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- PublikationOccupational health risk assessment for wastewater treatment and reuse in Kanpur, India(MDPI, 07.06.2023) Babalola, Folake Monsurat; Breitenmoser, Lena; Furlong, Claire; Campling, Paul; Hooijmans, Christine Maria [in: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health]The treatment and reuse of wastewater for irrigation can lead to occupational health risks for sewage treatment plant (STP) workers and farmers. Sanitation Safety Planning (SSP) is an approach which can be used to measure and mitigate these risks. This paper explores what impact a novel secondary treatment process, consisting of an integrated permeate channel (IPC) membrane combined with a constructed wetland plus, has on the occupational health risks compared with the existing activated sludge wastewater treatment process and reuse system in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. A mixed methodology was used, which included key informant interviews, structured observations, and E. coli analysis. This data was used to undertake semi-quantitative risk assessments following the SSP approach. The novel secondary treatment increased the number of health risks which the STP workers were exposed to, but the severity of the risks was lower. This was due to the differences in treatment processes and infrastructures. The number of health risks for the farmers decreased both in number and severity. For their children, the severity of the health impacts decreased. These changes were due to the increase in the microbiological quality of the irrigation water. This study highlights the potential of using a semi-quantitative risk assessment to assess the occupational health impacts of using novel treatment technologies.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift
- PublikationDifferent effects of pesticides on transcripts of the endocrine regulation and energy metabolism in honeybee foragers from different colonies(Nature, 2023) Christen, Verena [in: Scientific Reports]Honeybees are important pollinators of many crops and contribute to biological biodiversity. For years, a decline in bee populations has been observed in certain areas. This decline in honeybees is accompanied by a decrease in pollinator services. One factor contributing to the decline of bee colonies is the exposure to pesticides. Pesticide exposure of bees, among other effects, can negatively affect orientation, memory, immune system function and gene expression. Among the altered expressed genes are transcripts of endocrine regulation and oxidative phosphorylation. Endocrine regulation plays an important role in the development of nurse bees into foragers and oxidative phosphorylation is involved in energy metabolism. Most of these transcriptional changes were investigated using mixed aged honeybees derived from the same colony. Experiments using nurse bees or foragers of the same age but from different colonies are rare. In the present study, effects of the two pesticides chlorpyrifos and pyraclostrobin on the expression of transcripts linked to endocrine regulation and oxidative phosphorylation in foragers of the same age from three different colonies are investigated to fill this gap. These two pesticides were selected because negative effects at sublethal concentrations on bees are known and because they are found in pollen and nectar of crops and wild plants. For this purpose, 20–22 days old foragers of three different colonies were exposed to different sublethal concentrations of the selected fungicides for 24 h, followed by analysis of the expression of. Some significant changes in gene expression of both endocrine regulation transcripts and oxidative phosphorylation were shown. Furthermore, it became clear that forager bees from different colonies react differently. This is especially important in relation to the risk analysis of pesticides. In addition, it could be shown that the expression of the brain of bees is a robust marker to distinguish nurse bees from foragers at the molecular biological level. In summary, this study clearly shows that pesticides, which are often detected in pollen and nectar, display negative effects at sublethal concentrations on bees and that it is important to use bees from different colonies for risk assessment of pesticides.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift
- PublikationInnovative technology of biscuit production based on the use of secondary products of soybean processing(Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, 25.04.2023) Korkach, Hanna V.; Kotuzaki, Olena M.; Breitenmoser, Lena; Behner, David; Hugi, Christoph; Krusir, Galina V. [in: Journal of Chemistry and Technologies]01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift
- PublikationAnalyzing microbial communities and their biodegradation of multiple pharmaceuticals in membrane bioreactors(Springer, 12.07.2023) Suleiman, Marcel; Demaria, Francesca; Zimmardi, Cristina; Kolvenbach, Boris; Corvini, Philippe [in: Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology]Abstract Pharmaceuticals are of concern to our planet and health as they can accumulate in the environment. The impact of these biologically active compounds on ecosystems is hard to predict, and information on their biodegradation is necessary to establish sound risk assessment. Microbial communities are promising candidates for the biodegradation of pharmaceuticals such as ibuprofen, but little is known yet about their degradation capacity of multiple micropollutants at higher concentrations (100 mg/L). In this work, microbial communities were cultivated in lab-scale membrane bioreactors (MBRs) exposed to increasing concentrations of a mixture of six micropollutants (ibuprofen, diclofenac, enalapril, caffeine, atenolol, paracetamol). Key players of biodegradation were identified using a combinatorial approach of 16S rRNA sequencing and analytics. Microbial community structure changed with increasing pharmaceutical intake (from 1 to 100 mg/L) and reached a steady-state during incubation for 7 weeks on 100 mg/L. HPLC analysis revealed a fluctuating but significant degradation (30–100%) of five pollutants (caffeine, paracetamol, ibuprofen, atenolol, enalapril) by an established and stable microbial community mainly composed of Achromobacter, Cupriavidus, Pseudomonas and Leucobacter. By using the microbial community from MBR1 as inoculum for further batch culture experiments on single micropollutants (400 mg/L substrate, respectively), different active microbial consortia were obtained for each single micropollutant. Microbial genera potentially responsible for degradation of the respective micropollutant were identified, i.e. Pseudomonas sp. and Sphingobacterium sp. for ibuprofen, caffeine and paracetamol, Sphingomonas sp. for atenolol and Klebsiella sp. for enalapril. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of cultivating stable microbial communities capable of degrading simultaneously a mixture of highly concentrated pharmaceuticals in lab-scale MBRs and the identification of microbial genera potentially responsible for the degradation of specific pollutants. Key points • Multiple pharmaceuticals were removed by stable microbial communities. • Microbial key players of five main pharmaceuticals were identified.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift
- PublikationMicrobial communities and processes in biofilters for post-treatment of ozonated wastewater treatment plant effluent(Elsevier, 15.01.2023) Sauter, Daniel; Steuer, Andrea; Wasmund, Kenneth; Hausmann, Bela; Szewzyk, Ulrich; Sperlich, Alexander; Gnirss, Regina; Cooper, Myriel; Wintgens, Thomas [in: Science of The Total Environment]01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift