Occurrence of antiparasitic pesticides in sediments near salmon farms in the northern Chilean Patagonia.

Growth of the aquaculture industry has triggered the need for research into the potential environmental impact of chemicals used by salmon farms to control diseases. In this study, the antiparasitic pesticides emamectin benzoate (EB), diflubenzuron (DI), teflubenzuron (TE), and cypermethrin (CP) were measured in sediments near salmon cages in southern Chile. Concentrations for EB were between 2.

Ethylene vinyl acetate polymer as a tool for passive sampling monitoring of hydrophobic chemicals in the salmon farm industry.

Current monitoring programs are focused on hydrophobic chemicals detection in aquatic systems, which require the collection of high volumes of water samples at a given time. The present study documents the preliminary use of the polymer ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) as a passive sampler for the detection of a hydrophobic chemical used by salmon industries such as cypermethrin. Initially, an experimental calibration in laboratory was performed to determine the cypermethrin equilibrium between sampler and aquatic medium, which was reached after seven days of exposure.

Assessment and optimization of an ultrasound-assisted washing process using organic solvents for polychlorinated biphenyl-contaminated soil.

The goal of this work was to evaluate a washing process that uses organic solutions for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-contaminated soil, and includes an ultrasound pre-treatment step to reduce operational times and organic solvent losses. In a preliminary trial, the suitability of 10 washing solutions of different polarities were tested, from which three n-hexane-based solutions were selected for further evaluation. A second set of experiments was designed using a three-level Taguchi L27 orthogonal array to model the desorption processes of seven different PCB congeners in terms of the variability of their PCB concentration levels, polarity of the washing solution, sonication time, the ratio washing solution/soil, number of extraction steps and total washing time.