Themed Issue Open for Submissions: Biogeochemistry of the Trace Elements

Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts seeks your highest impact research for our upcoming Themed Issue dedicated to Biogeochemistry of the Trace Elements

Guest Edited by Elsie Sunderland (Harvard University, USA) and Lenny Winkel (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology, Switzerland)

This themed issue will showcase advances in research on the biogeochemistry of trace elements, highlighting the wide range of biogeochemical processes and environmental impacts of essential as well as toxic trace elements. Of special interest for the themed issue is research related to interfaces, such as mineral-water and aerosol-gas phase reactions, research linking environmental compartments, such as hydrosphere/ atmosphere interactions and regional/ global trace element cycling, as well as research on coupled biogeochemical cycles, such as coupled trace element cycles or coupled trace element-carbon cycling.

Submissions due: 17th December 2021

Submit your work now: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/em

We welcome urgent Communications, Full papers and Reviews. Upon submission, please add ‘‘Invited for the Biogeochemistry of the Trace Elements themed issue’ in step 4 of the submission process. All manuscripts will undergo initial assessment and peer review as per the usual standards of the journal.

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Themed Issue Open for Submissions: Wildfires – influence on air, soil and water

Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts seeks your highest impact research for our upcoming Themed Issue dedicated to Wildfires – Influence on air, soil and water.

Guest Edited by Alex Chow (Clemson University, USA) and Lu Hu (University of Montana, USA)

Ash and smoke from wildfire and prescribed fires can contaminate soil, air, and water, impacting millions of people worldwide every year. The burn area, frequency, and severity are predicted to continue increasing under a future warmer climate. In addition to the dangers of heat from an active fire, fire smoke emits hundreds if not thousands of air toxins, posing significant threats to public health and wildlife. Ash and fire retardants negatively affect soil and water quality, threatening aquatic biotics, agricultural operation, and municipal water supplies downstream. Long-term changes in vegetation composition and land cover can also alter nutrient cycles, ecosystem function, and even climate.

Despite its significant impacts on the environment, there are still many knowledge gaps on the environmental chemistry of wildfires – from essential and trace elements, heavy metals, nutrients, organic compounds, to pyrogenic and black carbon. Furthermore, studies connecting these chemicals among air, soil, and water are extremely limited. This wildfires-themed issue is to encourage the communication and understanding from atmospheric, soil and water chemistry. Laboratory, field, numerical model, and remote sensing approaches to study the processes and impact of wildfires and prescribed fire on either soil, water, air, climate, or the interfaces among them are welcome.

Submissions due: 31st March 2022

Submit your work now: mc.manuscriptcentral.com/em

Upon submission, please add ‘Invited for the Wildfires themed issue’ in step 4 of the submission process. All manuscripts will undergo initial assessment and peer review as per the usual standards of the journal.

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Emerging Investigator Series: Pieter Bots

 

Pieter Bots received their MSc in environmental geochemistry at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and their PhD in environmental mineralogy from the University of Leeds. After this they moved to the University of Manchester for four years and two postdocs in actinide geochemistry. During this time, they worked on uranium and neptunium geochemistry in geological disposal scenarios. In 2016 Pieter joined the University of Strathclyde (in Glasgow, Scotland), on the Little Forrest Legacy Site (LFLS) immobilization project. On this project they worked on Sr and Cs geochemistry at legacy waste sites and how engineering materials impact on their speciation and mobility. Since November 2019, they are a Research Fellow and Co-I on the EPSRC funded NNUF facility: Plasma Accelerators for Nuclear Applications and Materials Analyses (PANAMA).

Read their Emerging Investigator Series article, ‘Emerging investigator series: a holistic approach to multicomponent EXAFS: Sr and Cs complexation in clayey soils’, here: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1EM00121C

 

 

 

Watch their video abstract below:

  1. Your recent Emerging Investigator Series paper focuses on EXAFS of Sr and Cs. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article?

During my PhD my research focussed on the formation of calcium carbonate minerals in marine settings. During this time, I really learned the value of really thinking about the experimental design, but also about the analytical side of research, and that investing time in understanding the basics of the analytical techniques used in my projects has been incredibly valuable. I learned this through having to (re)develop ion chromatography methods for samples with high salinity for my first publication from my PhD. My PhD was also when I was first introduced to synchrotron radiation techniques. During my PhD, I mainly used small angle X-ray scattering techniques to investigate the formation and crystallization of calcium carbonate. Then when I joined the University of Manchester on a project on actinide (uranium and neptunium) geochemistry, I was introduced to contaminant mobility and X-ray absorption spectroscopy techniques. This was also the time that I realised that with XAS techniques, the data analysis is not always very straight forward, and that often you’ll have to think outside of the box in order to get the information you need (which is also true for other techniques, like SAXS and electron microscopy), specifically if the samples are complex and the XAS data represents multiple possible geochemical species. Because of this realisation, I have always tried to use the best, or developing and adjusting existing (data analyses) procedures to get the (geo)chemically most meaningful information. I used all this experience during my postdoc at the University of Strathclyde. For example, my experience in XAS analyses enabled me to get XAS beamtime awarded, at Diamond Light Source, on Sr and Cs geochemistry. Next, to get the most chemically meaningful information out of the XANES and EXAFS spectra I collected during the beamtime, I quickly realised I had to think outside the box again, which led to my publication in the Emerging Investigators series.

 

  1. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

I am very happy that during my career so far I have always such an approach that values the analytical as well as the experimental side of research, including thinking outside of the box. At most places, this has been valued and given me the opportunity to collaborate many academics from different research fields like geoscience, chemistry, physics, environmental and even archaeology. This now means that my research plans are relatively broad; and have a wide range of research ideas in mineralogy and geochemistry which I am developing and writing up as research proposals. Hopefully I will be able to submit soon.

One of these proposals is on the mineralisation of phosphate biominerals through biomimicry and how different mechanisms of mineral formation impact on contaminant (U, Sr, Pb) mobility. At the moment, I am excited about collaboration (as Co-I) with a colleague at the University of Strathclyde; we have two RWM funded PhD students starting soon on the hydrothermal aging of cement, and how (we analyses for) the mineralogical and geochemical changes impact on the microstructural characteristics and the longevity of cement, how such materials will behave in geodisposal settings to keep radioactive wastes safe for generations to come.

 

  1. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

There are two very important questions that I think are very important in my area of research. The first is that we really need to understand the dynamics and reversibility of mineralisation processes and the mobility and geochemistry of contaminants in the environment at a fundamental level in order to develop evidence-based engineering strategies based on mineralisation processes, for example, to deal with contaminated land or for waste water treatment. For example, many bioremediation strategies rely on biomineralisation. Much effort has been made into the microbiology side of biomineralisation, but the mineralisation process itself is still a so-called “black box”, even though the mechanisms of mineral formation impact the stability of the mineral phases, and the mechanisms of contaminant sequestration (including how stable or reversible is the sequestration). In my opinion, understanding such dynamic processes is essential in determining whether such biomineralisation processes can actually be utilised within environmental engineering strategies.

The second is that in most research to date, we tend to only investigate one or possibly two contaminants at the same time. While real wastes, waste water and contaminated environments, will almost never be dominated by a single (type of) contaminant. The behaviour and geochemistry of contaminants in such more complex environments can change drastically due to the presence of other contaminants and this is rarely simply the sum of the behaviour of the contaminants separately, so it is important to try and understand the geochemistry and speciation of such different contaminants and different types of contaminants (e.g. heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, microplastics, nanoparticles), and how their geochemistry and mobility changes in the presence of different contaminants, such as through competition for surface complexation sites, or potential mobilisation of heavy metals by microplastics.

 

  1. What do you find most challenging about your research?

What I find most challenging in research, but also most rewarding, is working with people. It can be frustrating when collaborators, supervisors or students are non-responsive or even dismissive or biased. But when the communication works well (especially after initial struggles), it is incredibly rewarding to see something beautiful come out of it, like a student getting better (or more surprising) results than expected, a research project that is successful, a mentee getting offered a postdoctoral position, or former supervisors or students saying that they can’t wait to collaborate more.

Scientifically, it is trying to make sure that whatever I do has environmental implications. We can never mimic nature in the lab 100% accurately, and there are many different variables in the environment that can impact on the process we’re trying to investigate. So we need to make sure that we design the experiments and analyses in such a way that we will actually investigate and analyse the processes we intend to investigate, that we’re able to understand/determine the variables that impact on these processes, and make sure that all of this is relevant to the processes in the environment or any environmental engineering strategy. Also, there are so many analytical techniques with specific requirement for the samples. For example, with EXAFS, the concentrations of specific elements needed for valuable information are generally at least one order of magnitude higher compared to environmentally relevant concentrations. So, we need to be careful generalising results at such elevated concentrations to draw overarching environmental conclusions (which is why I included experimental results on trace concentrations in my paper in the Emerging Investigator series).

 

  1. In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you?

As a member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee of the European Association of Geochemistry, I am heavily involved in this year’s virtual Goldschmidt conference (4-9 July). For Goldschmidt, I am organising an early career workshop on “Hidden Histories – Towards Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Geoscience” and the Diversity and Inclusion session. Outside of all the amazing science and DEI talks/sessions, I’ll be hanging around on Spatial Chat for socialising and networking opportunities, but also to be approachable as member of the DEI committee.

After this, I will present at the virtual XAFS2021 conference (11-13 July). Though, I’m not sure yet how present I can be for any of their social events as the conference will be held in the Eastern Australian time zone.

 

  1. How do you spend your spare time?

When I moved to Glasgow for my job at the University of Strathclyde, I wanted to make sure I met people that had no connection to my work. So I decided to get back into arts, and I joined a life drawing class in Glasgow. Since the pandemic, I have also been drawing outside of class more, for example during walks/hikes. For the rest, I enjoy sewing my own shoulder bags and face masks, and I enjoy playing games, both board games (with friends) and computer games.

 

  1. Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Besides the geo- and chemical sciences, the only thing I’ve always been interested in is the arts, both performing arts and visual arts (drawing/painting). When I was still at college, I was even thinking about going to theatre school, but I opted for earth sciences instead. So, if I were not a scientist, I’d probably be in the arts.

 

  1. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Advice is almost always given based on the advice givers’ own experiences and how they succeeded (and their impression that because they succeeded in that way, everybody should), this is specifically true for unsolicited advice. In my case, as a genderqueer and gay man, such advice usually involved advice on how I should not be myself / how I should change to “fit in” instead of how I should “shine” or “stand out” as myself. So trying to follow such advice actually was completely counterproductive, and even aggravated mental health issues. The only advice that I have been given and found truly helpful with whatever I was trying to achieve was to “just be myself” or variations of that advice.

So, based purely on my own experiences, my advice would be to not listen to advice that doesn’t make you smile or that doesn’t make you feel you can do it (because you can do it, and you’re perfect the way you are).

Finally, two small observations from having worked at several academic institutes and with many students, postdocs and academics. In research, you hardly ever get the results you want or expect, but you always get the results you deserve. With this I mean that if you pay attention to all the experimental results (specifically the results that make no sense), the input from your supervisors or collaborators, and try to understand what the data you produce actually mean, and then refine the experiments or the analytical approach, you will get a lot more out of the research and are a lot more likely you’ll discover something completely new. The second observation is that, often you can design an experiment or research program in a way that it will appear to prove your hypothesis (even if the hypothesis is wrong), because of this, what I think would be a much more interesting and useful approach is to try and disprove your hypothesis.

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EMCON 2021 – Abstract submissions still open

The RSC’s Environmental Science journals are proud to support the 7th International Conference on Emerging Contaminants – EMCON 2021. The conference will be held virtually on September 13-14th, 2021.

Find out more and register here

Abstract Submissions are currently OPEN and Abstracts are Due June 26th!

EMCON 2021 will cover all aspects of emerging contaminant research while emphasizing research themes on microplastics, biomolecules, roadway runoff, transformation products, ecotoxicology, advanced mass spectrometry and other new analytical techniques, and new emerging contaminants as conference themes.

These topics will be covered over two days of sessions, including scientific talks, posters, lightning talks, and informal meetups, with pre-recorded content allowing both synchronous and asynchronous attendance and interaction.

Email your PDF abstract to emcon2021@uw.edu today

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Announcing new appointments to the ESPI Editorial Board

We are delighted to announce that we have expanded the Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board and are very pleased to introduce the newest members of the team.

These Editorial Board members join the rest of the team adding expertise in topic areas such as environmental health & (eco)toxicology; atmospheric chemistry; environmental organic chemistry; interfacial environmental science and much more.

 

About the new team members

Katye Altieri’s research interests include air pollution in coastal cities, the impact of human activities on surface ocean biogeochemistry, and studying the remote marine atmosphere of the Southern Ocean.

Ludmilla Aristilde’s research group employs a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches to gain insights into the biological and chemical mechanisms that control environmental organic processes, towards predicting natural carbon cycling and innovating engineered carbon recycling.

Amila de Silva’s expertise areas are fate, transport and disposition of organic contaminants in the environment; she uses a combination of field and lab experiments to discern their ecological risk based on persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity and long range transport potential.

Beate Escher’s research interests focus on mode-of-action based environmental risk assessment, including methods for initial hazard screening and risk assessment of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, disinfection by-products and persistent organic pollutants with an emphasis on mixtures.

Mingliang (Thomas) Fang’s research includes applications of mass spectrometry methods to identify emerging organic contaminants, measure human exposure, and assess potential health effects. Bioassays and omic technologies are also employed for risk assessment and identifying toxicity mechanisms.

Weihua Song’s research interests are in the area of Environmental Chemistry, particularly the occurrence, transformation, and fate of emerging contaminants in aqueous environments.

 

Read their work recently published in ESPI

 

We welcome all these new members to the Editorial team of ESPI. They join the existing team of Kris McNeill, Delphine Farmer, Marianne Glasius, Helen Hsu-Kim, Matt MacLeod, Desiree Plata, Paul Tratnyek and Lenny Winkel, with expertise covering all areas of the journal scope as shown in this illustration. Their breadth of expertise illustrates the breadth of research that we welcome to the journal.

Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts publishes high quality papers in all areas of the environmental chemical sciences, including chemistry of the air, water, soil and sediment. We welcome your future submissions to the journal in any of these topic areas and would be delighted to hear from you if you are interested to submit to us.

We also offer a range of Open Access solutions to comply with your funding requirements and maximise the visibility of your research. More details can be found at rsc.li/oa

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE JOURNAL HOMEPAGE

 

Meet the ESPI team

 

 

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The RSC Environmental Science Journals are supporting EMCON 2021

We are delighted to announce that the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environmental Science Journals are supporting the 7th International Conference on Emerging Contaminants!

This event will be held virtually on September 13-14, 2021, where you can expect to hear the latest research news and

discoveries about the environmental chemistry of emerging environmental contaminants and their management. Virtually reconnect with old colleagues, and meet new friends from around the world while discussing your exciting research and ideas together as a community.

EMCON 2021 will cover all aspects of emerging contaminant research while emphasizing cutting edge and novel research on microplastics, biomolecules, roadway runoff, transformation products, ecotoxicology, advanced mass spectrometry and other new analytical techniques, and new emerging contaminants as conference themes.

You can expect scientific talks, a virtual poster session (with five poster prizes supported by the RSC’s Environmental Science journals), a round of lightning talks, ‘what went wrong in lab’ stories and opportunities for informal meetups. Pre-recorded content will allow both synchronous and asynchronous attendance and interaction.

Find out more at https://cvent.me/7kvWG9

Abstract deadline: June 16th

Early bird registration deadline: July 1st 

Submit your abstract to emcon2021@uw.edu today!

 

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The RSC Environmental Science Journals are supporting DIOXIN 2021

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environmental Science journals are delighted to support the 49th International Symposium on Halogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants (DIOXIN 2021), which takes place from August 22-25th, 2021. The event will take place both at Xi’an Jianguo Hotel, Xi’an, China, and remotely, as live sessions will be streamed online.

The topics covered will include:

  1. Sampling and analysis
  2. Formation and emissions
  3. Environmental persistent free radicals
  4. Distribution, transport and fate
  5. Exposure and Risk assessment
  6. Toxicology and epidemiology
  7. Control strategies and technologies
  8. Implementation of the Stockholm Convention
  9. POPs in polar regions: Arctic, Antarctic, and the Tibetan Plateau
  10. Screening and recognition of novel contaminants

Key dates

Registration deadline: 31st July 2021 │ Register here

Abstract Submission Deadline: 15th June 2021 │  Submit your abstract here

Click here to find out more about DIOXIN 2021

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New Editorial Board Member: Katye Altieri

We are very pleased to announce that Katye Alteri has joined the ESPI Editorial Board!

Katye Altieri is a Senior Lecturer in the Oceanography Department at the University of Cape Town. Katye has a B.Sc. in Chemistry (2004; College of New Jersey) and a Ph.D. in Oceanography (2009; Rutgers University). She was a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow for two years and then spent another two years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, jointly appointed at Princeton University and Brown University. After her postdoctoral time, she pursued a Masters in Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (2014).

Katye received the Claude Leon Merit Award in 2017 and the Peter B. Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences in 2008.

Her current research interests include: air pollution in coastal cities, the impact of human activities on surface ocean biogeochemistry, and studying the remote marine atmosphere of the Southern Ocean as a proxy to understand more about atmospheric chemistry and climate during the preindustrial.

Katye says “I am excited to join the Editorial Board of ESPI and I look forward to continuing the great tradition of high quality research and strong community that exists at ESPI.”

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New Editorial Board Member: Mingliang (Thomas) Fang

 

 

 

We are pleased to announce that Mingliang (Thomas) Fang has joined the Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board.

Mingliang (Thomas) Fang is currently an Assistant Professor in School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to that, he studied his PhD degree majoring in environmental chemistry and toxicology at Duke University and received metabolomics training in The Scripps Research Institute. His previous research experience primarily includes applications of mass spectrometry methods to identify emerging organic contaminants, measure human exposure, and assess potential health effects. He is also interested in investigating emerging organic contaminants using in vivo and in vitro bioassays and omic technologies to conduct risk assessment and identify toxicity mechanisms.

 

 

Read his recent work in our sister journal, Environmental Science: Nano:
A high-throughput method to characterize the gut bacteria growth upon engineered nanomaterial treatment
Qin Yang, Tharushi Prabha Keerthisinghe, Tiffany Rou Jie Tan, Xiaoqiong Cao, Magdiel Inggrid Setyawati, Glen DeLoid, Kee Woei Ng, Say Chye Joachim Loo, Philip Demokritoucd and Mingliang Fang*
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EN00568A

 

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New Editorial Board Member: Weihua Song

We are delighted to announce that Weihua Song has joined the Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board!

Weihua is currently a full professor of Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University. He received a B.S. in Environmental Chemistry and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Nanjing University in 1999 and 2002. He completed his Ph.D. with Professor Kevin E. O’Shea at Florida International University in 2006. He was a postdoctoral fellow, working with Prof. William J. Cooper at University of California, Irvine from 2007 to 2010. His research interests are in the area of Environmental Chemistry. Particularly, he focuses on the occurrence, transformation, and fate of emerging contaminants in aqueous environments.

Read his work in our sister journal, Environmental Science: Nano:
Effects of ozone and produced hydroxyl radicals on the transformation of graphene oxide in aqueous media
Tingting Du, Adeyemi S. Adeleye,  Tong Zhang, Nan Yang, Rongjie Hao, Yao Li,* Weihua Song and Wei Chen*
https://doi.org/10.1039/C9EN00361D

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