Water pollutant fingerprinting tracks recent industrial transfer from coastal to inland China: a case study

In recent years, China’s developed regions have transferred industries to undeveloped regions. Large numbers of unlicensed or unregistered enterprises are widespread in these undeveloped regions and they are subject to minimal regulation. Current methods for tracing industrial transfers in these areas, based on enterprise registration information or economic surveys, do not work. The authors have developed an analytical framework combining water fingerprinting and evolutionary analysis to trace the pollution transfer features between water sources. We collected samples in Eastern China (industrial export) and Central China (industrial acceptance) separately from two water systems. Based on the water pollutant fingerprints and evolutionary trees, we traced the pollution transfer associated with industrial transfer between the two areas. The results are consistent with four episodes of industrial transfers over the past decade. The results also show likely types of the transferred industries - electronics, plastics, and biomedicines - that contribute to the water pollution transfer

Occurrence of Regulated and Emerging Iodinated DBPs in the Shanghai Drinking Water

10.1371/journal.pone.0059677PLoS ONE83

Phytoplankton pigments and functional community structure in relation to environmental factors in the Pearl River Estuary

Two cruises were undertaken in the Pearl River Estuary in November 2011 and March 2012 to analyze the distribution of phytoplankton pigments and to define the relationships of pigment indices and functional community structure with environmental factors. Among 22 pigments, 17 were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography. Chlorophyll a was found in all samples, with a maximum of 7.712 μg L−1 in spring. Fucoxanthin was the most abundant accessory pigment, with mean concentrations of 2.914 μg L−1 and 0.207 μg L−1 in spring and autumn, respectively. Chlorophyll a, chlorophyll c2, fucoxanthin, diadinoxanthin, and diatoxanthin were high in the northern or northwest estuary in spring and in the middle-eastern and northeast estuary in autumn. Chlorophyll b, chlorophyll c3, prasinoxanthin, and peridinin were similarly distributed during the two cruises. Chlorophyll a and fucoxanthin positively correlated with nutrients in spring, whereas 19′-hex-fucoxanthin and 19′-but-fucoxanthin negatively correlated. The biomass proportion of microphytoplankton (BPm) was higher in spring, whereas that of picophytoplankton (BPp) was higher in autumn. BPm in spring was high in areas with salinity <30, but BPp and the biomass proportion of nanophytoplankton (BPn) were high in areas with salinity >30. BPm increased but BPn reduced with the increase in nutrient contents. By comparison, BPp reduced with the increase in nutrient contents in spring, but no relationship was found between BPp and nutrient contents in autumn. The ratios of photosynthetic carotenoids to photoprotective carotenoids in the southern estuary approached unity linear relationship in spring and were under the unity line in autumn

Study on taste quality formation and leaf conducting tissue changes in six types of tea during their manufacturing processes

This study fristly investigated the taste quality formation and leaf conducting tissue changes in six types of Chinese tea (green, black, oolong, yellow, white, and dark) made from Mingke No.1 variety. Non-targeted metabolomics showed the vital manufacturing processes (green tea-de-enzyming, black tea-fermenting, oolong tea-turning-over, yellow tea-yellowing, white tea-withering, and dark tea-pile-fermenting) were highly related to their unique taste formation, due to different fermentation degree in these processes. After drying, the retained phenolics, theanine, caffeine, and other substances significantly impacted each tea taste quality formation. Meanwhile, the tea leaf conducting tissue structure was significantly influenced by high processing temperature, and the change of its inner diameter was related to moisture loss during tea processing, as indicated by its significant different Raman characteristic peaks (mainly cellulose and lignin) in each key process. This study provides a reference for process optimization to improve tea quality

A: Peak area of IF from different amounts of anhydrous sodium sulfate.

<p><i>X</i> and <i>Y</i> axes represent the mass of anhydrous sodium sulfate (g) and peak areas of IF, respectively. The peak areas of IF exhibited a downward trend with the increase of anhydrous sodium sulfate. B: Peak areas of THM₄ from different amounts of anhydrous sodium sulfate. <i>X</i> and <i>Y</i> axes represent the mass of anhydrous sodium sulfate (g) and peak areas of THM₄, respectively. The peak areas exhibited a downward trend with the increase of the anhydrous sodium sulfate and the compounds had the largest peak areas when the mass of anhydrous sodium sulfate used was 4 g.</p

Chromatogram of IF and THM₄.

<p>The concentration of each THM was 10 µg/L and that of IF was 1.0 µg/L. 1 stood for CF, 2 was BDCM, 3 was CDBM, 4 was BF, 5 was the internal standard (bromofluorobenzene) and 6 was IF.</p

Recovery of IAA and HAA₉ in different volumes of derivatization solvent (MTBE) (%, <i>Mean ± SD</i>, n = 10).

*<p><i>P</i><0.05 is significant statistically.</p

3D response surface of IAA: volume of acidic methanol versus volume of saturated NaHCO₃ solution.

<p>X₂ was the volume of acidic methanol (mL), X₅ was the volume of saturated NaHCO₃ solution (mL) and <i>Y</i> was the peak area of IAA.</p

Mean concentrations of IAA, HAA₉ and IF, THM₄ in field water samples collected from a water treatment plant (µg/L, n = 3).

<p>ND: not detected.</p>*<p>Finished drinking water means the water collected from a point just before leaving the plant.</p