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Heavy metals are released into the environment by both anthropogenic and natural sources. Highly reactive and often toxic at low concentrations, they may enter soils and groundwater, bioaccumulate in food webs, and adversely affect biota. Heavy metals also may remain in the environment for years, posing longterm risks to life well after point sources of heavy metal pollution have been removed. In this review, we compile studies of the community-level effects of heavy metal pollution, including heavy metal transfer from soils to plants, microbes, invertebrates, and to both small and large mammals (including humans). Many factors contribute to heavy metal accumulation in animals including behavior, physiology, and diet. Biotic effects of heavy metals are often quite different for essential and non-essential heavy metals, and vary depending on the specific metal involved. They also differ for adapted organisms, including metallophyte plants and heavy metal-tolerant insects, which occur in naturally highmetal habitats (such as serpentine soils) and have adaptations that allow them to tolerate exposure to relatively high concentrations of some heavy metals. Some metallophyte plants are hyperaccumulators of certain heavy metals and new technologies using them to clean metal-contaminated soil (phytoextraction) may offer economically attractive solutions to some metal pollution challenges. These new technologies provide incentive to catalog and protect the unique biodiversity of habitats that have naturally high levels of heavy metals

This study examines the association between air pollution and economic growth based on the idea of environment Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis which suggests an inverted U-shaped link between air pollution and economic growth in six different regions including Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2000 to 2018. This regional classification is done to investigate the regional differences of the EKC relationship for carbon emissions. Models based on panel data econometric models are employed to obtain empirical results. Random effect and fixed effect models are used in the present study. A multivariate framework is used in which carbon dioxide emission, per capita gross domestic product, trade openness, foreign direct investment, primary school enrollment, financial development indicator, and institutional quality that is measured by six indicators are included. The result is that the EKC hypothesis is supported in all the abovementioned regions except in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Thus, the hypothesis that different regions have dissimilar EKC relationships is supported through the results of this research study.

This research work examines the nexus among renewable, non-renewable energy consumption, CO 2 emissions, and economic growth in 26 European countries with data obtained from the World Bank database within the time period of 1990 to 2018. Firstly, unit root and panel cointegration approach analyses are conducted to test the stationary. The results indicate that there exists a long-run nexus among non-renewable, renewable energy, carbon-monoxide, and economic growth. Granger causality test was also used to explore the direction among economic growth, carbon emissions, and energy consumption. The results from this test are inconsistent, while it indicated bidirectional causality between economic growth and renewable energy consumption, there was also a unidirectional causality between renewable energy and non-renewable energy consumption as well as renewable energy and CO 2 emissions. This result proves an interdependency and substitutability between both renewable and non-renewable sources of energy.

Multi-biomarker approaches are used to assess ecosystem health and identify impacts of environmental stress on organisms. However, exploration of large datasets by environmental managers represents a major challenge for regulatory application of this tool. Several integrative tools were developed to summarize biomarker responses. The aim of the present paper is to update calculation of the “Integrated Biological Response” (IBR) described by Beliaeff and Burgeot (Environ Toxicol Chem 21:1316–1322, 2002 ) to avoid weaknesses of this integrative tool. In the present paper, a novel index named “Integrated Biological Responses version 2” based on the reference deviation concept is presented. It allows a clear discrimination of sampling sites as for the IBR, but several differences are observed for contaminated sites according to up- and downregulation of biomarker responses. This novel tool could be used to integrate multi-biomarker responses not only in large-scale monitoring but also in upstream/downstream investigations.

Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) is a common hazardous contaminant in the environment and carcinogenic or mutagenic to aquatic animals and human beings. Therefore, the removal and detoxification of Cr(VI) have been attracting increasing attention of researchers. Among various conducting polymers, polyaniline (PANI)-based adsorbents have shown an excellent performance on the removal of Cr(VI) because of their redox properties, eased synthesis, and favorable biocompatibility. In this review, the characteristics of various PANI-based adsorbents were described, including PANI-modified nanofiber mats and membranes, PANI/bio-adsorbents, PANI/magnetic adsorbents, PANI/carbon adsorbents, PANI-modified clay composites, and PANI-inorganic hybrid composites. The mechanisms for the detoxification and adsorption of Cr(VI) were also discussed. The results indicated the potential applications of PANI-based adsorbents for the removal of Cr(VI). Graphical abstract ᅟ

Stress factors provoke enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plants. ROS that escape antioxidant-mediated scavenging/detoxification react with biomolecules such as cellular lipids and proteins and cause irreversible damage to the structure of these molecules, initiate their oxidation, and subsequently inactivate key cellular functions. The lipid- and protein-oxidation products are considered as the significant oxidative stress biomarkers in stressed plants. Also, there exists an abundance of information on the abiotic stress-mediated elevations in the generation of ROS, and the modulation of lipid and protein oxidation in abiotic stressed plants. However, the available literature reflects a wide information gap on the mechanisms underlying lipid- and protein-oxidation processes, major techniques for the determination of lipid- and protein-oxidation products, and on critical cross-talks among these aspects. Based on recent reports, this article (a) introduces ROS and highlights their relationship with abiotic stress-caused consequences in crop plants, (b) examines critically the various physiological/biochemical aspects of oxidative damage to lipids (membrane lipids) and proteins in stressed crop plants, (c) summarizes the principles of current technologies used to evaluate the extent of lipid and protein oxidation, (d) synthesizes major outcomes of studies on lipid and protein oxidation in plants under abiotic stress, and finally, (e) considers a brief cross-talk on the ROS-accrued lipid and protein oxidation, pointing to the aspects unexplored so far.

Thriving industrialization for human lifestyle headway has seeded the roots of water intoxication with harmful and hazardous toxic metal ions and dyes, which may ingress into food chains and become homicidal or mutation causing for creatures. The degummed functionalized silk fibroin composites with different biomaterials and synthetic materials are able to show adsorption efficiencies equivalent to 52.5%, 90%, 81.1%, 93.75%, 84.2%, and 98.9% for chromium, copper, cadmium, lead, thorium, and uranium ions, respectively, and adsorption capacity of 88.5 mg/g, 74.63 mg/g, 76.34 mg/g, and 72 mg/L for acid yellow 11, naphthol orange, direct orange S, and methylene blue, respectively, which make them desirable solution for water toxicants removal. This review is intended to describe the ability of silk fibroins to adsorb and abolish toxic heavy metal ions and dyes from water reservoirs, thus, providing a way to step toward water sanitation and wholesome living. Graphical abstract

Bentonite is a porous clay material that shows good performance for adsorbing heavy metals and other pollutants for wastewater remediation. In our previous study, magnetic bentonite (M-B) was prepared to solve the separation problem and improve the operability. In this study, we investigated the influence of various parameters on the Pb(II) adsorption of M-B, and it showed effective performance. About 98.9% adsorption removal rate was achieved within 90 min at adsorbent dose of 10 g/L for initial Pb(II) concentration of 200 mg/L at 40 °C and pH 5. The adsorption kinetic fit well by the pseudo-second-order model, and also followed the intra-particle diffusion model up to 90 min. Moreover, adsorption data were successfully reproduced by the Langmuir isotherm; the maximum adsorption capacity was calculated as 80.40 mg/g. The mechanism of interaction between Pb(II) ions and M-B was ionic exchange, surface complexation, and electro-static interactions. Thermodynamics study indicated that the reaction of Pb(II) adsorption on M-B was endothermic and spontaneous; increasing the temperature promoted adsorption. This study was expected to provide a reference and theoretical basis for the treatment of Pb-containing wastewater using bentonite materials.

In the present paper, two important measures of skewness and kurtosis under indeterminacy are presented. The basic measures to evaluate the nature of the wind speed in the presence of neutrosophic numbers are given. The importance of the proposed measures of skewness and kurtosis under neutrosophic statistics is discussed over the existing measures of skewness and kurtosis under classical statistics. From the wind speed analysis, it is concluded that the wind speed data have heavy-tailed distribution. Therefore, it is recommended to apply a heavy-tailed distribution, like Cauchy distribution, for forecasting and estimation of energy produced by wind speed.

Coffee is perhaps one of the most vital ingredients in humans’ daily life in modern world. However, this causes the production of million tons of relevant wastes, i.e., plastic cups, aluminum capsules, coffee chaff (silver skin), and spent coffee grounds (SCG), all thrown untreated into landfills. It is estimated that 1 kg of instant coffee generates around 2 kg of wet SCG; a relatively unique organic waste stream, with little to no contamination, separated directly in the source by the coffee shops. The produced waste has been under researchers’ microscope as a useful feedstock for a number of promising applications. SCG is considered a valuable, nutrients rich source of bioactive compounds (e.g., phenolics, flavonoids, carotenoids, lipids, chlorogenic and protocatechuic acid, melanoidins, diterpenes, xanthines, vitamin precursors, etc.) and a useful resource material in other processes (e.g., soil improver and compost, heavy metals absorbent, biochar, biodiesel, pellets, cosmetics, food, and deodorization products). This paper aims to provide a holistic approach for the SCG waste management, highlighting a series of processes and applications in environmental solutions, food industry, and agricultural sector. Thus, the latest developments and approaches of SCG waste management are reviewed and discussed.