Nature water最新文献

{"title":"Stable isotope labelling to elucidate ring cleavage mechanisms of disinfection by-product formation during chlorination of phenols","authors":"Zhuoyue Zhang, Keith P. Reber, Neechi Okwor, Priyansh D. Gujarati, Matthew Vollmuth, Lijin Zhang, Daniel L. McCurry, John D. Sivey, Carsten Prasse","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00381-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00381-9","url":null,"abstract":"Despite decades of research on the formation of toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs) during water disinfection with chlorine, considerable uncertainties remain regarding the formation mechanism of toxic DBPs from phenolic precursors. Here we report the use of a series of synthesized ethylparabens containing stable isotope (13C) labels at different positions of the molecule to ascertain DBP formation mechanisms from phenols, including those of regulated chloroacetic acids and recently identified α,β-unsaturated dialdehydes and dicarboxylic acids. Our results highlight the involvement of four general ring cleavage pathways. Three of the DBP formation pathways involve carbons originating from the aromatic ring, while the fourth pathway involves the substituent carboxylic ester carbon in the formation of dichloroacetic acid and C4-dicarboxylic acids. Quantitative comparison of the 13C-labelled DBPs enabled further assessment of the contribution from each of these distinct pathways, providing novel insights into ring cleavage reaction mechanisms that have eluded previous DBP investigations. The pathways by which aromatic compounds transform into acyclic by-products in chlorinated waters have important implications for water treatment and public health. Ethyl parabens with stable isotope labels at different carbon positions yield insights into how aromatic compounds can transform into lower-molecular-weight disinfection by-products.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 2","pages":"222-230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143466323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dialysis opens a new pathway for high-salinity organic wastewater treatment","authors":"Yuanmiaoliang Chen, Longchao Wang, Martina del Cerro, Li Wang, Xuan Zhang, Menachem Elimelech, Zhangxin Wang","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00368-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00368-6","url":null,"abstract":"High-salinity organic wastewaters pose a major challenge for conventional wastewater treatment processes. Here we propose dialysis as an innovative solution to overcome this challenge. Dialysis uses an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane that allows the passage of salts while rejecting the organic substances, operating in a bilateral countercurrent flow mode without the application of hydraulic pressure. Using bench-scale experiments and a model for salt and water transport in leaky membranes, we demonstrate that dialysis can effectively desalinate high-salinity organic wastewaters without diluting the wastewater stream. By comparing the salt/organic selectivity of dialysis and UF using the same membrane, we show that dialysis can effectively fractionate salts and organic substances in high-salinity organic wastewaters. Additionally, we find that, unlike UF, dialysis is almost unaffected by membrane fouling, highlighting its excellent fouling resistance. We conclude by proposing potential high-salinity organic wastewater treatment schemes based on dialysis, paving the way for more sustainable and effective management of challenging wastewaters. The treatment of high-salinity organic wastewater is challenging using traditional processes. Dialysis using the ultrafiltration membranes allows the permeation of salts, realizing the separation of salts and organic substances without diluting the wastewater streams.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"49-58"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global estimates of the storage and transit time of water through vegetation","authors":"Andrew J. Felton, Joshua B. Fisher, Koen Hufkens, Adam J. Purdy, Seth A. Spawn-Lee, Lou F. Duloisy, Gregory R. Goldsmith","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00365-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00365-9","url":null,"abstract":"The time it takes for water to transit from the ground back to the atmosphere affects weather, climate, biogeochemistry and ecosystem function. The transit time of water through vegetation, defined as the age of water transpiring from vegetation since time of entry, is a particularly understudied aspect of the terrestrial hydrologic cycle. Here we use a synergy of satellite remote sensing measurements over a five-year period to estimate global aboveground vegetation water storage to be on average 484 km3, roughly half of which is stored in Earth’s water-limited savannah, grassland and shrubland ecosystems. We then combine these storage estimates with remotely sensed data for transpiration and find that mean transit times of water through aboveground vegetation vary from ~5 days in croplands to ~18 days in evergreen needleleaf forests, with a global median of 8.1 days. In herbaceous-dominated land-cover types with comparatively low water storage and high seasonal water use, such as grasslands, the water stored in biomass may be frequently transiting in less than one day. Our estimates contribute to resolving the role of vegetation in the terrestrial hydrologic cycle; plants store little water compared to other pools, and the time it takes to return that water to the atmosphere is among the fastest components of the hydrologic cycle. Using satellite data, this study presents global estimates of transit times of water through vegetation across ecosystems, highlighting the dynamic role of plants in the hydrologic cycle.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"59-69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unravelling groundwater–stream connections over the continental United States","authors":"Chen Yang, Laura E. Condon, Reed M. Maxwell","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00366-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00366-8","url":null,"abstract":"Groundwater is a critical component of the terrestrial water cycle, yet the distance and depth of its connections with streamflow remain unquantified at large scale. Here we conducted a backward-particle-tracking simulation across the continental United States. We quantified the lateral length and vertical depth of groundwater flow discharged to streams as baseflow. Our simulation results suggest that water may travel longer distances underground before emerging in a stream than previously thought, and that deep groundwater sourced from consolidated sediments, aquifers typically 10–100 m below the ground surface, contribute more than half of the baseflow in 56% of the subbasins. Water-balance approaches may underestimate inter-basin groundwater flow due to concurrent groundwater exportation and importation of a watershed. Unexpectedly stronger connections of streamflow with deep and inter-basin groundwater flow paths found here have important implications for watershed resilience to climate change and persistence of contamination. Using a backward-particle-tracking simulation across the contiguous United States, this study quantifies the distance and depth of the groundwater entering a stream and highlights the strong connections between streamflow and deep and inter-basin groundwater flow paths.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"70-79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-024-00366-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methylation of reverse osmosis membrane for superior anti-fouling performance via blocking carboxyl groups in polyamide","authors":"Yiwen Qin, Pengfei Qi, Shuang Hao, Wenxiong Shi, Jun Xiao, Jianxiao Wang, Yunxia Hu","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00371-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00371-x","url":null,"abstract":"The lifespan of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes is only several months when used for industrial wastewater treatment rather than several years for seawater desalination, dramatically increasing the maintenance cost of RO. Here, to improve the separation and anti-fouling performance and thus increase the lifespan of RO membranes, we developed a creative strategy to methylate RO membranes via grafting gaseous dimethylamine molecules onto polyamide (PA) of RO membrane during interfacial polymerization. The dimethylamine-grafted RO membrane achieved a high water permeance of 3.84 l m−2 h−1 bar−1 and a high NaCl rejection of 99.05% and exhibited unprecedented anti-fouling performance against small organic charged foulants, surpassing the upper-bound threshold of the other reported anti-fouling membranes and the well-known commercial anti-fouling RO membrane (DuPont FilmTec Fortilife CR100). Both experimental results and molecular dynamics simulation findings illustrate that the methylated PA has a lower absorption energy with small charged organic foulants than the pristine PA, which alleviates the foulantsʼ absorption with a lower areal density and a looser packing, and a much shallower penetration depth inside PA. Our work suggests that avoiding penetration of foulants inside PA and preventing pore blocking of PA by foulants are essential to improve the fouling resistance of RO membranes. This work contributes a new outlook on the RO membrane-fouling mechanism from the molecular levels using molecular dynamics simulation and also develops a simple and effective methylation approach to enhance the RO membrane-fouling resistance towards small charged foulants. A reverse osmosis membrane synthesized via a vapour–solid interfacial reaction demonstrates high permselectivity and exhibits good anti-fouling performance, providing a simple and effective methylation approach to enhancing membrane-fouling resistance.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"110-121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advancing the science of headwater streamflow for global water protection","authors":"Heather E. Golden, Jay R. Christensen, Hilary K. McMillan, Christa A. Kelleher, Charles R. Lane, Admin Husic, Li Li, Adam S. Ward, John Hammond, Erin C. Seybold, Kristin L. Jaeger, Margaret Zimmer, Roy Sando, C. Nathan Jones, Catalina Segura, D. Tyler Mahoney, Adam N. Price, Frederick Cheng","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00351-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00351-1","url":null,"abstract":"The protection of headwater streams faces increasing challenges, exemplified by limited global recognition of headwater contributions to watershed resiliency and a recent US Supreme Court decision limiting federal safeguards. Despite accounting for ~77% of global river networks, the lack of adequate headwaters protections is caused, in part, by limited information on their extent and functions—in particular, their flow regimes, which form the foundation for decision-making regarding their protection. Yet, headwater streamflow is challenging to comprehensively measure and model; it is highly variable and sensitive to changes in land use, management and climate. Modelling headwater streamflow to quantify its cumulative contributions to downstream river networks requires an integrative understanding across local hillslope and channel (that is, watershed) processes. Here we begin to address this challenge by proposing a consistent definition for headwater systems and streams, evaluating how headwater streamflow is characterized and advocating for closing gaps in headwater streamflow data collection, modelling and synthesis. Despite their substantial contributions to watershed resilience, headwater streams are becoming increasingly imperilled. This Perspective summarizes the status of headwater streamflow information and proposes guidance for advancing the understanding of headwater hydrology to support better management of these systems.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"16-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"To solve climate change, we need to restore our Sponge Planet","authors":"Kongjian Yu, Erica Gies, Warren W. Wood","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00355-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00355-x","url":null,"abstract":"Climate strategies focus primarily on carbon, largely ignoring the destabilized water cycle that’s amplifying disasters and accelerating climate change. Slow Water projects can reverse this trend.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"4-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"High-capacity uranium extraction from seawater through constructing synergistic multiple dynamic bonds","authors":"Ye Yuan, Doudou Cao, Fengchao Cui, Yajie Yang, Cheng Zhang, Yingbo Song, Yue Zheng, Jiarui Cao, Shusen Chen, Yan Song, Fengju Wang, Guangshan Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00346-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00346-y","url":null,"abstract":"Seawater is the largest uranium reserve in the world, and the efficient extraction of uranium from seawater could facilitate the sustainable development of the nuclear industry for thousands of years. However, conventional extraction processes must suffer the dissociation of CO32− ions from [UO2(CO3)3]4− anions to bind the uranyl core, which has a high energy barrier, resulting in poor selectivity and long working times. Here we combine a molecular templating strategy to synthesize several hydroxy-rich covalent organic frameworks with tunable nanopore sizes. In the 1.2-nm-sized covalent organic framework cavity, hydroxyl groups coupled with the hydrogen-bonded NH4+ cations selectively bind uranyl tricarbonate ions via synergistic electrostatic and hydrogen-bonding interactions. This framework exhibits high uranium extraction capability with a removal ratio of > 99.99% in 400 min (initial concentration of 5 ppm at 298 K, pH = 8–9). Notably, a record uranium adsorption uptake is achieved with a capacity of 23.66 mg g−1 in seven days from natural seawater, surpassing that of classical amidoxime-based adsorbents by a factor of 350%. The synthesis of covalent organic frameworks with a multiple-dynamic-bonds strategy realizes selective extraction of uranyl tricarbonate anions from ultra-low concentrations and multiple interfering ions.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 1","pages":"89-98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143121612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Drinking water and the law","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s44221-024-00369-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-024-00369-5","url":null,"abstract":"On its 50th anniversary, we highlight how despite its limitations, the Safe Drinking Water Act and its amendments represent a milestone in environmental legislation that should be improved and protected.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"2 12","pages":"1129-1129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-024-00369-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Late lessons from early warnings on PFAS","authors":"Steffen Foss Hansen, Carina Theresa Heller Bunde, Monika A. Roy, Joel A. Tickner, Anders Baun","doi":"10.1038/s44221-023-00168-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-023-00168-4","url":null,"abstract":"Achieving compliance with recent per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) regulations in the United States and Europe will require substantial effort and funding by municipal water providers, as well as chemical and product innovation to avoid regrettable substitutions. Despite emerging knowledge of the potential persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity of these substances already several decades ago, regulatory action has only been taken in the last few years. Here we examine the background for this late regulatory action, whether early warning signs were overlooked, and whether regulatory or market actions could have been taken earlier. We find that problems in defining PFAS as a group of substances, including extrapolating hazard information from perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) to other PFAS substances, have hampered the effective protection of public health and the environment. Moreover, because PFAS chemistry uniquely imparts useful functionality in a wide range of applications, many uses may be hard to replace without either modifying performance specifications for certain applications or carrying out substantial research and development and scaling of safer replacements. Most importantly, regulatory frameworks in the United States and the European Union have not been suited to group-based assessments, but are rather aimed at chemical-specific, case-by-case risk assessment and management. Even in these cases, too little emphasis has been put on using persistency as a crucial early warning property before full evidence of the hazards of individual PFAS compounds was available. We hope that this analysis provides additional insights into discussions and actions on PFAS and contributes to earlier action on other potentially hazardous chemicals and/or chemical classes. Concern about the potential health and environmental hazards of substances known as PFAS have led to strong regulations, especially in Europe and the United States. This Perspective examines whether early warnings were followed and whether lessons can be learned from the way the chemicals were dealt with since their discovery.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"2 12","pages":"1157-1165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}