Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in multimedia environment of Heshan coal district, Guangxi: distribution, source diagnosis and health risk assessment.

Mining activities are among the major culprits of the wide occurrences of soil and water pollution by PAHs in coal district, which have resulted in ecological fragilities and health risk for local residents. Sixteen PAHs in multimedia environment from the Heshan coal district of Guangxi, South China, were measured, aiming to investigate the contamination level, distribution and possible sources and to estimate the potential health risks of PAHs. The average concentrations of 16 PAHs in the coal, coal gangue, soil, surface water and groundwater were 5114.56, 4551.10, 1280.12 ng g(-1), 426.98 and 381.20 ng L(-1), respectively. Additionally, higher soil and water PAH concentrations were detected in the vicinities of coal or coal gangue dump. Composition analysis, isomeric ratio, Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis were performed to diagnose the potential sources of PAHs in different environmental matrices, suggesting the dominant inputs of PAHs from coal/coal combustion and coal gangue in the soil and water. Soil and water guidelines and the incremental lifetime risk (ICLR) were used to assess the health risk, showing that soil and water were heavily contaminated by PAHs, and mean ICLRcoal/coal-gangue and mean ICLRsoil were both significantly higher than the acceptable levels (1 × 10(-4)), posing high potential carcinogenic risk to residents, especially coal workers. This study highlights the environmental pollution problems and public health concerns of coal mining, particularly the potential occupational health hazards of coal miners exposed in Heshan.

Oxygen isotope signature of UV degradation of glyphosate and phosphonoacetate: tracing sources and cycling of phosphonates.

The degradation of phosphonates in the natural environment constitutes a major route by which orthophosphate (Pi) is regenerated from organic phosphorus and recently implicated in marine methane production, with ramifications to environmental pollution issues and global climate change concerns. This work explores the application of stable oxygen isotope analysis in elucidating the CP bond cleavage mechanism(s) of phosphonates by UV photo-oxidation and for tracing their sources in the environment. The two model phosphonates used, glyphosate and phosphonoacetic acid were effectively degraded after exposure to UV irradiation. The isotope results indicate the involvement of both ambient water and atmospheric oxygen in the CP bond cleavage and generally consistent with previously posited mechanisms of UV-photon excitation reactions. A model developed to calculate the oxygen isotopic composition of the original phosphonate P-moiety, shows both synthetic phosphonates having distinctly lower values compared to naturally derived organophosphorus compounds. Such mechanistic models, based on O-isotope probing, are useful for tracing the sources and reactions of phosphonates in the environment.

A comparative cytotoxicity study of isomeric alkylphthalates to metabolically variant bacteria.

This work investigated the toxicity of two isomeric alkylphthalates, i.e., di-n-octyl phthalate (DOP) and di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) to two model bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis), which have been previously used to study the toxicity of environmental pollutants. Microcalorimetry was used as the key analytical tool alongside scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and traditional microbiology techniques. The thermokinetic parameters from microcalorimetry showed that the phthalates had a biphasic effect on the metabolic activities of the bacteria; serving as energy sources for the bacteria thereby stimulating their growth at low dosages (< or = 150 microg/mL), but displaying inhibitory effects at higher dosages (> or = 300 microg/mL), indicated by a sharp decrease in growth rate constants at 450 microg/mL. The SEM revealed that the bacterial cells were morphological deformed, with shrunk cells and elongated strands at 600 microg/mL of both phthalates. The elongated strands inferred that the phthalates inhibited the reproductive processes of the bacteria by possibly impeding some stages of cell division. The half inhibitory concentrations of the phthalates showed that DEHP was more toxic than DOP. Additionally, E. coli, a facultative anaerobe, was more susceptible to the toxic effects of phthalates than B. subtilis, an obligate aerobe capable of forming endospores crucial for tolerating extreme environmental conditions.