Armando Barrera

Effects of Alcohol Polyethoxylate (AEO) surfactants

Source: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501276g

The exposure to substantial concentrations of non-ionic surfactants or alcohol polyethoxylate (AEO) surfactants could result in serious health problems affecting a large number of fish.  These specific surfactants are usually found on domestic products or industrial products and it is probable that using large quantities of these substances can damage the environment.  A significant metabolic analysis was implemented to analyze further the effects of such exposure in juvenile sole, Solea senegalensis.  The research was examine further by using significant concentrations of hexaethylene glycol monododecylether (C₁₂EO₆), which had negative effects on the particular fish causing metabolite disruption in the liver.  In my personal opinion, one of the main solutions to eradicate the exposure to the surfactants is to diminish the use of industrial products that pollute the environment.  Another solution could be to find alternate substances to prevent the contamination of surfactants.  To conclude, this research provided substantial data on how to regulate the effects from the surfactant but can cause severe damage toward the environment such as causing health problems in the fish population.

References:

Diana Álvarez-Muñoz †‡, Raghad Al-Salhi †, Alaa Abdul-Sada †, Eduardo González-Mazo ‡, andElizabeth M. Hill *†. Global Metabolite Profiling Reveals Transformation Pathways and Novel Metabolomic Responses in Solea senegalensis after Exposure to a Non-ionic Surfactant. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2014, 48 (9), pp 5203–5210

Are your dogs potty trained?

It's not just humans that attribute to the waste water contamination it is also animals. Dogs have attributed to the contamination of water and researchers are trying to find a way to detect their fecal matter and figure out a way to stop it form contaminating and streams or rivers. When you let your dogs out in the water or play around the ocean it might happen where someone needs to go potty. This based research used the method of PCR to determine dog fecal contamination. With the method of collecting samples of about (244 fecal samples) from different geographic regions, they are able to detect the determination from the harm of humans and the harm of dogs. This will help figure out the harmful affects it has on our aquatic environment but also to other waste water treatment plants. This will improve the way we detect contamination and help improve our water quality monitoring.

 

Hyatt C. Green, 2014, environ. Sci. Technol. Development of Rapid Canine Fecal Source Identification PCR-Based Assays

 

 

Development of Rapid Canine Fecal Source Identification PCR-Based Assays

Hyatt C. Green, Karen M. White, Cathy A. Kelty, and Orin C. Shanks

Environmental Science & Technology        

 

Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP

DOI: 10.1021/es502637b

Publication Date (Web): September 9, 2014

Copyright This article not subject to U.S. Copyright. Published 2014 by the American Chemical Society                                                  

 

Aren't Nutrients Good?!

Nutrients are needed for every living organism. Whether to grow and developed or supply food for these processes, but what happens when nutrients accumulate to dangerous levels? The idea of using something as small as shellfish may just be the solution. Nitrogen management programs are wanting to use these shell fish as a way to remediate nitrogen along the coast lines. The idyllic situation is to have the overabundance of nitrogen integrate into the biomass of plankton and see weed, to then wait for the shellfish to consume them.Then these shellfish would be harvested, which would remove the nitrogen from the water allowing the oxygen to return. Simple enough right? The nitrogen management programs love this idea because it wouldn't disrupt much.Everyone would win such as the environment, economic and social standing. Unfortunately the costs seem to be greater. There are many factors that would have to literally be perfect to pull it off. Also shellfish alone wont be able to completely fix this problem with the main problem being the food ability. Then there is also been legal battles. And Lastly actual implementations have not been put into the works. This would be a very cost effective way to control the nitrogen which certain stipulations. 

Rose, J., Bricker, S., Tedesco, M., & Wikfors, G. (2014, February 7). A Role for Shellfish Aquaculture in Coastal Nitrogen Management. Retrieved September 20, 2014, from http://pubs.acs.org.library.tamiu.edu:2048/doi/abs/10.1021/es4041336

Dirty Groundwater? I Think Not!

Groundwater can be found most anywhere underground, moving slowly though geologic formations of called aquifers.  Some areas are dependent upon aquifers for drinking water but the largest use for them is to irrigate crops.  Groundwater can be polluted by landfills, septic tanks, leaky underground gas tanks and from the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, thus making it unsuitable to drink.  Originally, a type of ex situ treatment that was essentially a slow, expensive pump and treat method was used to remediate groundwater.  A new method, nanoscale zero valent iron particles (NZVI), is emerging as a new option for cleaning contaminated soil and groundwater.  This method targets chlorinated organic contaminants, such as those found in pesticides and solvents, and inorganic anions or metals.  This method also has the ability to migrate below ground to actively remediate the source of contamination and its surrounding area.  As of yet, there have been no adverse impacts on the environment reported and studies and field applications show promising results with respect to field contamination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

 

Mueller, N. C., Braun, J., Bruns, J., Cernik, M., Rissing, P., Rickerby, D., and Nowack, B. (2012). Application of nanoscale zero valent iron (NZVI) for groundwater remediation in Europe. Environ Sci Pollut Res, 19, 550-558.

 

 

September 25, 2014

 

Alfalfa and Microorganism Soil Detox

Angelika Contreras

       Alfalfa and Microorganism Soil Detox  

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have been linked to the contamination of soil making it toxic, carcinogenic potential, and resulting in bio accumulation. It has been determined phytoremediation is an environmental friendly and low cost option to detoxify soil contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The use of alfalfa in conjunction with rhizosphere microorganisms was tested for their effectiveness on pyrene removal. After 45 days of joint treatment there was a significant decrease in the amount of pyrene. As a result, the use of rhizosphere microorganisms enabled the result of microbial community diversity and increased soil dehydrogenase. However, the use of rhizosphere microorganisms were unsuccessful at changing the pathway of pyrene degradation. 

Source: http://origin-ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0147651314004096-gr1.jpg

Citation 

 Jinshao Ye, Hua Yin, Hui Peng, Jieqiong Bai, Yuepeng Li, Pyrene removal and transformation by joint application of alfalfa and exogenous microorganisms and their influence on soil microbial community, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, Volume 110, December 2014, Pages 129-135, ISSN 0147-6513, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2014.08.031.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651314004096)

What does our milk actually cost our earth to make

Humans are the only mammals to actually drink milk not only as children but adults.  Have we really thought what goes into the making of our milk?  Urinary urea is a prime nitrogen source from dairy manure.  The study was focused primarily on changing the diet of the cows on the farms in order to see if there was less contamination of the ozone layer.  This research is interesting because the fact that we can even change the diets of cows in order to have less of an impact on the earth is incredible.  The findings were that there was a 7 to 12% decrease of NH3 and N2O in the pasture farms of Wisconsin.  The results are great because if that can be reduce with a research like this something more wide scale can certainly have a great trade off on the ozone layer while continuing to give us delicious cheese. 

                                               http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/printbeef.html

J. M. Powell,* C. A. Rotz, and M. A. Wattiaux J. Environ. Qual. 43:1169–1175 (2014).  Potential Use of Milk Urea Nitrogen to Abate Atmospheric Nitrogen Emissions from Wisconsin Dairy Farms

Sharing our world with the oil industry.

The drilling industry has become a growing crisis for our environment in various ways.  It has been a major factor in the pollution of our soils after use.  Unfortunately, the oil industry produces some of the most important commodities for our current ways of living.  The excavation and production of these resources provides multiple benefits such as gasoline for vehicles, air conditioning, electricity, and plastic products.  It has also provided multiple jobs for the working class and our economists.  Recent studies by a group of researchers from China University of Petroleum and CNPC Research Institute of Safety & Environment Technology, discovered that drilling caused a soil contamination in China . The contamination contained polymer sulfonate, and oil based drilling fluids which caused a poor degradation and high levels of toxicity present even after waste drilling fluids were processed through secondary treatments.  The researchers therefore experimented and produced a Green Throwing Drilling Fluid to be added to the oil waste products.  The Green Throwing Drilling Fluid is an additive and is non-toxic, biodegradable and reservoir protective. This fluid was used in two drilling sites and performed a green performance evaluation, levels of chemical toxicity, biological toxicity and biodegradability after application.  After applying Green liquid and oil waste products onto soil for 60 days a visible improvement to soils were noticeable with the growth of herbaceous plants.  The soil was tested and results showed a level of low chemical toxicity contents of heavy metals Cd, Hg, Pd, Cr and As.  Levels of organic soil matter and major fertility indexes Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium had increased.  The core permeability recovery also increased by 80%.  This new environmental friendly green additive to China's oil industry was an effective control.  It has increased levels of moisture and restored organic matter.  Perhaps the U.S. will implement this new additive to the waste contents of the oil industry and seize contaminations.


Xie, S.X., Jiang, G.C., Chen, M., Deng, H. and Xu, Y. 2012. Study and application of Green Throwing Drilling Fluid (China). Petroleum.Sci.Technol.30:443-452.

Biosensor for toxic Arsenic

Arsenic (As) is among the most toxic elements present on Earth. Arsenic tends to accumulate in soils due to the use of fertilizers and pesticides in modern agriculture. A recent environmental project determined that the active forms of this toxic element are the aromatic and trivalent methyl arsenic, taking in consideration these findings; they developed a non- expensive whole-cell bio-sensor which specially detects bacterial biomethylation in arsenic and it breaks down the organic-arsenic compounds and thus, lowering the level of toxicity in the soil . Further testing and analysis is needed to determine the long-term efficiency of this arsenic bio-sensors  

 Reference

Jian Chen, S. Sun, C. Li, Y. Zhu and B. Rosen .2014. Biosensor for organoarsenical herbicides and growth promoters. Environmental Science and Technology. 10.1021/es4038319 

Going PRO: The Grand Gradient

Courtesy of: Yip and Elimelech 2014

The major untouched source of energy on planet is that of water, but not just water, the salinity gradient it contains. There are two methods that have been studied, Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) and Reserve Electrodialysis (RED), in order to see how the energy efficiency and power density would perform in real simulations. The study found that a higher efficiency (useful work) was more attainable in PRO over RED, due to the fact that frictional loses, resistive loses, uncontrolled mixing loses and unutilized energy in RED overpowered the little useful work it created. PRO also worked better than RED when put through the three types of gradients: natural (seawater - river water), anthropogenic (desalination brine - wastewater effluent), and engineered (synthetic hyper-saline solutions). Power density in this study is defined by the the amount of area the salinity energy has to use, and once again PRO was able to create the most energy using the less amount of area. The outcome of this study shows how energy could be harvested from the many streams and rivers found around the world.

Reference:

Ngai Yin Yip and Menachem Elimelech (2014). Comparison of Energy Efficiency and Power Density in Pressure Retarded Osmosis and Reverse Electrodialysis. Environmental Science & Technology, 48, 11002-11012.