⁺ and Co²⁺, which completely inhibited its reduction. Further characterization of the biogenic TeNMs indicated that their morphology could be tuned by the tellurite concentration, pH, temperature, and organic solvents used. Regular Te nanosheets were produced using 5 mM tellurite. The TeNMs were primarily synthesized in the cell membrane. Hexagonal Te nanoplates, nanorods, nanoflowers, and nanobranches were synthesized when combining membrane fractions with tellurite and NADH. The diverse morphologies are assumed to be induced by the synergy between the reduction kinetics and the protein structure. Therefore, this study confirmed that the bacterium can tune the morphology of TeNMs, broadening the potential application of biogenic TeNMs.