Author Archive

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!

 

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

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

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

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.”

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

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

 

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

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

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

New Editorial Board Member: Amila De Silva

We are delighted to announce that Amila De Silva has joined the Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board!

Amila De Silva is a research scientist in the Government of Canada in the Water Science Technology Directorate located in Burlington, Ontario. She received her PhD in environmental chemistry from the University of Toronto in 2008. Her expertise areas are fate, transport and disposition of organic contaminants in the environment. In addition to the discovery of new contaminants with advanced analytical chemistry, Amila uses a combination of field and lab experiments to discern their ecological risk based on persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity and long range transport potential. Amila holds adjunct Professor appointments at the University of Toronto and Memorial University.

Read her work in the journal:
Emerging investigator series: a 14-year depositional ice record of perfluoroalkyl substances in the High Arctic
John J. MacInnis, Katherine French, Derek C. G. Muir, Christine Spencer, Alison Criscitiello, Amila O. De Silva* and Cora J. Young*
https://doi.org/10.1039/C6EM00593D

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Cryosphere chemistry – Themed Collection in ESPI

We are delighted to highlight some of the latest cryosphere chemistry studies published in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts.

This themed collection, Guest Edited by Rose Cory and Kerri Pratt (University of Michigan), showcases studies on chemical processes in sea ice, snow, glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost soils. This includes atmospheric chemistry (atmospheric aerosols and trace gases) biogeochemistry (chemical weathering and organic matter chemistry) as well as laboratory, field and modeling studies.

"This ESPI collection includes results of recent laboratory and field studies of the interactions between the snow, ice and overlying atmosphere" - Guest Editor Kerri Pratt, University of Michigan

Atmospheric chemistry is understudied in the Cryosphere, cold regions of the Earth that are seasonally or continually covered with snow and ice, yet these regions represent areas of significant climate change. Snow and sea ice are sources and sinks of atmospheric trace gases and aerosols, with impacts on surface albedo, cloud formation and properties, air quality, and meltwater. The critical need to understand air-ice interactions in these cold regions is exemplified by the emerging international activity The Cryosphere and Atmospheric Chemistry (CATCH), supported by IGAC and SOLAS, which aims to facilitate atmospheric chemistry research within the international community, with a focus on natural processes specific to cold regions of the Earth. This ESPI collection includes results of recent laboratory and field studies of the interactions between the snow, ice, and overlying atmosphere, described by Kirpes et al., Ruggeri et al., Hullar et al., and Hara et al.

An outstanding CATCH question surrounds the locations, kinetics, and mechanisms of reactions on and within snow grains, as this knowledge is required to understand and simulate air-ice interactions. Hullar et al. present a laboratory study of the photodegradation of guaiacol in solution, ice, and at the air-ice interface, showing that photodegradation rate is faster within liquid-like regions in ice and especially at the air-ice interface and therefore cannot be approximated by bulk solutions. This work further demonstrates the uniqueness of reactions occurring on snow and ice surfaces in cold regions and the need for future study, both in the field and through fundamental laboratory studies.

Photodecay of guaiacol is faster in ice, and even more rapid on ice, than in aqueous solution
Ted Hullar et al.
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EM00242A

The cryosphere contains about twice the amount of carbon found in our atmosphere, in the form of organic carbon locked away in a deep freeze in permafrost soils (perennially frozen ground).  As permafrost soils warm and thaw, the organic carbon in these soils decomposes into the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).  Release of CO2 and CH4 from thawed permafrost soils will raise global temperatures beyond what our fossil-fuel-based carbon emissions would do on their own.  For example, current models predict a loss of permafrost that could raise global temperatures by an additional 0.3 to 0.4 °C by 2100; a feedback called Arctic Amplification of climate change.

"The papers in this special issue help reduce uncertainties by studying processes that decompose permafrost organic carbon to CO2 or CH4" - Guest Editor Rose Cory, University of Michigan

However, there is much uncertainty in these models because the processes that control the decomposition of permafrost organic carbon to CO2 and CH4 remain poorly understood. The papers in this collection help to reduce uncertainties by studying processes that decompose permafrost organic carbon to CO2 or CH4.  For example, in thawed soils, microbially-mediated redox reactions convert organic carbon to CO2 or CH4.  These redox reactions depend on the availability of electron donors and acceptors in soils, which in turn, vary by landscape position and hydrology (Philben et al.).  Redox reactions in permafrost soils also control the availability of nutrients like phosphorous, that in turn will help regulate the potential of these soils to store or release carbon as they thaw (Herndon et al.).

As permafrost soils thaw, organic carbon in the soil dissolves and flows into the many lakes across the Arctic landscape.  As evidence mounts that arctic lakes are strong sources of greenhouse gases from the cryosphere to the atmosphere, more questions emerge about the timing and drivers of these gas fluxes.  The paper by Eugster et al. is the first to show that while gas fluxes vary during the ice-free season and across years, no large episodic events associated with spring ice-off or other mixing events occurred over 6 years of continuous eddy flux measurements in a deep arctic lake. However, that may change in the future, as more permafrost organic carbon flows into lakes.

Gagne et al. showed that permafrost organic carbon is rapidly converted to CO2 once exposed to sunlight.  Exposure of permafrost organic carbon to sunlight in lakes is inevitable as permafrost soils thaw and export this ancient carbon into increasingly ice-free waters.  And, Ward and Cory show that our concerns don’t stop with the complete oxidation to CO2.  Soil organic carbon is also partially oxidized by sunlight, which in turn controls its susceptibility to complete oxidation to CO2.

Composition and photo-reactivity of organic matter from permafrost soils and surface waters in interior Alaska
Kristin R. Gagné et al.
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EM00097C

Finally, the interactions between permafrost soils and receiving lakes are featured in a synthesis paper by Burpee and Saros, highlighting key knowledge gaps on the feedbacks between loss of the cryosphere on land and in water.

With permafrost loss already under way across the Arctic, we need more research in this area of cryosphere chemistry to predict the Arctic Amplification of climate change and impacts on society. A 2016 Scientific American article by John Berger summarized it best: “The faster these gases emerge from the permafrost, the less carbon human society can release and still keep global temperatures from rising far above the aspirational temperature targets set by the Paris accord.”

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)