Understanding the environmental risks posed by pollution from the digital economy

了解数字经济污染带来的环境风险

• 批准号: 2607795
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2607795
• 关键词: Understanding; environmental; risks; posed; pollution

The growing consumption of materials in our digital society represents an ever increasing waste stream containing novel and complex mixtures of chemicals, including many oxyanion forming contaminants (e.g. As, B, Cr, Mo, Sb, V, Se, Sb, Te, etc.) that threaten freshwater security. Current industrial innovations (e.g. electric vehicles, domestic power storage, the internet of things) and policy drivers (e.g. acceleration of Energy from Waste (EfW) in UK/EU) will increase future usage of these elements, which gives rise to potential releases from cycles of production and consumption into the environment. Ecosystem health in lakes and rivers are underpinned by complex relationships between environmental drivers (e.g. nutrients, weather, contaminants etc.), and can be highly degraded by inputs of oxyanion forming elements (OFEs) such as P and As. These effects can be persistent over decades as a result of interactions with sediments and biota under varying pH and redox. This project will produce a large scale assessment of key environmental pathways for key OFEs and combine field and experimental approaches to comprehensively study the effects of established OFEs across ecological scales (i.e. from molecular processes to impacted ecosystems). Data from these approaches can be used to inform ecotoxicological risk assessments and predictive models, with which future management and policy approaches, developed to mitigate the effects of future waste stream scenarios, can be evaluated. OFEs can be released from a wide range of industrial sources, including EfW incinerator ashes, petroleum combustion residues, and many different mining and metal processing wastes (e.g. iron and aluminium ore processing). A common factor across all sources is the occurrence of multiple different oxyanion contaminants present in elevated concentrations, which are often then readily mobilised in associated leachates. This has helped define a short list of oxyanion contaminants, including toxic OFEs such as As, V, and Se for inclusion in this project.Specific objectives: 1. Utilising available data and literature, develop a conceptual model of OFE risk including waste streams, critical exposure pathways, transformation processes, ecosystem effects and risk assessment from catchment to global scales, with a focus on the UK scale.2. Investigation of actively polluted rivers and lakes, to establish relationships between OFE composition and behaviour in the field, catchment scale flux models, and net ecosystem effects in control versus impacted sites.3. Produce experimental and molecular level data to quantify the drivers of interactions between OFEs (as individual components and mixtures) and other chemical components of receiving waters to define the potential for significant ecotoxicological effects in affected environments.

在我们的数字化社会中，材料的不断增长的消耗代表了含有化学品的新型和复杂混合物的不断增长的废物流，包括许多氧阴离子形成污染物（例如As、B、Cr、Mo、Sb、V、Se、Sb、Te等）。威胁到淡水安全。当前的工业创新（如电动汽车、家用储能、物联网）和政策驱动（如英国/欧盟加速废物能源化（EfW））将增加这些元素的未来使用，从而导致生产和消费周期向环境中的潜在释放。湖泊和河流的生态系统健康受到环境驱动因素（如营养物、天气、污染物等）之间复杂关系的支撑，并且可以通过氧阴离子形成元素（OFE）如P和As的输入而高度降解。由于在不同的pH值和氧化还原条件下与沉积物和生物群的相互作用，这些影响可能持续数十年。该项目将对关键OFE的关键环境路径进行大规模评估，并将联合收割机方法与实验方法相结合，以全面研究已建立的OFE在生态尺度上的影响（即从分子过程到受影响的生态系统）。从这些方法中获得的数据可用于为生态毒理学风险评估和预测模型提供信息，从而可评估为减轻未来废物流情景的影响而制定的未来管理和政策方法。OFE可从各种工业来源释放，包括EfW焚烧炉灰烬、石油燃烧残余物以及许多不同的采矿和金属加工废物（如铁矿石和铝矿加工）。所有来源的一个共同因素是出现了多种不同的含氧阴离子污染物，其浓度升高，然后往往很容易在相关的渗滤液中移动。这有助于确定一个简短的含氧阴离子污染物清单，包括有毒的OFE，如砷，钒，硒列入本项目。具体目标：1.利用现有的数据和文献，制定一个概念模型的OFE风险，包括废物流，关键的接触途径，转化过程，生态系统影响和风险评估从流域到全球范围内，重点是英国的规模。调查受污染的河流和湖泊，以建立OFE组成和行为之间的关系，在现场，集水区规模的通量模型，以及控制与受影响的网站的净生态系统影响。产生实验和分子水平的数据，以量化OFE（作为单个成分和混合物）与接收沃茨的其他化学成分之间相互作用的驱动因素，以确定受影响环境中重大生态毒理学影响的潜力。