Marine oil spill often causes contamination of drinking water sources in coastal areas. As the use of oil dispersants has become one of the main practices in remediation of oil spill, the effect of oil dispersants on the treatment effectiveness remains unexplored. Specifically, little is known on the removal of dispersed oil from contaminated water using conventional adsorbents. This study investigated sorption behavior of three prototype activated charcoals (ACs) of different particle sizes (4–12, 12–20 and 100 mesh) for removal of dispersed oil hydrocarbons, and effects of two model oil dispersants (Corexit EC9500A and Corexit EC9527A). The oil content was measured as n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs). Characterization results showed that the smallest AC (PAC100) offered the highest BET surface area of 889 m2/g and pore volume of 0.95 cm3/g (pHPZC = 6.1). Sorption kinetic data revealed that all three ACs can efficiently adsorb Corexit EC9500A and oil dispersed by the two dispersants (DWAO-I and DWAO-II), and the adsorption capacity followed the trend: PAC100 > GAC12 × 20 > GAC4 × 12. Sorption isotherms confirmed PAC100 showed the highest adsorption capacity for dispersed oil in DWAO-I with a Freundlich KF value of 10.90 mg/g∙(L/mg)1/n (n = 1.38). Furthermore, the presence of Corexit EC9500A showed two contrasting effects on the oil sorption, i.e., adsolubilization and solubilization depending on the dispersant concentration. Increasing solution pH from 6.0 to 9.0 and salinity from 2 to 8 wt% showed only modest effect on the sorption. The results are useful for effective treatment of dispersed oil in contaminated water and for understanding roles of oil dispersants.
To study the condition of urban green space soils in the central parts of a city in North China, the spatial distribution, sources, and pollution levels of heavy metals (Cd, Hg, As, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn, and Ni) within green space soils in the central urban districts of the city were investigated. The results showed that the soil quality was high overall. The mean concentrations of Cd, Hg, As, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn, and Ni were 0.172, 0.202, 9.02, 34.7, 57.0, 31.2, 85.7, and 26.3 mg·kg-1, respectively. The mean concentrations of Cd, Hg, Pb, and Zn in urban soils exceeded the background value of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region. All of the samples' heavy metal concentrations were lower than the risk screening values for soil contamination of development land in the national soil environment quality standards. With respect to the spatial distribution, the concentrations of As, Cr, and Ni were higher in the northwest of the study area, the concentrations of Cd and Zn were higher in the northeast, and the concentrations of Hg, Pb, and Cu were higher in the urban core area. As for the different land use types of the soils, the concentrations of Cd, Zn, and Ni were higher in the enterprise soils, while the concentrations of Hg, Pb, and Cu were higher in park and residential soils. Assessments of soil quality showed that 97.2% of soil samples' Nemerow integrated indices were less than 1, indicating that the soils were clean. Indices of potential ecological risk for all soil samples were less than 80, indicating that they posed a slight ecological risk. Multivariate statistical analysis (correlation and principle component analyses) showed that Cu, Pb, and Hg may originate from an anthropogenic source via the painting of ancient buildings and pesticides used to protect ancient trees. Chromium may originate from natural sources via geochemical activity and soil parent material; Cr, Zn, Ni, and As were derived from mixed sources through human and geochemical activities. The receptor model was used for identification and apportionment of pollution sources of elements over the standard. The contribution rates of sources were as follows:source 2(46.1%), source 3(33.1%), source 1(17.7%), and others (3.1%) for Cd, source 1(93.0%) for Cu, source 1(52.4%), source 3(24.2%), source 2(20.0%), and others (3.4%) for Zn, source 1(56.3%), source 2(37.8%), and source 3(5.8%) for Ni. Sources 1 and 3 were anthropogenic, while source 2 was natural.
Plant sexual systems play an important role in the evolution of angiosperm diversity. However, large-scale patterns in the frequencies of sexual systems (i.e. dioecy, monoecy, and hermaphroditism) and their drivers for species with different growth forms remain poorly known. Here, using a newly compiled database on the sexual systems and distributions of 19780 angiosperm species in China, we map the large-scale geographical patterns in frequencies of the sexual systems of woody and herbaceous species separately. We use these data to test the following two hypotheses: (1) the prevalence of sexual systems differs between woody and herbaceous assemblies because woody plants have taller canopies and are found in warm and humid climates; (2) the relative contributions of different drivers (specifically climate, evolutionary age, and mature plant height) to these patterns differ between woody and herbaceous species. We show that geographical patterns in proportions of different sexual systems (especially dioecy) differ between woody and herbaceous species. Geographical variations in sexual systems of woody species were influenced by climate, evolutionary age and plant height. In contrast, these have only weakly significant effects on the patterns of sexual systems of herbaceous species. We suggest that differences between species with woody and herbaceous growth forms in terms of biogeographic patterns of sexual systems, and their drivers, may reflect their differences in physiological and ecological adaptions, as well as the coevolution of sexual system with vegetative traits in response to environmental changes.
Trace metals in atmospheric particulate matter (PM) are a serious threat to public health. Although pollution from toxic metals has been investigated in many Chinese cities, the spatial and temporal patterns in PM2.5 remain largely unknown. Long-term PM2.5 field sampling in 11 cities, combined with a systemic literature survey covering 51 cities, provides the first comprehensive database of 21 PM2.5-bound trace metals in China. Our results revealed that PM2.5 elemental compositions varied greatly, with generally higher levels in North China, especially for crustal elements. Pollution with Cr, As, and Cd was most serious, with 61, 38, and 16 sites, respectively, surpassing national standards, including some in rural areas. Local emissions, particularly from metallurgical industries, were the dominant factors driving the distribution in polluted cities such as Hengyang, Yuncheng, and Baiyin, which are mainly in North and Central China. Elevated As, Cd, and Cr levels in Yunnan, Guizhou Province within Southwest China were attributed to the high metal content of local coal. Diverse temporal trends of various elements that differed among regions indicated the complexity of emission patterns across the country. The results demonstrated high non-carcinogenic risks for those exposed to trace metals, especially for children and residents of heavily cities highly polluted with As, Pb, or Mn. The estimated carcinogenic risks ranged from 6.61 × 10−6 to 1.92 × 10−4 throughout China, with As being the highest priority element for control, followed by Cr and Cd. Regional diversity in major toxic metals was also revealed, highlighting the need for regional mitigation policies to protect vulnerable populations.
Morphological variation of leaves is a key indicator of plant response to climatic change. Leaf size and shape are associated with carbon, water and energy exchange of plants with their environment. However, whether and how leaf size and shape responded to climate change over the past decades remains poorly studied. Moreover, many studies have only explored inter- but not intraspecific variation in leaf size and shape across space and time.We collected over 6000 herbarium specimens spanning 98 years (1910–2008) in China for seven representative dicot species and measured their leaf length and width. We explored geographical patterns and temporal trends in leaf size (i.e., leaf length, leaf width and length x width product) and shape (i.e., length/width ratio), and investigated the effects of changes in precipitation and temperature over time and space on the variation in leaf size and shape.After accounting for the effects of sampling time, leaf size decreased with latitude for all species combined, but the relationship varied among species. Leaf size and shape were positively correlated with temperature and precipitation across space. After accounting for the effects of sampling locations, leaf size of all species combined increased with time. Leaf size changes over time were mostly positively correlated with precipitation, whereas leaf shape changes were mostly correlated with temperature. Overall, our results indicate significant spatial and temporal intraspecific variation in leaf size and shape in response to climate. Our study also demonstrates that herbarium specimens collected over a considerable period of time provide a good resource to study the impacts of climate change on plant morphological traits.
This paper compiled a new speciated NMVOCs emission inventory for the industrial sources at the county-level by using a bottom-up approach in 2016, as well as estimated the ozone formation potential (OFP) and investigated its spatial characteristics in China. Results indicated that the total NMVOCs emissions from industrial sources estimated as 21.04 Tg in 2016. The five major source categories including “production of VOCs”, “storage and transportation”, “industrial processes using VOCs as raw material”, “processes using VOCs-containing products”, and “industrial fossil fuel combustion processes” generated 1.92 Tg, 0.94 Tg, 6.54 Tg, 10.04 Tg, and 1.60 Tg VOCs, respectively, in 2016. According to our estimates, aromatics were the largest contributor of industrial NMVOCs emissions in 2016, accounting for 36% of total NMVOCs, followed by Alkanes (29%), OVOCs (22%), Alkenes (7%), Halocarbons (4%), and Alkynes (2%). Styrene, m/p-xylene, ethylbenzene, toluene, and ethyl acetate were the top five VOC species from industrial sources in terms of abundance in 2016. Aromatics have a high potential for ozone formation, and accounted for 70% of total OFP, followed by Alkenes (14%), Alkanes (10%), and OVOCs (6%). Styrene, p-xylene, toluene, ethylbenzene, 1,3-butadiene were the five species that had the largest potential to form ozone, and plastic industry, coke industry, household appliances industry, and architectural decoration were the key contributing sectors. The emissions displayed distinct spatial characteristics, with significantly higher emissions and OFPs in coastal regions than in other inland areas of China.
The electron-transporting materials (ETMs), 2,7-bis(3,5-di (pyridin-3-yl)phenyl)-9,9'-spirobi [fluorene] (3-4PySF) and 2,7-bis(3,5-di (pyridin-4-yl)phenyl)-9,9'-spirobi [fluorene] (4-4PySF) were designed and synthesized by combining spirobifluorene moiety with di(pyridine-3-yl)phenyl and di(pyridine-4-yl)phenyl, respectively. The spimbifluorene moiety improves materials' rigid twisted structure to ensure the morphological stability of amorphous film, and pyridine acts as electron acceptor to enhance electron-transporting ability of materials. The dependence of electron-transporting property on the position of substituted pyridine rings was studied. The melting point (T-m) of 4-4PySF is estimated to be 41 degrees C higher than that of 3-4PySF. And the higher current density in the electron only devices exhibited by 4-4PySF revealed the effect of nitrogen atom position on the charge-transporting properties. Green PhOLEDs based on bis(2-phenylpyridine)iridium (III) (2,2,6,6-tetramethylheptane-3,5-diketonate) (Ir (ppy)(2)tmd) as the emitter and 3-4PySF, 4-4PySF and 1,3,5-tris(N-phenylbenzimid azol-2-yl-benzene (TPBi) as ETMs were fabricated. Compared to the device based on the conventional ETM TPBi, the devices based on new ETMs exhibited a higher maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 20.5% and a lower turn-on voltage (V-on) of 2.6 V.
Using a three-dimensional semiclassical method, we theoretically investigate frustrated double ionization (FDI) of Ar atoms subjected to strong laser fields. The double-hump photoelectron momentum distribution generated from FDI observed in a recent experiment [S. Larimian et al., Phys. Rev. Research 2, 013021 (2020)] is reproduced by our simulation. We confirm that the observed spectrum is due to recollision. The laser intensity dependence of FDI is investigated. We reveal that the doubly excited states of Ar atoms and excited states of Ar+ are the dominant pathways for producing FDI at relatively low and high intensities, respectively. The information of which pathway leads to FDI is encoded in the electron momentum distributions. Our work demonstrates that FDI is a general strong-field physical process accompanied with nonsequential double ionization and it can be well understood within the context of recollision scenario.
Abstract The long-term effects of increased temperatures on sediment fluxes in cold regions remain poorly investigated. Here, we examined the multidecadal changes in runoff and sediment fluxes in the Tuotuohe River, a headwater river of the Yangtze River on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The sediment fluxes and runoff increased at rates of 0.03 ± 0.01 Mt/yr (5.9 ± 1.9%/yr) and 0.025 ± 0.007 ? km3/yr (3.5 ± 1.0%/yr) from 1985 to 2016, with net increases of 135% and 78% from 1985?1997 to 1998?2016, respectively. The increases are primarily due to warming temperature (+1.44°C) and intensified glacier-snow-permafrost melting, with enhanced precipitation (+30%) as a secondary cause. Sediment fluxes are much more susceptible to climate warming than runoff in this undisturbed cold environment. The substantially increased sediment fluxes from the headwater region could threaten the numerous constructed reservoirs and influence the aquatic ecosystems of the TP and its marginal areas.