Search results for "Contaminants."

Human Biomonitoring of food contaminants in Spanish children: Design, sampling and lessons learned

2017

Abstract Human Biomonitoring (HBM) studies are highly useful for evaluating population exposure to environmental contaminants and are being carried out in increasing numbers all over the world. The use of HBM in the field of food safety, in a risk assessment context, presents a growing interest as more health-based guidance values (HBGV) in biological matrices are derived, and can be used in a complementary way to the external exposure approaches such as total diet studies or surveillance programmes. The aims of the present work are: i) to describe the methodological framework of the BIOVAL study, a cross-sectional HBM program carried out by the Health Department of the Regional Government …

Influence of sol counter-ions on the visible light induced photocatalytic behaviour of TiO2 nanoparticles

2014

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are attracting increasing interest because of their superior photocatalytic and antibacterial properties. Here, aqueous titanium oxy-hydroxide sols were made, using a green synthesis method, from the controlled hydrolysis/peptisation of titanium isopropoxide. Three different mineral acids were used to peptise the sol (HNO3, HBr and HCl), and provide counter-ions. The influence of nitrate or halide sol counter-ions on size distributions of the starting sols were measured via photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS). Semi-quantitative phase composition analysis (QPA), on the gels thermally treated at 450 and 600 degrees C, was carried out via Rietveld refine…

Contamination by trace metals and their trophic transfer to the biota in a Mediterranean coastal system affected by gull guano

2013

Transitional environments are vulnerable interface systems, ecologically connected with adjacent systems by several biotic or abiotic flows. The coastal system of the Marinello ponds (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) is affected by a colony of yellow-legged gulls Larus michahellis (Naumann, 1840), resident on the cliff beside the ponds. To investigate the role of the gull colony as a potential source of allochthonous non-essential trace metals (As, Cd, Pb and total mercury, THg) and the consequent metal trophic transfer to the biota in the ponds, we collected guano, surface sediment and biota from 3 ponds with different levels of avian input. The highest concentrations were observed in guano and surf…

Perfluoroalkyl substances in the Ebro and Guadalquivir river basins (Spain).

2015

Mediterranean rivers are characteristically irregular with changes in flow and located in high population density areas. This affects the concentration of pollutants in the aquatic environments. In this study, the occurrence and sources of 21 perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) were determined in water, sediment and biota of the Ebro and Guadalquivir river basins (Spain). In water samples, of 21 analytes screened, 11 were found in Ebro and 9 in Guadalquivir. In both basins, the most frequents were PFBA, PFPeA and PFOA. Maximum concentration was detected for PFBA, up to 251.3ngL-1 in Ebro and 742.9ngL-1 in Guadalquivir. Regarding the sediments, 8 PFASs were detected in the samples from Ebro an…

Shared effects of organic microcontaminants and environmental stressors on biofilms and invertebrates in impaired rivers

2016

Land use type, physical and chemical stressors, and organic microcontaminants were investigated for their effects on the biological communities (biofilms and invertebrates) in several Mediterranean rivers. The diversity of invertebrates, and the scores of the first principal component of a PCA performed with the diatom communities were the best descriptors of the distribution patterns of the biological communities against the river stressors. These two metrics decreased according to the progressive site impairment (associated to higher area of agricultural and urban-industrial, high water conductivity, higher dissolved organic carbon and dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentrations, and high…

Different approaches for the solar photocatalytic removal of micro-contaminants from aqueous environment: Titania vs. hybrid magnetic iron oxides

2019

Abstract This work reports on the light-induced heterogeneous photodegradation of four micro-contaminants (MCs): Carbamazepine (C), Flumequine (F), Ibuprofen (I), and Sulfamethoxazole (S), using two different heterogeneous advanced oxidation processes. The first one is the semiconductor photocatalysis, run in the presence of the suspension of a home prepared TiO2 (TiO2 HP); the second one is an heterogeneous photo-Fenton process run in the presence of a hybrid magnetic nanomaterial (MB3) with an iron oxides core and an organic shell made of bio-based substances (BBS) isolated from urban biowaste. The two materials work upon two different mechanisms and were already tested (and the action me…

Impacts of weathered microplastics on bioavailability of pollutants in Paracentrotus lividus and Danio rerio: molecular and ecotoxicological approach…

2022

Plastic materials provide countless applications in every sector of human life, from food and health preservation to textiles and electronics industry (Cole et al., 2011;Thompson et al., 2009) which is resulting in huge amount of plastic waste. Recently, it was estimated that plastics account for the 80-90% of the whole marine litter (Derraik, 2002) and over 5 trillion microscopic plastic fragments are floating on the surface of the World Oceans (Eriksen et al., 2014). The predominant form of marine plastic litter is called “Microplastics (MPs)", terminology by Thompson et al. 2004, used to indicate small plastic fragments, fibers and granules of microscopic size (1 μm to 5 mm in diameter).…

Urinaryp-cresol is elevated in young French children with autism spectrum disorder: a replication study

2014

The aromatic compound p-cresol (4-methylphenol) has been found elevated in the urines of Italian autistic children up to 8 years of age. The present study aims at replicating these initial findings in an ethnically distinct sample and at extending them by measuring also the three components of urinary p-cresol, namely p-cresylsulfate, p-cresylglucuronate and free p-cresol. Total urinary p-cresol, p-cresylsulfate and p-cresylglucuronate were significantly elevated in 33 French autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases compared with 33 sex- and age-matched controls (p < 0.05). This increase was limited to ASD children aged ≤8 years (p < 0.01), and not older (p = 0.17). Urinary levels of p-cresol a…

Pollutants and Air Pollution

2016

Recent advances on portable sensing and biosensing assays applied for detection of main chemical and biological pollutant agents in water samples: A …

2021

Abstract The quality analysis of water, pharmaceutical and environmental compounds is a basic subject for human health. The presence of low-quality drugs, biological toxins and chemical compounds in water or forbidden additives in the nourishments lead to irreversible problems in human health. Hence, multiple analytical approaches have been presented for investigating the quality of environmental, pharmaceutical, and food compounds and monitoring the detection of toxic compounds and pollutants in water. Sensing tools based on analytical strategies are required for identifying and quantifying the different pollutants including biological and chemical contaminants in water samples. Among diff…