Sorption of tetracycline on H3PO4 modified biochar derived from rice straw and swine manure.

Currently, the information about the sorption of tetracycline (TC) on animal manure derived biochar was rare although plant residue derived biochar showed high sorption of TC). Therefore, this study explored the sorption of TC on swine manure derived biochar, and compared with rice straw derived biochar simultaneously. Also, H3PO4 was adopted to modify both types of biochar. The sorption kinetic and isotherm data showed H3PO4 modification enhanced the sorption of TC on both types of biochar (especially swine-manure-biochar), and indicated the chemisorptions including H-bonding and π-π electron donor acceptor interaction might be the primary mechanism. Moreover, the strengthened electrostatic attraction between TC and biochars might largely explain the enhanced sorption capacity of TC along with pH increasing from 5.0 to 9.0. At the same conditions, swine manure derived biochar demonstrated lower sorption capacity of TC than rice straw biochar, but still could be good material for the sorption of TC.

A review of groundwater contamination near municipal solid waste landfill sites in China.

Landfills are the most widely used method for municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal method in China. However, these facilities have caused serious groundwater contamination due to the leakage of leachate. This study, analyzed 32 scientific papers, a field survey and an environmental assessment report related to groundwater contamination caused by landfills in China. The groundwater quality in the vicinity of landfills was assessed as "very bad" by a comprehensive score (FI) of 7.85 by the Grading Method in China. Variety of pollutants consisting of 96 groundwater pollutants, 3 organic matter indicators, 2 visual pollutants and 6 aggregative pollutants had been detected in the various studies. Twenty-two kinds of pollutants were considered to be dominant. According to the Kruskal-Wallis test and the median test, groundwater contamination differed significantly between regions in China, but there were no significant differences between dry season and wet season measurements, except for some pollutants in a few landfill sites. Generally, the groundwater contamination appeared in the initial landfill stage after five years and peaked some years afterward. In this stage, the Nemerow Index (PI) of groundwater increased exponentially as landfill age increased at some sites, but afterwards decreased exponentially with increasing age at others. After 25years, the groundwater contamination was very low at selected landfills. The PI values of landfills decreased exponentially as the pollutant migration distance increased. Therefore, the groundwater contamination mainly appeared within 1000m of a landfill and most of serious groundwater contamination occurred within 200m. The results not only indicate that the groundwater contamination near MSW landfills should be a concern, but also are valuable to remediate the groundwater contamination near MSW landfills and to prevent the MSW landfill from secondary pollutions, especially for developing countries considering the similar situation of MSW disposal.

Semi-continuous anaerobic co-digestion of dairy manure with three crop residues for biogas production.

The characteristics of anaerobic semi-continuous co-digestion of dairy manure (DM) with three crop straw residues (SRs), rice straw, corn stalks and wheat straw under five mass mixing ratios (SRs/DM) were investigated. During the anaerobic digestion (AD) process, four periods were identified: startup, first stage of stabilization, second stage of stabilization, and suppression. Following the four periods, the biogas production rate varied between 101 and 576mL L(-1)d(-1). A high CH4 content and volatile solid reduction was maintained at the SRs/DM mass mixing ratio 1:9. The highest cumulative biogas production of more than 19L was obtained at ratio 5:5. However, ratio 9:1 performed worst in the whole process. Systematic analysis of the elements revealed nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace elements contents were important for the AD. Overall, the semi-continuous AD is efficient within a wide range of SRs/DM mass mixing ratios.