A critical review on utilization of sewage sludge as environmental functional materials.

Sewage sludge (SS) is increasingly used as an environment functional material to reduce or control pollution and improve plant growth because of the large amounts of carbon and essential plant nutrients in it. To achieve the best application results, it is essential to comprehensively review recent progress in SS utilization. This review aims to fill the gaps in knowledge by describing the properties of SS, and its usage as adsorbents, catalysts and fertilizers, and certain application mechanisms. Although SS generates several benefits for the environment and humans, many challenges still exist to limit the application, including the risks posed by potentially toxic substances (e.g., heavy metals) in SS. Therefore, future research directions are discussed and how to make SS applications more feasible in terms of technology and economy.

Roles and applications of enzymes for resistant pollutants removal in wastewater treatment.

Resistant pollutants like oil, grease, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and plastics in wastewater are difficult to be degraded by traditional activated sludge methods. These pollutants are prevalent, posing a great threat to aquatic environments and organisms since they are toxic, resistant to natural biodegradation, and create other serious problems. As a high-efficiency biocatalyst, enzymes are proposed for the treatment of these resistant pollutants. This review focused on the roles and applications of enzymes in wastewater treatment. It discusses the influence of enzyme types and their sources, enzymatic processes in resistant pollutants remediation, identification and ecotoxicity assay of enzymatic transformation products, and typically employed enzymatic wastewater treatment systems. Perspectives on the major challenges and feasible future research directions of enzyme-based wastewater treatment are also proposed.

Review on sustainable production of biochar through hydrothermal liquefaction: Physico-chemical properties and applications.

This review examines in detail the production and characteristics of biochar resulting from hydrothermal liquefaction. Specifically, the impact of feedstocks and different process parameters on the properties and yield of biochar by hydrothermal liquefaction has been thoroughly studied. Hydrothermal liquefaction derived biochars, relative to biochars from high-temperature thermochemical processes retain critical functional groups during carbonization and are therefore promising for a wide range of applications. Most of the review's efforts are to study possible hydrothermal liquefaction biochar applications in various fields, including fuel, metal and dye adsorption, pollutant reduction, animal feed, and biogas catalyst. The feasibility of biochar through the hydrothermal liquefaction process has been analysed via life-cycle assessment and energy evaluation. The article concludes with a brief discussion on possible issues and strategies for the sustainable development of hydrothermal liquefaction-based biochar.

DFT Prediction of Factors Affecting the Structural Characteristics, the Transition Temperature and the Electronic Density of Some New Conjugated Polymers.

Conjugated polymers are promising materials for various cutting-edge technologies, especially for organic conducting materials and in the energy field. In this work, we have synthesized a new conjugated polymer and investigated the effect of distance between bond layers, side-chain functional groups (H, Br, OH, OCH3 and OC2H5) on structural characteristics, phase transition temperature (T), and electrical structure of C13H8OS using Density Functional Theory (DFT). The structural characteristics were determined by the shape, network constant (a, b and c), bond length (C-C, C-H, C-O, C-S, C-Br and O-H), phase transition temperatures, and the total energy (Etot) on a base cell. Our finding shows that the increase of layer thickness (h) of C13H8OS-H has a negligible effect on the transition temperature, while the energy bandgap (Eg) increases from 1.646 eV to 1.675 eV. The calculation of bond length with different side chain groups was carried out for which C13H8OS-H has C-H = 1.09 Å; C13H8OS-Br has C-Br = 1.93 Å; C13H8OS-OH has C-O = 1.36 Å, O-H = 0.78 Å; C13H8OS-OCH3 has C-O = 1.44 Å, O-H =1.10 Å; C13H8OS-OC2H5 has C-O = 1.45 Å, C-C = 1.51Å, C-H = 1.10 Å. The transition temperature (T) for C13H8OS-H was 500 K < T < 562 K; C13H8OS-Br was 442 K < T < 512 K; C13H8OS-OH was 487 K < T < 543 K; C13H8OS-OCH3 was 492 K < T < 558 K; and C13H8OS-OC2H5 was 492 K < T < 572 K. The energy bandgap (Eg) of Br is of Eg = 1.621 eV, the doping of side chain groups H, OH, OCH3, and OC2H5, leads to an increase of Eg from 1.621 eV to 1.646, 1.697, 1.920, and 2.04 eV, respectively.

Contribution of antibiotics to the fate of antibiotic resistance genes in anaerobic treatment processes of swine wastewater: A review.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in water environment have become a global health concern. Swine wastewater is widely considered to be one of the major contributors for promoting the proliferation of ARGs in water environments. This paper comprehensively reviews and discusses the occurrence and removal of ARGs in anaerobic treatment of swine wastewater, and contributions of antibiotics to the fate of ARGs. The results reveal that ARGs' removal is unstable during anaerobic processes, which negatively associated with the presence of antibiotics. The abundance of bacteria carrying ARGs increases with the addition of antibiotics and results in the spread of ARGs. The positive relationship was found between antibiotics and the abundance and transfer of ARGs in this review. However, it is necessary to understand the correlation among antibiotics, ARGs and microbial communities, and obtain more knowledge about controlling the dissemination of ARGs in the environment.

Pharmacokinetic analysis of levo-tetrahydropalmatine in rabbit plasma by rapid sample preparation and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A rapid extraction method was developed and validated for levo-tetrahydropalmatine (l-THP) determination in rabbit plasma by liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The sample preparation included a single-step acetonitrile extraction and salting out liquid-liquid partitioning from the water in plasma with MgSO4. Berberine was used as internal standard. The mass spectrometry source was negative electrospray ionization. The method showed good performance in the concentration range from 5 to 200ngmL(-1). The limit of quantification (LOQ) was 1ngmL(-1). The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study in rabbit comparing the two drug formulation of l-THP including the raw material and the self-microemulsifying drug delivery system pellet.