Resultados de investigación

Data contained in the paper to be published, Departamento de Fisica Teorica Atomica y Optica, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, financiado parcialmente con fondos FEDER (proyecto PGC2018-093745-B-I00), Ministerio de Universidades y Universidad de Valladolid financiado parcialmente con fondos NextGenerationEU (programa María Zambrano)

Three rodent species of similar characteristics coexist in the center of the Iberian Peninsula. We want to know if there is habitat segregation between them to avoid strong competition that excludes any of them. One of the three has just arrived in the area. The other two have been consuming resources for a long time. We want to know if time is the origin of adaptations to resources. For this purpose, we placed the three rodent species in semi-wild enclosures consisting of three different habitats and fed them for a week with acorns from two oak species. The most abundant in the area. We estimated the number of acorns and the mass per acorn that each species consumes in each habitat. As a result, we obtained that each species prefers different habitats. The two species first installed in the area participate in the dissemination of acorns by providing transport and storage but also conserve the embryo of the acorns they consume. The newly arrived species does not transport acorns and destroy them during consumption, behaving as a true predator. The three species segregate their habitats to avoid competition. The two species that have been in the area for a long time bring the relationship with the oaks closer to mutualism., Ciencias Agroforestales

Basic data of mine soils in post-mining pastures under different treatments as a result of the combination of presence/absence of shrubs and presence/absence of livestock to test the role of native legume shrubs in mitigating the negative effects of grazing on soil degradation in post-mining Mediterranean pastures., Ciencias Agroforestales, Datos de: pH, EC (mS/cm), Sand (%), Silt (%), Clay (%), EF (%), TH (cm), RD (g/cm3), BD (g/cm3), Porosity (%,) TOM (g/100g), TOC (g/100g), TN (g/100g), TP (g/100g), CEC (meq/100g), Ca+2 (meq/100g), Mg+2 (meq/100g), Na+ (meq/100g), K+ (meq/100g) ABBREVIATIONS: EC= electrical conductivity; EF = fine-earth fraction (< 2 mm); TH =; RD = real density; BD = bulk density; TOM = total organic matter; TOC = total organic carbon; TN = total nitrogen; TP = total phosphorous; CEC = cation exchange capacity., MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU (Project PID2022-140127OB-I00), Pre-doctoral grant UVa-2019 (113–2019PREUVA27) to E.M.-C., UVa-María Zambrano post-doctoral contract (CONVREC-2021–11) with funds from the EU–NextGenerationEU program to J.G.-D.

Resultados de las simulaciones realizadas para el estudio de las relaciones de dispersión de las forward volume spin waves en materiales ferrimagnéticos publicado en https://doi.org/10.1103/d71q-hvn2

Sample preparation for the analysis of organic micropollutants in wastewater samples is commonly carried out by solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedures, which involve different manual laboratory operations. This conventional approach requires several hours of counter labour and entail the use of a lot of disposable material, and the subsequent contaminated non-recyclable plastic-residue production. In contrast, by coupling and automatizing the pre-treatment to the instrumental analysis most of that burden erases, sample size gets miniaturized and, thus, storage becomes freed-up. Even lab counters get cleared off from sample pre-treatment apparatus. However, method performance could get alter as a trade-off. This paper presents the results from a study in which methodology, including SPE online-coupled to UHPLC-MS/MS chromatography, was developed for multi-residue (58) determination of veterinary and pharmaceutical drugs in urban and piggery wastewater (influent and effluent to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)). Similarly, the direct injection (DI) of large volumes (hundreds of µL) of same matrix samples into the chromatographic system was optimized too. The performance of both automated methods was statistically compared with the classical off-line SPE. As dealing with trace analysis, suitable injection volumes for the alternative approaches were selected on the premise of low limits of quantification (MLQs). Under the selected conditions, validation parameters such as linearity range, method quantification limits, peak shape and carry over were determined. Usually more than 50 % of the analytes showed MLQs below 50 ng/L, for all matrices and methodologies, especially for DI. Real wastewater samples from a local urban WWTP and farm were analysed with all three tested methodologies. Determined concentrations and removal rates were statistically compared and turned out being quite similar. However, analysis under offline SPE and DI approaches provided a larger amount of information as they reached lower MLQs. Offline-SPE provided the worst precision among all., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Departamento de Química Analítica, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, EU Feder Programme, Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon

The treatment of pig manure is a major environmental issue, and photobioreactors containing consortia of microalgae and bacteria have proven to be a promising and sustainable treatment alternative. This work studies the effect of Cu, Zn and As, three toxic elements frequently present in piggery wastewater, on the performance and microbiome of photobioreactors. After dopage with Zn (100 mg/L), Cu (100 mg/L), and As (500 µg/L), the high biomass uptake of Zn (69–81%) and Cu (81–83%) decreased the carbon removal in the photobioreactors, inhibited the growth of Chlorella sp., and affected heterotrophic bacterial populations. The biomass As uptake result was low (19%) and actually promoted microalgae growth. The presence of Cu and As decreased nitrogen removal, reducing the abundance of denitrifying bacterial populations. The results showed that metal(loid)s significantly affected 24 bacterial genera and that they did not recover after exposure. Therefore, this study makes an important contribution on the impact of the presence of metal(loid)s in piggery wastewater that compromises the overall performance of PBRs, and so, the environmental and health impact of treated effluents., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon, EU Feder Programme, National Research and Development Agency (ANID) of Chile

Scenedesmus almeriensis microalgae–bacteria consortia were evaluated for the removal of a mixture of tetracycline (TET), ciprofloxacin (CIP), and sulfadiazine (SDZ) from the real liquid fraction of pig slurry in a pilot scale photobioreactor. After 15 days of operation, the reactor was spiked with a mixture of /L of each antibiotic. The experiment ran for 20 additional days. From the liquid phase, antibiotic removal were 77 ± 5 %, 90 ± 14 %, and 60 ± 27 % for TET, CIP, and SDZ, respectively. The antibiotics found in the solid phase were 979 ± 382 ng/g for TET and 192 ± 69 ng/g for SDZ; CIP was not detected in the biomass. The parameters analyzed before and after antibiotic addition showed that the antibiotics did not have a negative effect on the reactor biomass. The removal efficiencies of the analyzed parameters were 64.6 ± 0.6 % for TOC, 56.9 ± 0.6 % for IC, 63.9 ± 0.6 % for TN, 88.6 ± 0.9 % for N-NH4+, 64.9 ± 0.6 % for N-NO3-, and 30.1 ± 0.3 % for P-PO4 3- . This study demonstrated the good performance of microalgae-based technology for swine manure wastewater treatment, not only in terms of organic matter and nutrient removal, but also regarding the removal of antibiotics. The mass balance analysis of the entire process is presented. Additionally, the present study is a validation of previous laboratory scale batch studies operating in a quasi-continuous mode on veterinary antibiotics (VA) removal efficiencies and kinetics., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Departamento de Química Analítica, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon, EU Feder Programme

The mechanisms involved in the removal of a mixture of four veterinary antibiotics (VA) – tetracycline (TTC), ciprofloxacin (CPF), sulfadiazine (SDZ) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) – in synthetic wastewater using microalgae–bacteria consortia (MBC) dominated by Scenedesmus almeriensis was studied at different initial concentrations of 1000, 500, 100 and 20 g/L per antibiotic. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) were used to determine the removal of the VA for each mechanism. For a hydraulic retention time of 4 days, the overall removal of antibiotics by the MBC was 99.9% for TTC, 78.0% for CPF, 52.6% for SDZ and 5.0% for SMX. A pseudo-first order irreversible model was applied to best fit the experimental data. The degradation constant rates were 0.136 h−1 for TTC, 0.012 h−1 for CPF, 0.010 h−1 for SDZ and 0.0007 h−1 for SMX. Under all the evaluated conditions, CPF and TTC exhibited the highest removal efficiency. Biosorption was the main mechanism for all four antibiotics, followed by biodegradation in the cases of TTC and SDZ. CPF did not show removal via biodegradation. SMX did not show removal via hydrolysis or photolysis. This study (i) integrates and evaluates individually the mechanisms involved in VA removal using an MBC; (ii) determines an overall removal rate constant for a wide array of TTC, CPF, SDZ and SMX concentrations; and (iii) demonstrates the high removal capacity and potential use of microalgae as an ecofriendly wastewater treatment process., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Departamento de Química Analítica, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon, EU Feder Programme, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain

The removal of a mixture of four veterinary antibiotics (VA) – tetracycline (TET), ciprofloxacin (CIP), sulfadiazine (SDZ) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) – via photo-degradation (UVC) and photocatalysis with TiO2 (UVC/TiO2) was investigated in a batch reactor under different initial concentrations (20, 100, 500 and 1000 μg/L per antibiotic). Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to a mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) was used to determine the removal of these veterinary antibiotics. The removal of all antibiotics via photolysis was around 98–99% after 100 h for TET, 122 h for CIP, 212 h for SDZ and 240 h for SMX. Nevertheless, the removal of all antibiotics via photocatalysis was around 99–100% after 4.2 h for TET, 3.5 h for CIP, 7.1 h for SDZ and 16.5 h for SMX. The photolysis for the four veterinary antibiotics followed a first-order irreversible kinetic model. The photocatalysis of TET, CIP and SDZ followed a Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic model, and adsorption was considered the limiting step. SMX followed a first-order irreversible kinetic model. The photolytic degradation rate constant (k1) was 0.00073 min−1 for TET, 0.00055 min−1 for CIP, 0.00031 min−1 for SDZ and 0.00027 min−1 for SMX. While for photocatalysis k1 was 0.0044 min−1 for SMX; kL-H was 0.0284 min−1 for TET, 0.0379 min−1 for CIP and 0.0141 min−1 for SDZ. The VA degradation was enhanced by the use of a catalyst. Additionally, electrical energy per order (EEO) was assessed to estimate the electrical energy efficiency of each process. EEO values for photolysis were 339.06 kWh/m3/order for TET, 449.84 kWh/m3/order for CIP, 795.31 kWh/m3/order for SDZ and 897.71 kWh/m3/order for SMX. On the other hand, EEO values for photocatalysis were 14.96 kWh/m3/order for TET, 12.07 kWh/m3/order for CIP, 20.39 kWh/m3/order for SDZ and 62.10 kWh/m3/order for SMX. The energy consumption for photocatalysis was considerably lower than for photolysis. This study determined an overall degradation rate constant for a wide range of TET, CIP, SDZ and SMX concentrations. Furthermore, when working with a pH of 8 (a typical pH from wastewater from livestock farms) and a VA mixture whose concentrations resemble the characteristics of real water samples, that photolysis and photocatalysis are potential processes for wastewater treatment with low energy consumption., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Departamento de Química Analítica, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades MICIU/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033, Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León, EU Feder Programme

Despite the interest in the utilization of photobioreactors as an alternative wastewater treatment, the research about posterior recovery and valorization of nutrients accumulated in the biomass is still limited. This work compared several hydrolysis methods for the recovery of proteins and carbohydrates from the biomass grown in a photobioreactor treating swine wastewater. Ultrasound-assisted and microwave-assisted enzymatic hydrolysis at mild conditions and chemical methods at different temperatures (40, 60, 120ºC) were applied to the microalgae and bacteria biomass. Alkaline hydrolysis provided the greatest peptide recoveries, increasing with temperature up to a maximum of 81%, but with very small peptide sizes in all temperature range. Acid hydrolysis provided the highest carbohydrate recoveries (60.7% at 120ºC) but degraded proteins, even at mild temperatures. Protein degradation did not vary with temperature in each chemical hydrolysis, obtaining similar peptide sizes in all temperatures, while carbohydrate losses were higher at lower temperatures. Ultrasound-assisted enzymatic extraction recovered 43.6% of the initial proteins as large peptides (up to 135 kDa) with the highest peptide purity (46.7%). Microwave-assistance increased the carbohydrate solubilization of enzymatic hydrolysis, achieving yields of 73% of xylose, but with significant losses., Instituto de Procesos Sostenibles, Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon