Monitoring pesticides degradation in apple fruits and potential effects of residues on human health

The behaviour of 12 pesticides used in the treatment of a variety of apples in areal conditions from a Romanian orchard is studied, considering recommended dosages, different stages of fruit development, environmental and atmospheric conditions. Five treatments were applied in recommended dosage considering the phenological growth phases, at 23 days intervals between treatments. Pesticides degraded quickly in apples during the first days, when 30–50% from the initial concentration is lost. Pesticides residues at harvesting were below the Maximum Residue Level (MRL) in European Union, excepting tebuconazole and chlorothalonil. The estimated lifetime exposure dose was calculated based on pesticide concentrations in apples at harvesting, and average fruit consumption of 197.08 g/ person/day in EU-27 during 2011. These doses for adults and children were below the reference dose (RfD) for each pesticide, suggesting a negligible risks for consumers. Hazard indices below 1 demonstrate that the studied pesticides do not generate health risks to humans. First published online: 18 Mar 201

Metale grele: o sursă de contaminare pentru plantele medicinale şi posibile implicaţii asupra sănătăţii umane

Due to the antioxidant properties of medicinal plants and their beneficial effects on human health, theyare used and consumed as natural medical sources. Despite this, due to the current pollution of environmental compartments (soil, water, air), they can be contaminated with various pollutants. Heavy metals are a category of toxic compounds of great interest, due to the negative action on the environment and human health. Although some heavy metals are important in maintaining the proper functioning of plants, in high concentrations, they can become toxic. In the context of heavy metal pollution of the environment and possible contamination of medicinal plants with these pollutants, the need for chemical analysis of toxic plant compounds is necessary. This paper approaches results from literature which show that medicinal plants can be subjected to contamination with heavy metals, and this has the consequence of altering the normal functions of medicinal plants. Moreover, following consumption through the food chain (soil -plant -human or soil -plant -animal -human), human health may be endangered. This paper also investigates the toxic action of heavy metals in plants, represented, in principle, by the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), enzyme inhibition and damage to antioxidants

Bioremediation: an overview on current practices, advances, and new perspectives in environmental pollution treatment

[Excerpt] Environmental pollution generated the need to search for new environmentally friendly, low-cost, and more efficient environmental clean-up techniques for its removal or reduction. Bioremediation, a branch of environmental biotechnology, is nowadays considered as one of the most promising alternatives. This technology uses the amazing ability of microorganisms or plants to accumulate, detoxify, degrade, or remove environmental contaminants. Bioremediation provides the transformation and/or even removal of organic and inorganic pollutants, even when they are present at low concentration. Continuous efforts are still made to understand the mechanisms by which microorganisms and plants remove or transform environmental pollutants. Thus, the purpose of this special issue was to explore different visions on bioremediation, while addressing recent advances and new ideas in the perspective of efficient process scale-up in view of application at larger scales. Authors’ contributions cover various topics with a range of papers including original research and review articles spanning studies in remediation of different environments which outline new findings in the biotechnology field. This special issue contains five papers including one review article and four original research articles. A brief description of these five manuscripts is detailed below. [...]We would like to extend our gratitude to all the authors who submitted their work for consideration in our special issue and to reviewers for their critical feedback. Contributions of Raluca Maria Hlihor and Maria Gavrilescu to this special issue were supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research,CNCS-UEFISCDI (Project no. PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016-0683, Contract no. 65/2017). Teresa Tavares’ contribution is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the research project PTDC/AAG-TEC/5269/2014, the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of NORTE 2020 (Programa Operacional Regional do Norte).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chromium(VI) removal from aqueous solutions by Trichoderma viride fungal biomass

The bioremoval of Cr(VI) through biosorption and bioaccumulation using dead and living biomass of Trichoderma viride was investigated in batch mode, since a few studies were found in the literature on this subject. The biosorbent is an indigenous fungal strain of Trichoderma viride, isolated from a forest soil in an area from Iasi city, Romania. Effects of pH, biomass dosage, metal concentration in the initial solutions, contact time and temperature were assessed. It was found that the optimum pH for maximum removal efficiency is acidic for dead biomass and near the neutral value for living microorganisms. The biosorption process of total Cr removal by dead T. viride biomass is endothermic. The experimental data modeling and FTIR analysis showed that the mechanism of Cr(VI) removal by T. viride is based on a redox reaction. The linearized Langmuir isotherm had the best fitting compared to the other models applied showing that sorption occurs in monolayer at 25 and 40°C. Kinetic data were evaluated by the pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order adsorption kinetic models, together with pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order reduction models. The new fungal strain of T. viride has confirmed high uptakes and removal efficiencies in Chromium(VI) bioremoval

Recent advances in biosorption of heavy metals: support tools for biosorption equilibrium, kinetics and mechanism

Heavy metals are increasingly present in industrial wastes and effluents, which can generate serious concerns for environmental quality and human health. Consequently, there is a continuous expansion of researches for new approaches and developments to guarantee environmental cleaning-up. Although there are some physico-chemical established methods for the removal of heavy metals from various environmental compartments, biosorption gains further confidence as a reliable alternative compared to classical technologies, which are expensive and sometimes unreliable. This paper aims to analyze the biosorption as a biotechnological strategy for the decontamination of aqueous effluents containing heavy metal ions, in terms of its potential for metal immobilization and uptake. The paper also focuses on the most important parameters affecting the removal of heavy metals by various categories of biosorbents both living and non-living forms of biomass and provides new alternatives for modeling and optimization of process equilibrium and kinetics. A special attention was paid to biosorption mechanism, as a factual challenge for process optimization and scale-up. The potential benefits and problems associated to metal removal by biosorption are highlighted.Roumanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0559”, Contract 265/2011

Modelling of Health Risk Associated with the Intake of Pesticides from Romanian Fruits and Vegetables

This study is focused on the assessment of risks caused by pesticide residues to Romanian and other European populations, by modelling the acute and chronic risks considering short- and long-term exposures to pesticide residues in specific fruits and vegetables from different Romanian regions. Data were obtained from the Romanian 2016 official monitoring programme. For assessing the dietary risk, we used the Pesticide Residue Intake model—PRIMo. According to the official data, it was found that 50.44% of fruit samples and 28.25% of vegetable samples were contaminated with pesticides. Our study focused on acute risks and chronic risks (in a maximalist worst-case scenario) posed by pesticide residues in strawberries, apples, lettuce and potatoes, given both their high degree of consumption and contamination with pesticides. The short-term exposure assessment of children’s health due to consumption of apples, lettuce and potatoes contaminated with dimethoate, chlorothalonil and carbendazim, revealed exposure levels higher than the acute reference dose (ARfD, as 100%), raising acute risks. On the other hand, the long-term exposure assessment showed that the highest percentage from the acceptable daily intake (ADI, as 100%) was obtained for German children (DE child) (273.9%), followed by Netherlands children (NL child) (143.7%) diets, based on consumption of apples with dimethoate residues. Therefore, serious measures are needed for banning pesticides such as dimethoate, chlorothalonil and carbendazim from all countries in the EU. This would reduce the health risks generated by the consumption of contaminated fruits and vegetables

Comportamentul unor pesticide aplicate în tratamente multiple în mere

The main objective of this work addresses kinetic studies on the dissipation of 12 pesticides applied in single recommended doseand double dose treatments in apples, considering 6kinetic models which determine the statistical parameters describingpesticide behavior, including their half-lives. The half-lives of pesticides in apples at BBCH (Biologische Bundesanstalt, Bundessortenamt and CHemical industry) scale 76-79 resultedfrom the linear regression equations considering single dose treatments were between 0.01 days (for λ-cyhalothrin) and 74.90 days (for myclobutanil).Data on the rate of dissipation and half-lives of pesticides in various plant compartments are particularly significant for pesticide monitoring and human health impacts and risk assessment

Impactul asupra mediului cauzat de deşeurile de echipamente electrice şi electronice: un scenariu italian

Nowadays, some of the highest amounts of waste is caused by the waste ofelectrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The main reasons are related tothe increasing demand in consumption and in reducing the life of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). Our paper focuses on a case study which aims to develop a quantitative analysis of the WEEE flow based on a scenario implemented by an Italian collector from the Emilia Romagna region, specifically the city of Bologna. Thisscenario was evaluated based on the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, in terms of environmental and human health impacts,using the CML2001 and ReCiPe methods, available in GaBi software tool. Following the LCA software application, the impacts generated by the proposed scenario highlighted a negative influence especially on Fossil Fuel Depletion, Marine Ecotoxicity Potential and Global Warming Potential. It was found that the amount of generated emissions causeshighimpacts to material resources and fresh water

Potenţialul unor microorganisme şi plante indigene de eliminare a metalelor grele din sol

Heavy metals found in soils from different industrial sources or mining activities are persistent inorganic pollutants able to bioaccumulate along the food chain and cause negative effects in theenvironment and for human health. Differentphysical, chemical and biological processes are applied for their removal from soil environments. Biological processes become more and more preferred, since bioremediation strategies have often proved to be more advantageous than the conventional remediation tools, mainly because these processes can be implemented directly onto the contaminated sites (in situ). In this context, the present paper examines the abilityof microorganisms and plants to remove heavy metals from soil, in terms of tolerance and bioaccumulation. A particular interest is given to the bioaccumulation processes of metals by proteobacteria, bacilli and actinobacteria, alone or in synergismwith indigenous plants. Also, some advances in the biosorption of highly toxic heavy metal ions as Cr(VI) and Cd(II) are just discussed,together with various strategies and practices to explore the synergism between microorganisms and plants as valuable biological resource for increasing tolerance against heavy metals and strengthening the bioremediation processes