Publications related to Effects of Anthropogenic Discharge and Hydraulic Deposition on the Distribution and Accumulation of Microplastics in Surface Sediments of a Typical Seagoing River: The Haihe River

Parity in bacterial communities and resistomes: Microplastic and natural organic particles in the Tyrrhenian Sea

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Sylvain Coudret

Petroleum-based microplastic particles (MPs) are carriers of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in aquatic environments, influencing the selection and spread of antimicrobial resistance. This research characterized MP and natural organic particle (NOP) ...

2024

Process-Induced Structures of Injection-Molded High-Density Polyethylene-Combining X-ray Scattering and Finite Element Modeling

Marianne Liebi, Manuel Guizar Sicairos

The success of plastics heavily relies on fast melt processing methods used for large-scale industrial manufacturing, including injection molding. The hierarchical structure of the solid polymer depends on material selection combined with processing condit ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Adsorption of Copper by Naturally and Artificially Aged Polystyrene Microplastics and Subsequent Release in Simulated Gastrointestinal Fluid

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Thibault Béranger Masset, Lu Zhou

Microplastics, especially aged microplastics can become vectors of metals from environment to organisms with potential negative effects on food chain. However, a few studies focused on the bioavailability of adsorbed metals and most studies related to aged ...

2024

Inhalation of Microplastics—A Toxicological Complexity

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Myriam Borgatta

Humans are chronically exposed to airborne microplastics (MPs) by inhalation. Various types of polymer particles have been detected in lung samples, which could pose a threat to human health. Inhalation toxicological studies are crucial for assessing the e ...

2024

Oxidation processes and me

Urs von Gunten

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Improved marine debris detection in satellite imagery with automatic refinement of coarse hand annotations

Devis Tuia, Marc Conrad Russwurm, Elif Dilge Gül

Plastic litter is a major environmental hazard that endangers human, animal, and plant health on the planet. A substantial portion of plastic pollutants is washed from rivers and beaches into the oceans and aggregates at the surface as marine debris before ...

2023

Large-scale detection of marine debris in coastal areas with Sentinel-2

Devis Tuia, Marc Conrad Russwurm

Detecting and quantifying marine pollution and macroplastics is an increasingly pressing ecological issue that directly impacts ecology and human health. Here, remote sensing can provide reliable estimates of plastic pollution by regularly monitoring and d ...

2023

Scanning Small-Angle X-ray Scattering of Injection-Molded Polymers: Anisotropic Structure and Mechanical Properties of Low-Density Polyethylene

Marianne Liebi, Manuel Guizar Sicairos

Injection molding is known to create a layered anisotropicmorphologyacross the sample thickness due to varying shear and cooling ratesduring the manufacturing process. In this study, scanning small-angleX-ray scattering was used to visualize and quantify t ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

High-performance triboelectric nanogenerator via photon-generated carriers for green low-carbon system

Xin Chen

Enhancing the surface charge density and reducing the output impedance via innovative techniques are essential to accelerate the commercialization of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). However, methods for increasing output performance have numerous lim ...

Elsevier2023

The clogging of riverbeds: A review of the physical processes

Giovanni De Cesare, Romain Maxime Dubuis

Fine sediment represents an important part of the solid flux of rivers. Due to the size of these particles, they are often transported as suspended load. They gradually fill the pores of the substrate forming the hyporheic zone or cover the substrate by se ...

2023

Clogging of riverbed substrates by fine sediment

Romain Maxime Dubuis

Riverbeds represent the habitat of numerous aquatic species. Exchanges between the groundwater, the hyporheic zone and the surface flow are also essential for river ecosystems. Fine sediment transported by rivers deposits inside or on top of the bed and mo ...

EPFL2023

Photodegradation of biodegradable plastics in aquatic environments: Current understanding and challenges

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Vinhteang Kaing

Direct photolysis and indirect photolysis are important abiotic processes in aquatic environments through which plastics can be transformed physically and chemically. Transport of biodegradable plastics in water is influenced by vertical mixing and turbule ...

2023

Characterization of Thruster-Induced Turbulence for Fine Sediment Suspension

Giovanni De Cesare, Azin Amini, Montana Marshall, Andre Luis Stakowian

Reservoir sedimentation is a key challenge for storage sustainability because it causes volume loss, affecting hydropower production capacity, dam safety, and flood management. A preliminary EPFL study proposed and studied an innovative device (called SEDM ...

2023

Reduction of riverbed clogging related to sediment flushing

Giovanni De Cesare, Romain Maxime Dubuis

The ecological effects of dams on sediment and river flow have been subject to an increasing attention, leading to the implementation of mitigation measures such as environmental flow release and sediment replenishment. However, fine sediment dynamics have ...

CRC Press/Balkema2023

Experimental modeling of fine sediment routing: SEDMIX device with thrusters

Giovanni De Cesare, Azin Amini, Montana Marshall

Reservoir sedimentation is a key challenge for storage sustainability because it causes volume loss, affecting hydropower production capacity, dam safety, and flood management. A preliminary EPFL study proposed and studied an innovative device (called SEDM ...

CRC Press/Balkema2023

Non-contact robotic manipulation of floating objects: exploiting emergent limit cycles

Nana Obayashi, Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

The study of non-contact manipulation in water, and the ability to robotically control floating objects has gained recent attention due to wide-ranging potential applications, including the analysis of plastic pollution in the oceans and the optimization o ...

Frontiers Media Sa2023

Influence of the shear stress on fine sediment exchanges with the substrate using UVP measurements

Giovanni De Cesare, Romain Maxime Dubuis

The dynamic of fine sediment in rivers is closely related to the interactions between fine particles, the riverbed and the flow conditions. The accumulation of fine sediment in the riverbed reduces vertical water exchanges and can have detrimental effects ...

2023

Hydromorphological assessment of sediment augmentation measures in gravel-bed rivers

Christian Mörtl

In the riverine environment, the riverscape, sediment and flow regime are essential drivers for natural habitat dynamics. Today, most water courses in Europe are regulated, and their natural dynamics are impaired. Flood releases coupled with the artificial ...

EPFL2023

Ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Identification of carbonous and nitrogenous carbonyl-containing oxidation byproducts by non-target screening

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of drinking water and wastewater is accompanied by the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) such as low molecular weight aldehydes and ketones from the reactions of ozone with dissolved organic matter (DOM). By applying a recently develope ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Experimental characterization of root-reinforced riparian sediment deposits in a restored and widened river course

Giovanni De Cesare, Paolo Perona

The Arbogne River is located mainly in the Swiss canton of Fribourg. The River was meandering through the plane at a very low gradient and several exceptional historic floods with large sediment accumulation are mentioned. After important river training wo ...

2023