Contaminants of emerging concern in water and sediment of the Venice Lagoon, Italy.

This study investigates for the first time the contamination of water and sediment of the Venice Lagoon by twenty Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs): three hormones, six pharmaceutical compounds (diclofenac and five antibiotics, three of which are macrolides), nine pesticides (methiocarb, oxadiazon, metaflumizone, triallate, and five neonicotinoids), one antioxidant (BHT), and one UV filter (EHMC). Water and sediment samples were collected in seven sites in four seasons, with the aim of investigating the occurrence, distribution, and possible emission sources of the selected CECs in the studied transitional environment. The most frequently detected contaminants in water were neonicotinoid insecticides (with a frequency of quantification of single contaminants ranging from 73% to 92%), and EHMC (detected in the 77% of samples), followed by BHT (42%), diclofenac (39%), and clarithromycin (35%). In sediment the highest quantification frequencies were those of BHT (54%), estrogens (ranging from 35% to 65%), and azithromycin (46%). Although this baseline study does not highlight seasonal or spatial trends, results suggested that two of the major emission sources of CECs in the Venice Lagoon could be tributary rivers from its drainage basin and treated wastewater, due to the limited removal rates of some CECs in WWTPs. These preliminary results call for further investigations to better map priority emission sources and improve the understanding of CECs environmental behavior, with the final aim of drawing up a site-specific Watch List of CECs for the Venice Lagoon and support the design of more comprehensive monitoring plans in the future.

Impacts of exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) discharge waters on planktonic biological indicators.

Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems (EGCS), operating in open-loop mode, continuously release acidic effluents (scrubber waters) to marine waters. Furthermore, scrubber waters contain high concentrations of metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and alkylated PAHs, potentially affecting the plankton in the receiving waters. Toxicity tests evidenced significant impairments in planktonic indicators after acute, early-life stage, and long-term exposures to scrubber water produced by a vessel operating with high sulphur fuel. Acute effects on bacterial bioluminescence (Aliivibrio fischeri), algal growth (Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Dunaliella tertiolecta), and copepod survival (Acartia tonsa) were evident at 10 % and 20 % scrubber water, while larval development in mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) showed a 50 % reduction at ∼5 % scrubber water. Conversely, larval development and reproductive success of A. tonsa were severely affected at scrubber water concentrations ≤1.1 %, indicating the risk of severe impacts on copepod populations which in turn may result in impairment of the whole food web.

Emissions of pharmaceuticals and plant protection products to the lagoon of Venice: development of a new emission inventory.

Estimating the emissions of chemical pollutants to water is a fundamental step for the development and application of effective and sustainable management strategies of water resources, but methods applied so far to build chemicals inventories at the European or national scale show several limitations when applied at the local scale. The issue is particularly relevant when considering contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), whose environmental releases and occurrence are still poorly studied and understood. In this work, an approach to estimate water emissions of nine active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and ten most applied plant protection products (PPPs) is presented, considering proxy indicators (e.g., sales data and census information). The application area is the lagoon of Venice (Italy), a complex transitional environment highly influenced by anthropic pressures (e.g., agricultural and industrial activities, animal breeding, and wastewater discharge). The presented approach can be tailored to the information available for any local scale case study. Data on annual regional sales of PPPs and APIs were integrated with georeferenced demographic and economic statistics (such as census and land-use information) to estimate chemicals emissions to surface water and groundwater. A sensitivity and uncertainty analysis identified the main factors affecting emissions estimates, and those contributing more significantly to results uncertainty. Results showed the highest estimated emissions of APIs for antibiotics (i.e., amoxicillin, clarithromycin, azithromycin, and ciprofloxacin) used for humans and animals, while most of hormones' emission (i.e., 17- α-ethinylestradiol and 17-ß-estradiol) derived from animal breeding. Regarding PPPs, glyphosate and imidacloprid emissions were one to two orders of magnitude higher compared to the other chemicals. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis showed that the variability of each parameter used to estimate emissions depends greatly both on the target chemical and the specific emission source considered. Excretion rates and removal during wastewater treatment were major key parameters for all the target pharmaceutical compounds, while for PPPs the key parameter was their loss into the natural waters after application.

Trends and characteristics of employing cavitation technology for water and wastewater treatment with a focus on hydrodynamic and ultrasonic cavitation over the past two decades: A Scientometric analysis.

Cavitation-based technologies have emerged as a sustainable and effective way to treat natural waters and wastewater, considering their increasing scarcity due to pollution and climate change. For this reason, this work aimed to conduct a scientometric analysis on the topic of cavitation for water and wastewater treatment during the last 20 years, from 2001 to August 2022. We focused on hydrodynamic and ultrasonic cavitation as the prevalent methods of inducing cavitation. Furthermore, an in-depth study on the main trends regarding the number of publications and citations, keywords co-occurrence and evolution, and countries' publication trends was carried out to investigate the future direction of this research topic. The data was gathered from the Web of Science database and analyzed by the Visualization Of Similarities software. This work focused on: i) publication and citation trends, ii) scientific categories, iii) countries' contribution to the topic of cavitation, iv) prominent journals, v) keyword co-occurrence and cluster analysis, and vi) keyword evolution analysis. Results showed a significant increase in publications during the past 5 years. The scientific categories with the highest number of publications were "environmental sciences" and "environmental engineering," with a combined share of 19.4 % of publications. Keywords evolution analysis showed that limited focus was given to topics related to "energy" and "energy efficiency" in the field of cavitation, but with the rising importance of each process's sustainability, the attention given to these concepts will increase in the future. Future directions for the topic of cavitation-related water and wastewater treatments will shift towards more environmentally friendly applications of hydrodynamic and ultrasonic cavitation as well as towards more green and sustainable approaches to address the increasing water pollution problems and shortage. Moreover, it will include other uses besides water treatment such as manufacturing nanomaterials food production and medicine.

The validation of converting pyrite ash-contaminated soil into End-of-Waste by the High-Performance Solidification/Stabilization process application.

One of the major challenges to establishing more sustainable management strategies than landfill disposal of metals-contaminated soils is the lack of End-of-Waste (EoW) criteria defined at the European and national levels. Another limitation stems from the scarcity of information on industrial-scale applications of treatment technologies able to obtain safe and reusable materials from such contaminated waste. In this context, the High-Performance Solidification/Stabilization process was applied for the full-scale remediation of pyrite ash-contaminated soil (ca. 24 000 m3 ), and a dedicated sampling and analytical protocol was developed and implemented to verify if the treated material obtained complied with the general EoW criteria established by article 6 of the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC. The results of the leaching, ecotoxicological, and mechanical tests carried out on representative samples of the treated soil showed that this material (ca. 19 000 m3 ) could be classified as EoW and thus was deemed reusable both in-situ as filler for the excavation and ex-situ as road construction material. These results improve the knowledge of the performance of a state-of-the-art technique for the treatment of metals-contaminated soil. Furthermore, the developed monitoring plan can support future assessments on the compliance of materials obtained from contaminated soil with the general EoW criteria. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:961-969. © 2022 SETAC.

Cement-stabilized contaminated soil: Understanding Pb retention with XANES and Raman spectroscopy.

Cement-based stabilization is a widespread technique used for the treatment of contaminated soils. Despite its established application, the mechanisms involved in the stabilization of contaminants are not fully understood yet. This work aims to elucidate the fate of a real Pb contaminated soil amended with different binders, by studying Pb local environment prior and after the stabilization process. The study of a complex historically contaminated soil was coupled with the investigation of simplified artificial systems, developed to model Pb local structure in the unknown newly formed hybrid systems of soil and binders. The use of synchrotron-based element-specific X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) permitted to probe the actual transformation of Pb environment in the real contaminated soil after the stabilization process. With the support of the model systems, we can propose as the main mechanism involved in Pb retention in sulfated soil treated with cement, the incorporation and/or adsorption of Pb on calcium silicate hydrates and ettringite.

Stabilization of lead contaminated soil with traditional and alternative binders.

The application of an innovative solidification/stabilization (S/S) process was investigated for the remediation of Pb contaminated soil. The performance of Pb stabilization was evaluated by comparing the use of calcium aluminate cement (CAC) and an alkali activated metakaolin binder vs the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). The phase composition of the stabilized products was investigated by XRD and correlated to the internal microstructure obtained by SEM-EDX imaging. Leaching tests were performed to ascertain the effectiveness of the proposed binders in the S/S of the contaminated soil, and Pb release was evaluated for each binding system. The overall results proved that multiple mechanisms are involved in Pb retention and that key parameters regulating the stabilization performance are strongly dependent on the type of applied binder system. Pb was found to be associated to C-S-H in the case of OPC, whereas ettringite played a key role in the retention of this contaminant using the CAC binder. The use of a NaOH activated metakaolin resulted in almost total retention of Pb, despite a lack of solidification, highlighting the importance of pH in the regulation of the leaching behavior.

Consecutive thermal and wet conditioning treatments of sedimentary stabilized cementitious materials from HPSS® technology: Effects on leaching and microstructure.

Soil and sediment contamination is recognised as one of the most relevant environmental problems caused by past industrial activities and unsustainable waste disposal practices, highlighting the need to develop or improve effective remediation techniques to support sustainable management strategies. In this context, the remediation of sediments dredged from the Mincio river (Italy) contaminated by mercury and heavy hydrocarbons (C12-40) was carried out by applying and implementing the High Performance Solidification/Stabilization technology, aimed at producing safe and reusable cement-based granular materials. The technology was improved by decreasing both the temperature and time of the thermal desorption treatment (from 280 to 110 °C and from 4-16 h to 70 min, respectively) and by including a wet conditioning step to the process. Temperature and time reduction allowed to diminish the degradation of the cementitious phases of the granules (usually related to the high temperatures employed in the process), while the wet conditioning step allowed to improve their mechanical properties, as well as to further reduce the leaching of contaminants. The physical-chemical properties of the granules and contaminant leaching in water were investigated by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass and Optical Emission Spectrometry, Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy, Gas Chromatography, X-Ray Powder Diffraction, and Scanning Electron Microscopy, in order to identify the optimal parameters for both thermal and wet conditioning processes. The overall results showed that the use of consecutive thermal and wet conditioning treatment on sedimentary cementitious materials from the High Performance Solidification/Stabilization technology led to the removal of volatile pollutants and to the improvement of granule quality, thus providing a final material that satisfied all the Italian regulatory requirements for reuse. Therefore, the findings obtained in this study may contribute to the development of sustainable management strategies for contaminated soils and sediments, leading to their valorisation through the transformation into reusable materials.

Interaction between Copper Oxide Nanoparticles and Amino Acids: Influence on the Antibacterial Activity.

The increasing concern about antibiotic-resistance has led to the search for alternative antimicrobial agents. In this effort, different metal oxide nanomaterials are currently under investigation, in order to assess their effectiveness, safety and mode of action. This study focused on CuO nanoparticles (CuO NPs) and was aimed at evaluating how the properties and the antimicrobial activity of these nanomaterials may be affected by the interaction with ligands present in biological and environmental media. Ligands can attach to the surface of particles and/or contribute to their dissolution through ligand-assisted ion release and the formation of complexes with copper ions. Eight natural amino acids (L-Arg, L-Asp, L-Glu, L-Cys, L-Val, L-Leu, L-Phe, L-Tyr) were chosen as model molecules to investigate these interactions and the toxicity of the obtained materials against the Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC 35984. A different behavior from pristine CuO NPs was observed, depending on the aminoacidic side chain. These results were supported by physico-chemical and colloidal characterization carried out by means of Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and light scattering techniques (Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Electrophoretic Light Scattering (ELS) and Centrifugal Separation Analysis (CSA).

Selecting sustainable alternatives for cruise ships in Venice using multi-criteria decision analysis.

The rapid growth of cruise ship tourism increases the use of historic port cities as strategic hubs for cruise ship operators. Benefits derived from increased tourism for the municipality and cruise ships are often at odds with the environmental and social impacts associated with continued historical port use. This study illustrates the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for weighing of various criteria and metrics related to the environment, economy, and social sustainability for the selection of a sustainable cruise line route. Specifically, MCDA methodology was employed in Venice, Italy to illustrate its application. First, the four most representative navigational route projects among those presented to local authorities were assessed based on social, economic, and environmental considerations. Second, a pool of experts representing the local authority, private port businesses, and cruise line industry were consulted to evaluate the validity and weight assignments for the selected criteria. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was employed to assess the robustness of the recommendations using an evaluation of weight changes and their effects on the ranking of alternative navigational routes. The results were presented and discussed in a multi-stakeholder meeting to further the route selection process.