Ecological changes in subtidal macrobenthic communities of the Taean coast following the Hebei Spirit oil spill: A 10-year longitudinal study.

We examined long-term response (2008-2017) of the macrobenthos to the Hebei Spirit oil spill that occurred around the Taean coast, Korea, in December 2007. Oil concentrations were below the Korea/US environmental standards as of January 2008. Organic matter, chlorophyll-a, and zooplankton abundance dominated by Noctiluca scintillans were higher after the spill. Macrobenthic diversity recovered to pre-incident (2007) level in 2011. Biomass exceeded that level in 2011 and the increase prolonged for 5 years. Cross-correlation and regression analyses showed that chlorophyll-a at year t and zooplankton abundance at t-2 had a significant relationship with macrobenthic biomass at t (p < 0.05 for both), suggesting the transfer of increased organic matter (transformed from crude oil within the pelagic ecosystem) into the benthic ecosystem. Coastal wetlands around the incident area, vulnerable to oil pollution and slowly remobilizing accumulated oil, seemed to affect pelagic ecosystem processes and the unexpectedly increased and sustained biomass.

The role of tailored biochar in increasing plant growth, and reducing bioavailability, phytotoxicity, and uptake of heavy metals in contaminated soil.

Microwave-assisted catalytic pyrolysis was investigated using K3PO4 and clinoptilolite to enhance biochar sorption affinity for heavy metals. The performance of resulting biochar samples was characterized through their effects on plant growth, bioavailability, phytotoxicity, and uptake of heavy metals in a sandy soil contaminated with Pb, Ni, and Co. The produced biochars have high cation-exchange capacity (CEC) and surface area, and rich in plant nutrients, which not only reduced heavy metals (Pb, Ni, and Co), bioavailability and phytotoxicity, but also increased plant growth rate by up to 145%. The effectiveness of biochar in terms of reduced phytotoxicity and plant uptake of heavy metals was further improved by mixing K3PO4 and clinoptilolite with biomass through microwave pyrolysis. This may be due to the predominance of different mechanisms as 10KP/10Clino biochar has the highest micropore surface area (405 m2/g), high concentrations of K (206 g/kg), Ca (26.5 g/kg), Mg (6.2 g/kg) and Fe (11.9 g/kg) for ion-exchange and high phosphorus content (79.8 g/kg) for forming insoluble compounds with heavy metals. The largest wheat shoot length (143 mm) and lowest extracted amounts of Pb (107 mg/kg), Ni (2.4 mg/kg) and Co (63.9 mg/kg) were also obtained by using 10KP/10Clino biochar at 2 wt% load; while the smallest shoot length (68 mm) and highest extracted amounts of heavy metals (Pb 408 mg/kg, Ni 15 mg/kg and Co 148 mg/kg) for the samples treated with biochars were observed for soils mixed with 1 wt% 10Clino biochar. Strong negative correlations were also observed between biochar micropore surface area, CEC and the extracted amounts of heavy metals. Microwave-assisted catalytic pyrolysis of biomass has a great potential for producing biochar with high sorption affinity for heavy metals and rich nutrient contents using properly selected catalysts/additives that can increase microwave heating rate and improve biochar and bio-oil properties.

Comparative study on two-step concentrated acid hydrolysis for the extraction of sugars from lignocellulosic biomass.

Among all the feasible thermochemical conversion processes, concentrated acid hydrolysis has been applied to break the crystalline structure of cellulose efficiently and scale up for mass production as lignocellulosic biomass fractionation process. Process conditions are optimized by investigating the effect of decrystallization sulfuric acid concentration (65-80 wt%), hydrolysis temperature (80°C and 100°C), hydrolysis reaction time (during two hours), and biomass species (oak wood, pine wood, and empty fruit bunch (EFB) of palm oil) toward sugar recovery. At the optimum process condition, 78-96% sugars out of theoretically extractable sugars have been fractionated by concentrated sulfuric acid hydrolysis of the three different biomass species with 87-90 g/L sugar concentration in the hydrolyzate and highest recalcitrance of pine (softwood) was determined by the correlation of crystallinity index and sugar yield considering reaction severity.

Agrimonia eupatoria protects against chronic ethanol-induced liver injury in rats.

This study examined the hepatoprotective effects of Agrimonia eupatoria water extract (AE) against chronic ethanol-induced liver injury. Rats were fed a Lieber-DeCarli liquid diet for 8 weeks. Animals were treated orally with AE at 10, 30, 100, and 300 mg/kg/day. After chronic consumption of ethanol, serum aminotransferase activities and pro-inflammatory cytokines markedly increased, and those increases were attenuated by AE. The cytochrome P450 2E1 activity and lipid peroxidation increased after chronic ethanol consumption, while reduced glutathione concentration decreased. Those changes were attenuated by AE. Chronic ethanol consumption increased the levels of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and myeloid differentiation factor 88 protein expression, inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 protein and mRNA expression, and nuclear translocation of nuclear factor-kappa B, which was attenuated by AE. Our results suggest that AE ameliorates chronic ethanol-induced liver injury, and that protection is likely due to the suppression of oxidative stress and TLR-mediated inflammatory signaling.

Separation and structural elucidation of a novel analogue of vardenafil included as an adulterant in a dietary supplement by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, infrared spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

MEGATON, a dietary supplement, was analyzed in order to detect PDE-5 inhibitors and their analogues. A new analogue of vardenafil could be detected by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis with a photodiode array detector (PDA). This compound was compared with sildenafil, tadalafil, and vardenafil as well as their structurally modified analogues such as hongdenafil and homosildenafil. The structure of this compound was elucidated by mass spectrometry (MS), infrared (IR) spectroscopy and one- and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. When compared with vardenafil to verify the structural difference, this compound had an acetyl group instead of a sulfonyl group in the pyrazolopyrimidine portion without any substitution in the piperazine ring of the molecule. This compound was identified as 2-(2-ethoxy-5-(2-(4-ethylpiperazin-1-yl)acetyl)phenyl)-5-methyl-7-propyl-imidazo(5,1-f)-(1,2,4)triazin-4(3H)-one, which is also called acetylvardenafil.

Isolation and structures of guaianolides from Carpesium macrocephalum.

Two new guaianolides, 4alpha,10alpha-dihydroxy-1beta(H),5beta(H)-guai-11(13)-en-8alpha,12-olide (2) and 4beta,10beta-dihydroxy-5alpha(H)-1,11(13)-guaidien-8alpha,12-olide (3), from Carpesium macrocephalum were isolated, and their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic studies.