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The Fenton process activated by Zero Valent Iron (ZVI-Fenton) is shown here to effectively remove antibiotics reserved for hospital settings (specifically used to treat antibiotic-resistant infections) from wastewater, thereby helping in the fight against bacterial resistance. Effective degradation of cefazolin, imipenem and vancomycin in real urban wastewater was achieved at pH 5, which is quite near neutrality when compared with classic Fenton that works effectively at pH 3–4. The possibility to operate successfully at pH 5 has several advantages compared to operation at lower pH values: (i) lower reagent costs for pH adjustment; (ii) insignificant impact on wastewater conductivity, because lesser acid is required to acidify and lesser or no base for neutralization; (iii) undetectable release of dissolved Fe, which could otherwise be an issue for wastewater quality. The cost of reagents for the treatment ranges between 0.04 and 0.07 $ m−3, which looks very suitable for practical applications. The structures of the degradation intermediates of the studied antibiotics and their likely abundance suggest that, once the primary compound is eliminated, most of the potential to trigger antibiotic action has been removed. Application of the ZVI-Fenton technique to wastewater treatment could considerably lower the possibility for antibiotics to trigger the development of resistance in bacteria.

Based on long-term trends of water chemistry parameters of photochemical significance from four lakes located in the Alps (Iseo, Garda, Piburgersee, Geneva), we calculated the corresponding steady-state concentrations of photoinduced transient species with an ad-hoc photochemical model. Such transients were the hydroxyl (•OH) and carbonate (CO3-•) radicals, singlet oxygen (1O2), and the triplet states of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (3CDOM*). Among the investigated lakes, Lake Iseo, for example, showed a long-term near-stability in chemical parameters that resulted in a photochemical stability. By contrast, Piburgersee underwent important chemical modifications, but the interplay of compensation (parallel increase of both inorganic and organic carbon) and near-saturation effects (organic matter as main •OH source and sink) prevented the modelled photochemistry to undergo significant shifts over time. This result suggests the occurrence of a sort of "photochemical buffering" in some lake ecosystems, which would dampen modifications of the steady-state concentration of the photochemically-formed reactive transients, even in the case of significant changes in water chemistry. Finally, in lakes Garda and Geneva, long-term changes in water chemistry had an effect on photochemistry. While in Lake Garda the small increase in DOM was associated to a small increase in 1O2 and 3CDOM*, in Lake Geneva, the increases in pH and bicarbonate and the decrease in nitrite resulted in an •OH decrease. Overall, our results predict very different lake photochemistry patterns in relation to alterations in water chemistry parameters caused by climate change, such as changes in water alkalinity and dissolved organic carbon concentration.

This is the first of a series of two papers intended to review the state-of-the-art knowledge on atmospheric PAHs, concerning their monitoring, sources and transformation processes in the atmosphere. The monitoring section briefly introduces this class of compounds, mainly focusing on the 16 PAHs indicated by the US-EPA as priority pollutants. These compounds undergo partitioning between the gas phase and particulate, which has to be considered in the choice of the sampling methodology. Furthermore, sampling artifacts may arise from further phase transfers inside the sampling device. After sampling, extraction, clean up and detection/quantification procedures will follow. They are closely related since the choice of the extraction technique will heavily condition the clean-up step, and both procedures will place demands on the performance of the detection technique (usually GC-MS or HPLC). This is particularly true in the case of complex samples such as those arising from atmospheric sampling. The sources of atmospheric PAHs are then discussed with a particular focus on receptor models, which can allow the apportionment of PAH sources based on concentration data that can be routinely obtained by pollution control networks.

[EN] Waste-derived, soluble bin-based substances (SBO), are effective low-cost photosensitizers that could find application in pollutant photodegradation. For this reason, it is important to understand if and to what extent irradiation could modify their properties. The exposure of SBO to simulated sunlight induced important spectral and structural modifications. Both the whole material and its acid-soluble fraction were characterized, highlighting several properties in common with humic and fulvic substances, including absorption spectra, specific absorbance and fluorescence behavior. The latter was described with a three-component model using PARAFAC analysis. Irradiation induced SBO photobleaching, but the absorbance of the acid-soluble fraction increased with irradiation. This finding suggests a progressive photochemical solubilization of SBO, which is confirmed by the increase of the carboxylic groups. In addition to absorbance, the fluorescence of whole SBO was also decreased by irradiation, thereby suggesting that both chromophores and fluorophores were photodegraded. The increasingly hydrophilic character given to SBO by irradiation also accounted for the photoinduced decrease of the surfactant properties of the material. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hematite particles with controlled size and shape (cubic, spherical and ovoidal, with size range from hundreds nm to µm) were produced by modulating the conditions of synthesis and were characterized by different techniques (XRD spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, BET analysis, dynamic light scattering, UV-vis spectroscopy). The photoactivity of the synthesized hematite particles was tested towards the degradation of phenol under photo-Fenton conditions, obtaining optimal results in the pH range 3-4. Although the smaller particles have a larger contact interface between the solid and the solution, no obvious relationship was found between size and photoactivity. A possible explanation is that the smallest particles tested showed an important radiation scattering, which would interfere with radiation absorption and, therefore, with photoactivity. In contrast, the most photoactive samples were those showing the highest concentrations of leached iron. This issue would imply that photoactivity may be related to partial dissolution of hematite with formation of Fe(II) and of photo-active Fe(III) species, which activate the classic photo-Fenton process. Anyway, leached Fe was limited to the µg L-1 range that is safely far from the mg L-1 limits for wastewater.

The proceedings contain 36 papers. The topics discussed include: real time monitoring of urban particulate matter on a mobile platform; aspects about air pollution prediction on urban environment; water pollution detection; Raman probe of pollutants in water: measurement process; sensor network for environment monitoring: water quality case study; the use of a multiwavelength lidar to detect aerosol layers in the atmosphere; an artificial neural network approach to investigate cavitating flow regime at different temperatures; spectral characterization of solar cells for indoor wireless sensor nodes; microscale dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators: experimental characterization; evaluation of the relation between building materials and indoor radon pollution; and a smart robotic arm for automatic sorting of objects with different tags.

This paper reviews the transformation processes that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) undergo in the atmosphere. These processes can take place both in the gas phase and in the particulate/aerosol one. Among the gas-phase processes, the most important ones are the daytime reaction with •OH and the nighttime reaction with •NO 3. The relative importance of the two processes depends on the particular PAH molecule. For instance, gaseous naphthalene is mainly removed from the atmosphere upon reaction with •OH, while gaseous phenanthrene is mainly removed by reaction with •NO 3. Oxy-, hydroxy-, and nitro-PAHs are the main transformation intermediates. Reaction with ozone and photolysis play a secondary role in the transformation of gaseous PAHs. The particle-associated processes are usually slower than the gas-phase ones, thus the gas-phase PAHs usually have shorter atmospheric lifetimes than those found on particulate. Due to the higher residence time on particulate when compared with the gas phase, direct or assisted photolysis plays a relevant role in the transformation of particle-associated PAHs. Among the other processes taking place in the condensed phase, nitration plays a very important role due to the health impact of nitro-PAHs, some of them being the most powerful mutagens found so far in atmospheric particulate extracts