Oxidative removal of phenol by HRP-immobilized beads and its environmental toxicology assessment.

Horseradish peroxidase shows potential biological and environmental applications on the removal of phenolic compounds. In the present study, the HRP-immobilized beads were synthesized to detect the efficiency of the removal of phenol at optimum pH and H2O2 concentration. Comparative in vitro cytotoxicity of phenol/treated solutions were evaluated in HeLa, HepG2 and mcf-7 cells by using MTT method along with flow cytometry study for cell viability and cell cycle distributions. The results showed that the toxicity of phenol solutions were greatly reduced after treated by HRP-immobilized beads, and phenol could lead to deactivate of cells in the S phase and preventing them from going into the G2/M checkpoint. In addition, molecular docking study showed that phenol was a valid inhibitor for the cyclin E in the cell cycle and cell metabolism. Thereby, we established a suitable strategy with promising application for efficient harmless removal of phenol, which significantly decreased the cytotoxic impacts of phenol.

Health risk assessment of inhalable particulate matter in Beijing based on the thermal environment.

Inhalable particulate matter (PM10) is a primary air pollutant closely related to public health, and an especially serious problem in urban areas. The urban heat island (UHI) effect has made the urban PM10 pollution situation more complex and severe. In this study, we established a health risk assessment system utilizing an epidemiological method taking the thermal environment effects into consideration. We utilized a remote sensing method to retrieve the PM10 concentration, UHI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). With the correlation between difference vegetation index (DVI) and PM10 concentration, we utilized the established model between PM10 and thermal environmental indicators to evaluate the PM10 health risks based on the epidemiological study. Additionally, with the regulation of UHI, NDVI and NDWI, we aimed at regulating the PM10 health risks and thermal environment simultaneously. This study attempted to accomplish concurrent thermal environment regulation and elimination of PM10 health risks through control of UHI intensity. The results indicate that urban Beijing has a higher PM10 health risk than rural areas; PM10 health risk based on the thermal environment is 1.145, which is similar to the health risk calculated (1.144) from the PM10 concentration inversion; according to the regulation results, regulation of UHI and NDVI is effective and helpful for mitigation of PM10 health risk in functional zones.