Low-Carbon Technologies to Remove Organic Micropollutants from Wastewater: A Focus on Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical residues are of environmental concern since they are found in several environmental compartments, including surface, ground and waste waters. However, the effect of pharmaceuticals on ecosystems is still under investigation. To date, the removal of these micropollutants by conventional treatment plants is generally ineffective, in addition to producing a considerable carbon footprint. In this sense, to achieve the current zero-pollution ambition, a reduction in the negative impacts of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals on the environment must be aligned with initiatives such as the European Ecological Compact, Environment Action Programme, and Circular Economy Action Plan, among others. This review provides insight into the key drivers for changing approaches, technologies, and governance of water in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, and the UK), including improving wastewater treatment in sewage treatment plants for the removal of pharmaceuticals and their carbon footprint. In addition, an overview of emerging low-carbon technologies (e.g., constructed wetlands, anaerobic membrane bioreactors, and enzymes) for the removal of pharmaceuticals in sewage treatment works is provided. In general, the removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals could be achieved up to ca. 100% in wastewater, with the exception of highly recalcitrant pharmaceuticals such as carbamazepine (removal <60%). These technologies have the potential to help reduce the carbon footprint of wastewater treatment, which can therefore contribute to the achievement of the Europe Union’s objective of being carbon neutral by 2050

Fractional plateaus in the Coulomb blockade of coupled quantum dots

Ground-state properties of a double-large-dot sample connected to a reservoir via a single-mode point contact are investigated. When the interdot transmission is perfect and the dots controlled by the same dimensionless gate voltage, we find that for any finite backscattering from the barrier between the lead and the left dot, the average dot charge exhibits a Coulomb-staircase behavior with steps of size e/2 and the capacitance peak period is halved. The interdot electrostatic coupling here is weak. For strong tunneling between the left dot and the lead, we report a conspicuous intermediate phase in which the fractional plateaus get substantially altered by an increasing slope.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, final versio

Metal-Kondo insulating transitions and transport in one dimension

We study two different metal-insulating transitions possibly occurring in one-dimensional Kondo lattices. First, we show how doping the pure Kondo lattice model in the strong-coupling limit, results in a Pokrovsky-Talapov transition. This produces a conducting state with a charge susceptibility diverging as the inverse of the doping, that seems in agreement with numerical datas. Second, in the weak-coupling region, Kondo insulating transitions arise due to the consequent renormalization of the backward Kondo scattering. Here, the interplay between Kondo effect and electron-electron interactions gives rise to significant phenomena in transport, in the high-temperature delocalized (ballistic) regime. For repulsive interactions, as a perfect signature of Kondo localization, the conductivity is found to decrease monotonically with temperature. When interactions become attractive, spin fluctuations in the electron (Luttinger-type) liquid are suddenly lowered. The latter is less localized by magnetic impurities than for the repulsive counterpart, and as a result a large jump in the Drude weight and a maximum in the conductivity arise in the entrance of the Kondo insulating phase. These can be viewed as remnants of s-wave superconductivity arising for attractive enough interactions. Comparisons with transport in the single impurity model are also performed. We finally discuss the case of randomly distributed magnetic defects, and the applications on persistent currents of mesoscopic rings.Comment: 21 pages, two columns, 5 figures and 1 table; Final version: To appear in Physical Review

The Polygenic and Monogenic Basis of Blood Traits and Diseases

Blood cells play essential roles in human health, underpinning physiological processes such as immunity, oxygen transport, and clotting, which when perturbed cause a significant global health burden. Here we integrate data from UK Biobank and a large-scale international collaborative effort, including data for 563,085 European ancestry participants, and discover 5,106 new genetic variants independently associated with 29 blood cell phenotypes covering a range of variation impacting hematopoiesis. We holistically characterize the genetic architecture of hematopoiesis, assess the relevance of the omnigenic model to blood cell phenotypes, delineate relevant hematopoietic cell states influenced by regulatory genetic variants and gene networks, identify novel splice-altering variants mediating the associations, and assess the polygenic prediction potential for blood traits and clinical disorders at the interface of complex and Mendelian genetics. These results show the power of large-scale blood cell trait GWAS to interrogate clinically meaningful variants across a wide allelic spectrum of human variation. Analysis of blood cell traits in the UK Biobank and other cohorts illuminates the full genetic architecture of hematopoietic phenotypes, with evidence supporting the omnigenic model for complex traits and linking polygenic burden with monogenic blood diseases

The Polygenic and Monogenic Basis of Blood Traits and Diseases

Blood cells play essential roles in human health, underpinning physiological processes such as immunity, oxygen transport, and clotting, which when perturbed cause a significant global health burden. Here we integrate data from UK Biobank and a large-scale international collaborative effort, including data for 563,085 European ancestry participants, and discover 5,106 new genetic variants independently associated with 29 blood cell phenotypes covering a range of variation impacting hematopoiesis. We holistically characterize the genetic architecture of hematopoiesis, assess the relevance of the omnigenic model to blood cell phenotypes, delineate relevant hematopoietic cell states influenced by regulatory genetic variants and gene networks, identify novel splice-altering variants mediating the associations, and assess the polygenic prediction potential for blood traits and clinical disorders at the interface of complex and Mendelian genetics. These results show the power of large-scale blood cell trait GWAS to interrogate clinically meaningful variants across a wide allelic spectrum of human variation.</p

Low-Carbon Technologies to Remove Organic Micropollutants from Wastewater: A Focus on Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical residues are of environmental concern since they are found in several environmental compartments, including surface, ground and waste waters. However, the effect of pharmaceuticals on ecosystems is still under investigation. To date, the removal of these micropollutants by conventional treatment plants is generally ineffective, in addition to producing a considerable carbon footprint. In this sense, to achieve the current zero-pollution ambition, a reduction in the negative impacts of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals on the environment must be aligned with initiatives such as the European Ecological Compact, Environment Action Programme, and Circular Economy Action Plan, among others. This review provides insight into the key drivers for changing approaches, technologies, and governance of water in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, and the UK), including improving wastewater treatment in sewage treatment plants for the removal of pharmaceuticals and their carbon footprint. In addition, an overview of emerging low-carbon technologies (e.g., constructed wetlands, anaerobic membrane bioreactors, and enzymes) for the removal of pharmaceuticals in sewage treatment works is provided. In general, the removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals could be achieved up to ca. 100% in wastewater, with the exception of highly recalcitrant pharmaceuticals such as carbamazepine (removal &lt;60%). These technologies have the potential to help reduce the carbon footprint of wastewater treatment, which can therefore contribute to the achievement of the Europe Union&rsquo;s objective of being carbon neutral by 2050

Domestic source of phosphorus to sewage treatment works

Phosphorus is an element essential for life. Concerns regarding long-term security of supply and issues related to eutrophication of surface waters once released into the aquatic environment have led governments to consider and apply measures for reducing the use and discharge of phosphorus. Examples of source control include legislation to reduce phosphorus use in domestic detergents. This research shows that other domestic sources of phosphorus also contribute significantly to the domestic load to sewer and that overall, domestic sources dominate loads to sewage treatment works. Estimates provided here show that although the natural diet contributes 40% of the domestic phosphorus load, other potentially preventable sources contribute significantly to the estimated 44,000 tonnes of phosphorus entering UK sewage treatment works each year. In the UK, food additives are estimated to contribute 29% of the domestic load; automatic dishwashing detergents contribute 9% and potentially increasing; domestic laundry 14%, including contributions from phosphonates, but decreasing; phosphorus dosing to reduce lead levels in tap water 6%; food waste disposed of down the drain 1%; and personal care products 1%. Although UK data is presented here, it is anticipated that similar impacts would be expected for other developed economies. Consideration of alternatives to all preventable sources of phosphorus from these sources would therefore offer potentially significant reductions in phosphorus loads to sewage treatment works and hence to the aquatic environment. Combining all source control measures and applying them to their maximum extent could potentially lead to the prevention of over 22,000 tonnes-P/year entering sewage treatment works

The Polygenic and Monogenic Basis of Blood Traits and Diseases.

Blood cells play essential roles in human health, underpinning physiological processes such as immunity, oxygen transport, and clotting, which when perturbed cause a significant global health burden. Here we integrate data from UK Biobank and a large-scale international collaborative effort, including data for 563,085 European ancestry participants, and discover 5,106 new genetic variants independently associated with 29 blood cell phenotypes covering a range of variation impacting hematopoiesis. We holistically characterize the genetic architecture of hematopoiesis, assess the relevance of the omnigenic model to blood cell phenotypes, delineate relevant hematopoietic cell states influenced by regulatory genetic variants and gene networks, identify novel splice-altering variants mediating the associations, and assess the polygenic prediction potential for blood traits and clinical disorders at the interface of complex and Mendelian genetics. These results show the power of large-scale blood cell trait GWAS to interrogate clinically meaningful variants across a wide allelic spectrum of human variation

The Polygenic and Monogenic Basis of Blood Traits and Diseases

Blood cells play essential roles in human health, underpinning physiological processes such as immunity, oxygen transport, and clotting, which when perturbed cause a significant global health burden. Here we integrate data from UK Biobank and a large-scale international collaborative effort, including data for 563,085 European ancestry participants, and discover 5,106 new genetic variants independently associated with 29 blood cell phenotypes covering a range of variation impacting hematopoiesis. We holistically characterize the genetic architecture of hematopoiesis, assess the relevance of the omnigenic model to blood cell phenotypes, delineate relevant hematopoietic cell states influenced by regulatory genetic variants and gene networks, identify novel splice-altering variants mediating the associations, and assess the polygenic prediction potential for blood traits and clinical disorders at the interface of complex and Mendelian genetics. These results show the power of large-scale blood cell trait GWAS to interrogate clinically meaningful variants across a wide allelic spectrum of human variation