汞的来源、特性、用途及对环境的污染和对人类健康的危害

文章以大量的事实阐述了汞对环境的污染和人类健康的危害，提醒制汞或使用汞的企业在利用汞创造财富的同时，要进一步增强环保意识，加大环保力度，呼吁政府有关部门，加大对生产汞产品和使用汞产品企业的环保治理．重视汞对国人健康的危害，保护人类生存空间。     

Environmental-impact reduction through simultaneous design, scheduling, and operation

Processing facilities are normally designed with sufficient flexibility to handle nominal variations. When the process features planned changes in feedstock and products, scheduling is often used to optimize process operation. Proper scheduling may be limited to existing design or may entail retrofitting. Traditionally, economic objectives have served as the primary drivers for the design, retrofitting, and scheduling of industrial processes. Once a base design and scheduling plan have been established, environmental issues are addressed in many cases as an afterthought. As a result of this sequential approach, valuable synergisms and tradeoffs of economic and environmental objectives are often missed. The objective of this study is to develop a new approach to design and scheduling with economic and environmental objectives. Specifically, this study introduces a systematic framework and the associated mathematical formulation for simultaneous process design and scheduling while simultaneously addressing economic and environmental objectives. Therefore, this study establishes two types of proper tradeoffs (a) between design and scheduling and (b) between economic and environmental objectives. The environmental issues pertaining to the parameterized process retrofitting, scheduling, and operation strategies are simultaneously considered along with the environmental impact of these changes. An optimization formulation is developed for the case of project schedule while allowing design retrofitting changes that include new environmental units and modification of design and operating conditions in the process (without new process units). Also, a process model with the appropriate level of relevant details is included in the formulation. The projected schedule is discretized to allow for a multiperiod formulation with algebraic equations. The resulting framework identifies opportunities for synergism between the economic and environmental objectives. It also determines points of diminishing return beyond which tradeoffs between economic and environmental objectives are established. The devised procedure is illustrated with a case study on an oil refinery with scheduling of different products and the design of an environmental system that addresses NO _x emission.     

Failed paradigms, neglected wisdom, and environmental reality : An approach to the rehabilitation of the West African Sahel

The application of Western values and experience to the rehabilitation of the West African Sahel has often had disastrous results. It is proposed that a more rigorous, science-based approach be taken which characterizes environmental systems, examines the adaptations made by Sahelian populations to these systems, and incorporates this knowledge into programs and projects which exploit the dynamics of natural systems and benefit from the experience of Sahelian farmers and berdens. Such an approach, drawing upon the energy of environmental systems and the strengths of local populations, would be more effective and less costly than current approaches to rehabilitation.     

Environmental hazards and contingency plans along the proposed China-Russia Oil Pipeline route, Northeastern China

The Chinese-Russian Oil Pipeline (CROP), from Mohe to Daqing has a length of about 965 km and traverses the Da Hinggan Mountains and part of Song(hua)-Nen(jiang) Plain in Northeastern China. This paper attempts to estimate some of the important elements concerning the environmental hazards and contingency plans along the pipeline. The first part reviews the potential impacts of the Mohe-Daqing Pipeline on the cold regions environment. It includes 1) the major environmental characteristics such as complicated permafrost, rugged terrain, harsh weather, and the diverse flora and fauna, vegetation the pipeline passes through; 2) the consideration of route selection; 3) potential environmental impacts of the CROP on the environmental factors; 4) countermeasures to alleviate changes to the local environment during the design, construction and operation stages. The second part presents the risk of oil spills, the subsequent environmental challenges after the start of operation of CROP, and contingency plans in response to potential oil spills.     

Interactions between organizational culture,capability, and performance in the technological aspect of society: Empirical research into the Japanese service industry

It has been designated that humans have lost the balance between nature and society, and firms are expected to proactively contribute to a circular economy that minimizes harm to the world. To respond to these issues, this paper investigates the way of balancing environmental protection with corporate profits based on the Porter hypothesis, which is a well-known view on management practice. The hypothesis has been tested in many recent empirical studies, being supported until now; however, studies hardly used the organization theory approach effectively and they are restricted as the technological aspect of society was not treated. Therefore, we incorporate the co-evolutionary dual couplings model and clarify the interaction between the organizational and societal levels. Regarding the former, this study examines the interactions among four variables: environmental protection culture (containing technology), organizational capability, environmental performance, and economic performance, by multivariate analysis with the data of 498 Japanese firms. Regarding the latter, the study proposes a technological shift by employing the concept of the planned obsolescence-driven circular economy.     

Determination of carbamate, urea, and thiourea pesticides and herbicides in water

Microbore liquid chromatography and positive ion electrospray mass spectrometry are applied to the determination of 16 carbamate, urea, and thiourea pesticides and herbicides in water. The electrospray mass spectra of the analytes were measured and are discussed and mobile-phase matrix effects were evaluated. Analyte positive ion abundances are generally inversely related to the concentration of acetic acid in the acetonitrile-water mobile phase in the range of 0.001-0.1% (v/v) acetic acid. Using an internal standard for quantitative analyses and no acid in the mobile phase, retention time precision, peak width precision, concentration measurement precision, mean recoveries, and instrument detection limits were determined in reagent water. The 16 analytes were also measured in fortified environmental water samples from a recreational lake, a groundwater well, a cistern, a farm pond, and drinking water. These measurements were at 5 ng/mL of each analyte, which is within the range expected for environmental pesticide and herbicide contaminants. The analytes were separated from the environmental water matrixes with an on-line extraction and concentration to provide rapid sample analyses without a slow off-line liquid-liquid or liquid-solid-liquid extraction and extract concentration. Recoveries of 12 of the analytes from 4 environmental water samples were in the range of 75-124% with relative standard deviations in the range of 11-16%.     

Mining conflicts, environmental justice, and valuation

In this article some historical and contemporary mining conflicts are described. The international environmental liability of mining corporations is discussed. Comparisons are made with conflicts in the United States and in South Africa which fall under the rubric of the Environmental Justice movement. Such conflicts are fought out in many languages, and the economic valuation of damages is only one of such languages. Who has the power to impose particular languages of valuation? Who rules over the ways and means of simplifying complexity, deciding that some points of view are out of order? Who has power to determine which is the bottom-line in an environmental discussion?     

Evaluating the environmental friendliness, economics and energy efficiency of chemical processes: heat integration

The design and improvement of chemical processes can be very challenging. The earlier energy conservation, process economics and environmental aspects are incorporated into the process development, the easier and less expensive it is to alter the process design. In this work different process design alternatives with increasing levels of energy integration are considered in combination with evaluations of the process economics and potential environmental impacts. The example studied is the hydrodealkylation (HDA) of toluene to produce benzene. This study examines the possible fugitive and open emissions from the HDA process, evaluates the potential environmental impacts and the process economics considering different process design alternatives. Results of this work show that there are tradeoffs in the evaluation of potential environmental impacts. As the level of energy integration increases process fugitive emissions increase while energy generation impacts decrease. Similar tradeoffs occur for economic evaluations, where the capital and operating costs associated with heat integration could be optimised. From the example designs considered here, an intermediate amount of energy integration produces the most economically beneficial and environmentally friendly process.     

Nucleobase,nucleoside,nucleotide,and oligonucleotide coordinated metal ions for sensing and biomedicine applications

Metal ions play critical roles in chemical,biological,and environmental processes.Various biomolecules have the ability to coordinate with metal ions and form various materials.Nucleobases,nucleosides,and nucleotides,as the essential components of DNA,have emerged as a useful building block for the construction of functional nanomaterials.In recent years,DNA oligonucleotides have also been used for this purpose.We herein review the strategies for the synthesis of soft nanomaterials through the assembly of nucleotides(or DNA)and metal ions to yield various nanoparticles,fibers,and hydrogels.Such coordination methods are simple to operate and can be carried out under ambient conditions.The luminescent,catalytic,and molecular recognition properties of these coordination materials are described with representative recent examples.Their applications ranging from biosensing,enzyme encapsulation,catalysis,templated shell growth to cancer therapy are highlighted.Finally,challenges of this field and future perspectives are discussed.     

Ba2(Y,Sc)NbO6:Bi3+ solid solution nanocrystals: synthesis,photoluminescence properties,and white LEDs application

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - In the recent years, luminescent phosphor materials have contributed much to reduce the serious environmental problems such as environmental...     

Impact of some environmental conditions on the tensile, creep-recovery, relaxation, melting and crystallinity behaviour of UHMWPE-GUR 410-medical grade

The present work was undertaken to examine the effect of some environmental media (sodium hydroxide NaOH solution, water, ice, UV irradiation dose and pre-heat treatment) on the mechanical (quasi-static tensile creep-recovery and relaxation) and physical/thermal (melting and crystallinity) behaviour of the ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE-GUR 410-medical grade), that has several biomedical and engineering applications. The results show changes in the mechanical properties due to these environmental effects. The pre-heat treatment has significantly enhanced the tensile properties compared to virgin specimens’ properties. Improvement due to pre-heat treatment at 100 °C is more than that at 50 °C. Specimens’ storing in ice, NaOH and water has not affected significantly the tensile properties. All properties except fracture strain have enhanced due to specimens exposure to UV irradiation. The differential scanning calorimetry results indicate that environmental media have not any noticeable effects on the melting temperature. However, a significant increase in the degree of crystallinity was observed for all specimens versus that for virgin specimens. The creep and permanent strains of the tested virgin material increase with temperature and lineally increase with applied load. The specimens’ exposure to environmental media has improved the creep resistance and the permanent creep strain when compared with that for virgin ones. Remarkable increase was observed in the initial relaxation and residual stress of the exposed specimens against that for virgin specimens.     

Freshwater cumulative effects and environmental assessment in the Mackenzie Valley,Northwest Territories: challenges and decision-maker needs

ABSTRACT

There is a recognized need to advance cumulative effects assessment to regional and ecologically meaningful scales, but such initiatives are often critiqued for being isolated from management contexts and the regulatory practices of project-based environmental assessment. A major challenge is that there has been limited attention devoted to understanding decision-making at the project level, and the value of monitoring data to support cumulative effects analysis. This article examines how cumulative effects are considered during environmental assessment decision-making within the context of freshwater management in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories. Interviews with representatives from organizations involved in environmental assessment, regulation, and monitoring are used to identify challenges to applying information about cumulative effects at the project scale. Results reinforce the need for regional approaches and improvements in information and monitoring capacities to support cumulative effects analysis, but also the need to address institutional and organizational deficiencies to ensure that the data and information generated are useful to and applied within project-based decision-making.     

Disposable Sensors in Diagnostics,Food, and Environmental Monitoring

Disposable sensors are low‐cost and easy‐to‐use sensing devices intended for short‐term or rapid single‐point measurements. The growing demand for fast, accessible, and reliable information in a vastly connected world makes disposable sensors increasingly important. The areas of application for such devices are numerous, ranging from pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental, forensic, and food sciences to wearables and clinical diagnostics, especially in resource‐limited settings. The capabilities of disposable sensors can extend beyond measuring traditional physical quantities (for example, temperature or pressure); they can provide critical chemical and biological information (chemo‐ and biosensors) that can be digitized and made available to users and centralized/decentralized facilities for data storage, remotely. These features could pave the way for new classes of low‐cost systems for health, food, and environmental monitoring that can democratize sensing across the globe. Here, a brief insight into the materials and basics of sensors (methods of transduction, molecular recognition, and amplification) is provided followed by a comprehensive and critical overview of the disposable sensors currently used for medical diagnostics, food, and environmental analysis. Finally, views on how the field of disposable sensing devices will continue its evolution are discussed, including the future trends, challenges, and opportunities.     

Prescriptive measures for environmental performance: emission standards,overcompliance, and monitoring

This paper studies optimal regulation when a regulator can exploit two levers: traditional enforcement and certification. The objective is to demonstrate how regulation can be adapted by combining theory and empirical regularities in the existing literature. The key result is that a regulatory scheme that allows the regulator to exploit overcompliance certification as well as traditional enforcement can achieve substantively greater environmental performance: a firm now has clear incentives to overcomply, and the others have to improve environmental performance through more stringent optimal standards.     

Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in the Southern Levant: synthesis, challenges, recent developments and perspectives

Palaeoenvironmental research in the Southern Levant presents a series of challenges, partly due to the unequal distribution of palaeoenvironmental records and potential archives throughout the region. Our knowledge of climatic evolution, during the last approximately 25,000 years, is of crucial importance to understand cultural developments. More local, well-dated, multi-proxy studies are much needed to obtain an accurate picture of environmental change in respect of the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene. This contribution reviews the current state of knowledge regarding Late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental changes in the Southern Levant, including some examples of more recent developments in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in Israel and the Dead Sea area, and introduces the major challenges researchers face in the region. It also presents the first results of a new case study in Jordan, based on an analysis of peaty deposits located in the mountain slopes east of the Dead Sea. Such new studies help refine our knowledge of local environmental changes in the Southern Levant and especially the more arid areas, for which little information is presently available. More material suitable for palaeoenvironmental research, for example extensive tufa and travertine series, still awaits consideration in Jordan, opening up exciting perspectives for future research in the area.     

Preconcentration and solid phase extraction method for the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd in environmental and biological samples using activated carbon by FAAS

2-{[1-(2-Hydroxynaphthyl) methylidene] amino} benzoic acid (HNMABA) was synthesized for solid phase extraction (SPE) to the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd in environmental and biological samples by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry (FAAS). These metals were sorbed as HNMABA complexes on activated carbon (AC) at the pH range of 5.0+/-0.2 and eluted with 6 ml of 1M HNO3 in acetone. The effects of sample volume, eluent volume and recovery have been investigated to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of proposed method. The effect of interferences on the sorption of metal ions was studied. The concentration of the metal ions detected after preconcentration was in agreement with the added amount. The detection limits for the metals studied were in the range of 0.75-3.82 microg ml(-1). The proposed system produced satisfactory results for the determination of Co, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd metals in environmental and biological samples.     

Citizen (dis)engagement during assessment of sports mega-events: the case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan,Russia

Based on the environmental case of the 2013 Universiade in Kazan, this research highlights that despite the variety of tools employed for citizen engagement, the key procedures can be claimed as ‘false dialogues’. The study identifies the key factors for such a discrepancy. The main external barriers for post-socialist Russian cities include the limited time frame for building sports venues, poor execution of environmental legislation, and complicated bureaucratic procedures maintained by governmental actors. The internal factors are polarized positions in the community due to the complexity of the project, the gap between the citizen environmental concern and actual engagement in environmentally friendly behaviours associated with the lack of the environmental knowledge, time, and financial resources, lack of knowledge of the environmental impact assessment process, and dominance of the material and paternalistic values and low trust in government proponents.     

EMPA and its activities in the field of building materials,elements and structures

EMPA is an an interdisciplinary organization providing, as the name implies, both research facilities and routine testing to suit a range of industrial, environmental and official governmental requirements. Some specific practice-oriented current research projects are described which exemplify many of EMPA's capabilities.     

Sustainable development, engineering education and activity

This paper is concerned principally with a view of engineering, engineering education and sustainable activity in the United Kingdom. It presents a synoptic review of current environmental issues and the response of the engineering profession in its widest sense. It highlights the tentative impetus for `greening' undergraduate curricula and the response by industry to environmental issues. The importance of engineers adopting a high profile in public affairs to convey concern and commitment to sustainable development is stressed. It calls for opportunities in engineering education for the synthesis of rational and intuitive thinking in solving problems     

Photocatalytic Micromotors Activated by UV to Visible Light for Environmental Remediation,Micropumps, Reversible Assembly,Transportation, and Biomimicry

Photocatalytic micromotors are light‐induced, chemically powered micromachines based on photocatalytic materials, activated by light illumination, and have redox reactions with environmental solutions to produce chemical gradients and bubbles that propel the micromachines through self‐diffusiophoresis, self‐electrophoresis, and bubble recoil. Due to the fact that excitation light relates largely to the bandgaps of selected materials, the development of photocatalytic micromotors has experienced an evolution from ultraviolet‐light‐activated to visible‐light‐activated and potentially biocompatible systems. Furthermore, due to the strong redox capacity and physical effects caused by the products or product gradients, photocatalytic micromotors have applications in environmental remediation, micropumps, reversible assembly, transportation, and biomimicry.