Potential of biochar use in building materials.

A critical review of the articles dealing with biochar in terms of the reuse of biomass waste in building materials and its impact on material properties was conducted using five different electronic databases; thirteen articles were selected for this critical review. Biochar was used as a replacement for cement and aggregate in cementitious composites and as an addition in wood polypropylene composites and plasters. The biochar dosages ranged from 0.5% to 40%; in most composites, the addition of biochar increased strength and reduced thermal conductivity and the bulk density of fresh mortars. Also, biochar dosages of 0.5-2% decreased, while dosages of 10-40% increased water absorption and penetration on cementitious composites. The selected studies mainly introduced biochar use in building materials as a means of biomass waste reduction and its reuse for various purposes, while carbon footprint reduction was addressed in only a few of them. Biochar-containing building material's capability of capturing CO2 from the air was also observed (0.033 mmol CO2 gbiochar-1 to 0.138 mmol CO2 gbiochar-1). The results also showed that mortars with CO2-unsaturated biochar had better mechanical and physical properties than mortars with CO2-saturated biochar. Selected studies showed biochar-containing building materials have a great potential for carbon footprint reduction. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies about biochar use in building materials concerning climate change mitigation.

Comparison of Fenton's oxidation and ozonation for removal of estrogens.

This study compares efficiency of Fenton's oxidation and ozonation of 17beta-estradiol (E2) and 17alpha-ethinylestradiol (EE2) as two possible processes for removal of estrogens from aqueous solutions. The effectiveness of Fenton's oxidative removal was studied at different ratios of reagents Fe2+:H2O2 (1:0.5; 1:10; 1:20; 1:33), where with some molar ratios up to 100% removal of E2 and EE2 was achieved in the first few minutes of reaction. The best molar ratio for E2 (17beta-estradiol) removal was 1:33, while in the case of EE2 the most efficient one was 1:20 ratio. Ozonation was much faster, because complete removal of estrogens was achieved in 30 seconds (pH approximately eaqual 6), but the time of ozonation was extended up to 60 minutes trying to decompose formed by-products, expressing estrogenic activity, detected by YES (Yeast Estrogen Screening) assay. The obtained results showed that the removal efficiency of estrogens from waters should be assessed by a combination of chemical analyses and bioassay.

The impact of single step ozonation of antibiotics-contaminated waste sludge to biogas production.

Antibiotics contamination of the environment is a growing public health concern, due to their persistency, possible chronic effects and spread of antibiotics resistance genes. The aim of the study was to determine efficiency of ozonation of waste biological sludge, contaminated by various antibiotics (400 mg L-1 of Tiamulin, Amoxicillin and Levofloxacin) in terms of inreased biogas production potential. It was confirmed that contaminated waste sludge inhibits overall biogas production in further anaerobic stabilization for 10-30% resulting also in lower methane yield in the gas mixture (14-45%). Ozonation of waste biological sludge was accomplished in batch system for 10 (22-24 mgO3 gvss-1) or 20 (36-69 mgO3 gvss-1) minutes. The impact to biogas production potential was measured for untreated, contaminated, ozonated untreated and ozonated contaminated sludge after its addition to anaerobic sludge in closed system at 37 °C. Ozone at applied doses simultaneously removed antibiotics related inhibition of biogas production and in some cases enhances biogas production (13-18%) with improved methane yield (22-32%). The highest improvement in biogas production potential was determined for Tiamulin while ozonation of Levofloxacin contaminated sludge was less efficient. It was concluded, that proposed ozone doses resulted in removal of inhibition due to the antibiotics but did not lead to economically feasible increase of biogas production and methane yield.

The use of multiwell culture plates in the duckweed toxicity test-A case study on Zn nanoparticles.

Extensive production of nanomaterials of various properties needs to be coupled with rapid toxicity testing in order to provide information about their potential risks to the environment and human health. Miniaturization of toxicity tests may accelerate economical testing of nanomaterials, but is not a common practice. We describe a case study to miniaturize a commonly used toxicity test with plant duckweed Lemna minor. 6-well, 12-well and 24-well culture plates were used to assess their potential use for the duckweed toxicity test with potassium chloride as reference material. The results were compared to the standard test design using 100 mL glass beakers. The comparison showed that the best agreement was with the 6-well vessels. This set-up was further used for toxicity testing of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NP) and zinc chloride. Zinc was not adsorbed onto either glass or plastic walls of the miniaturized system. We assume that in both vessels a fast agglomeration and settling of ZnO NP took place. Linear regression and statistical testing indicated a good correlation between the toxicity results obtained in the standard test and miniaturized 6-well vessels. The miniaturization of the test system for assessing the biological effect of nanomaterials on Lemna minor could become an appropriate alternative to the traditionally used high volume vessels.

The impact of humic acid on chromium phytoextraction by aquatic macrophyte Lemna minor.

Studies assessing chromium phytoextration from natural waters rarely consider potential implications of chromium speciation in the presence of ubiquitous humic substances. Therefore, the present study investigated the influence of environmentally relevant concentration of humic acid (TOC = 10 mg L(-1)) on chromium speciation (Cr = 0.15 mg L(-1)) and consequently on phytoextraction by aquatic macrophyte duckweed Lemna minor. In absence of humic acid, only hexavalent chromium was present in water samples and easily taken up by L. minor. Chromium uptake resulted in a significant reduction of growth rate by 22% and decrease of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b contents by 48% and 43%, respectively. On the other hand, presence of humic acid significantly reduced chromium bioavailability (57% Cr uptake decrease) and consequently it did not cause any measurable effect to duckweed. Such effect was related to abiotic reduction of hexavalent chromium species to trivalent. Hence, findings of our study suggest that presence of humic acid and chromium speciation cannot be neglected during phytoextraction studies.

A case study to optimise and validate the brine shrimp Artemia franciscana immobilisation assay with silver nanoparticles: The role of harmonisation.

Brine shrimp Artemia sp. has been recognised as an important ecotoxicity and nanotoxicity test model organism for salt-rich aquatic environments, but currently there is still no harmonised testing protocol which would ensure the comparable results for hazard identification. In this paper we aimed to design the harmonised protocol for nanomaterial toxicity testing using Artemia franciscana and present a case study to validate the protocol with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). We (i) revised the existing nanotoxicity test protocols with Artemia sp. (ii) optimised certain methodological steps based on the experiments with AgNPs and potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7) as a soluble reference chemical and (iii) tested the optimised protocol in an international inter-laboratory exercise conducted within the EU FP7 NanoValid project. The intra- and inter-laboratory reproducibility of the proposed protocol with a soluble reference chemical K2Cr2O7 was good, which confirms the suitability of this assay for conventional chemicals. However, the variability of AgNPs toxicity results was very high showing again that nanomaterials are inherently challenging for toxicity studies, especially those which toxic effect is linked to shed metal ions. Among the identified sources for this variability were: the hatching conditions, the type of test plate incubation and the illumination regime. The latter induced variations assumingly due to the changes in bioavailable silver species concentrations. Up to our knowledge this is the first inter-laboratory comparison of the Artemia sp. toxicity study involving nanomaterials. Although the inter-laboratory exercise revealed poor repeatability of AgNPs toxicity results, this study provides valuable information regarding the importance of harmonisation of all steps in the test procedure. Also, the presented AgNPs toxicity case study may serve as a platform for further validation steps with other types of NMs.

Fungal and enzymatic treatment of mature municipal landfill leachate.

The aim of our study was to evaluate biotreatability of mature municipal landfill leachate by using white rot fungus and its extracellular enzymes. Leachates were collected in one active and one closed regional municipal landfill. Both chosen landfills were operating for many years and the leachates generated there were polluted by organic and inorganic compounds. The white rot fungus Dichomitus squalens was able to grow in the mature leachate from the closed landfill and as it utilizes present organic matter as a source of carbon, the results were showing 60% of DOC and COD removal and decreased toxicity to the bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri. On the other hand, growth of the fungus was inhibited in the presence of the leachate from the active landfill. However, when the leachate was introduced to a crude enzyme filtrate containing extracellular ligninolytic enzymes, removal levels of COD and DOC reached 61% and 44%, respectively. Furthermore, the treatment led to detoxification of the leachate to the bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri and to reduction of toxicity (42%) to the plant Sinapis alba. Fungal and enzymatic treatment seems to be a promising biological approach for treatment of mature landfill leachates and their application should be further investigated.

Comparison of different physico-chemical methods for the removal of toxicants from landfill leachate.

Our work was focused on investigation of different treatment procedures for the removal of toxic fractions from a landfill leachate, because sometimes the existing treatment in biological sequencing batch reactor (SBR) is not efficient enough, leading to a hazardous environmental impact of the present persistent and toxic compounds. The efficiency of the procedures used was monitored by chemical analyses and two toxicity tests (activated sludge and Vibrio fischeri). The existing SBR (HRT=1.9 days) removed 46-78% of COD and 96-73% of NH(4)(+)-N. Experiments were conducted with three landfill leachate samples expressing significant difference in concentrations of pollutants and with low BOD(5)/COD ratio (0.06/0.01/0.03). The applied methods were air stripping, adsorption to activated carbon and zeolite clinoptilolite and Fenton oxidation. Air stripping at pH 11 was a viable treatment option for the removal of ammonia nitrogen (up to 94%) and reduction of toxicity to microorganisms. In the adsorption experiments in batch system with different concentration of PAC the most effective was the highest addition (50.0gL(-1)) where 63-92% of COD was removed followed by significant reduction in toxicity to V. fischeri. In the column experiments with clinoptilolite 45/93/100% of NH(4)(+)-N as well as 25/32/39% of COD removal was attained. The removal efficiency for metals followed the sequence Cr>Zn>Cd>Ni. The procedure with zeolite was the second most efficient one regarding reduction of toxicity to both organisms. Fenton oxidation at molar ratio Fe(2+):H(2)O(2)=1.0:10.0 assured 70-85% removal of COD but it only slightly reduced the toxicity.