Amendment of soil by biochars and activated carbons to reduce chlordecone bioavailability in piglets.

Chlordecone (Kepone or CLD) is a highly persistent pesticide formerly used in French West Indies. Nowadays high levels of this pesticide are still found in soils which represent a subsequent source of contamination for outdoor-reared animals. In that context, sequestering matrices like biochars or activated carbons (ACs) are believed to efficiently decrease the bioavailability of such compounds when added to contaminated soils. The present study intends to test the respective efficiency of soil amendment strategies using commercial ACs or biochars (obtained by a 500 °C or 700 °C pyrolysis of 4 distinct type of wood). This study involved three experimental steps. The first one characterized specific surface areas of biochars and ACs. The second one assessed CLD-availability of contaminated artificial soils (50 µg g-1 of Dry Matter) amended with 5% of biochar or AC (mass basis). The third one assessed CLD bioavailability of those artificial soils through an in vivo assay. To limit ethically the number of animals, selections of the most promising media were performed between each experimental steps. Forty four castrated male 40-day-old piglets were exposed during 10 day by amended artificial soils according to their group (n = 4). Only treatment groups exposed through amended soil with AC presented a significant decrease of concentrations of CLD in liver and adipose tissue in comparison with the control group (p < 0.001). A non-significant decrease was obtained by amending artificial soil with biochars. This decrease was particularly high for a coconut shell activated carbon were relative bioavailability was found lower than 3.2% for both tissues. This study leads to conclude that AC introduced in CLD contaminated soil should strongly reduce CLD bioavailability.

Assessment of the surface areas of silica and clay in acid-leached clay materials using concepts of adsorption on heterogeneous surfaces.

Two clays of the areas of Kaélé and Kousseri (extreme North Cameroon) containing mainly smectites and minor amounts of kaolinite were activated with sulfuric acid (1 to 8 N). Crystal-chemical properties were studied using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and chemical analysis, while textural properties were analyzed by step-by-step nitrogen adsorption at 77 K and low-pressure quasi-equilibrium argon adsorption at 77 K. As is generally observed, smectite is more sensitive to acid leaching than kaolinite. As a result of smectite decomposition, amorphous Al-containing silica forms, leading to an increase in the specific surface area of the leached materials. The content of the clay minerals and amorphous silica can be estimated on the basis of changes in the chemical composition of the samples upon acid leaching. As far as adsorption energy distributions derived from low-pressure argon derivative adsorption isotherms are concerned, the main modifications occur when 1 N sulfuric acid is used, due to the replacement of calcium and sodium compensating cations by protons. When higher acid concentrations are used, variations in adsorption energy distribution can be assigned to the presence of amorphous silica. It was possible to model experimental adsorption energy distributions as weighted sums of argon adsorption energy distributions obtained on (i) 1 N samples representing protonated clays and (ii) a silica gel used as a reference aluminous silica. Using such an approach, increasing acid concentration results in an increase in the surface area of silica, whereas the surface area of the remaining clay minerals remains roughly constant.

Dynamic modulation of fimbrial extension and FimH-mannose binding force on live bacteria under pH changes: a molecular atomic force microscopy analysis.

Mechanical and conformational properties of type 1 fimbriae were evaluated on live bacterial cells by Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy (SMFS) and Dynamic Force Spectroscopy (DFS) in buffered solutions whose pH varied from 3 to 9. We evidenced that both fimbrial extension and fimbrial binding force to mannosylated-surface are modulated with changing the externally applied shear force and the solution pH. In particular, intertwined FimA-FimA and FimH-mannose interactions lead to a 5 to 25-fold decrease of the fimbrial unwinding for pulling rates larger than 10 µm/s and for pH values outside the range 5 to 7. In this pH range, the FimH-mannose binding force is maximal with a magnitude of -150-200 pN and the fimbriae extension reaches 8 µm. The enhancement of the FimH-mannose binding force at neutral pH, as evidenced from molecular AFM analyses, strongly correlates with an optimum in yeast agglutination detected at pH 5 to 7. The results reported in this work suggest that "catch bond effect" was negligible over the range of pulling rates tested, and both FimA-FimA and FimH-mannose interactions under given pH and external shear force conditions modify the ability of the bacteria to efficiently colonize host surfaces.

Role of exchangeable cations on geometrical and energetic surface heterogeneity of kaolinites.

Textural and energetic proprieties of kaolinite were studied by low-pressure argon adsorption at 77 K. The heterogeneity of four kaolinites (two low-defect and two high-defect samples) modified on their surface by cation exchange with Li+, Na+, or K+ was studied by DIS analysis of the derivative argon adsorption isotherms. The comparison between the derivative adsorption isotherms shows that the nature of the surface cation influences the adsorption phenomena on edge and basal faces. In the case of basal faces, two adsorption domains are observed: for the first one, argon adsorption is slightly sensitive to the nature of the surface cation; for the second one, argon adsorption energy depends on the nature of surface cation suggesting their presence on theoretically uncharged basal faces. This study also shows that the shape of elementary particles, as derived from basal and edge surface areas, changes with the nature of cation. This anomalous result is due to the decrease of edge surface area with increasing the size of the cation. This surface cation dependence can be accounted for the area occupied by the edge surface cations in the first argon monolayer.