Temporal and spatial characteristics of flocculated suspended solids in a deep reservoir: an in situ observation in the Biliuhe Reservoir.

The amount of total suspended solids (TSS) is the most visible indicator for evaluating water quality in reservoirs. Previous investigations paid more attention to TSS of the surface layer in reservoirs, while suspended particles are prone to settle, resuspend, and aggregate at the bottom of reservoir. There may be different patterns of the TSS in different depths. This study is to assess the TSS concentration by weight analysis, find the evidence of the existence of flocculated suspended particles by in situ underwater imaging analysis, and discuss the impact of the flocculation process of suspended solids on water quality in deep reservoirs. Although the TSS concentration is lower than other reservoirs with the same trophic level, many flocs were found at the bottom of the deep-water area (> 15 m) in the Biliuhe Reservoir according to the recordings of the in situ underwater camera. The further comprehensive analysis demonstrates that the fine particle in flood season and resuspension is the main source of suspended flocs at the bottom of the reservoir. While the slow settling velocity results in the flocculation of fine suspended particles and long-term residence in the bottom layer of the reservoir. TSS has a significant correlation with iron and total phosphorus. Resuspension, flocculation, and settling impact on the transport of suspended sediment and associated contaminants. The evidence from this study suggests that the impact of flocs on water quality should be further discussed to ensure water supply safety.

A new-type HOCl-activatable fluorescent probe and its applications in water environment and biosystems.

The outbreak and spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to a significant increase in the consumption of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) disinfectants. NaOCl hydrolyzes to produce hypochlorous acid (HOCl) to kill viruses, which is a relatively efficient chlorine-based disinfectant commonly used in public disinfection. While people enjoy the convenience of NaOCl disinfection, excessive and indiscriminate use of it will affect the water environment and threaten human health. Importantly, HOCl is an indispensable reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human body. Whether its concentration is normal or not is closely related to human health. Excessive production of HOCl in the body contributes to some inflammatory diseases and even cancer. Also, we noticed that the concentration of ROS in cancer cells is about 10 times higher than that in normal cells. Herein, we developed a HOCl-activatable biotinylated dual-function fluorescent probe BTH. For this probe, we introduced biotin on the naphthalimide fluorophore, which increased the water solubility and enabled the probe to aggregate in cancer cells by targeting specific receptor overexpressed on the surface of cancer cell membrane. After reacting to HOCl, the p-aminophenylether moiety of this probe was oxidatively removed and the fluorescence of the probe was recovered. As expected, in the PBS solution with pH of 7.4, BTH could give full play to the performance of detecting HOCl, and it has made achievements in detecting the concentration of HOCl in actual water samples. Besides that, BTH had effectively distinguished between cancer cells and normal cells through a dual-function discrimination strategy, which used biotin to enrich the probe in cancer cells and reacted with overexpressed HOCl in cancer cells. Importantly, this dual-function discrimination strategy could obtain the precision detection of cancer cells, thereby offering assistance for improving the accuracy of early cancer diagnosis.

The effects of turbulence on phytoplankton and implications for energy transfer with an integrated water quality-ecosystem model in a shallow lake.

Turbulence has significant influences on the growth rate and community structure of phytoplankton in large shallow lakes. Phytoplankton in moving water may be influenced by turbulence and nutrient concentration gradients on a short time scale. To assess this issue, our research used an ensemble water quality and ecological model by internally coupling the three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC), and the one-dimensional ecosystem model, PCLake. The results showed that turbulence dramatically inhibited phytoplankton growth, while nutrients had the opposite effect. In addition, turbulence was the key factor contributing to phytoplankton growth. However, the effects of turbulence on phytoplankton correlated with nutrient concentrations. For lower nutrient concentrations, phytoplankton growth was controlled by nutrients. Logistic regression models were established with the modeled chlorophyll a, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and turbulent kinetic energy (Ke). The results also showed that turbulence could improve nutrient uptake by phytoplankton, especially at low nutrient levels. The effects of turbulence on phytoplankton may imply that energy transfer occurs between water turbulence and phytoplankton. Our study will provide insight into management and remediation strategies of ecosystems based on energy processes in the future.

A comparison study of in-situ coagulation and magnetic ion exchange (MIEX) as pre-treatments for ultrafiltration: Evaluating effectiveness of organic matters removals and fouling mitigation.

This work was designed to compare the effectiveness of in-situ coagulation and MIEX as pre-treatments prior to ultrafiltration (UF) to improve organic matter (OM) removal and mitigate membrane fouling. Three kinds of OMs, i.e. salicylic acid (SA), humic acid (HA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were employed. The experimental results show that coagulation-UF led to most effective removal of HA (almost 90%), while the SA was uncoagulated and least removable, with the rejection rate of about 55%. Conversely, MIEX present superior ability for removing SA, contributing to additional efficiency of 71.95-77.21% than UF alone. Proper dosage of Al-based coagulants could alleviate flux loss, especially in the cases of HA and BSA. Increasing coagulant dose resulted in continuous decrement of irreversible resistance (Rir), which dominated the membrane fouling development by the SA water. For HA and BSA waters, alternatively, variations of Rr determined the flux declines. Floc compact degree was the decisive factor for Rr for coagulated SA; while for HA and BSA, Rr was most related to the floc size and foulant-foulant interaction. MIEX was most effective for alleviating flux loss when treating the hydrophilic SA with small molecules and for all the cases, MIEX exerted little influence on the Rr values.

A carbonothioate-based highly selective fluorescent probe with a large Stokes shift for detection of Hg2.

Mercury (Hg) is one of the heavy metal pollutants in the environment. Even a very small amount of mercury can cause serious harm to human beings. Herein, we reported a new carbonothioate-based fluorescent probe for the detection of Hg2+ without interference from other metal ions. This probe possessed a very large Stokes shift (192 nm), which could improve the detection sensitivity by minimizing the interferences resulted from self-absorption or auto-fluorescence. With the addition of Hg2+ to the probe solution, considerable fluorescence enhancement was observed. Additionally, the Hg2+ concentration of 0-16 µM and fluorescence intensity showed a good linear relationship (y = 22106× + 53108, R2  = 0.9955). Finally, the proposed probe was used to detect Hg2+ in real water samples, and its result was satisfactory. Therefore, our proposed probe would provide a promising method for the determination of Hg2+ in the environment.

A Method for the Highly Selective, Colorimetric and Ratiometric Detection of Hg(2+) in a 100% Aqueous Solution.

Mercury (Hg) and its derivatives pose a serious threat to the environment and human health. Thus, the development of methods for the selective and sensitive determination of Hg(2+) is very important to understand its distribution, and to implement more detailed toxicological studies. Herein, we developed a new method for the detection of Hg(2+) based on the tricyanoethylene derivative and mercaptoethanol. This method could selectively detect Hg(2+) in a 100% aqueous solution by the naked-eye within the range of 1 - 60 µM. Importantly, this method also could detect Hg(2+) quantitatively by ratiometic absorption spectroscopy in the range of 0.1 - 6 µM with a detection limit of 55 nM. We anticipate that this proposed method will be used widely to monitor Hg(2+) in the environment.