Divulging the dust: An examination of particle deposition on soft ocular lens during urban commuting.

Air pollution affecting the eye is a relatively new, emerging area of research that has implications for urban commuting and is the key first study. This article emphasizes the importance of understanding the effects of particle deposition on the human eye using soft lenses and their exposure, as well as identifying the chemical, elemental composition, and morphology of particles when commuting over a period of 21-day period. In this study, the focus is on personal sampling with soft contact lenses (42% Hioxifilcon A, 58% H2O) to understand particle deposition on ocular along with cascade to understand cut-off size. Volunteers are used for five different modes, namely bus, open and closed car windows, pedestrian, and two-wheeler. The SEM results show that the morphology in buses, pedestrians and cars are denser, irregular, and nodular, with no or minimal interstitial pores, while the particles in two-wheelers appeared to be fibrous, thin, crystalline, and non-porous ranging from 51.2 nm to 406.3 nm. The ICPMS results show the higher concentration compositions for different commuter types, namely: zinc (0.0562 µg/m3 and 0.1076 µg/m3) for buses and pedestrians, potassium (1.5013 µg/m3) and calcium (2.5892 µg/m3), magnesium (2.978 µg/m3), potassium (4.197 µg/m3), calcium (22.335 µg/m3) and iron (7.526 µg/m3) for two-wheelers. The organic elemental composition from FTIR predominant groups namely carbonyl, carboxylic, OH, N-H, C-H, CC, CO, and C-O. The experiment concludes that travellers in two-wheelers and pedestrians are more susceptible to particle deposits which leads to several ocular effects such as eye-irritation, dryness, and visual impairment.

Meandered and muddled: a systematic review on the impact of air pollution on ocular health.

From the years 1970-2023, a systematic overview of the diverse consequences of particulate matter on eye health and a disease classification according to acute, chronic, and genetic are presented using the PubMed, Research Gate, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases. Various studies on medical aspects correlate with the eye and health. However, from an application perspective, there is limited research on the ocular surface and air pollution. The main objective of the study is to uncover the relationship between eye health and air pollution, particularly particulate matter, along with other external factors acting as aggravators. The secondary goal of the work is to examine the existing models for mimicking human eyes. The study is followed by a questionnaire survey in a workshop, in which the exposure-based investigation was tagged based on their activity. This paper establishes a relationship between particulate matter and its influence on human health, leading to numerous eye diseases like dry eyes, conjunctivitis, myopia, glaucoma, and trachoma. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate that about 68% of the people working in the workshop are symptomatic with tears, blurred vision, and mood swings, while 32% of the people were asymptomatic. Although there are approaches for conducting experiments, the evaluation is not well defined; empirical and numerical solutions for particle deposition on the eye are needed. There prevails a broad gap in the arena of ocular deposition modeling.

Effective Removal of Acid Dye in Synthetic and Silk Dyeing Effluent: Isotherm and Kinetic Studies.

Here, we propose a low-cost, sustainable, and viable adsorbent (pine tree-derived biochar) to remove acid dyes such as acid violet 17 (AV), which is used in the silk dyeing industry. As a case study, the AV removal process was demonstrated using synthetic effluent and further as a proof of concept using real dye effluent produced from the Sirumugai textile unit in India. The pine tree-derived biochar was selected for removal of aqueous AV dye in batch and fixed-bed column studies. The adsorbent material was characterized for crystallinity (XRD), surface area (BET), surface morphology and elemental compositions (SEM-EDX), thermal stability (TGA), weight loss (DGA), and functional groups (FTIR). Batch sorption studies were performed to evaluate (i) adsorption at various pH values (at pH 2 to 7), (ii) isotherms (at 10, 25, and 35 °C) to assess the temperature effect on the sorption efficiency, and (iii) kinetics to reveal the effect of time, adsorbent dose, and initial concentration on the reaction rate. After systematic evaluation, 2 g/L biochar, 25 mg/L AV, pH 3, 40 °C, and 40 and 360 min in a completely mixed batch study resulted in 50 and 90% dye removal, respectively. The isoelectric point at pH 3.7 ± 0.2 results in maximum dye removal, therefore suggesting that monitoring the ratio of different effluent (acid/wash/dye) can improve the colorant removal efficiency. The Langmuir isotherm best fits with the sorption of AV to biochar, provided a maximal dye uptake of 29 mg/g at 40 °C, showing that adsorption was endothermic. Fixed-bed studies were conducted at room temperature with an initial dye concentration of 25 and 50 mg/L. The glass columns were packed with biochar (bed depth 20 cm, pore volume = 14 mL) at an initial pH of 5.0 and a 10 mL/min flow rate for 120 min. Finally, the regeneration of the adsorbent was achieved using desorption studies conducted under the proposed experimental conditions resulted in 90-93% removal of AV even after five cycles of regeneration.